A Victim of Online Fiction

The One Who Walks Alone

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A Victim of Online Fiction was starting to stack up reads, while The One Who Walks Alone had become a nice side-hustle. I decided that my next step would be to follow Alex’s advice for once and start banking up chapters.

I decided to cut back my schedule to three chapters a week for A Victim of Online Fiction and two a week for The One Who Walks Alone.

Each morning I poured myself a cup of tea, swallowed a pill and hacked out three chapters before lunch, had a call with Alex, went for a quick run and picked up food from a cafe, then it was back home for revisions and occasionally some plotting.

By 5pm I’d be pooped mentally, but physically bursting at the seams. I’d pop another pill or two then saunter off to whatever party was happening that night before waking up in someone’s shrubbery at sunrise.

For a while writing and enjoying myself were all I craved. I was shitting out chapters faster than I’d ever done before, and building a backlog had taken a lot of pressure off the day to day writing.

And then one morning I woke up in a springy little olive tree to the sound of my good friend Manuel yelling at me. Manuel was really excited about something. He kept saying over and over ‘You’re done Eli! You’re done dude. You really messed up – big time.’

I rubbed my eyes and pulled a couple of leaves from my ear, ‘Huh?’

Manuel grabbed my arm and pulled me out of the tree. He had a tablet in one hand and was laughing. He pushed the tablet into my face, ‘It’s LazyCultivator... the best writer in the entire damn world. She’s calling you out man.’

I pushed a pill between my lips and swallowed, slowly my vision started to clear. Beneath the latest chapter of the chicken story was a massive rant about my books.

‘Woah.’

‘Woah alright,’ Manuel bounced around me, ‘All that stuff you said about the chicken, how you wanted to take her on, she’s just shutting you down. This is going to kill your readership man!’

I frowned, ‘And why are you so happy about this? I thought you were like, in my corner...’

Manuel slapped me on the back, ‘Course I am man, course I am... but this is LazyCultivator we’re talking about... she’s a genius... Shakespeare reborn... the Wuxia Tolkein... the Virginia Woolfe of transcending tropes.’

‘Alright... whatever.’ I straightened my neck, there was this awful kink in it, ‘So yeah, she’s denouncing my work as a piece of shit, but so what? There’s a lot of times I think it's a piece of shit too.’

‘Ah... but you haven’t been read by 100 million people, have you?’

‘Guess not...’

‘She’s never done this, to anyone before. Dude. Your career is over. Back to the dungeons you go.’

I stared at Manuel for a moment, ‘You’re kind of being an asshole.’

He shrugged, snatched his tablet back, ‘LazyCultivator... how the hell man...’

I turned away from him and started stumbling back to my place. I could feel the pill bubbling as it mixed with the leftover alcohol in my stomach. I paused to throw up, wiped the froth from my lip then continued home. My throat was as dry as the Sahara but when I finally got to my place I ignored the ice-cold water in my fridge and powered on my computer and sat there for two hours reading the comments beneath LazyCultivator's new chapter.

HamishNO

This guy’s going to the grave

Sammywakles

Taking on the chicken? Foolish young master. This shall be the death of him.

NOTyet

Review bomb him. We’re gonna take this guy down.

The final comment had 20,000 likes and when I clicked on my story I saw my precious five-star rating had dropped to just above zero. My throat was inflamed, but still, I read. People were trashing my novels. Review bombing them off the featured lists I’d slowly been climbing my way up.

Alex called, I ignored him. He called again. I hung up. He called a third time and I answered. Alex was wearing a suit and a professional black tie.

‘Not a good time to call Alex.’

Alex shook his head, ‘No. It's not. The CEO wants to see you.’

‘What?’

‘Richard Balls, the man who founded this company, the guy who can have your stories deleted like this,’ he snapped his fingers, ‘The guy who can fire me like this,’ he snapped his fingers again. There were tears in his eyes. ‘He wants to see you in half an hour.’

I couldn’t speak. My throat was all dried up. I wheezed.

‘Alex... I...’

He gave this pitiful whine, ‘Put on your most professional-looking clothes. Get in the car when it comes. There’s nothing I can do for you.’

The call ended and the silence struck me like a jumbo jet squashing a slug on the runway.

A glass of water hurt to swallow. The only decent looking shirt I had rasped my skin and a pair of black shoes made my feet heat up. I pushed my pill bottle into the pocket of a pair of black jeans then sat outside. I fidgeted, grazing my knuckles against the concrete of the stairs. The pain tasted good. Like ice.

‘Astra,’ I whispered to myself, imagining her face, ‘Astra.’

I thought about all the weeks that had passed. How good the freedom had felt. How empty it felt now. I knew I needed a friend. I knew I had none. Not here anyway. Everyone was so... so nice... so ...

A neighbour walked past. His name was Min. He wrote sci-fi, I’d carried him up his steps the Thursday before, he wanted to get married to a girl that wrote horror.

‘Hey Min!’

Min turned to me but his feet didn’t stop. He took one look at me, his eyes glazed over and he walked on. It was a hot day. Maybe he was thirsty or something.

The limousine they sent for me was black, with a fin-like antenna on top and it cruised the streets like a shark looking for prey.

It came to a stop in front of my house. The back door swung open. I couldn’t see anyone inside. I wobbled to my feet then slipped into the limo. The windows were pure black. I couldn’t see a thing outside as we swung around and around. The only thing that differentiated it from my first cell were the plush leather seats. Even so, my breath was rushing in and out faster than I liked.

‘Astra.’ I said to myself, I wondered why I hadn’t bothered trying to contact her, I hadn’t even left a comment on her story. I’d seen hundreds of her comments on mine.

The limo jerked to a stop. The door flew open.

It was like I’d been transported to another planet. The quiet, quaint Village had been replaced by a steel and glass plated monstrosity. People in suits flowed in and out of the front door like blood through arteries – or maybe parasites through a host.

I edged myself out of the limo. The door slammed behind me, and the shark-vehicle sped off. Hands closed around both of my arms.

‘Good to see you Mr Hill,’ A security guard on my right said.

‘Mr Balls is waiting for you,’ said the guard on my left. Their grip was casual but firm as we walked towards the doorway.

The elevator in that building was bigger than our entire four-dorm. The bathroom was ten times the size of my cottage, and there were slides, pool tables, domes to sleep in. I wasn’t sure whether the topia I’d wandered into was a utopia or a dystopia.

Finally, we reached Richard Balls office – technically it took up the entire top floor, but most of that was taken up by an indoor golf course, spa, and a floor of secretaries, lawyers and accountants.

The guards made me stand outside for ten minutes while they waited for a signal from Balls’. When it finally came they pushed me towards the double doors.

‘Have fun.’ One of them coughed.