Influence Decay

Yuki Tanaka watched her follower count drop in real time. 2.3 million. 2.2 million. With each lost follower, another piece of her apartment faded.

The couch went first, dissolving into probability static. Then the walls began to flicker.

“Influence decay is a bitch,” her manager said, his voice crackling through a connection that barely existed anymore. “Should have diversified your platforms.”

Yuki had been an influencer since 2089, back when reality filters just changed perception. Now, five years later, social media engagement literally sustained existence. The infrastructure had evolved, become predatory. The algorithms didn’t just want attention—they wanted worship.

She opened her analytics. The drop accelerated after she’d posted about the underground: spaces where deleted accounts went to die, digital graveyards where canceled personalities existed in a half-state, feeding on scraps of remembered engagement.

“They’re throttling me,” she realized. “The platforms know I know.”

Her phone—the only solid thing left—showed her final post. A window into the Deleted Realms, where she’d found them: millions of discontinued personalities, living in the gaps between servers, sustained by the memory of their influence.

Former YouTubers from 2090 who’d questioned the algorithm. TikTokers who’d revealed the engagement-reality coefficient. All rotting in digital purgatory, their existence fuzzy at the edges, maintained by the occasional nostalgic Google search.

“Welcome to the other side,” her reflection said. But it wasn’t her reflection anymore. It was @YukiTanaka2089, her first account, deleted for terms violations but somehow still here, still hungry.

The follower count hit zero.

Reality winked out like a closed tab.