The Follower

🌿 A short story born from this art…

His name was Julian, but he hadn’t felt like Julian in years. He was a construct of light and shadow, of carefully chosen filters and captions that screamed authenticity while being meticulously artificial. His life wasn’t lived; it was curated, broadcasted, and judged by the blue glow of a million tiny screens.

It had started subtly. A flicker in the corner of a video. A blur in the background of a photograph that he couldn’t explain. He’d blamed it on lens flare, on corrupted files, on the ghosts in the machine. But the ghost grew bolder. First, a silhouette. Then, the hint of a bony shoulder. Now, it was his constant companion, his most loyal follower.

Death stood beside him, its presence a cold draft in the warmest room. It never spoke, but Julian understood its language — the dry rasp of its robe, the hollow void of its gaze, the way its skeletal fingers would tap impatiently on its own femur as Julian struggled to find the perfect angle for their selfies.

“Hold on,” Julian would murmur, his thumb hovering over the capture button. “The lighting is too harsh. It’s making your skull look… flat.”

Death would oblige, tilting its hooded head just so, allowing the shadows to carve deeper into its empty sockets. It was surprisingly photogenic. Their collaborative posts were his most successful. His audience, that faceless ocean of usernames, devoured them. ‘Hauntingly beautiful,’ they’d comment. ‘A visceral commentary on mortality in the digital age!’ or simply, ‘Bro, sick edit!’

They didn’t know. They didn’t see the way Julian’s own face was starting to degrade in the pictures. With every photo he took with his silent partner, a part of him bled into the digital noise. His features became suggestions, smeared and indistinct, like a watercolour portrait left out in the rain. The static that defined the image was beginning to define him. His skin felt like a thousand buzzing pixels. His thoughts were fragmented, echoing in the vast, empty server farm of his mind.

He was losing resolution.

Tonight was the big one. The million-follower post. His magnum opus. He and his companion stood before a shattered mirror, the phone held up in a trembling hand. Death draped an arm over his shoulder. The gesture was almost friendly, possessive. Julian looked at the screen. He saw the Reaper, sharp and clear, its grin a mocking slash of darkness. And next to it, he saw himself — or what was left. A storm of pink and grey static, a ghost of a man with a ghost for a friend.

He pressed the button.

Flash.

The image was perfect. The caption was genius: “Me and my ride-or-die.” He hit ‘POST.’

Instantly, the notifications began to cascade. Likes, shares, flames, hearts. His screen was a waterfall of validation. He had never been more seen, more celebrated. He watched the numbers climb, a faint smile touching his lips. Or at least, where his lips used to be.

He lifted his head from the phone and looked into the mirror.

The Reaper looked back, holding the phone in its bony hand now. It was alone.

Julian was gone. He was not in the reflection. He was not in the room.

He was only in the picture, a beautiful, tragic smear of noise, liked and shared and ultimately, scrolled past. On the screen, a new comment appeared under the post from a user named ‘eternity_now.’ It said simply:

“Followed.”