It started as a regular evening.
Kana had just finished her nightly ritual, writing a short poem, reading it aloud to herself in a whisper, and uploading it to her Twibbler page with a pastel-hued background and a single heart emoji. It was something she had done every day for the last nine months.
For her, these little poems weren't just words; they were anchors. A way to make sense of the emotional tide she lived with every day: joy, grief, uncertainty, hope. It was how she connected to the outside world beyond the sterile walls of the hospital room she called home.
Twibbler had become her quiet garden, a digital sanctuary where strangers read her lines and somehow felt less alone. Some left comments.
Others reposted her words with notes like "this hit too close" or "this is exactly how I felt yesterday." Kana never replied much, but she read every message. Every small kindness.
That night, like all others, she felt a brief flicker of happiness when the first few likes came in. With a smile tugging gently at the corners of her lips, she placed her phone face down, turned off the lamp beside her bed, and allowed herself to drift into sleep.
****
The sun was already high when Kana woke up. Outside her window, the summer trees swayed lazily in the wind, the same view she had seen a thousand times before. She stretched quietly, blinked the sleep from her eyes, and reached for her phone, expecting the familiar comfort of new replies.
But something was different.
There were too many notifications. Far more than usual. Her phone buzzed again, and again, and again. The rhythm was off. Her stomach sank.
When she finally opened the app, her heart skipped.
Her most recent poem had been swarmed not with the usual comments but with comments that stung like venom.
"This again?"
"Girl thinks she's the next Sylvia Plath "
"Are you in a hospital or in drama class?"
"She types like she's the only one who's ever been sad."
"Bro what is this cringe? "
"This girl acting like she's some sad main character "
"Someone get this wannabe poet off the app"
"Is she trying to fish for sympathy points again? LMAOO"
"Bet she's not even sick. Just doing this for attention."
"OMG Cringe."
"She thinks this is poetry? LMAO."
"Who even is this chick? Is she dying or something?"
"Go outside and touch some grass."
"Delete your page, please. I'm begging you."
"This is actually the worst thing I've read in my life."
And there were hundreds more like this….
Her poem had been reposted by a troll account with a mocking caption, and soon others had joined in. The thread had spiraled into chaos, her words dissected, ridiculed, spat back at her with laughing emojis and eye-roll gifs.
Kana just sat there in silence and instead stared at the screen with a long, drawn-out breath, her thumb hovering over the block button. She began going through the list of usernames, some were faceless accounts with names like @skull4eva or @justtrollingu. Others had actual display pictures, real people hiding behind their sarcasm.
She didn't respond.
One by one, she began blocking them. She had learned long ago that if you let your heart break every time someone tried to hurt you, you'd never make it through the week.
And besides… This wasn't new.
Some people had always misunderstood her. Twibbler was just being the same way it has always been; a world that often didn't know what to do with someone soft so they hate them for no reason.
But even in the mess, something else caught her eye replies from her loyal followers. Kind people. Real people.
@ArtDaisy:
"This poem was beautiful. Ignore the clowns."
@StarboyBooks:
"We see you, Lonelygirl4556. Don't stop writing. Please."
@midnightpages:
"Block and keep going. Some of us still need your words."
@Staryeyes :
"If you hate it so much, why are you still reading it?"
@davidOC:
"This girl's been posting for MONTHS and never hurt anybody. Let her be."
@midnightpages:
"Block and keep going. Some of us still need your words."
She took a deep breath, feeling a small knot in her chest start to unravel.
They're still here, she reminded herself. The ones who care.
She turned off her notifications, put her phone on silent, and closed the app.
*******
By the end of the week, the attacks hadn't stopped but she had grown used to tuning them out. Her next few posts were still poems and she never once acknowledged the hate publicly.
Still, the situation hadn't gone unnoticed. It was during her video call with Misa on Friday night that it finally came up.
