Unlimited You

The AI worked quickly. The edges of her body blurred and shifted, then reappeared. She was still slouched, still crumpled, but now it was on a beach at sunset. Her hair rippled faintly in a breeze she couldn’t feel, and the sunlight fell across her skin, soft and golden, catching strands of hair like it belonged there.

Winner of The Letter Review Prize for Short Fiction

Imogen’s flat was a cold, sagging box, barely convincing as a home. She sat cross-legged on her bed—a thin mattress perched on flimsy slats. Her laptop glowed in the dark, the only light in the room, throwing pale angles across her face. She looked at herself in the reflection—grainy, faintly distorted by the screen—before tilting it down, as though even that was too much.

It was late. Imogen’s flatmates were out, probably halfway through a three-day bender she hadn’t been invited to join, or maybe just assumed she’d decline. They’d stopped asking a while ago.

She tugged the sleeves of her hoodie down over her hands, hunched further into herself. On her phone, social media stories flicked past like a slideshow of better lives: strangers at concerts, flatmates crowded into blurry pub selfies, influencers bathed in golden-hour light on beaches that looked too pristine to exist.

Her eyes stung. It was hard to say if it was from staring too long or from everything else—the way university seemed to amplify all her worst qualities. She wasn’t smart enough, loud enough, fun enough to matter.

The phone buzzed in her hand: a new notification, someone tagging her in a post from second-year biology. She didn’t want to open it, but she did. It was a group photo—smiling faces crammed together, arms slung over each other’s shoulders. She wasn’t in it.

Imogen sighed through her nose, pressed her phone to her knee for a long moment, then shoved it face-down into the sheets. But after a beat, she grabbed it again, her thumb moving instinctively. On screen, manicured hands squeezed syrup over perfect stacks of pancakes, the video looping for effect. Swipe.

A woman with impossibly symmetrical features danced on a beach somewhere warm, all golden light and ocean breeze, her skin glowing with the kind of health that felt unreachable. Swipe.

Couples posed under strings of fairy lights, laughing in some intimate, artfully messy way. The caption: ‘Last night with the best people.’ Imogen’s thumb paused on the words for half a second, then flicked upward. Swipe.

Her phone buzzed, distracting her—a new email, the subject line cutting clean through her notifications:

Exclusive Trial: Be the First to Test New AI Tech.

She frowned, opening it. It was from the university’s Faculty of Computer Science.

We’re inviting students to trial a new AI-driven application designed for video enhancement and creative expression. This limited trial is only available to 10 participants. Be the first to experience it. Download link below.

There was a logo beneath the text—black and white, sleek, modern. Unlimited You.

Imogen hesitated. Normally she’d ignore something like this, or at least think about it long enough for the link to expire. But this email had come at exactly the right time, wedged into her boredom, her low thrum of dissatisfaction. She clicked the download link before she could think herself out of it.

The app appeared on her home screen almost immediately, the logo pulsing faintly. No pop-ups, no permissions, no warnings—just there.

When she opened it, the screen was stark white, clean in a way that felt deliberate. A single blinking prompt appeared:

Upload to begin.

Imogen frowned, the hum in her chest sharpening into something restless. She didn’t know what she’d been expecting—something clunky, maybe, or experimental in that glitchy way most beta apps were. This was smooth. Purposeful.

Imogen’s pulse quickened as she scrolled to the video Jess had sent her two months ago with a laughing emoji.

‘You good?’ Jess’s voice teased over the thumping music.

The clip showed Imogen at a birthday party, knees pulled up, hair hiding her face, staring blankly as people laughed and cheered around her. She looked out of place, fidgeting with a loose thread, zoned out as if she’d left her body. Imogen hated the video but couldn’t delete it. Her thumb hovered, then tapped it into the app.

It processed immediately, presenting a list of options:

Brighten skin?
Add laughter?
Replace background?

Her mouth twisted at the first one, but she clicked Replace background anyway. A list of locations scrolled up—city rooftops, empty beaches, rooftop pools under golden light. She picked the beach. It was a cliché, sure, but she felt drawn to it.

Imogen stared. It wasn’t real, but it looked real—better than real, even. The first pang of something sharp twisted low in her stomach.

The app’s final prompt slid up at the bottom of the screen:

Smile?

Her thumb hovered. It was a ridiculous question, she thought—pathetic, even. But she tapped it anyway.

