Live Streaming Short Stories & Novels

I was just about to introduce my boyfriend to my parents when he suddenly vanished without a trace. Just as I was getting anxious, my phone popped up a notification for a couple's wedding livestream. [Looking back on that beautiful reception, it truly was the happiest moment of my life. To my amazing husband, Vincent, here's to the rest of our lives together.] [We promised we'd reveal our faces once we hit a million followers, and a promise is a promise!] On the screen, Vincent Dunn stood immaculate in a tailored tuxedo, tenderly sliding a diamond ring onto another woman's finger. Our mutual friends quickly flooded the comments. [Five years in the making! It's finally time you two tied the knot!] [Vincent's vows had me sobbing in my seat. They're total relationship goals!] Then my best friend made a grand declaration right in front of the camera, beaming with pride. "As Floriane's official relationship bodyguard, I can finally hand in my resignation!" As those familiar faces filled my screen, I felt as though all the air had been sucked out of my lungs. Vincent and I had been together for seven years, yet for five of those years, he'd been in love with someone else. My best friend knew, and so did our entire social circle. I was the only one left in the dark. Everyone but me had been given a place at that wedding.

Everything runs perfectly at my grilled‑fish restaurant until a famous food‑blogger Brandon Cooper turns up unannounced to film a review. To my horror, the moment he gets a good look at the fish in my tanks, his face goes pale. "Look, everyone! This is an endangered fish. Eat any one of these, and you could end up behind bars!" Overnight, my restaurant's shut down, I'm under investigation, and my entire family's being harassed online. Everything I've built over the past ten years is nearly destroyed. Once the investigation findings came out, the truth finally came to light. I got my chance to turn the tables. "I've lost at least two million dollars since my restaurant was shut down. It's time for you to pay up!"

Mom and Dad aren't bothered at all when I completely start slacking off. Kennedy Quinlan, my girlfriend's brother, who has established a reputation as a genius inventor, completely breaks down, while I slack off instead of conducting research in the lab. In my past life, Kennedy files an identical patent application just one day before I do, causing everyone to brand me as a fraud and accuse me of blatant plagiarism. I try to explain myself, but no one believes me. Kennedy eventually launches a live stream to blast me online, accusing me of trying to scam my way into their family's fortune. They run a massive cyberbullying campaign against my whole family. Mom and Dad only want to clear things up, but Kennedy's crazed fans push them off a high-rise building, leaving them to die in unresolved grief. Unable to handle the blow, I fall into a severe depression and end up slitting my wrists. I still can't wrap my head around the whole situation, even in my final moments. It is obviously the fruit of my own painstaking research, so why does someone else get to file the patent first? I suddenly open my eyes and find myself back on the day before my invention is stolen.

On the day we finish our SATs, my snobbish deskmate, Ava Levine, insists that we film a graduation confession video together. I reluctantly agree out of courtesy, but to our surprise, the video goes viral overnight. Hooked on her newfound fame, she forces her way into my home and demands that I give up my spot at a top university to become an influencer with her. When I refuse, she starts a livestream at midnight, drawing an audience of a hundred thousand. With fake bruises painted on her body, she bursts into tears and accuses me of sexually assaulting her after I pretend to confess my feelings for her. She also claims that I hold her captive and abuse her. Her fanatical fans dox me overnight. They splatter red paint across my home and send me razor blades in the mail. In the ensuing chaos, one of her fans pushes my mom down the stairs, taking her life instantly. Before I can even clear my name, a speeding car runs me over on my way to the police station. A wave of excruciating pain tears through me. Then, my eyes snap open. I'm back on the day our exams are over, just as Ava holds up her phone and pleads, "Just pretend to say yes, please. I'm begging you."

