MistNovel - Read Web Novel Stories & Fiction Online

The chime of a notification slices through the oppressive silence of my apartment. I do not need to look at the phone to know its source. It is another comment, another share, another disembodied voice on the internet labeling me as insane.
Three months ago, I posted the video that demolished my life. My hands still tremble when I remember sitting in my car, the steering wheel slick beneath my damp palms, tears blurring my vision as I held up screenshots of Louis Cole’s messages to another girl. The proof was absolute, a clear and undeniable portrait of a liar who had consumed a year of my life. I believed the world would see the same truth I did. I thought his carefully constructed persona would crumble under the weight of his own words. Instead, they saw a psycho ex-girlfriend having a public meltdown.
Louis responded within hours. His video was a masterclass in manipulation, composed with a chilling precision that mine never could be. He sat in soft, forgiving lighting, his voice breaking with practiced perfection as he explained my supposed descent into obsession and instability after our breakup. He presented doctored screenshots where my worried messages, stripped of context, appeared possessive and menacing. He spoke of his fear for his safety and his failed attempts to get me into therapy. He concluded by saying, with a tear rolling down his cheek, that he still wished me peace.
The internet devoured his story eagerly. Within a week, the hashtag #NickyGoesNuts was trending. My marketing firm fired me after their social media mentions were flooded with demands for my termination. I tried to reach out to my friend Claire, my closest confidante, but my text message, a simple plea asking if we could talk, was met with a cold, single-sentence reply. “I think you need to get help, Nicky. Louis is worried about you.” That was the last I heard from her. The few friends who knew the truth remained silent, afraid of becoming targets themselves.
Meanwhile, Louis’s follower count exploded. He rebranded himself as the sensitive, wounded man who had survived a toxic relationship, sharing trite quotes about healing and self-worth. Brands flocked to sponsor him. He gave podcast interviews about the dangers of “female hysteria” in the digital age, his voice a soothing balm of faux wisdom. He built an empire on the ruins of my reputation. Now, I scroll through his latest post, a photo of him volunteering at an animal shelter that has garnered two million likes. The comments praise his bravery and genuine nature. Someone has even started a fan account dedicated solely to his smile.
My own accounts are digital graveyards. The last time I posted anything, thousands of replies told me to delete myself from existence. I have not logged in since. The coffee in my mug has gone cold. My tiny studio apartment, a space I can barely afford now that I deliver groceries for a living, feels like a cage. Outside my window, the city moves on, but I am frozen, a ghost haunting the edges of my own life.
I pick up my phone, the urge to hurl it against the wall rising in my throat. I want to shatter the screen and disconnect from this nightmare completely. But a different part of me, a resilient, hardened core that has been forming for weeks, refuses to accept this outcome. He does not get to win. He does not get to construct his perfect life upon my corpse.
I open my laptop and navigate to a forum I discovered two weeks ago, buried deep in the encrypted corners of the internet. It is the kind of place one only seeks out of sheer desperation, where users trade information, expose frauds, and wage digital wars against those who have wronged them. One name appears repeatedly in threads about reputation destruction, a ghost in the machine named Kevin. No last name, no face, just a history of results. The posts about him read like modern folklore, tales of someone who can find anything, unmask anyone, if the cause is just.
I have drafted a message to him seventeen times and deleted it sixteen. Tonight, however, staring at Louis’s smiling face while I rot in obscurity, I finally click send.
“I need help destroying someone who destroyed me first. He is good at this game, better than I am. But I am willing to learn and do whatever it takes. If you are real, if you are as good as they say, I can prove he deserves this. Please. I cannot let him win.”
I hit enter before the familiar wave of doubt can stop me. The message vanishes into the void. I close the laptop and sit in the encroaching darkness, the city lights flickering outside my window, planning a war I do not yet know how to fight.