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  You fucking bitch!

  Oh yeah. That’s the good stuff. Why yes, I do get off on it, thank you for obliging! I lap up every insult, every lol!!, every accusation of trolling.

  THIS. IS. THE. LIFE.

  3: #underthebridge

  So just in case you were in any doubt: I am an internet troll.

  Yes, I know what you’re thinking. A troll? Really? After all your complaints about being judged? You spend most of your life seeking the approval of others, but you go online with the express intention of shaming people? And to that, I say yes, yes again, uh-huh, and I know it sounds mad but yes.

  I am not alone. No one ever admits to trolling, despite it being everywhere. And don’t get me wrong, if I was with a big group I’d deny it too, but here, I’ll admit it freely. I am a troll. And despite the fact that I’ve only been at it a few months, I’m a good one, too. It’s fun. I take an awful lot of pleasure smacking down people who, in real life, have everything. Y’see, I specialize in trolling those girls who like to take way too many selfies, in far too little clothing. I mean, what do they expect? Mass adoration? Stupid little tramps have it coming, if you ask me.

  Oh, don’t look like that. Wondering why I do it. Thinking I should show some empathy. No one shows me any empathy when they see me walking down the street. No one’s kind to me when they realize I can’t wear the latest fashions because they’re all designed for rakes. No one gives me a free pass when they see me eating my lunch. Oh no, it’s all fat bitch and look at the state of it and it should be illegal to make me watch that, right at me—not words on a screen, but speech, right into my ears, into my brain, scorching itself onto my very soul. I’ve been branded by that word. FAT. That’s all I am now in the real world. No one cares that I like drawing, that I’m good with animals, that I have an eye for taking good photos. No one’s interested in my strengths. Because the minute they have to see the whole person and not just the squishy, wobbly outer coverings, they’re forced to realize that I’m just like them, with thoughts and feelings and hopes and dreams, and that the weight of their hatred is slowly crushing those things out of me.

  So yeah, I like trolling. It’s payback, baby.

  On the internet, I can be anyone. At first, I joined a couple of art sites, tried posting my drawings, but I was largely ignored. I got four, maybe five likes if I was lucky—which, compared to the five hundred likes other artists got for bad sketches of scantily-clad anime characters, is pretty atrocious. But with trolling, people pay attention. I can sit in my room and play virtual dress-up to my heart’s content. No one knows the real me. People ask, but I’ll never tell. The minute I tell, the spell will be broken.

  Right now, I’m about twelve different people. I’ve had to write all my alter egos down, just so I can keep track of them all. It’s tremendous fun. I like the sense of control, the power that it brings. You can trap people, play with them the way a cat might with a cornered mouse. In real life, I’m the mouse, but in the digital world, I’m the cat, and woe betide anyone scurrying into my realm, because believe me, I have claws.

  I’m currently tormenting a couple of wannabe starlets on YouTube. Since YouTube is already a cesspool of scum and villainy, it means I can really let rip. I’m tag-teaming myself right now, using sockpuppet accounts, and the page views are racking up. Those stupid bitches should be thanking me, if anything. Without me and my alter egos, they’d still be on three likes. Okay, so now they probably struggle to sleep after all the bile I’ve stirred up, but hell, that’s a small price to pay for their coveted internet fame. If they didn’t want to be told that their over-tanned asses looked like two oiled-up pigs trying to get out of a hammock, they shouldn’t have pasted those stupid twerking videos in the first place—

  My laptop pings. Oh, no. What’s this? A DM? This is the only time I worry. Not a lot, because it’s usually just someone telling me to lay off whatever bitch I’m savaging at the time—or someone trying to turn the tables on me. The delete button is my best friend in these situations—it’s no fun to fight a private insult war. And engaging over DM would somehow feel more personal, make me more vulnerable. Even though I have twelve layers of armor (and counting) between me and the real world, I do harbor this little fear that one day, someone is going to pierce all of them and draw blood.

  Hey

  Yeah, they all start like that. Should I click? Or should I just delete? I should probably just delete. Mustn’t tempt fate.

  My finger hovers over the dustbin icon, but I don’t press it. I don’t really believe in premonitions or any of that new-agey bullshit, but something’s telling me this one is different. I don’t know why, or what it is. Call it curiosity.

