Annalise enters her apartment, eyes drooping and shoulders aching with the weight of the homework in her backpack as she shuts the door behind her. Pepper comes barrelling towards her, leaping up at her legs in a wiggling mess of doggy happiness, and Annalise kneels to pet her.

"Hewwo Peppy Pep. Who's a good pupper? You are," she coos, scratching at Pepper's ears while the dog furiously licks at her face.

"Annalise?"

"Yeah, Mom, I'm home," she calls.

She hurries to the kitchen, where her mother is drying dishes. She smiles at the sight of her daughter, waving with the plastic container in her hand. "There's cookies on the table," she says as she stoops to put the container away. She frowns as she straightens up, eyes widening. "Oh, I forgot to get milk."

"I've got it," Annalise says, dumping her backpack on one of the dining room chairs. "Mind if I make a mocha?"

"I just made coffee. Go ahead."

Annalise takes the time needed to get her drink ready while also making a fresh cup for her mom. Two sugars, no milk, just like she likes it. As she prepares the drinks, she casts a look at the kitchen table, strewn with papers, and her mother's tired face as she sits down and opens her laptop. Leanne Hughes is young, far younger than most of Annalise's classmates' parents at 35, but between the grief she's carried and the hard work she puts in to keep their little family of two afloat, she seems older.

Annalise eyes the papers on the table as she carefully sets her mom's coffee down beside her. The sheer amount of numbers is enough to make Annalise's head spin, and she's actually pretty decent at math.

"They're really working you hard, aren't they?" Annalise comments as she sits down, stirring her mocha and lightly tapping the spoon on the mug's edge.

"I'm trying to get ahead on a few projects before tax season," Leanne replies. She takes a sip of her coffee and lets out a grateful sigh. "Oh, thank you for making that."

Annalise nods. She sips at her drink and nibbles on the cookies, chatting aimlessly about her day at school while her mom listens, nodding along. It's become a bit of a routine. Annalise wouldn't mind if her mom would return the conversation more, but Leanne refuses to vent too much about her work, handling it with grace and perseverance.

For the longest time, Annalise assumed that she looked like her mom—the blonde hair and the grey-blue eyes were telltale to their relatedness—but as time went on, Annalise heard more and more about the little things that she got from her dad; his smile, the way his eyes crease, his laugh, little things in her personality that her mom knows aren't from her.

It's weird, Annalise thinks, to have so many traits from a man that she remembers so little about. Still, she feels a sense of pride whenever she passes his picture in the hallway, looking proud and handsome and young in his U.S Army uniform. He's only a Private in the portrait. He died a Sergeant.

Annalise finishes her snack and reaches for her backpack. "I'm gonna go upstairs," she says.

"Alright. I'll call you down for supper," comes the easy response. Her mother's eyes don't leave her laptop, intensely focused on her accounting work.

The second Annalise gets into her room, all she wants to do is collapse onto her bed and have a long nap. She resists the allure of her cosy IKEA bedsheets and instead slides into her desk chair and opens her laptop.

She scrolls through the comments on her contest announcement video, glad to see that most of them are positive and excited. She checks her entry website and finds that there are plenty of eager subscribers already entered. She peruses the entries, reading over the questions with mild curiosity, and stops when she finds the one that she's looking for.

Question 1: Start off slow, how long have you been watching my videos?

Around a year or two maybe? I kind of found your channel by accident looking for videos about making pizza when I found your 'Papa's Pizzeria' video and...here I am! I've loved every second!

Question 2: What's your favourite video topic on my channel?

I literally love anything that you post. Even if I have no idea what the topic is, you make everything so interesting and adorable that I can't help but love it. If I had to choose though...I like your gaming videos, both playing and designing. They're so cool!

Question 3: Last one, this one's hardest...PICK A DONUT!

Oh no! This one's too hard! I...I...I can't choose! AHHHH! SPRINKLES! Phew...that was close.

"How can someone be this cute with just words?" she mumbles to herself, fidgeting with her fringe as she chews on her bottom lip.

She clicks away, nervous excitement building. She gave herself more time than usual for this, but already she's far too eager to get things done and moving. She has a timer running on the website, counting down to the end of the week when she'll announce the winners. Most likely, she'll need to compile the winners on Thursday, then make the video that night announcing them. Then, she'll have to figure out when to actually play with everyone.

