Chapter Text
𝐍𝐨𝐰 𝐥𝐨𝐚𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐠. . .
𝙰 𝚑𝚎𝚊𝚛𝚝 𝚠𝚒𝚝𝚑𝚘𝚞𝚝 𝚙𝚞𝚛𝚙𝚘𝚜𝚎
Notifications flooded in endlessly like a waterfall with no plunge pool, overflowing onto the surface, mostly messages from people she met online, or updates for her phone system that she was too lazy to do. The app she downloaded for productivity uses, left untouched on her phone. You could see stains on her phone from where she pressed her fingers on the most, where her most used apps were. The amount of hours spent on them daily was something she didn't like talking about. It made her feel ashamed, disgusted with herself for being so dependent on a piece of technology. She couldn't help it though. She needed it, she couldn't stop. The apps needed her as much as she needed them. They were beginning to feel more useful than friends, oh how useless were her friends. They couldn't give her the pleasure of scrolling on TikTok, listening to music on Spotify or talking with people she truly believed were real on Character.AI.
She never wanted this to happen to her though. She promised to herself when she first got her phone that she was never going to get addicted, that she would continue playing sports with her old friend and keep her grades good. That promise didn't last very long.
She knew she had the potential to stop it, stop the bug in her brain telling her that this was the right thing for her. It was like beating up her childhood dreams. The childhood dreams of being more than what she was told she could be.
Old paintings she made before technology came into her life, hung on the walls like lifeless corpses. Once alive with joy. She could still hear the compliments she received when she was still talented in painting. When she still tried her best. Her old paintbrushes sat on her shelf untouched, the bristles still having drops of the acrylic paint she used the last time she used them. Hopeless.
She no longer knew what she wanted to be. She could only think about the present. Her past was just wasted time, and her future was blank, not a single word written for her sequel. No foreshadowing, not a single hint of the way the storyline will go.
The only thing she could do now is hope. But she felt incapable of doing that, no longer knowing what could happen next for her. She was shoveling her own path, through stone and dirt.
ᴄᴏᴍᴘʟᴇᴛᴇ!