My twin sister, Ruby Stone, and I split up after our parents' divorce. She stays with Mom, while I went with Dad. Since the divorce, he's sunk into a deep depression, gambling away every penny we have. We move into a dark, damp apartment, and life becomes an endless struggle. Every day, I go to school and quietly work a part-time job to keep us afloat. Then, out of nowhere, Ruby—whom I haven't heard from in forever—sends me a link to a live stream. "Check this out, Aria. There's a surprise waiting for you." I click it, and my jaw drops. I'm the one topping the trending live streams. The screen splits in two. On one side, I sit in my dingy apartment, hunched over homework under the dim light. On the other side, Mom and Dad cuddle with Ruby on the fancy couch of their sprawling villa. The comments came pouring in. "Let's see what happens when twins are raised on opposite sides of fortune all the way to 18." "Aria still doesn't know, right? Her parents never divorced. They're loaded and perfectly happy. Ruby's life has been like a dream too." "Poor Aria. She's always starving and never has anything decent to wear. Isn't that basically abuse?" "She's the more sensible one, so her parents decided to raise her poorly."

After I refused for the eighth time to give my daughter a monthly allowance of $80, she went live online to denounce me. During the broadcast, she shared screenshots of our messages, showing how she had repeatedly and desperately asked me for money after the new school term began. "Mom, I just got my period. I do not have money to buy sanitary pads. Could you send me this month's allowance?" I replied calmly, "No." "Mom, I have not eaten in three days. I am really hungry." I responded with sarcasm. "What does that have to do with me?" The screen quickly filled with comments calling me suffocatingly cruel and heartless. Looking straight into the camera, she sobbed uncontrollably. "Mom, I am not asking for much. I only need $80 a month for living expenses. "Do you really have to push me to death before you feel satisfied?" Within a short time, I became the target of widespread online abuse. A well-known education influencer reached out to me. "It is only $80. It is not something you cannot afford. Why are you treating your own daughter so harshly?" I looked at her calmly. "Try livestreaming seven days of life with me and my daughter. "If you can do that, you'll understand."

Ten minutes before the IPO, my lower body started burning with intense pain. The pain was so bad that my knees buckled and I fell from the stairs on the third floor. I hit my forehead, which started bleeding, and fresh blood dripped into my eyes. As I convulsed on the ground, my hands covered my crotch as my skin felt like it was being fried in boiling oil. My fiancée, Yvette James, came over in her high heels and kicked me in the thigh. "What's with all the pretense? It's just half a bottle of ointment poured down your pants." Her bestie, Henry Curtis, had his phone held toward me as he livestreamed the situation. He was bent over from laughing too hard. "Check this out, fam! This penniless loser is burning from the waist down! It's too funny!" I could hardly breathe from the pain, and I begged Yvette to get me an ambulance. Yvette rolled her eyes and pushed the camera into my face. "Henry is targeting 100,000 viewers for this live stream! Can you scream louder? Don't be a buzzkill! That thing between your legs is just like a toothpick. That ointment might give you a growth spurt, so you should thank me for it." My lower body had gone numb from the pain, and I saw the comments section ridiculing me. I stopped begging for help as I stared coldly at Yvette while giving the orders to pull her funds. "The wedding is off. Be prepared for your company's bankruptcy."

The captain of our college cheer squad was drowning. I fought to pull her ashore and performed mouth-to-mouth in front of the entire student body and faculty. But three days later, she went live, sobbing, and accused me. "Owen Ellis pushed me into the water... He's wanted to force himself on me for ages! "He threatened me, too. He said if I didn't sleep with him, he'd post photos of him kissing me on a porn site and ruin me!" Overnight, I went from a lifesaving hero to a would-be rapist reviled across the internet. The university expelled me. My parents were doxxed by online mobs, lost their jobs, and both sank into depression. In my darkest moment, I stood at the same lake where I'd saved her and jumped. As the water closed over my head, a notification lit up my phone. The cheer captain was smiling on her livestream as hundreds of thousands of fans flooded the chat. The stream title read: "A Strong Girl Rises from the Ashes." When I opened my eyes again, I was back at the moment she started drowning. She was thrashing in the water, those wet eyes locked on mine, and she cried out. "Owen... save me..."

