Lost Media Novels & Stories

The next morning, the video of Reed carrying Mia out of the deli broke the Internet into awe. Women are going gaga over Reed. But as fast as it was released, someone removed it. No matter how many times the video was uploaded, it was deleted. Someone hacked into the host systems and even deleted the video from the host who uploaded the video. This process went on for a while until they removed all the traces of the video.

The sight made her stomach drop. “No,” she whispered, rushing forward. She frantically pressed buttons, trying to regain control. Nothing responded. Jake’s voice was grim. “They were wiped.” Her hands shook as she tried again, refusing to accept it. “They can’t be.” Lucas walked in then, arms crossed. “They are.” Lila slammed her fist against the desk. “This doesn’t make sense. Even if someone breached the system, there should still be backups.” Jake exchanged a look with Lucas before speaking carefully. “That’s the thing. The backups are gone too. Every single one.”

I asked again, successfully snatching my cellphone back. I am left speechless as I see that my gallery is empty. All the pictures I have saved since high school are gone. I had just recovered them on my G****e Drive before I forgot the password to my G***l account. Only memories remain with me from a time when my life wasn't miserable yet, and now even those are gone. They have been completely erased. The weight of my emotions overwhelms me, leaving me with nothing else to do but silently let my tears flow.

Inside, he found a storage card. In this age, most computers and phones couldn't directly read storage cards anymore. Henley remembered the video recorder Joanna had left behind—the one thing she had kept. On the day she left, she had burned everything related to her in their home, even the data in their computers and cloud storage. For the entire year, Henley had only been able to hold onto a few photos on his phone as his memories of her. Now, suddenly receiving a video she had left behind, he trembled with excitement.

A blank space stared back. Mathieu blinked, then clicked again. “That’s… that’s strange.” Gabriel’s voice stayed calm, but his body wasn’t. “What’s strange?” “The footage from today,” Mathieu said. “It should be…” “It isn’t,” I finished. Mathieu swallowed. “It’s… gone.” Julien’s pen stopped mid-air. “Gone as in corrupted?” Mathieu shook his head. “Gone as in deleted. Like…” He clicked again, switching tabs. “And the backups… the backups are missing too.”

*** Alex The recovery for the other media companies wouldn't be straightforward. Their backup data was already compromised, laced with a backdoor virus I had skillfully embedded over seven months ago. Only those with backups older than seven months stood a chance to rebuild; anything more recent, and they'd unwittingly welcome my virus back into their systems. As I initiated the lockdown, leveraging the backdoor to hijack their operations, the magnitude of chaos I orchestrated became apparent. For any media entity, losing seven months of customer data and internal records was nothing short of catastrophic—a digital nightmare unfolding in real time.

His eyes were bloodshot, and he looked like hell. I sat up and rubbed my face. “What’s wrong?” He didn’t look at me. “The entire database—everything we recovered from the resort’s cloud server—it’s gone.” I stared at him, confused. “Gone?” He nodded grimly. “Deleted. Wiped clean. And I can’t retrieve any of it.” My heartbeat picked up as I reached for the glass of water on my desk. I took a long sip, trying to wake myself fully. Nichole must’ve left it there while I was asleep.

Lucian stood by the window in his office, the morning light sharp against the glass. “His phone?” he asked. “Off.” “Home?” “We’ve sent someone. No response yet.” Lucian didn’t turn. “Pull the building footage,” he said. A brief hesitation. “We’ve tried. The relevant segment is… missing.” That got his attention. He faced her fully now. “Missing?” “Yes. The time window between 8:10 and 8:30 has been wiped from the internal archive. Backup servers are showing inconsistencies as well.” Lucian’s expression hardened, not in anger, but in recognition.

Zaria and Sofia shared smiles and soon they started to reminisce about their old times together. "By the way, any news on Mason?" Zaria curiously asked. She was immersed in her new married life that she completely forgot about Mason. She remembered how he was close to sobbing at her wedding. "Did he succeed?" Sofia, who was about to take a sip from her favourite beverage, stopped as her mood became grim. "So, he lost?" Zaria's face dropped. 'He sounded so optimistic back then. Poor Mase.' "Let me show it to you." With this being said, Sofia brought out her cell phone from her purse and showed a picture to Zaria.

Elias sighed. “Good. We have options.” Current Lucas frowned. “That doesn’t sound good.” “It means we are not accepting one explanation as truth.” “Okay.” Elena looked at Root. “What do we know?” “Domain Zero records are decreasing.” “Retroactively?” “Possibly.” “People disappearing?” “Apparently.” “Can we detect who?” “Only when someone outside the affected continuity still remembers them.” Future Lucas nodded. “That is how we tracked losses in my time.” Claire stepped into the room.