  I click the link.

  Hey

  Brutal takedown. Love it. You really have some claws. Just thought you should know.

  Ninjanoodle471

  Right. Okay. That’s . . . unexpected. I’ve had people agreeing with me before, but they usually do it on the thread, not in a DM. My spidey-senses are all over the place. Is this a trap? It feels like a trap. I kind of want to back out, but good old curiosity is getting the better of me. Who is this person? What do they want? Because everybody wants something. Altruism doesn’t exist on Planet Internet. So what’s Ninjanoodle471’s angle? The downfall of MidnightBanshee? Should I tag-team them with one of my sockpuppet accounts? Or would that be showing too much of my hand? They might even realize it was a sockpuppet, and then they could out me in two seconds flat.

  No. Leave it.

  I know what you’re thinking. When did I get this paranoid? Yeah, well, take away the armor and I’m just Fat Beth again. And I don’t want to be Fat Beth here, the one place where I feel some measure of control, some iota of respect. I am a warrior here, chaotic evil to the bone.

  I click out of the message without answering.

  Downstairs, the front door slams, which means Brat’s home. Oh, joy. Younger brothers are such dickheads.

  Another clatter, this time from the kitchen. Mum must be trying to make dinner. An all-too-familiar queasiness twists my guts, one that makes me log out of my many and varied accounts. Online I may be a monster, but in real life, I can’t watch my mother struggle.

  I heave myself off my bed and try to tiptoe downstairs. Bratley’s in his bedroom now, killing something in a video game. It’s kind of all he does now.

  As predicted, Mum’s in the kitchen, wrestling with a tin opener. Her eyes are bright with unshed tears. I sigh. Same routine every day. Something out of a tin, Mum crying. It’s times like this when I really despise my dad. He ditched Mum when he found a younger model, and now it’s all sports cars and holidays for him while we—

  No. I take in a deep, cleansing breath. Can’t go there now. Getting angry about Dad won’t do any good. Not when Mum needs my help. I gently take the tin opener and free the chopped plum tomatoes myself.

  “What were you thinking of making?” I ask, mainly out of a need to say something.

  Mum shrugs. “I’m—I’m not sure,” she quavers. “There’s tuna in the cupboard.”

  I hold in a sigh. There’s always tuna in the cupboard—it’s the one source of cheap protein that doesn’t go off. Mum stumbles back to the living room, and I manage to turn the tuna and tomatoes into a pasta bake.

  Carbs for the win.

  4: #MidnightBanshee

  After dinner I go back upstairs, feeling stuffed and loathsome. And yet, my secret stash is calling, so I help myself to a Mars bar. I love the way the wrapper splits, revealing that smooth chocolate underneath, and then beneath that, the fluffy, weird stuff that shouldn’t work but IS OH SO GOOD, and the sticky caramel that coats my mouth with sweetness . . . oh yeah. I lick my fingers. Hello, sugar, my secret lover and my only friend.

  Well, not quite my only friend. I crank up my laptop again—I don’t dare look at my sockpuppets on my phone, as I’m not sure how the proxies I’ve set up would cope; the last thing I need is my identity being plastered all over a revenge s
ubreddit.

  There are only a few replies to my latest posts; I think I’ll let them stew for a bit while I stalk around my favorite horror fiction site. It’s kind of a halfway house for me; if the story is good, then I’m as happy to spend a half hour being weirded out as the next person. If it’s crap, then I get to spend a half an hour smushing some hopeful’s soul into dust. It’s a win-win situation.

  Another DM awaits me. My heart does that little flutter as I click on it.

  It’s Ninjanoodle471 again.

  Awesome takedowns. So impressed. Inbox me?

  Tori

  Uh, excuse me? Tori? Complete amateur. No one gives their real name, not even in a DM. We Warriors of Internet Chaos are kind of like superheroes in a way—our secret identity must, at all cost, remain a secret, or we’ll lose our powers because every fucker would block us and, if we’re really unlucky, call the police to prosecute us for hate crimes. (I mean, seriously? Hate crimes? I said you looked like mutilated potato and I hope that something repeatedly runs you over. It’s not as if I’m threatening to stalk your kids and gut them with a rusty hook, and even if I did, for fuck’s sake, ever heard of something called hyperbole? I know it’s a long word, but feel free to look it up, you self-obsessed moron.)