After my nephew and niece finished high school, I took them to Hawaii. The moment we boarded the plane, the two of them put their heads together and started whispering. "You've got the stuff ready?" "Relax. The countdown's set. Five minutes after takeoff — it goes off first, then it burns." "A hundred and thirty-seven people going down with us. Worth it." The man in the next seat changed color. The flight attendant couldn't take her eyes off us. I clapped my hands over their mouths and apologized to everyone, and spent the whole flight making sure neither of them said another word. I ruined the graduation stunt they'd planned so carefully. Their dream of going viral overnight fell apart. At the beach, they held me under the water and grinned into the camera. "Hey, everybody — my aunt's going for the world record for holding her breath. Let's start the countdown. Thirty minutes!" Thirty minutes later, the two of them took a photo with my body, grinning into the lens. "Happy graduation!" When my brother and his wife found out I was dead, they waited for the middle of the night, tied stones to me and pushed me out into deep water. Back home, they told everyone I'd run off with some guy I met on the trip. My nephew and niece's vlog blew up, and they started college as celebrities. When I opened my eyes again, I was back on the plane. This time, when the two of them started running their mouths, I simply pointed across the aisle at my brother and his wife. "Those are their guardians." If they want to lose everything and rot in a cell, why is it my business to stop them?

In the continent of Elysium, magic has dried up and monsters have descended. The only way to survive is to participate in a game called "Hide and Seek." Only the winning races receive rewards and a chance to live. The Werewolf Clan drew me—a twenty-two-year-old half-blood werewolf. I was painfully thin, having been locked in a dungeon for the past fifteen years. The live chat scrolling before my eyes was filled with despair: [What the hell? This is our clan’s representative?] [A girl a strong breeze could knock over? Is she even an adult?] [I bet she bursts into tears the second she sees a monster.] [It’s over. We’re so dead. I knew we’d lose this time. Are the werewolves really going to be wiped out...] But they didn't know that staring at the gloomy, ancient castle, I wasn't scared. I was thrilled. Best of all, I’d already found an interesting helper: a man kneeling to kiss the back of my hand, calling me his... "little master."

My father, Terence Locke, is covered in mud. He grabs my shoulders desperately, and his eyes are bloodshot. He says, "Emma, my company has gone bankrupt, and I accidentally killed a business rival. You have to run away with me." I believe him. Suppressing my fear, I follow him deep into the untouched mountains. To find food for him, I eat bugs and drink dirty water. When a pack of wolves closes in on our cave, my first instinct is to stand in front of him. "Dad, I'll lure them away. Run!" I look back at him one last time before finally making up my mind to trade my life for his. But after I leap off a seemingly bottomless cliff and fall to a pulp on the rocks below, I somehow "see" him inside a slowly descending helicopter. He is popping a bottle of champagne in celebration. At that moment, I finally understand everything. The whole desperate escape over the past few days that ultimately pushes me to sacrifice my life is nothing more than a reality show staged by him. He is merely putting on a performance, while I am truly dead...

Desperate for money, I planned a livestream exploring the home of a notorious serial killer in the dead of night. I thought it would be nothing more than a publicity stunt to attract viewers. I was wrong. What started as a reckless grab for attention turned into the most terrifying night of my life and a brutal lesson in what it truly meant to stare death in the face.

Because I asked the cafeteria to refund the two cents I'd been overcharged for a plate of leftovers, someone filmed me and posted the video on the campus forum, turning me into the "refund warrior" everyone online loved to hate. Just as people were dragging me for being both poor and heartless, my brother, Jack Griffin, showed up at the school gates on a livestream, wearing a worried expression. He held up a spending record and shoved it in my face. "Brielle, Mom sends you $10,000 every month for living expenses. "Dad worries you'll have a hard time away from home, so he secretly gives you another $5,000. Even I, as your brother, save $3,000 from my monthly paycheck to send you. "You get $18,000 a month, and you still asked for a refund after donating just $10 to a sick classmate. Where did your conscience go?" The comments exploded instantly. "$18,000 a month and she's still the refund warrior? She's seriously messed up!" I stared at the string of fake transfer screenshots on Jack's phone. Then I looked at the limited-edition sneakers on his feet—the ones he'd bought with my living expenses. 'Fine. If you all insist I was greedy for money, then I'll be greedy enough to show you exactly what that looks like.'