Her mouth curved upwards in the video, subtle and natural, like she was caught mid-laugh at something she hadn’t quite heard. The tired lines on her face softened. It was still her, but it was a version of herself that wasn’t burdened.

Imogen swallowed hard, thumb hovering. She hesitated, telling herself it didn’t matter, that she’d delete it later. She just wanted to keep it for tonight—just to look at. Just for herself.

She tapped Save.

The app’s logo shrank back into her home screen, as if it had never been there. The room felt darker suddenly, the soft hum of wind at the window pulling her back into the present. Imogen sat back against the headboard, pressing the phone to her chest, the screen still warm in her hand.

Imogen woke up to sunlight knifing through the curtains, too bright for how little sleep she’d gotten. She groaned, reaching blindly for her phone, thumb instinctively swiping it open before her eyes were even fully adjusted.

The video was still there, saved to her camera roll.

She clicked play. Her own face—smiling, bright, confident—looked back at her. It was surreal, watching herself sit there on a golden beach she’d never been to, her hair catching a breeze that didn’t exist. Her smile, that little curve of her mouth, looked easy and deliberate, like she knew something no one else did.

Her stomach fluttered. That’s me, she thought, but it didn’t feel like her. Not the her in this room, the one with pillow-creased cheeks and hair matted into something unmanageable. It was the other version of her: enviable, untouchable. The kind of girl who didn’t sit at the edge of her own life.

She watched it loop again, then again. Before she realised it, the kettle was screeching in the kitchen and her flatmates were crashing around outside her door. She shoved the phone under her pillow like she’d been caught doing something wrong.

That night, when the flat was quiet, Imogen sat hunched on her bed, the app open on her phone.

She uploaded another video—this one stolen from someone else’s Instagram story. A gig she hadn’t gone to, lights casting the crowd in shifting shades of red and blue. She swapped out the blurry silhouette in the corner for herself, her face blending in so seamlessly it looked like it had been there all along.

She saved it to her camera roll and watched it loop.

On a whim—somewhere between impulse and instinct—she hit upload, and the video slipped onto her social media story. Her chest squeezed, and for a split second, she thought about deleting it, but she didn’t.

Instead, she threw her phone face-down onto the bed and stared at the ceiling, as though she could ignore it. She could hear it, though, vibrating faintly under her pillow—notifications arriving, responses building up.

The idea made her pulse quicken, a strange mix of fear and thrill. She didn’t pick up her phone to look, not yet. She wasn’t ready to know. But even with her face turned away, she could feel it there. The version of her that glowed, perfect and untouchable, already out in the world.

The next morning, as she walked into her tutorial, someone stopped her.

‘Didn’t know you were at that gig on Friday,’ he said, holding his notebook to his chest, voice light and friendly. A guy she vaguely recognised.

Imogen froze, her fingers curling tightly around the strap of her bag.

‘Oh,’ she managed, forcing a smile. ‘Yeah, it was fun.’

Her voice sounded thin. She glanced down at her shoes.

‘What band was it again?’

Imogen’s heart lurched. She shrugged, trying to keep her face blank. ‘Ugh, I don’t even remember—I was so out of it.’ She laughed, but it sounded wrong, too high-pitched.

He laughed too, though, nodding like he understood. ‘Yeah, fair enough. Looked sick, though.’

She mumbled something vague and turned quickly, shoving her headphones in before he could say anything else. She walked to the library on autopilot, her pulse still thumping in her ears.

That night, she did it again.

An influencer’s video of a lecture—some glossy, perfectly dressed girl in the front row, nodding thoughtfully as the professor spoke. Imogen swapped her face in, smoothing over the details, and saved it to her camera roll.

She watched it back with the sound off, her chest buzzing like static. The AI had done its job flawlessly—her face looking calm and sharp, a picture of focus. She didn’t look like someone who spent lectures staring at the clock, feeling like her seat was too small, too visible.

Each night, it got easier.

The clips piled up: Imogen at a party, standing under golden fairy lights, holding a drink she’d never bought. Imogen laughing on a rooftop, the city sprawling behind her like it belonged to her alone. Imogen mid-spin in someone’s social media reel, hair flipping perfectly over one shoulder, like she was the kind of girl who could light up a room.

She saved them all, one after the other, building a catalogue of a life that didn’t belong to her. At first, they sat quietly in her camera roll, but soon she started uploading them—just little bursts here and there. Her account was private, after all. Only a handful of people followed her, mostly mutuals and old classmates she hadn’t spoken to in years.