She hums, twisting her hair. Thanksgiving is coming up, so she'll probably need to set up the game time for before then. While her Thanksgivings are almost always lowkey, just her and her mom with a little feast for themselves, she would hate to have the winners feel torn between playing with her and enjoying their own festivities.

For now, she needs to prepare her uploads for the next few days. She cracks her fingers, wrings out her shoulders, and gets to work.

She records what she can before her mom calls her for supper. She wolfs down her meatloaf and mashed potatoes before racing back upstairs to get more work in before she calls it for the night. She keeps her headphones on while she edits, bobbing her head to her music and mouthing the words to herself.

She peruses her backup videos, mulling over which ones to post. She has them all time-stamped and organized by what game she was playing or topic she was discussing so that she could keep continuity with her previous uploads. She should consider live-streaming sometime this week, because she's sure her subscribers might find it suspicious if she goes the rest of the week without talking about the upcoming contest. Besides, if she live-streams, then she'll be able to get real-time feedback on when the gameplay day should be.

She cringes when she notices one of the pre-made videos, one she thought she had deleted. It was a vent post, a long video essay discussing the strain that she feels as a creator. It wasn't originally meant to be so raw. She intended to make it a skit post about how being fine never means being fine, exaggerated for a humorous watch, but while recording, it turned into an explanation of how tired and sad she feels and how the pressure of YouTube feels like too much to handle.

She could never post it, and yet she still has it, because something about it felt cathartic. She finally expressed just how boxed in she felt by her following, how discouraged she was to ever branch out from what she does.

She picks out another Sims 4 challenge video that she recorded a few weeks back and sets it to upload. With that done, she stretches her arms high above her head and slumps back, a long, droning moan leaving her as she feels her muscles extend. That exhausted feeling is crawling back, like heavy hands dragging at her shoulders and the back of her head.

She stands, pulls off her headphones, pauses her music, and finally collapses onto her bed. As she buries her face in her pillow, she listens to the softened ding of notifications off her laptop and Pepper gnawing on a squeaky toy somewhere on the floor. She feels sleep tugging at her, ever so gently...

"Your video has been uploaded!" declares an accented, feminine voice.

Annalise's eyes snap open, and she lurches upwards. She stares at her laptop screen, her skin crawling as she climbs off the bed and goes to her laptop. Her blood runs cold. The Sims video is still scheduled for upload during her usual time tomorrow, but a new video is there now, the title reading, "I'm ̶N̶o̶t̶ Fine."

She deletes it before a single view appears, her heart pounding. She didn't set that to upload, right? She looked at it, sure, but she didn't so much as touch it with her cursor. She checks her folder, and the video is still there, but looking at it now leaves her uneasy, and she deletes it without a second thought before opening her antivirus software. It'll check for malware and get rid of whatever is making her computer lose its mind.

She stops mid-type as something clicks in her mind. YouTube doesn't announce when a video has been uploaded, especially not in an audible way, and what's more, Annalise can't shake the feeling that she knows the voice that spoke. She double-checks the antivirus software, but it's still running the scan.

She searches her channel, searching for any other rogue uploads, but there's nothing. She sits back, waiting, far too alert for how tired she was a moment ago.

The antivirus scan comes back, detecting one threat. However, when Annalise tries to view what the program isolated, the screen seems to glitch, random pixels fizzling before her eyes. She can't hit the delete button, her frustration growing, and she reaches for the power button. Then, there's a flash of blue and yellow light in strands, like hair, tickling the delete button. She shakes her head and rubs her eyes, stomach clenching with the awful feeling of déjà vu.

She restarts her computer, the screen going black and plunging her room into near-darkness, only moonlight bleeding through her curtains.

Pepper makes a little noise as she paws Annalise's leg, but she can't get herself to move. She watches, waiting, as her computer boots up again. This time, the antivirus software detects zero threats, and Annalise wonders if she's going slightly insane. She shuts her computer and stands up from her desk, heart still ticking a little too fast, and she gives Pepper a scratch between her ears.

"I...I think I need some sleep," she says.

She climbs into bed, turning her back to her computer, trying to breathe. Pepper settles beside her, her tiny warm body bringing Annalise immense comfort.

She still can't shake the feeling that something is watching her, but sleep takes her anyway.