Digital Mutation (Book Five)

Prologue

The best way she finds to describe her life is with what she knows best; computers, the Internet. Her life is a series of video clips being filmed, pasted, trimmed, added to, edited, and so on. Each clip is different; a different angle, a different effect, a different voice, a slightly different girl.

In front of the camera, she's that silly, relatable girl who does gaming videos, skits about fandoms, and more. She makes it fun and people gravitate to her, waiting to see what she does next. She does what it takes to make her subscribers happy.

She's still amazed that there are over ten thousand of them. She started out at twelve years old with videos of her ranting about her favourite cartoons or playing Skylanders. The editing was shabby and her audio wasn't the best, but she was endearing and somehow, people watched her and her following started to grow. Three years later, she's still here, her channel decorated with better clips and more diverse topics.

She likes imagining that her channel is a box of assorted donuts. "There's something for everyone", she says with a smile. Some people prefer sprinkles, some like chocolate, some want plain. She's got all of those and more.

What really is the worst, however, is that her passion is fading. She wants to be more serious about things, start designing her own video games instead of playing them and expand her horizons. The numbers by her subscriber count are there and she has a Bronze Play Button to prove it, but the support is fading and so is her drive.

Her escape has become a prison. The red and white website that used to bring her joy now leaves a dull ache of dread in her gut. How is she supposed to keep up with the video demands when high school is only getting harder and life is just getting busier? Her channel has her in chains.

She makes the new videos to avoid hate or angry reviewers. She makes the videos because there are people that tell her all the time that her videos are the only thing that makes them happy. She cares too much to let down all those faceless people on the other side of the screen.

There is so much that she can't say, so much she has to hide away from the eyes of the outside world, but she has to stay happy and funny because that's what got her this far.

Still, there's one thing that keeps her feeling okay. It's small, just a name in the comments section, but he's always there, waiting to like her latest video and make her day a little brighter. He's always so genuine.

PizzaNunchucker.

It's too bad that he's just a name on a screen. It's too bad that she won't ever be able to find him. It's just part of the privacy that she allows herself when she lives in a world where a series of videos documents who she is to the world.

As she sits at her computer, headset on, fingers on the keys, she can feel it, this sense that something's going to go wrong. Some unseen force will come crashing into her life and everything that she tries so desperately to hide will come to light.

No one will be there to save her.