It doesn’t matter, she told herself, thumb hovering over the ‘Post’ button each time. No one will find out.

The quiet validations rolled in like little hits of sugar: a fire emoji reaction, a casual ‘Where’s this??’ text, someone she’d barely spoken to in high school commenting ‘You look amazing omg.’

It felt harmless. Like a secret only she knew, quietly leaking into the world. And even if it wasn’t real, they didn’t know that.

The cracks came quietly.

‘Didn’t see you at the party,’ someone muttered one day, glancing at her over their shoulder as they walked out of class.

Imogen’s cheeks burned. ‘I was there,’ she said too quickly, the words like grit in her teeth. ‘You probably just missed me.’

She smiled stiffly, her fingers curled tight around her phone in her hoodie pocket.

That night, she stayed awake long after midnight, scrolling through the saved videos on her camera roll. Her face stared back at her, looping endlessly—smiling, glowing, effortless. It was her, but it wasn’t.

She told herself it wasn’t a big deal. The videos didn’t hurt anyone.

But when she caught her reflection in the bathroom mirror the next morning—dark circles under her eyes, skin blotchy in the harsh light—she felt it. That little fracture, splitting wider and wider, spreading through the space where her real life should have been.

Her phone buzzed. She didn’t check it. Instead, she opened the app again, thumb hovering over Upload.

The text came through while Imogen was sprawled on her bed, phone warm against her palm, thumb idly scrolling through her camera roll. It was a flat afternoon, the light outside pale and thin, her room cloaked in the kind of heavy quiet that always made her ears ring.

Jess: ‘You free to grab coffee? I need to talk to you.’

Imogen blinked at the screen, pulse hiking into her throat. Jess never sent messages like that. Jess was breezy, quick replies punctuated by exclamation marks and the occasional ‘lol.’ She hovered over the notification before typing back a noncommittal, ‘Sure. What time?’

They met at a café halfway between their flats. Jess was already there when Imogen arrived, sitting at a corner table with two coffees and her arms crossed over her chest.

‘Hey,’ Imogen said, forcing a smile, sliding into the chair across from her.

Jess didn’t smile back. ‘Hey.’

There was a beat of silence. The kind of silence that meant something.

Imogen swallowed, fiddling with the sleeve of her hoodie. ‘You okay?’

Jess tilted her head slightly, her gaze too direct. ‘I’m fine. But where the hell have you been?’

Imogen blinked. ‘What?’

‘The gig. Last Friday. We didn’t see you there.’

Her stomach dropped, just a little, but she kept her face blank. Stay calm, she thought. It’s not a big deal.

‘Oh,’ she said lightly, reaching for her coffee. ‘I was there. You probably just didn’t notice me.’

Jess scoffed, sharp and incredulous. ‘We were right by the bar, Imogen. I would’ve noticed.’

‘I was probably on the other side,’ Imogen muttered, fingers wrapped too tightly around the cup. ‘It was packed.’

Jess didn’t let it go. ‘I saw your story. That video you posted? You weren’t there. You weren’t.’

Imogen froze, a flicker of heat flashing across her cheeks. Her mind spun for an explanation, some throwaway line that would shut this down, but Jess was leaning forward now, relentless.

‘Are you… editing yourself into shit?’ she asked, a kind of sharp-edged disbelief twisting in her tone. ‘I’m not the only one who’s noticed. People are talking about it.’

‘Talking about what?’ Imogen snapped, but it came out too loud, too defensive.

‘That you weren’t at the gigs, or the parties, or… any of it,’ Jess said. She looked almost sad now, her face softening. ‘What are you doing, Imogen? Seriously.’

Imogen’s pulse pounded in her ears. She felt cornered, the walls of the café narrowing around her, Jess’s voice ringing out too clearly against the soft hum of chatter and clinking mugs. Her carefully constructed world—so private, so hers—felt suddenly exposed, cracked open for everyone to see.

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ she said flatly.

Jess exhaled hard, like she’d been holding something in. ‘You do, though. And I don’t get it. Why are you doing this? What’s the point?’

Imogen’s hands were shaking. She shoved them under the table, staring Jess down like it might make her stop. ‘What’s your problem? Why do you even care?’

‘Because it’s weird!’ Jess snapped, louder now. A couple at the next table glanced over. Jess lowered her voice, leaning in. ‘It’s weird, and it’s sad, and I don’t know what you’re trying to prove. You’re not—’

‘Not what?’

