The Ghosts of the Forum: An SW Tale
The forum had been Candycane’s stomping ground for years. A digital battleground where usernames became weapons, alliances were formed and broken in a matter of posts, and grudges could stretch across entire lifetimes—or at least the lifetimes of accounts.
She had seen it all. Sock puppets, alt accounts, impersonations. But lately, something stranger had been happening.
“They’re dying,” she typed, fingers gliding over the keyboard.
It wasn’t a joke. Not really. Some of the old trolls who had made her life hell in the past were dropping like flies. Two down. One to go. The thought sent a shiver up her spine, but she laughed anyway. Karma had a funny way of working things out.
Dainbramadge was one of the few she still talked to from the old days. He had seen the wars, the smear campaigns, the countless times her name had been dragged through the virtual mud.
“No way… that’s crazy,” he typed back.
She smirked. “I mean, they’re dying. Haha. One more to go.”
She didn’t mean it in a sinister way, not really. People got old. People disappeared. Some left voluntarily. Some didn’t. The internet had a long memory, but real life had an expiration date.
“I saw you being the topic of a conversation the other day,” Dainbramadge typed. “Same story. LOL.”
Candycane sighed. “Yup, Miss Swan. They still think I have a hundred alts. But they never understood—I was LilNonamed before LilNonames. I’ll send you the link.”
There was something eerie about it. A decade ago, she had fought these people tooth and nail. And now, one by one, they were vanishing. Not just logging out, not just deactivating. Gone.
She hesitated before sending the link. A strange thought crossed her mind.
What if she was the last one left?
Dainbramadge replied, breaking her reverie. “Ha ha haa ha… that’s interesting.”
Yeah, interesting. That was one way to put it.
She stared at her screen, her fingers hovering over the keyboard. For the first time in a long time, she didn’t know what to type next.
