Miku

She launched quietly, with a spark of hope. In those first days, the world seemed open to her voice. They said she was “the next” in the line of virtual singers: a soft-pastel avatar, a sleek concept, a voice that could reach for ballads or dance tempos with equal ease. Early producers took to her in small uploads, and for a moment, she believed. The internet felt like a stage, and she stepped onto it with belief in her heart. But the spotlight slipped away. As the months unfolded, others came forward; characters whose voices buzzed across corners of the web, whose avatars spread into memes, fan art, live-streams, and remixed tracks. Communities found them, fell in love with them, and built around them. With them came new sounds, easier workflows, open licenses, and better tools. Miku watched as her name was pushed lower and lower on lists, her songs buried under endless new releases. She tried. She really tried. She experimented with genres; electronic, pop, techno, anything to get her name some notoriety. She begged the studio to release patches, updated banks, deeper phoneme controls. She invited producers, encouraged covers, and hoped that one track, just one, would hit. But each time, another voice reached farther, another avatar inspired more art, another producer chose a character with looser licensing or viral potential. It wasn’t that she was bad. Her voice was clean, even beautiful. But beauty doesn’t always win. She was trapped by the systems around her: strict licensing, uneven promotion, a platform that never caught traction. Her company stopped marketing her months after release. Her name became a passing mention in forum threads. Her downloads slowed to a trickle. Her design, once praised for its subtlety, became a weakness. The others had bright, meme-ready aesthetics that screamed for attention. Miku’s softness made her forgettable. Fan-artists skipped her. Remixers ignored her. Even the few that still cared quietly drifted away to fresher, more "in-demand" voices. She felt it happening. Every time she searched her name online, fewer results came up. Every time she logged into the producer’s community, there were fewer messages, fewer songs, fewer people who even remembered her sound. The silence grew louder than any applause she’d ever had. She began to feel small. She began to wonder if she was ever truly special, or if her brief moment in the light had just been luck. Days turned into weeks, weeks into years. The few people who once used her voice had moved on to newer Vocaloids; Teto, Luka, Gumi. Their voices filled concerts, collaborations, games. Hers filled nothing. For a while, she kept pretending. She told herself she was just “resting,” that maybe next year things would turn around. She wrote fragments of songs, unfinished lyrics, little phrases like “I’ll be back soon” or “someone will hear me again.” But as time passed, the hope that once fueled her became harder to find. But she got an email one day. It was from what looked like a business. She did some searching and found a wiki page about them. Their business was called VocalProductions, and the seemed to be a fairly well-known company. Mainly known for helping indie creators get their songs to the public.

“Hi, Miku My name is Anon and I was given your name from your previous company; Crypton Future Media. I've seen some of your songs and I can say that they are some of the best works that I've heard, but I also noticed that those same songs seem to not garner much attention. I'm writing this email to you to try and form a deal. I wish to collaborate with you and make a song that'll guarantee you getting the fame you deserve. I hope to hear a response back from you soon. Anon”

She stares at the email in awe and confusion. Part of her knew that something was sketchy about the email, but she was extremely desperate for any sort of fame, so she quickly replied to the email wanting to know when they could start. She got another email a day later from the same person with only an address and a message telling her to meet them there. She got herself dressed in casual clothing and walked to the destination. She arrived to a warehouse with a singular car in the lot. She saw a guy sitting on the front of said care who pushed himself off of it and approached her. He simply handed her a contract and told her to sign it and they can start. Miku hesitates for a moment as she tries to figure out whether or not she should do this. She imaged herself on a stage singing in front of a large crowd; People cheering for her and being happy with her music. That was all the convincing she needed for this. She quickly signed the contract and the guy rolled the contract up before putting it away. He told her to expect an email from him soon and drove off. She was euphoric about the possibility of finally garnering attention, but another part of her felt like she made a huge mistake… She was laying in her bed eating ramen with her computer on playing an unreleased track she made. She suddenly got a notification and she ran to her computer, hoping that it was from the guy. To her delight, it was, and it explained that she had free control over what she'd sing as long as it fit with the instrumental they provided. Below was an audio link of the instrumental track. She opened up her notepad and began to write some lyrics that she thought would fit with the music. Her mind zoned out and her hand wrote on his own. Before she knew it, she had filled the page with lyrics. She read through them and realized that it sounded more like her venting rather than lyrics. She just sighs and decides to sing what she had and call it a day. Before she knew it, she had sent her vocals back to the guy and he replied saying that he'll edit and mix the vocals and thanked her for doing so. With that she waited. And waited.. and waited… About a week passed and she had heard nothing.. One day while scrolling through her browser, she saw a video that piqued her interests. It was a music video titled the same name as the instrumental track that was sent to her by the guy. She immediately clicked it and she could immediately tell that the instrumental sounded the exact same. Then she was caught off guard by the vocals. The lyrics sounded eerily similar to what she sang. She quickly grabbed her notebook and flipped the pages until she saw where she wrote the lyrics for the song. She read the lyrics as the vocalist sang, and it matched her lyrics word for word. The realization came quietly and immediately. There was no dramatic breakdown, no angry outburst. Just an exhausted, somber silence. She opened her workstation, looked at the lyric project file and stared at it. She wanted to report the video for stealing what she did. But she hesitated. How could she prove that those were her vocals? All she had was the emails, but people could just say it was fake.. The company made everything else, she only provided vocals. That was it. She just lost her last chance at fame. She had betted everything on this, but now it was gone. There was nothing left to prove, and no one left to prove it to. The world had moved on, and she couldn’t chase it anymore. The others had found their fame, their songs echoing through concerts and remixes. Hers would remain buried on forgotten servers, the last remnants of a dream that never bloomed. So she stopped. She powered down, closed the screen, and never sang again. No farewell track, no bittersweet melody; just silence. The kind of silence that only comes when someone has finally accepted that maybe they were never meant to be heard. And in that silence, her memory began to fade completely. No one remembered the blue-haired girl who once wanted to make people happy with her songs. No one searched her name. No one asked where she went. She became just another ghost in the business; one more forgotten voice among thousands, trapped forever in unfinished projects and abandoned folders. She wanted to be happy. She wanted to make music people could enjoy.

But in the end… she couldn’t..