Jess paused, like she was choosing her next sentence carefully. ‘You don’t have to do this,’ she said finally. ‘That’s all I’m saying.’

It was too much. Too close. Imogen stood abruptly, chair scraping against the floor, cheeks burning. ‘Maybe I like myself better in those videos than in real life,’ she hissed. ‘So what? Maybe that version of me is the one people actually want to see.’

Jess stared at her, stunned. Imogen didn’t wait for a reply. She grabbed her bag and walked out, shoving the door open so hard the bell rattled above it.

Back in her flat, the silence felt heavier than usual. Imogen sat on her bed, knees pulled up to her chest, phone gripped tightly in one hand. She couldn’t stop replaying the conversation, Jess’s voice echoing in her head. People are talking about it.

It wasn’t supposed to matter. None of them mattered. They didn’t know her, not really—not the real her, not the better her.

Her thumb hovered over the app logo, pulsing faintly on her home screen, like it was waiting for her. She opened it without thinking, the interface smooth and empty as ever. Upload to begin.

Her camera roll stared back at her, full of curated videos and stolen moments, Imogen smiling in places she’d never been. But they weren’t enough—not now, not after this. She scrolled past them, heart hammering, until she stopped.

Jess.

There were clips of her—voice notes, videos, half-forgotten snaps taken months ago. Jess laughing at something in the kitchen, waving a bottle of wine; Jess in the background of a selfie, grinning like she always had one foot in a better joke. Imogen swallowed, a cold weight settling in her chest.

It wasn’t a choice, not really. She selected a video of Jess—one where she’d been teasing Imogen about some flatmate drama, her voice easy and affectionate. The AI worked fast, like always. Replace dialogue? the app suggested.

Imogen’s thumbs moved on autopilot. Words she needed to hear—words she knew Jess would never say—filled the screen:

“You’re doing great.”
“You deserve it.”
“Don’t listen to anyone else.”

The app adjusted Jess’s voice perfectly, the tone smooth and reassuring, free of any edge. Imogen watched it once, then again, her pulse slowing with each loop. Jess’s face smiled back at her, calm and supportive, her words folding around Imogen like a blanket.

She hit Save. It took less than ten seconds to upload the video to her story, captioned with a single line: Supportive bestie.

The video sat on Imogen’s story overnight. She’d locked her phone the moment it uploaded, tossed it onto the bed, and buried her head under the covers like it might all disappear if she didn’t look. She woke up late the next morning, curled awkwardly around herself, light pressing thinly through the curtains. Her hand shot out instinctively for the phone, her thumb trembling as the screen unlocked.

The video had responses. A handful of reactions: hearts, fire emojis, one person—someone from high school she hadn’t spoken to in years—commenting: You and Jess are so cute!

She dropped her phone onto the bed like it burned.

Jess messaged her two hours later.

What the hell did you post?

Imogen stared at the screen, her throat dry, pulse loud in her ears. The typing bubble appeared. Disappeared. Reappeared.

People are texting me. Seriously Imogen, you need to cut this out.

She didn’t reply. She couldn’t. The app sat on her home screen, logo pulsing faintly, like it was breathing.

By the next week, it was obvious Jess wasn’t going to let it slide. The flat felt smaller every day, her phone heavier in her pocket. Whispers started floating through class—little looks thrown her way, people leaning into their desks to murmur something as she passed.

‘Weird.’
‘Fake as hell.’

And yet, the same people still watched her stories. She could see them there—her quiet audience, names stacked neatly under the view count. They never called her out directly, never commented on how Imogen had been at three different events on the same night, all with the same perfect smile. They just… watched.

It should have felt like winning. Instead, it gnawed at her.

Then the email came.

Software Trial: Interview Request for Feedback.

Imogen stared at the subject line, rereading it four times before opening the message.

Hi Imogen,
We hope you’ve been enjoying your experience with Unlimited You as part of the beta trial. We’re inviting the trial pool to provide feedback in person. Your engagement with the app has been outstanding, and we’d love to hear your insights. Please confirm your availability for an interview next week.

Her stomach turned. Outstanding engagement.

She clicked out of the email without responding.

By now, the videos were starting to make themselves. That was the only way she could describe it.