  Unless Tori is a pseudonym. “Tori” could be using it to lure me into a sense of false security. That’s what I would do. Okay, maybe I’m beginning to like the way this person thinks.

  I gnaw on a nail. It still smells vaguely of chocolate. The message sits in my inbox, taunting me. Should I really respond? In the past, I’ve just deleted everything that came my way, but I dunno—this one feels different somehow. No insults, and more importantly, no gushing. You can always tell the ones who are fishing for info—they gush in the hopes you’ll spill. Maybe I’ll just give them a thanks. Either they’ll go away or they’ll reveal something. I’m pretty confident of that.

  Thanks

  MidnightBanshee

  A few moments pass.

  You’re welcome.

  You’re vicious. I like that.

  Tori

  Hmm. Spidey-senses tingling again. Still feels like a trap. I delete the DM. Better to be safe than sorry.

  Off to Instagram now to see what needs nudging. Interesting—one of the accounts I was working on has exploded. Someone calling themselves Teenytiny42 is not just agreeing with me, they’re helping me build a massive empire of dirt, and they’re dumping it all over one of those vegan health guru-types. It’s actually quite glorious to behold this level of sophisticated shit-stirring. MidnightBanshee approves. Maybe SharkKrawler9 will also approve. Might stir the pot a bit and make FlounceyPouncey hate it all—you know, defend the vegans for a bit, just to really bring out the hate . . .

  Another DM pops up.

  I knew you’d like that.

  Tori

  Teenytiny42 is also Tori? Okay, that deserves a smile. This girl is good.

  Lol

  And that’s all she’s getting for now.

  5: #D1ckle55wonder

  Tori tries to engage me a few more times, but I’m not falling for it. She does seem pretty fun, though. We tag-team a bunch of morons on Reddit, and by the end, I’m actually crying with laughter. Yeah, it’s cruel, but it feels so good, and to have someone on your side makes it all the sweeter. I haven’t reached for a second Mars bar all evening, which is a first. Maybe having Tori around might be a good idea after all.

  Around nine, I go downstairs to get a drink. Mum is mindlessly watching some crappy police procedural on TV. She gives me a sluggish smile when I enter the living room and doesn’t even try to hide the glass. I try not to frown. She knows she shouldn’t drink, given her medication. But, hey, who am I to judge? I shouldn’t chain-eat chocolate, but I do. Whatever gets you through the day, right?

  I sit with Mum until she starts dozing off. I take the glass from her hand, cover her with her blanket, and go into the kitchen. Dirty dishes festoon every surface.

  “Brad!”

  I pause.

  “Bradley!”

  No answer. Not even a grunt. I stomp to the bottom of the stairs.

  “Bradley! Mum said you were supposed to do the dishwasher!”

  As per usual, a “Fuck off!” floats out of Brat’s room.

  Every step I take up the stairs reverberates around the house. There’s no lock on his bedroom door. Back in the day, Mum and Dad wouldn’t have it—In our house, we have an open door policy, like we were a business rather than a family. I don’t bother knocking, just burst into his room.

  “Bradley, Mum said—oh for fuck’s sake.” I try to cover my eyes with my hands, but too late. “You know you shouldn’t be watching that—”

  “Beth! Fuck off! Just fuck off! Get the fuck out!”

  He flings a stained pillow at me. I manage to duck just before it hits me.

  “Yeah, well, I don’t care. You’ve got to do the dishwasher. Mum said. Unless you want me to tell her you’re too busy watching porn to help her?”

  He gives me a really filthy look, the kind of look only a fourteen-year-old seems to be able to pull off. I know threatening to tell Mum is a low blow, especially given how unable she is to actually deal with the situation, but what choice do I have? I’m not going to wait on him hand and foot.

  “You’ve got half an hour. If you don’t, I’ll text Dad and tell him, too.”

  Brat’s face turns stony, and inside, I feel a little lift. Pulling out the big guns. Aww yeah.