Once again, my wife, Claire Winters, stabbed me with a silver needle. A reporter tracked me down and asked, "Louis Sterling, wasn't your wife, Claire, one of the winners of the National Inspiration Awards from ten years ago? She won the reward for saving you during the earthquake and ending up paralyzed from the waist down, right?" I stayed quiet for a moment, then nodded. "Louis, we're from a TV station, and we're producing a tenth anniversary special about the earthquake." I rubbed my arm, which was covered in tiny needle marks, and looked her straight in the eye. I replied, "That's fine, but can you keep the cameras discreet? Claire isn't used to being in front of so many lenses." However, I never expected that on the very first day of the live broadcast, I would be dragged onto the trending charts and torn apart online.

In my sixth year of running an inn in Rimevale, I'm diagnosed with bone cancer. I leave the inn in the hands of my fiancé, Eric Jones, and head to Varenia with nothing but an old enamel mug. Once I'm there, I start a livestream called "My Last 100 Sunsets." Every day at 7:00 pm, I turn the camera toward the snowcapped mountains and make coffee just out of frame. On my 31st livestream, a comment suddenly catches my eye. "Wait. Does that mug at the edge of the frame have a V-shaped chip in it?" Six years ago, when a blizzard left us stranded in the mountains, I kept that same mug filled with hot spiced cider for Eric all night. The chat explodes. "That's Alice Graham from Veylune Inn!" "Alice, why are you calling these your last sunsets?" Then a private message from Eric pops up. "Alice, where are you? Send me your location right now." What he doesn't know is that the night before I start chemo, I go back to the inn to get my documents and hear him and our receptionist, Denise Snyder, together in our bedroom. They're in the bed I picked out for us. "What if Alice comes back and catches us?" Denise asks. Eric laughs. "She won't leave me. Not after six years together." Standing outside the door, I open the confirmation email from an assisted-dying clinic in Varenia and click "Accept." By the time more than 100,000 people have signed up to watch my 100th livestream, Eric finally recognizes the snowcapped mountains outside my window and realizes where I am. I change the stream title to "My 100th Sunset: I Won't Be Here for Sunrise."

Out of sheer boredom, I randomly clicked into a livestream titled "Taming an Innocent Housewife." In the stream, a woman in a silk chemise was lazily puttering around the kitchen. When the camera finally showed her face, I was completely stunned—it was me. Not only that, but on the public chat, the top donor was spamming gifts like crazy. [Make her drink that spiked milk.] Soon after, a man groveled in response: [Thanks for the gift, bro. She'll drink it right now. I promise you a hell of a show tonight.] I'd recognize that voice anywhere—it was my husband, Jake, who was supposedly on a business trip overseas. My own husband had turned our home into a hidden-camera setup, treating me like his personal reality show star. And now, he was trying to feed me illegal drugs just to rake in donations. Most people would've broken down or called the cops. But I'm what you'd call the ultimate pro at playing nice—everyone in our circle knows I'm the queen of manipulation. I picked up that glass of milk, looked straight into the camera, and gave a fragile, tantalizing smile. "Since my husband's not home, drinking this milk all alone feels so lonely... I wish some strong, capable guy would come take care of me." The chat exploded. Donations went through the roof. Later that night, Jake burst through the front door, ready to "discipline" me—but froze in his tracks. There I was, sitting in lingerie on the lap of the top donor, grinning at my husband. "Honey, you're back! I helped you hit your goals tonight!"

Brandon Hawthorne said if I wanted to marry him, I had to prove I was tough enough to be a Hawthorne. He took my bank cards, ditched me in a city I'd never been to, and made me figure out how to get home alone. When my fever hit 104°F, he still refused to let the family doctor through the door. Instead, I had to smile through dinner with a house full of Hawthorne relatives while I could barely stay on my feet. And every time I finally asked Brandon for help, he looked at me like I'd failed him. "You can't even handle something this simple. How are you supposed to be my wife?" But when his childhood friend, Patty Rowan, got blisters from her shoes, he picked her up and carried her away in front of everyone. She got a headache in the middle of the night, and he left me alone in the hospital to take the family doctor to her. I asked him why. He frowned. "Patty's fragile. And she's not the one trying to become a Hawthorne." Then came our engagement party. I accidentally ate peanuts. My throat started closing. I couldn't breathe. Brandon grabbed my EpiPen and locked me in the lounge. "This is your final test. If you want to marry me, tough it out." Then Patty called. She had a paper cut. Brandon immediately left with the doctor. "Hold out for ten minutes." I lost track of time. Right before everything went dark, I saw Brandon come back with Patty tucked close beside him. She had a Band-Aid on her finger. Through the haze, I heard the disappointment in his voice. "Patty was bleeding, and she didn't even cry. Are you seriously pretending to be dead?" Then came the final blow. "You failed the test. You're not ready to become a Hawthorne."