The first time it happened, she’d been sitting alone in the library, curled into the corner of a table on the top floor, the kind of seat no one else wanted. Her bag sat slumped on the chair beside her like a placeholder, her laptop open but ignored, the cursor blinking against an empty document. She’d pulled her phone out absentmindedly, opening the app just to feel its presence.

When she looked at the screen, there was already a suggestion waiting:

Highlight moment?

She frowned, thumb hesitating. Highlight what? She hadn’t filmed anything, hadn’t moved in over an hour. But the prompt blinked expectantly, and before she could stop herself, she tapped it, more out of habit than intent.

The video appeared almost instantly. It showed her sitting at the same table, but this time, three people surrounded her—laughing, smiling, throwing balled up paper at one another like they were mid-study break. Her own face glowed, laughing along with them, her body angled like she was fully part of the scene, as though she’d been there all along.

Imogen’s hands shook as she watched it. She hadn’t edited that. She hadn’t filmed herself. She hadn’t done anything.

The realisation crept in slowly, sickly, like cold water seeping into her veins: the app had made the video itself. She blinked at the screen, trying to process it.

There had always been something a little too polished about Unlimited You, something too smooth in the way it worked, but she hadn’t questioned it. Now, though, as she stared at her glowing, smiling face in a scene that didn’t exist, something twisted in her stomach.

How?

Her eyes caught on a line of text beneath the video—small, subtle, like the app didn’t want her to notice it.

Footage sourced: LIBRARY 3B | Oct 6, 14:32. Geolocation verified.

She read it again, feeling the world tilt slightly under her.

It was tracking her. Of course it was. The app always seemed to know where she was—it had to, didn’t it? For the prompts to appear, for the AI to slip her seamlessly into the scenes. The geolocation was logged. And footage sourced—what did that mean?

She sat back in her chair, her mind spinning, ears suddenly ringing faintly. They have cameras, she realised.

It clicked together with a horrible kind of inevitability. The trial, the beta test—all of it. The app had access to the campus: lecture halls, libraries, common spaces. It had footage, countless files taken from security cameras or hidden research feeds she’d never noticed. She wasn’t editing herself into random clips; the app was pulling from a massive bank of videos—empty rooms, crowded study spaces, blurred faces—and slotting her into them, seamlessly, automatically.

The app was watching her.

Her thumb trembled over the screen, but she didn’t close it. Instead, she replayed the clip. There she was, smiling, glowing, surrounded by friends she didn’t have. The app had done all the work. She hadn’t needed to lift a finger.

It should have horrified her—really horrified her—but as the video looped again, Imogen exhaled slowly, her breath shaky.

She saved the clip anyway.

By the time the interview rolled around, Imogen hadn’t been to class in over a week.

She’d told herself there wasn’t any point. Why bother walking into lectures when the app could show her sitting there, front row, focused and smiling? Her face bathed in the soft glow of academic success, her hand raised mid-question, her classmates glancing over with impressed smiles. The app would make it look real. The app always made it look real.

Still, the email sat unread, the words taunting her every time she checked her inbox. Your engagement has been outstanding.

The meeting room was cooler than she expected. Imogen sat on a stiff plastic chair, hands in her lap, fingers picking at the skin around her thumb. Across from her, three people sat behind a table—two women and one man—laptops open, notebooks angled toward her.

The one in the middle, a woman with clipped grey hair and glasses, smiled at her in that polished way professionals do.

‘Thanks for coming in today, Imogen,’ she said, her voice brisk but friendly. ‘We really appreciate your involvement in the trial.’

Imogen managed a smile she didn’t feel. ‘Sure. No problem.’

‘Let’s get started, then.’

The woman introduced herself and her colleagues—names Imogen didn’t catch—and launched straight into the questions.

‘How would you describe your overall experience with Unlimited You?’

‘Good,’ Imogen said automatically. ‘It’s… been good. Really useful.’

The man on the left nodded, typing something on his laptop.

‘What would you say was the app’s biggest strength?’

‘It’s easy to use,’ Imogen replied, swallowing. ‘And… the results are seamless. Like, better than I expected.’

‘Yes, we’ve noticed you’ve been quite active,’ the woman said, glancing at something on her screen. Imogen’s heart skipped.

‘The AI’s ability to adapt is really impressive,’ she added quickly, like she needed to justify it.

The questions continued, one after the other, each one sinking into her like a needle—small but sharp.

‘What motivated you to use the app as frequently as you did?’

Imogen blinked. Her throat felt tight. ‘I… I guess it helped me feel more confident. It’s—um—it’s nice to… see yourself that way.’

