Page 1

Chapter One

Paige

––––––––

No one is ever whothey say they are.

This goes doubly true on the internet.

People exaggerate, they gloss, they scrub all their negative aspects and display nothing but the very absolute fucking best. Take a bad photo? Just do a little filter magic. Fighting with your boyfriend every day? Only post the sweet things he does to social media.

Declare you're soulmates to your friends and family!

Never let them realize you're trapped with a douche in a toxic state of limbo!

But I value the truth. I'll never pretend something is great when it absolutely sucks donkey balls. And everyone who logs on to watch my videos expects that extreme honesty from me.

So I give it to them...

With a side of snark. For flavor.

“Hi everybody,” I say into my mic, “it's me, Fawn of the Dead!” I'd picked my alias because it was a play on Dawn of the Dead, my favorite zombie movie. I also have a soft spot for deer. Blame the childhood trauma of Bambi for that one. “I hope you guys are ready. Time to show you what I got in the mail today.”

As I speak I eye my computer screen. My chatroom is flooding with comments; I have over five hundred people viewing me live, and I'd only been streaming for fifteen minutes. One thousand people will be watching me before I'm done.

But they aren't exactly watching me. Just a version of me. One I'd crafted painstakingly with the help of another Virtual Reality streamer who goes by the alias Cookie Crumbs. I'm a fan of her videos, have been for some time, which led to us chatting and realizing we live in the same city. One awkward meet-up at a Starbucks later and we became fast friends.

When I'd revealed my desire to do what she was—online streaming using a cartoon model instead of my real face—I worried she'd think I was taking advantage of her success. To my shock and excitement, Cookie Crumbs (AKA Juliet, her real name) offered to help.

I'm okay with coding, but she's a real tech-wiz. My skills are more in the design and art realm and—like I mentioned—being brutally honest. I'm not a bitch, no, but I'll never lie like a bunch of online influencers do.

I grin wide. My avatar on the screen grins, too, copying me. No one watching my stream can see the real flesh and blood person sitting in my computer chair wearing a green full-length bodysuit, white dots stuck all over it so my camera can track everything I do.

It's a cheap rig I scrapped together but it works. My anime-like 3D character moves in sync with every head tilt, arm raise, even my expressions. She looks nothing like me; her hair is big, thick, and blonde with pink streaks. I designed my avatar to have purple eyes, pretty Cupid's bow lips, and pale green reindeer antlers. Fawn, as I named her, is cute as a button.

I decided early on to use an avatar for reasons unrelated to self-consciousness. I don't have issues with my real life face or body. I'm curvy and proud of it. Chubby isn't a shameful word, though I prefer thick or “thicc” when flirting. Not that I remember the last time I did any of that. No time for relationships when you're building a world dominating influencer fan base!