When I'm seven years old, my dad turns me in to the Court Judgment of the Born Wicked because of my tendency to vomit. If I'm found guilty, my blood ties with my dad will be forcibly severed. Then, I'll be sent to prison. Everyone claims that Dad is just making a fuss over nothing. "Your daughter is still so young, so it's natural for her to fall ill. As a father, you should be more considerate toward her." But when the evidence is shown, everyone clamps up immediately. There was once when Dad drank so much to the point he suffered from gastric bleeding. The business contract that he managed to convince his client to sign was all soiled because I vomited on him as soon as he got home. Thanks to me, the contract was voided. Dad got fired on the spot. During Bryce Fuller, my older brother's birthday, I vomited onto his birthday cake in front of his classmates. Because of that, Bryce was isolated by all of his classmates. He became so depressed that he tried to slit his wrist in an attempt to take his own life. I'll keep vomiting everywhere, be it at the dining table or on my bed. Dad and Bryce have to clean me up more than 30 times every day. They suffer greatly because of me. What angers everyone the most is that after I'm done vomiting, I'll laugh at everyone in a provocative manner. The judge gives his verdict instantly, claiming that I'm wicked by nature. Bryce's eyes redden immediately. As he cries, he tells me that he can't bear to see me leaving him. I never shed any tears, nor do I throw a tantrum. Instead, I accept the judge's verdict calmly, but with a prerequisite condition that the judge finishes watching my memories. The judge is shocked, to say the least. "We'll have to crack your skull open in order to extract your memories. You'll be in a world of pain. Are you sure about that?" I nod in determination. But Bryce, on the other hand, looks alarmed. "I won't agree to that!"

At the court, my daughter, Hannah Wright, accuses me of being a sexist tormentor with violent tendencies. With tears running down her cheeks, she slowly takes off her clothes, revealing her wounds to everyone present. "She's a monster! She buys mangoes for my younger brother, Rodney, and yet she makes me kneel on the floor while munching on the peels! "Then, she beats me up in public and even strips me naked before forcing me to kneel and apologize! On top of that, she doesn't feed me at all!" Everyone gasps in shock before glaring at me angrily. They are all waiting for me to get sentenced to hell and back. But what Hannah refuses to bring up is that I can't let her eat any mangoes due to her severe allergy. If she were to have any, she'd go into shock immediately. I beat her up because she had the audacity to switch out the tea leaves to sheep droppings just to pull a prank on an elderly family member during her funeral. Naturally, I punished her because she actually mixed weed killer into Rodney's milk and tried to feed him with it! At the end of the day, Hannah remembers the pain she's been through, yet she completely forgets about the atrocious misdeeds that she herself has committed!

I was only seven when my dad, Michael Carter, jumped into the river to save a drowning man. I was still playing in the sand on the riverbank. By the time a crowd had gathered and Dad was pulled from the water, his body had turned blue. He wasn't breathing. And the grown man Dad had risked his life to save? He swam back to shore on his own, shook off the water, muttered, "Just my luck," and walked away. Mom never smiled again after that. She worked three jobs to keep our family afloat. A year later, she collapsed from exhaustion at the textile mill and never woke up. Every spring, Grandma took me to visit their graves. She would cry and say the same thing every year. "If only I hadn't taken you to play by the river that day." Then I opened my eyes, and I was seven again. Dad was pulling off his jacket and tossing it to me. He pointed at the figure struggling in the river. "Stay right here, Mia. Dad's going to save him." The next second, I darted past him and jumped into the river. "Dad. "I can't swim."