  Mum’s the blackmail, but Dad’s the real threat; despite his shitty parenting (or lack of parenting, to be more precise), Brat worships our father and I know exactly how to exploit that.

  After he stomps off to the kitchen, I linger a moment. It feels weird, being in here. Years ago, Brat and I were always in and out of each other’s rooms, half playing, half deliberately annoying each other. Not anymore. Now we’re strangers living under the same roof.

  I pick up his tablet and resume the clip he’s been watching. It’s pretty tame, to be honest. I’ve seen worse on 4Chan. Still fills me with revulsion, though. Revulsion . . . and something else, something pink and quivery. Were those girls coerced into doing that, I wonder? What would it be like to have that done to you? To do it to someone else? I shake my head, turn the clip off, and fling the tablet back on his bed. It stinks in here. Remind me to make him open his windows in the morning.

  I don’t bother going back downstairs to check on him. Doing that would just lead to an argument and blah, blah, blah, so I wander back to my room. I’m a bit ashamed to admit that I’m wondering if Tori’s messaged me again. I mean, I know it’s weird—I shouldn’t care!—but it feels kind of good to have someone in your corner.

  Yep. There she is. A DM is waiting for me, with one word in it.

  D1ckle55wonder

  Curious, I fire up Instagram and sure enough, there’s D1ckle55wonder, causing absolute chaos. The handle makes people think it’s an ironic name for a teenaged boy, and she’s playing that persona to a tee. I’m amazed at how well she handles it—and I find myself feeling glad she’s on my side. With it comes a little twinge of doubt. Maybe all of this is too good to be true. Am I being trolled? Maybe Tori is really good at this. Maybe she’s better than I am—

  Nope. I can’t think like that. I am an undisputed queen when it comes to this kind of shit. More like she’s seen what I’m capable of and wants to be on my good side. Yeah. That makes much more sense. All Hail Queen MidnightBanshee. And Queen SharkKrawler9. And King FlounceyPouncey. And . . .

  More pings. Another DM is waiting. The twinge has gone now; I think I’m actually excited to see what Tori has to say. She’s praising me for how I set those morons up. I can feel her enthusiasm rolling off the screen. She’s really enjoying herself, and it’s all thanks to me.

  I know it sounds weird, but that actually feels pretty good. I give her another lol, but that’s it. Well, no point in being too eager, eh? If there’s one thing porn has taught me, it’s the impor
tance of playing hard to get.

  6: #yay

  I fall asleep halfway through a message. How fucked up is that? Luckily, I’ve programmed everything to auto–log out if I don’t type for a length of time. Others might find that annoying, but for me it means I don’t get my accounts mixed up, because that would quite literally be the end of the world for me.

  I’ve slept through my alarm, so I don’t have time to check in and see what havoc Tori has wrought in my illustrious name. Instead, I shower and get dressed as quickly as I can. Not only because it’s cold, but because that way, I don’t run the risk of seeing myself naked in the mirror. That’s not a good way to start the day. I’m really hoping that one day soon, someone will invent a bot that can help you put your makeup on. Then I might not need to look in the mirror at all.

  I grab a fiver from the pot Mum keeps for petty cash and buy some breakfast from the corner shop on my way to the bus stop. I scarf down the sausage roll and stuff the crisps and chocolate deep into my bag. I’ll eat those later, probably in the loo, where no one can see me.

  The bus is crowded with people avoiding each other’s eyes, scared that someone might engage them in conversation, try to make some kind of human connection. Most of them pull out their phones and focus on those. Others stare mindlessly out the window. I choose my phone. Because my proxies are banished from my phone, I don’t have much in the way of messages. Two notifications from that stupid self-help forum I joined in a moment of weakness. Some inevitable spam. Nothing else.

  I delete all the messages, and my inbox is once again empty. Clean. Pure. Next I scroll through some trashy celebrity gossip site. I love it; these people are just as vicious as me, except they get paid to do it. I wonder if I should switch my course to gutter journalism. I’d be ace at it. I wouldn’t need to stand in front of a camera—I’d be just another faceless jumble of letters and numbers on a screen, a professional troll saying whatever I liked and earning cold hard cash while doing so.