Deleted Stories Novels & Stories

“What the fuck. It’s… gone.” Everyone turned. “What’s gone?” Ethan asked. Jake refreshed the page again. “The main post. The forum thread. The I*******m stories. Even the screenshots people were sharing — a bunch are deleted. The links are dead. It’s like someone wiped most of it in the last twenty minutes.” Mia blinked. “How?” No one had an answer. Ethan stood quickly and looked over Jake’s shoulder. “Refresh again.” Jake did. Nothing. The links led to blank pages or error messages. What had been spreading like wildfire was suddenly vanishing.

From zero, they were ready to fight the Death Inquisitor to the end. After two days, all the content and news about the Death Inquisitor, the live broadcast of the death, and so on were all deleted from the Internet. Some people would post about it one minute, and the next minute, they would be deleted. Under the joint attack of Task Force Zero and the higher-ups, the news about the Death Inquisitor began to fade from online platforms. However, this could not stop people’s enthusiasm. Although there was no news about the Death Inquisitor on the public platform, the Death Inquisitor was still the most discussed topic in private group chats.

Juliette had heard these horror stories from the previous receptionist. As she got closer to the door, she heard a thud as if he had thrown his shoe at the wall. He threw things, but most often his shoes, she’d learned. She bit her lip at the thought that at least it wasn’t an employee’s head. In the brief silence that followed the thud, she slowly opened the door to his office. He was still on the phone and beckoned her to enter. She shut the door behind her and began to lay out the lunch that she had brought on the long table mostly covered in papers by his desk.

The media coverage began to subside. Several major outlets withdrew their articles, gossip accounts were no longer as active as the day before. Jessy’s name slowly disappeared from the timeline, replaced by other issues. However, the calm did not last long. In her apartment, Bella stared at her phone screen with her jaw clenched. Her hands were trembling, not from sadness, but from anger. “So this is how it’s done,” Bella muttered. “Everything just gets erased like that?” She scrolled the screen, reading old comments that no longer appeared. Some posts could no longer be found at all.

Listener 2: "Y'all disgusting. She's probably crying right now. This is so funny." Listener 3: "Cry? She's rich af. She'll sue and win. Meanwhile we got free content.” Host: with this now it proves Conrad was right all along, she's never been a stable minded person. Listener 3: “You forgot to add an ‘unstable Body’ too hahaha.” The laughs echoed through her phone speakers. As Adeline curled on her bedroom floor, listening to the live stream. Each chuckle felt like a slap. Most stories vanished almost as fast as they appeared, people reposting blurred screenshots with fire emojis, then deleting when her lawyers' DM rolled in.

I’d deal more with him later, but for the time being, I needed to get rid of those leaked photos online. I pulled out my phone and checked in on how many more views had accrued over the last hour. But I was stunned when I saw that there was nothing there. “This Story Is No Longer Available.” I repeated the bold print aloud. “Hm, maybe Matthew had the company’s PR team handle everything already.” I breathed a partial sigh of relief, careful not to get too happy just yet as lately my luck would come and go in spurts. And there was no telling what Tom or even Alaric had up their sleeves at this point.

*** It took less than twelve hours to take the posts down. But it didn’t matter at the end. A few smaller gossip accounts still had screenshots circulating, even with the main articles gone. I kept telling myself that meant people had moved on, plus wasn’t four days enough for the internet to find a new scandal to devour. I hoped—prayed—that was true.

Too vividly perhaps. Not all the comments were sunshine and rainbows. I frowned as I scrolled further. @anon_112: thought he killed somebody tho?? @weirdo_girl: isn’t taranis like…impotent? 🤔 My stomach twisted. I hated those rumors, the stupid stories that always clung to him like shadows no matter how untrue they were. Without thinking twice, I tapped the little trash can icon. Delete. Delete. Delete. “That’s better,” I muttered, shoving my phone aside.

No results found. I went to the other news sites. The stories were gone there, too. I checked social media. The links that people had shared were now leading to "404 Error" pages. It was like the last two hours had never happened. The internet had been scrubbed clean. I looked up at Cade, my jaw dropping. "What did you do? Did you call the editors?" "I didn't call them," Cade said. He stood up and walked over to the window. "I bought them."

TRYING THIS AGAIN The jokes died down after a week, just as they hoped they would. There were still a couple of minor jokes flying around, but they weren't too bad. Cameron had deactivated the app a while ago before the free trial ended. It wasn't because he was matched with his own cousin, he was over that. He met one of his other matches on the app and began talking with her. When they exchanged numbers and began talking outside the app, that's when Cameron deactivated his app profile and deleted it from his phone.