The feed, the feed. The feed is my life blood. The likes flood in one by one, not fast enough. I post more and more, exposing more of myself than I ever meant to. I just want approval. I want them to love me.

Feed, feed feed. They call my stream of posts a feed. Their likes are my nutrition. Only one follower. Oh no, they hate me. Post more.

My feed gets longer to no avail.

Tick tock my inner clock is winding down. The countdown I’ve set, the goal that needs to be met by 12:00 tonight.

It’s 10:30 PM.

The likes are trickling in, slower than the slug creeping up my garden leaf in fourth grade.

Why are they not liking? Why do they not follow?

I’ve done it all. I’ve posted photos of myself, photos of friends, cute cat memes, and puns. What do I have to do to be noticed. I take the knife and slide it down my wrist. Take a snapshot and post it. Blood I’m bleeding the feeds keep feeding keep scrolling I just want love.

I now have two followers, and I have nothing left to share. All my secrets, out online, there’s nothing left of me that I haven’t told.

My body, nothing left that I have not exposed. I’m skinny. I know I’m skinny. That’s why I stopped eating; to be skinny and pretty. So why don’t they love me?

The likes flow in from the cutting one. That’s interesting. Who’d of thought self harm would be so popular? Then I look at the comments.

You should just kill yourself, loser. Keep cutting, your life doesn’t matter.

There’s also a link to the suicide helpline in another. But-

Why don’t they like me?

I’m skinny, I’m blonde, I poured bleach on my skin till I was starch white. Why am I not enough?

11:55 and I have 13 followers. I’m more than halfway to twenty, but what can I do to gain attention, gain follows?

That’s when it hits me. What do all the Instagram stars do to gain fame?

A live stream. I click the post button, click the live video, and then I press record.

“Hi, guys. My goal is to get twenty followers by midnight. Or else- or else I’ll just die, like some of you have suggested. Maybe that would be better.”

Comments begin to thread in, some of worried people, others egging my death on.

Fourteen followers, 11:58.

“Guys, I need six followers in two minutes,”

Fifteen followers, sixteen, seventeen, and then eighteen.

11:59. I stand up and start setting up a stool. I tie a rope to the fan on my ceiling and tie it around my neck

19. So close, but it’s midnight. It’s time for my life to end.

I kick away the stool. Right before everything fades, my screen sharpens into view.

The last follower came seconds too late.