Misa had her camera on, her navy blue hair tied in a high puff as she lay on her bed with her laptop off to the side. Kana's camera was off, but her voice was as clear as ever.
HeartOfM:
So… are we gonna talk about the Twibbler nonsense, or are you pretending it's not happening?"
Kana chuckled softly.
Lonelygirl4556:
I'm ignoring it. Seems to work just fine.
HeartOfM:
Girl, your page was trending in my explore tab. I was about to go yell at them and I don't even know half of those accounts.
Kana smiled faintly.
Lonelygirl4556:
It's okay. I already blocked most of them. There's no point in arguing with people who came looking for a target.
Misa frowned.
HeartOfM:
But why did it have to be you? What'd you ever do?
Kana shrugged.
Lonelygirl4556:
I exist. That's enough for some people. (pauses) Besides… I always knew I couldn't please everyone. That was never the point. I write for the ones who feel what I feel. The ones who need the words. Not the ones who mock them.
There was silence on the other end and then Misa sighed, deeply.
HeartOfM:
You're kind of amazing, you know that?
Kana laughed.
Lonelygirl4556:
Tell that to the hate brigade.
HeartOfM:
I will. In all caps.
*****
However, the cyberbullying grew worse by the beginning of the second week.
It was no longer just a few stray accounts dropping mean-spirited comments under her poems. Now it felt orchestrated. The replies were faster, harsher and crueler.
New troll accounts seemed to appear every day, posting slurs, attacking her writing style, and calling her a fake person, a "bot who fakes illness for sympathy likes." Some even used twisted memes of her quotes, captioned with:
"This ain't poetry. This is a cry for help."
"The hospital must be giving out phones now 💀💀💀"
At first, John brushed it off. Twibbler was wild like that sometimes. He'd seen it all before; the random hate trains, pile-ons, the internet doing what it does best: forgetting there's a person on the other side.
But this was different.
This wasn't a trending topic gone wrong. This was his girlfriend.
He scrolled through her replies one night and felt his stomach twist at the things people were saying. It wasn't just ridicule—it was deliberate, calculated, like someone wanted to crush her.
He immediately called her.
Gamerboy115:
(his voice soft but edged with concern) Kana… you okay?
Kana nodded slowly, forcing a gentle smile
Lonelygirl4556:
Yeah. I promise. Just a little storm. I've got my umbrella.
John leaned closer to the camera, frowning.
Gamerboy115:
I don't like what I'm seeing. The stuff they're saying is getting worse. Let me do something, report them, say something back, anything.
Kana shook her head, reaching toward the screen slightly as if to stop him.
Lonelygirl4556:
No, don't. Please don't.
Gamerboy115:
(his brows furrow deeper) Kana, come on.
Kana sat up straighter, her voice more firm now
Lonelygirl4556:
John… if you care about me, I need you to not get involved. I need you to promise me that.
John's eyes began searching hers through the screen in confusion.
Gamerboy115:
But… Why? Why won't you let me help? They're dragging you through the mud. It's not right.
Kana paused for a minute before she spoke again.
Lonelygirl4556:
I know. But this isn't about what's right or fair. It's about what I can live with. And I can live with people calling me names online. I've been called worse in real life. I've had to deal with far more painful things than this.
Gamerboy115:
Kana, that doesn't mean you should have to deal with it alone.
Kana leaned slightly toward the camera, her voice gentler now.
Lonelygirl4556:
I'm not dealing with it alone. I have you here, don't I? That's enough.
John looked down, his jaw clenched
Gamerboy115:
But if I don't do anything, it feels like I'm letting them win.
Kana smiled faintly, though her eyes seemed like they were glistening a little.
Lonelygirl4556:
No. Letting them win would be letting them change the way I see myself. And I won't give them that.
Gamerboy115:
So why do I have to stay out of it?
Lonelygirl4556:
Because I don't want to drag you into something ugly. If you step in, they'll come after you too. I couldn't handle that. You mean too much to me, John. I'd rather take a few punches online than see you get hurt because of me.
