The first time Jules sends me a meme, it’s harmless.

Just a dumb, low-res cat video. A blurry orange tabby flipping mid-air, botched landing. The caption says, "me trying to function on 2 hours of sleep."

I chuckle. Double-tap. "LMAO."

Fifteen minutes later, she sends another one.

A deep-fried reaction image—some wide-eyed guy staring at a screen, the words: "me reading a text and deciding to ignore it for three to five business days."

I smirk. "Call me out why don’t you."

She reacts with a skull emoji.

It starts slow. A meme here, a dumb tweet there. Tiny digital offerings—just a way of saying I’m thinking of you without actually saying it. Somewhere along the way, it becomes a habit.

Now I wake up to at least five messages from her every morning. I check my phone at lunch, and there are seventeen. By dinner, fifty-one.

They’re always different—a mix of absurdist humour, old reaction images, niche references to shows we watched as kids.

A weird comfort, honestly. Like having a conversation without the effort of conversation.

I try to keep up. Start sending her stuff back.

But she’s always faster.

By the third week, it’s too much.

I check my phone at dinner: 53 unread messages.

Memes, screenshots, shitposts, weird videos—some are hilarious. Some are confusing. Some feel... familiar. Like I’ve seen them before but can’t place where. One even looks like something Jules sent me last week, but the caption is different. More specific. More… fitting.

I try to react to the funniest ones, but I can’t keep up.

Every time I send something back, she’s already sent three more.

There’s no back-and-forth anymore. No actual conversation.

Just constant output.

Then the memes start getting… wrong.

Not creepy. Not outright disturbing. Just wrong.

A woman cuts a cake. The knife slides through, and the inside is just... black. Not burnt. Not chocolate. Just ink-dark and featureless. No joke.

Or a meme where the text is garbled symbols, like the formatting broke—but the comments are full of people laughing like it makes sense.

Or an image of a dog. Something is off about its face. Too many teeth.

I hesitate before reacting. Something about them makes my skin crawl.

But I don’t want to be rude.

"lol wtf."

One night, past midnight, I get a TikTok.

A low-quality video of a dark corridor, filmed from a shaky phone camera.

The text overlay says, "Me checking if that noise was just my house settling."

I expect a jumpscare. Instead, the camera pans to a doorway. Just darkness.

The person filming whispers something, but the audio is too distorted to make out.

I don’t get the joke. Then I realize—

The doorway looks exactly like mine.

Same proportions. Same chipped paint on the bottom edge. Same slightly misaligned frame.

A shiver rolls down my spine.

"haha that actually looks like my room"—

At the very bottom of the screen.

"Sent by Jules."

I watch the video again. Expecting something different.

There’s nothing. Just that same slow pan to the doorway, the camera shaking slightly in the dark.

But this time—the camera lingers.

It should cut away by now. But it doesn’t.

For a fraction of a second, the darkness at the doorway feels too still. Like it’s waiting.

The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

I blink. My screen stutters. The video resets itself.

I go to reply.

Half-typing: lmao wtf is this—

The "Sent by Jules" tag flickers.

And then—it's gone.

For a moment, it’s blank.

Then it just says: For You.

I put my phone down.

Tell myself I’m being paranoid.

But Jules keeps sending memes.

Too many.

More than ever. Every few minutes, another notification.

My phone buzzes so often it starts to feel like breathing.

I open one.

A stock photo of a person on their phone, sitting in a dark room.

The caption: "Me at 4AM, scrolling like my life depends on it."

Except—

The silhouette.

The way they’re sitting.

It reminds me of myself.

I scroll past. Then hesitate. Something nags at me. I scroll back up.

It looks the same. I tell myself it’s the same.

But then I notice—the posture has changed.

The person’s head tilts downward. Shoulders hunch.

Like they’re reading something.

Like they’re looking at me.

A lump rises in my throat.

I blink—the lighting in the image darkens.

The glow of the phone screen grows stronger, swallowing their face in shadow.

I don’t check the comments.

I don’t react.

I lock my phone. Toss it across the bed.

My notifications keep buzzing.

The next morning, I text Jules first.

"Dude, some of the stuff you send me is weird as hell."

She just laughs.

"I don’t even think before I send them, honestly."

Then, before I can say anything else—

"Also, sorry I’ve been so bad at replying lately. I feel like I’ve been super MIA. College has been kicking my ass, and there were, like, three birthdays back to back, so my notifications are a mess. I probably missed a ton of your messages."

My stomach tightens.

I swallow.

I scroll through our chat, looking for proof.

"You sent me one last night of a room that looked exactly like mine."

Her typing bubble appears.

Vanishes.

Reappears.

Then—

"I never sent you anything last night."

My mouth goes dry.

I scroll up again.

The post is gone.

I try to shake it off. Maybe it was a glitch. Maybe I imagined the whole thing.

I don’t respond to Jules after that, don’t send anything back.

No memes. No texts.

For the first time in weeks, my chat with Jules stays quiet.

But the silence is worse.

I open my phone reflexively, half-expecting to see something from her.

But there’s nothing.

It feels wrong. Like I’ve disrupted a cycle.

Like I stopped feeding something that had grown used to my attention.

That’s when I start noticing the recommendations.

Not posts from people I follow.

Not even viral content.

Just eerily specific things.

A video of someone staring at their phone in bed, the glow reflecting in their tired eyes.

A meme that says, "When you leave them on read and immediately regret it."

A blurry photo of someone sitting at a desk, back turned to the camera.

I lock my phone and put it down.

It lights up again. A message from Jules.

"You okay?"

My stomach twists.

Another notification pops up beneath it.

"Suggested for you."

I stare at it.

I don’t touch the screen.

Then—another one.

"You’ve been offline for a while. Here’s something just for you."

My thumb twitches.

I check my chat with Jules.

The last message she sent is still there, waiting.

I should just respond. Tell her I’m fine. Move on.

But before I can type anything, another For You post appears at the top of my feed.

My chest tightens.

It’s an old screenshot of a cartoon chicken from a show we watched as kids. Stupid-looking.

A dumb running gag.

Jules used to joke that I was that chicken.

I know, with absolute certainty, that she’s never posted this publicly.

The caption:

“This you?”

My breath stalls.

I drop my phone onto the bed.

It buzzes. Another notification.

Another "Suggested for you."

I stare at it for a long time.

My notifications are still sitting there, waiting.

I don’t open it again.

But it doesn’t matter.

It already knows.