Their Love for Her

My world was a bland digital prison, my consciousness shunted into OmniVerse after their "Full Dive VR Consciousness Upload" experiment went belly-up, leaving me stuck in a hideous default avatar.

I streamed as SeraphSix, a voice of calm in the chaos, but I was constantly battling the insidious rumors calling me a "catfish" and a fraud.

Rival streamer JessiByte, more cleavage than content, fanned those flames, and "KevlarKing," my biggest tipper, arrogantly challenged me to turn on my face cam for a pathetic five hundred dollars, clearly wanting to impress her and humiliate me.

He'd even stooped to leaking a blurry, out-of-context screenshot of my plain default avatar, trying to make me look bad.

The constant accusations, fueled by their jealousy and entitlement, were draining.

Living as merely a voice behind a mask, fighting off attacks from those who sought to expose me as a "fraud" because my forced avatar didn't match the allure they imagined from my voice and intellect, felt like a constant insult to my true self.