Gamerboy115:
Kana…
Kana leaned forward again, closer to her camera.
Lonelygirl4556:
I'm not rejecting help because I think I'm invincible. I'm doing it because I know what I can take. This… I can take this. And if I stay quiet, it might die down. But if you speak up, you'll just feed the fire. They'll know it bothers me.
John sighed, as he began rubbing his face with his hand
Gamerboy115:
You're seriously asking me to just watch this happen?
Kana nodded.
Lonelygirl4556:
I'm asking you to trust me. Trust that I'm stronger than I look. Just be here, like you are now. That's all I need.
There was a long pause as John stared at her through the screen before he spoke again..
Gamerboy115:
Alright. I promise. I won't interfere.
Kana smiled, finally letting herself relax a little.
Lonelygirl4556:
Thank you.
******
Meanwhile, others began checking in on her too. Liam sent her a playlist of soft piano music and a message that simply read, "For the noise to go quiet again."
Rose wrote a small paragraph about how Kana had helped her through her own rough patches, and how nothing some faceless trolls said could ever define her.
Jane sent a silly video of herself dancing with a sign that said, "Still your #1 fan."
And Dr. Kennedy, quiet as ever, simply texted:
"If it gets too heavy, I'm here."
Kana thanked them all. Smiled through the screen, sending hearts and flower emojis. But her grip on her phone had grown tighter each day.
Because in the quiet spaces between replies, the doubt had begun to grow.
*****
Late at night, with the lights off and the nurses making their rounds outside her door, Kana lay awake, staring at the blue glow of her phone screen. She hadn't posted a poem in days. The app sat unopened, notifications long disabled, but the words still echoed in her head.
"Your poems are trash."
"She's a sympathy act."
"Hope the machines flatline soon."
"No one's gonna remember you."
And the worst part was that a small part of her began to wonder if they were right.
Maybe she had been naive. Maybe Twibbler had been a bad idea after all. Maybe opening herself up to the world had been a mistake.
But then she remembered what coming to this app has brought to her, new friends and people that she could trust and a boyfriend who deeply cared about her.
This app had given her everything.
It gave her people.
It gave her John.
It gave her a reason to believe her voice mattered.
So why did it feel like that voice was being erased now, buried beneath noise she couldn't fight?
But then she finally reached her breaking point…
It happened one morning just before sunrise. She had just woken up and taken a sip of water when her phone buzzed again. Even with the notifications off, her fingers had become muscle-trained to check anyway. She opened Twibbler.
There, waiting for her at the top of her mentions, was a new post from the same account that had started it all: @Saucy1012.
This time, it was worse than anything they'd written before.
It read:
"Lmfao this girl really thinks she's gonna be remembered for her little poems? 😭 Bro you're gonna die in that bed alone and no one's even gonna notice. You're a profile pic sob story nobody."
And attached was a screenshot of her very first tweet she made when she joined Twibbler and introduced herself:
"Hi, I'm Kana 🌸 I've been in the hospital for 4 years now. I don't have many visitors, but writing helps me feel seen. If you ever feel invisible, I hope my poems find you."
She stared at the post and her chest tightened and her vision blurred. A sharp ringing filled her ears and her hands began to tremble.
The words wouldn't stop replaying.
"Die in that bed alone…"
"No one's gonna notice…"
"Nobody…"
Her phone slipped from her hand and hit the floor.
She gasped, trying to breathe, trying to focus, but the panic spread like wildfire. Her lungs seized. Her fingers clawed for something to hold. Her pulse spiked into chaos.
Her body gave out before her thoughts could catch up.
At that moment too, Jane entered the room when Kana slumped sideways and fell to the floor, her lips parted but no words coming out.
Jane: Kana? Kana!!!
Kana collapsed, trembling violently as the monitor beside her screamed in alarm.