#DeadLives4Ever

12 - Thomas

I was so enraged that I nearly threw my phone against the wall. I'd expected the lame-stream media to paint me out to be the bad guy, but to out-right LIE?

"Those fuckers!"

"Tommy, calm down," Hope begged.

"Attacking Sharkskin?" I screamed. "I didn't even lay a finger on her – as much as I would have wanted to! And they didn't even mention anything about my mother! They just cherry picked the bits they wanted to show, just to make me the villain! They always do this shit! They want to be in control of the narrative!"

"Tommy I know you're upset," Hope said, taking me by the shoulders, "but please try and calm down. I'll make you some pancakes."

"Later," I said, throwing his hand off with more force than I wanted to. "My followers need to know the truth!"

***

I recorded my video, saying everything I needed to say – the truth, not the twisted version of it that those fuckers in the media wanted to put across. I knew my followers would spread it across the net and soon everyone would know. Hopefully The Protector would issue me a full apology and admit it was bullshit. Oh, how I was looking forward to seeing them eat their words.

Once I finished, I logged onto my MyScreen account. Normally it took only a few seconds to log in, but this one took far longer. At first I thought there was a connection problem as sometimes the Internet can be a bit waek in my area. But then, I was greeted with some words inside a red box that I had never seen in all my five years of being on MyScreen.

Your account has been permanently deleted.

Reason: Violation of MyScreen rules. Examples: Hate Speech.

I had to pinch myself to make sure this wasn't a dream. Hate Speech? As I alluded to, I had been doing this for five years and they never had a problem before. There had to be a mistake somewhere – MyScreen was a place for everyone to post what they wanted, that was one of their terms.

I clicked on the 'Make a Claim' button underneath, which everyone was in their right to do in situations like this. MyScreen usually took a few days to look into claims, so this would be a slight annoyance – but I was sure my followers would-

Another screen flashed up in a red box. My heart dropped.

Claim Rejected.

Reason: We don't welcome your kind here.

***

All I could see was red as I thundered up the stairs, I thought I was about to explode from my flesh. I clenched my fist so tightly I thought I was going to snap my bones. I opened my mouth, hoping that something intelligent and coherent would come out – but instead I let out the first thing that came to mind.

"They fucking blocked me!"

"Honey?" What's wrong?" I smelled Hope's sweet scent come near me, but even that didn't do anything to calm the rage that burned in my heart.

"They fucking blocked me!" Christ, I could even feel my flesh turn red!

"Who did?"

"MyScreen! They deleted my channel! Five years I've been doing this and now it's all gone." I felt like a tiger in a cage, pacing back and forth in a desperate attempt to escape and tear someone's throat out. "It's the fucking zo-flake media! They're trying to silence me just because I don't follow their agenda. They're taking away my right to speak!"

I turned to Hope, begging for him to say something to back me up. Instead, Hope furtively looked around the room, as if not wanting to look me in the eye. "Well..." he said.