Chapter 1

At eight o'clock that night, my neighbor Aunt Rosemary Lambert tagged me in the homeowners' group chat.

One glance, and my whole body went off like a bomb.

"Ethel, do you really have to run around naked at home in broad daylight? @Unit 508 Ethel Fox."

In an instant, some busybody pressed her for details.

She posted a video. In it, in plain daylight, I was running around naked in my own home.

In my last life, I tore myself apart defending myself in that chat.

I even had property management install a camera inside my apartment.

But no matter how I tried to prove it, the video ended up spread across the entire internet.

My parents cut ties with me. My friends walked away.

My workplace fired me, and harassing calls blew up my phone.

Worn down to nothing, still fighting to clear my name, I was hit by a truck and killed.

When I opened my eyes again, I was staring at this same message.

1.

I rubbed my eyes and pinched myself, hard.

Making sure I wasn't dreaming.

The notification tones kept chiming, one after another.

Eight o'clock. Everyone had just gotten off work and finished dinner.

The chat came alive.

"Naked? Rosemary, what nonsense are you talking?"

That was Anita Whitney from 408 downstairs, the loudmouth of the complex.

Always hungry for any bit of gossip.

"Right, it's 2026 already. Who would do something that shameful?"

Flora from 610 upstairs chimed in too.

"That Ethel girl is fair-skinned and clean-looking, and she's polite to everyone. Why would she run around naked?"

Stacy Lawrence from 607, right above Aunt Rosemary, started typing in the chat too.

Back and forth they went, and the message count shot up to 99+.

"You think she'd feel ashamed?"

"She just puts on an act. What she's like at home is disgusting."

"I'm getting old. What reason would I have to lie to everyone?"

In my past life, I didn't wait for Aunt Rosemary to keep posting.

I confronted her out in the open.

My anger played right into her hands.

She dropped a video into the chat.

In it, I was completely naked, doing strange things around my apartment.

Proof, she said, that I was a repeat offender.

After posting it, she went on: "It's only the tenth of the month, and I've already seen it eight times. I couldn't stand it anymore, so I had to speak up."

In an instant, the whole complex erupted.

Some thought I was corrupt and indecent.

Some thought there was something seriously wrong with me.

Some were afraid I'd be a bad influence on their kids.

They came after me like mad.

In the end, the video got out.

I lost my family, my friends, and my life.

This time, I just stared quietly at the group chat.

Watching them buzz through their guessing.

"Isn't there some misunderstanding? This can't be real."

Neal Chavez from 306 across the way asked it carefully.

"Misunderstanding? What misunderstanding could there be? Eight times in ten days, and I saw every one."

"You didn't see it with your own eyes. It was a real eyesore."

"I posted it for everyone's sake. Every household here has kids. If a child saw that, it'd be a disaster."

Aunt Rosemary was clever. She knew the children were everyone's soft spot.

In a heartbeat, more and more people joined her in tearing into me.

"@Unit 508, have you no shame? Broad daylight, and you can't even close a curtain?"

Anita from 408 cursed me outright in the chat.

"Close a curtain? She's thrown away her dignity. You think she cares about a curtain?"

"Probably doing it to catch some man's eye."

Aunt Rosemary's words fanned everyone's anger all over again.

I'm thirty, living alone, and all my time and money go into making myself look good.

Before this, she'd hinted more than once that I dressed so nicely every day just to seduce men.

To get the attention of the men in the complex.

But back then everyone had brushed it off as a joke and paid it no mind.

Today was different.

"Aunt Rosemary's right. She's a little slut. She does it to seduce men. Everybody had better keep an eye on their husbands."

Stacy from 709 had never liked me, and she rushed to smear me too.

"Ethel, come out and explain yourself. Broad daylight, this is beyond disgraceful."

Flora from 610 started tagging me.

"I just watched the video. It really is a bit of an eyesore. Aunt Rosemary was right to warn us."

Neal from 306 joined the pile-on too.

"@Unit 508 Ethel Fox, gone mute? Say something!"

"Don't play dead. The video caught everything. Playing dumb won't get you out of this."

Aunt Rosemary tagged me over and over in the chat, like a rabid dog.

Looking at the screen full of curses aimed at me,

I deleted the defense I'd written, one character at a time.