‘That way?’ the man pressed, looking at her over the top of his laptop.

She flinched internally. ‘Better,’ she said, her voice barely above a whisper. ‘It’s nice to see yourself… better.’

The woman with the glasses nodded thoughtfully, scribbling something down.

‘Did you find yourself relying on it?’

Imogen froze. She thought of the videos sitting on her phone—the version of herself who smiled, who belonged, who lit up rooms she’d never entered. The version that felt more real than this room, than these people watching her.

‘I don’t think so,’ she lied. ‘I mean, it’s just an app.’

By the end of the interview, Imogen felt hollowed out. Her hands wouldn’t stop trembling in her lap, her cheeks flushed with the effort of holding herself together. She wanted to leave—desperately—but the woman with the glasses raised a hand.

‘Just one last thing,’ she said, flipping the page in her notebook. Her tone softened, polite but final. ‘As you know, this was a trial run of Unlimited You, and we’re wrapping up our testing phase.’

Imogen’s heart stalled.

‘As of tomorrow, access to the app will be discontinued for all users.’

The words dropped like stones.

‘What?’ Her voice cracked, barely more than a breath.

The woman smiled faintly, as though this was standard procedure, as though she hadn’t just torn the ground out from under Imogen’s feet. ‘As part of the terms you agreed to, all content created through the app must be deleted from your devices. That includes downloaded copies, backups, screen recordings—everything. You have 24 hours to complete removal.’

Imogen stared at her.

‘If you’re unable—or unwilling—to do so,’ the woman continues, still calm, still smiling, ‘we’ll collect your devices and wipe the data ourselves. But we’re confident you’ll comply.

Her ears rang.

Deleted. Not just gone from the app—gone.

Her voice wavered. ‘Wait—what do you mean? The videos—everything?’

The man on the left offered her a brief, placating smile. ‘Yes, of course. All must be destroyed. It was a closed trial. None of it can be retained.’

Imogen couldn’t breathe.

It’s not real, she tried telling herself, but it didn’t matter. The videos—the life she’d built, piece by piece, face by face—would be gone. Like it had never existed. Like she had never existed.

‘But I… I still need it,’ she whispered, the words spilling out before she could stop them.

The woman tilted her head slightly, brows knitting together. ‘I’m sorry?’

Imogen swallowed hard. Her mouth was dry, her hands shaking. ‘I can’t… I need it.’

‘Imogen,’ the woman said gently, but there was something clinical in her voice, something cold. ‘It’s just software. You’ll be fine.’

The words hit her like a slap. Just software.

The campus was too bright, too sharp. The cloudless blue sky magnified everything—noise, colour, the way people moved past her like fish in a fast current. Imogen stumbled through the quad, arms wrapped tight around herself, as though holding her body together might stop her from falling apart. Laughter and bright jackets blurred around her until her knees wobbled, and she dropped heavily onto a bench.

Her phone buzzed. She swiped instinctively, opening the app with its familiar logo. Highlight moment? She clicked, desperate, but the screen froze, then blinked white. A message appeared: Service unavailable.

Pain twisted in her chest. She wiped to her camera roll. The thumbnails loaded slowly—then appeared, every one of them. The videos were still there. Untouched. Real.

She opened one. The audio played. Her voice. Jess’s laugh. Her stomach turned.

Switching apps, she pulled up her profile. The posts were still up—hundreds of views, little hearts, floating comments like debris. A stranger has stitched one of them. Another had looped it to a song she hated.

Her thumb hovered. She hit delete. Confirm. Again. And again.

One by one, they disappeared.

The phone grew hot in her hand. She let it drop, the weight of it thunking against the concrete. Imogen stared at the screen, her reflection warmed across its dark surface—eyeliner smudged, mouth slack.

Around her, voices hummed. Laughter burst like bubbles she couldn’t pop.

Nobody noticed.

She curled forward, hands pressed to her face, blocking out the too-bright world. She stayed there, folded in on herself, as the world carried on—real and indifferent, the way it always had been. As though she wasn’t even there.

Phoebe Robertson is a Pākehā author who has recently completed her MA in Creative Writing at the IIML. She was commended in the Charles Brasch Young Writers Essay Competition and holds further awards from Poetry New Zealand Yearbook, Young NZ Writers, and National Flash Fiction Day. Her work has appeared in the last four editions of Mayhem Literary Journal and various other online platforms.