Nicole shifted uncomfortably, her back stiff and her neck full of tension. The chill from the house cooling down at night had her hands shaking - or that's what she told herself, that it was the cold. Had to be the cold.
For sure was not more than the cold.
Couldn't be, right?
She was scrolling TikTok, the endless stream of videos blurring together as she skipped one after another, looking for something to hold her attention for more than three seconds.
It was all the same. The trending sounds/songs, the split screen content that she knew was ripped from someone else but reposted to get the benefits of the algorithm.
She was shaking because she had been sitting, doom scrolling, legs tucked up under a blanket for more than an hour. Yes, that was it.
The videos she had randomly paused on, the ones that were different, didn't fit in with what she had seen before - those were not a part of this at all. Nope. Not even a little bit.
Sitting and scrolling, procrastinating going to bed, and ignoring the TBR pile on her nightstand had become something of a nightly routine. And the routine worked. She scrolled until her eyes could not physically stay open any longer or when the screen time monitoring videos came into rotation. She made a point to almost always take the hint and go to bed.
How many videos could one scroll through? Each video shown was as a result of previous interactions or engagements with related content. This meant that either she had been giving off signals she was oblivious to, or - and this is what her gut was telling her - these videos were outside of that.
These videos came across her FYP for a reason. Had to. In the style of a halpless heroine, Nicole did the 'whatever does it all mean?' but she wasn't talking to anyone. Just herself. It always prickled when someone handed over power like that, especially [something - inspired by the Barbie movie? Or Reese Witherspoon's speech?]
Her mind was not working. She knew that there was something there but for the life of her, Nicole couldn't see past the static in her brain. She was exhausted - there was some sort of message there, something that she needed to know - but Nicole knew that she was done for the night. If there was something there, either her mind would figure it out overnight, or if she was really missing the boat, maybe the message would appear again and the repetition would help things click.
Either way, something was happening. And Nicole went to bed.
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