Beatrice stood before her mirror and proceeded to take half a dozen selfies of herself in various poses. She scrolled through all the photos and picked the one that she thought captured her “sexy side”. She uploaded it to Instagram, selected the “Willow” filter, which turned the photo grayscale rather than colour, the upshot of which was that it made her look mysterious and the furious red spot on her cheek was barely visible. She attached her usual caption: “Who’s the sexiest of them all?”
A mere thirty seconds after she had uploaded the selfie, her phone bleeped twice: two Instagram notifications and she already knew who they were from. She checked and saw her assumption was correct:
“MirrorMirror69 liked your post”
“MirrorMirror69 left a comment on your post: YOU ARE! #Fit
Beatrice looked in the mirror, blew a kiss at her reflection and left her room.
She was used to being the sexiest and most desirable girl in her year at university, she was well aware that eyes followed her wherever she went. Every day she would take numerous selfies, upload them to Instagram and watch with delight as swarms of boys would post a wide range of compliments and sexual advances in the comments section. Her high popularity status had earned her the nickname: “Queen Bea”, a title that she flaunted with obnoxious pride. However, being at the top of the popularity pyramid is hard enough to achieve, but even more difficult to maintain. All is it takes to topple a popularity queen is a subtle nudge from the winds of change, and that Friday the winds were blowing a gale.
Beatrice uploaded a morning selfie as usual with the standard caption of “who’s the sexiest of them all?” She proceeded to get ready for university and when she was finished she picked up her phone to observe the inevitable flood of sycophantic comments she had no doubt received. When she looked at the comments her face fell and anger rose within her, a growling leviathan with an appetite for revenge.
“MirrorMirror69 left a comment on your post: Still a hottie, but you’re not Snow White…”
“Happy123 left a comment on your post: Snow White is the most beautiful!”
“Sleepy77 left a comment on your post: #SnowWhite”
“Bashful-27 left a comment on your post: Snow White is the fairest of them all!”
Beatrice scowled at her phone, her expression was one of fury.
“Who the hell is Snow White?” she said out loud, proceeding to forcefully type the wretched girl’s name into the search bar. Snow’s profile appeared on screen and Beatrice scrolled through the photos, gradually becoming more and more annoyed as she realised Snow White was incredibly beautiful. Beatrice threw the phone down on her bed.
“Damn it!” she said grumpily. Further scrutiny of one of Snow’s pictures led Beatrice to make an unexpected discovery, Snow was standing in front of a building that bore a familiar logo. Snow White went to the same university as Bea. This was perfect, Snow was no longer an unknown internet presence, she was someone that Bea could confront and destroy in person. The sinister machinations of Bea’s mind surged to life as she plotted Snow White’s downfall.
The following day Bea was sitting in the university café with her long-time boyfriend Thomas Hunter.
“I don’t understand what your problem is.” He said failing to realise how important popularity was to her.
“My problem is that people think she is hotter than me!” She hissed at him, her anger adding a hollowness to her eyes that made her look extremely unnerving.
