When Zuree woke up the next morning after the charity event, everything felt heavy for her. The sunlight spilling into her room didn't bring the usual warmth every day; instead, it felt like an unwelcome spotlight. She groggily reached for her phone, as she usually does, to scroll through the morning buzz.
That's when she saw it. A post was going viral. At first, Zuree didn't understand what she was looking at, then it hit her like a slap. It was an inappropriate picture of her with her ex-boyfriend. Her heart sank, her stomach churned, and and couldn't breathe for a moment.
Zuree sat there, staring at the screen, hoping it wasn't real. Hoping it was some sort of nightmare. But it wasn't. It felt like her throat tightened as panic set in.
"How could this happen? Who would do this to me?" Zuree's mind raced with questions.
She decided to call Alisha and Eshaal. They were as shocked as Zuree was. Alisha, being the blunt one, immediately asked, "Who could even have this picture, Zuree? Did you ever share it with anyone?" Her tone wasn't accusatory, but it stung.
Eshaal, on the other hand, was softer. "Zuree, this is horrible. We'll figure this out, okay? You're not alone in this," she said, but even her words couldn't calm the storm inside her.
As for personal attacks... There were a few. Zuree's phone buzzed with messages from numbers she didn't recognize, and some of them were awful. People say things like, "Guess the charity event wasn't your only headline," or make cruel jokes about the photo. She didn't reply to any of them.
Even on social media, there were comments under the post. Some were from strangers, others from people on campus. A few defended her, saying the picture could've been faked or hacked, but most were just gossip or judgment.
It felt like her whole world had turned against her overnight, and no matter how hard she tried to think of who could do this, she couldn't come up with a name.
It wasn't just the photo. Zuree thought it might stop there, but it didn't. A few days later, when things started calming down... or at least she thought they were.
Zuree got a message.
It wasn't from a normal sender; the ID was a weird, coded string: SB-FF-KOP63NN5. At first, she thought it might be spam, but the message wasn't random. It was personal. It said:
"You want this to stop? Then you'll listen carefully. Don't make me show more."
My hands started shaking as she read it.
"More? More what? What else could they have?" The thought of more secrets being out there, of her life being even more exposed, made her heart race.
Then another message came through this time from SB-FF-OSH2QHA2. It said something similar, like a warning. She didn't reply. She didn't know what to do.
After that, the messages kept coming. Each one was from a different sender code, SB-FF-HAA4NRTU, TH-SM-RBTTH96POX, and others. But they all had the same tone, the same pressure. It felt like whoever was behind this wanted her to feel trapped, to have no way out.
They didn't demand anything specific right away, but the threat was clear. If Zuree didn't cooperate... or if she tried to figure out who they were, they'd leak more.
It all made her feel completely powerless. More than the photo, more than the messages, it was the feeling of someone pulling strings behind the scenes... someone who knew things about her, things she never wanted the world to see. That was the worst part.
Zuree cried a lot. There were moments when she felt like she couldn't breathe like the walls of her room were closing in on her. She cried until her head hurt, until her chest ached, and even then, it didn't feel like enough to let it all out.
But it wasn't just sadness. it was anger too. Anger at whoever was doing this, at herself for not knowing how to fight back, and at the situation for even existing. It felt like no matter what she did, she was stuck in this invisible trap.
There were moments when she'd tell herself to stop crying, to get up and figure it out. But as soon as she'd try, another message would come, or she'd remember the photo, or worse, she'd imagine what they might do next, and it would all come crashing down again.