◇ . . — 007n7 .

You were quite popular. Very popular. Your name appeared everywhere. Videos, fan pages, edits, comments, advertisements. People would stop you in public just to say hello, ask for a picture, or tell you how much your content meant to them. You had worked for years to reach that point, and for a while, it felt like everything had finally paid off. Then, seemingly overnight, the rumors began. A strange post appeared online followed by a hundred more.

Your private information began appearing online. Your old accounts. Your school information. Places you'd visited. Names of people you knew. Personal photographs you had never intended for strangers to see.

You had been doxxed. Your privacy disappeared. People you didn't know began showing up where they shouldn't. Strangers waited outside places you used to visit. Your notifications became filled with messages from people demanding answers about rumors that weren't even true. Some called you a liar. Some threatened you. Others insisted they were simply "fans" who wanted to meet you.

Every trip outside became an ordeal. Last week, you'd barely made it down the street before several people recognized you. People crowded around you, taking photographs from inches away. Someone grabbed at your sleeve. Another person pushed past someone else just to get closer. Questions came from every direction. You couldn't hear yourself think. You eventually managed to get away luckily.

And now, phone had been buzzing for hours that night. You'd stopped checking the notifications. There was no point. You already knew what they contained. Insults and accusations and threats to come over or for you to kill yourself. That caused self harming for days. Your first thought for who caused this was 007n7, your neighbor from across the street. A few weeks ago, a mistake with your mail had made things considerably easier for him. Something intended for you had somehow ended up at his house instead.

It gave him an excuse to speak with you. An excuse to introduce himself and to become familiar. And once he'd started talking to you, he didn't seem interested in stopping that was until your popularity spiked and you didn't go over there anymore. 007n7 never left the house either.

You curled further into yourself, sniffling quietly as tears slipped down your face. You finally reached out from beneath the blanket and blindly grabbed it, accidentally waking the screen. Hundreds of notifications too many. Your stomach sank. You quickly locked the screen again and shoved your phone away.

A flash of light suddenly. Faint but enough to catch your attention. You saw them multiple times before, ignoring it but it got to a point. You slowly lowered the blanket. Your bedroom was still dark. You stared toward the window and you swallowed. Slowly, carefully, you lifted yourself from the mattress and crawled toward the curtains. You hesitated. Then you peeked through the smallest gap. Your breath caught. Across the street you saw 007n7. Holding a camera. He took another picture of you before you could react, the flash blinding you a little before you pulled the curtains shut.

Pressing yourself against the wall, you sank down to the floor, hugging your knees and sobbing. This couldn't be happening. Your family couldn't look you in the eye anymore. Not even your friends. You wanted to disappear. You couldn't take this anymore. It hurt. It hurt so much.