Dead Majority

The town of Klamath hadn’t changed much in decades. The old hardware store still squeaked underfoot, and the diner on Main Street served coffee so thick it practically poured itself. But the air had grown thinner somehow–a thinness you can’t see but feel—a suffocating absence.

It started with an innocuous post. Ellen Harper, a retired teacher nearing seventy, received a notification on Gathered, a social media platform that had quietly taken over where others faltered.

The platform had a strange appeal: no ads, no algorithms pushing nonsense. Real people. Real connections. It promised something old-fashioned in the digital world.

Ellen wasn’t tech-savvy, but she’d made a profile at her daughter’s insistence. “You can keep in touch with people!” Michelle had said. “Like a virtual scrapbook.”

Ellen wasn’t sure what that meant, but after her husband passed last year, she’d been desperate for contact, any contact, that wasn’t the hum of a television in her empty living room. The notification was simple: Your friend Martha Taylor has posted a memory.

Ellen froze. Martha Taylor had been her best friend in high school.

They’d lost touch after graduation, and Martha had died in a car crash when they were twenty-two. Ellen had cried for days when she heard.

Curiosity overrode logic, and she clicked the notification.

Martha’s profile picture—a black-and-white snapshot from Senior year—smiled at her. Below: “Remember the time we ditched class for the lake? Wish we could go back.”

Ellen felt her pulse quicken. The wording was unmistakable.

That was their secret, the one they’d sworn not to tell. How could Martha have posted it?

Ellen shut her laptop, the screen’s glow imprinting on her eyes like a brand.

The next day, Ellen checked again. She hadn’t meant to, but the pull was irresistible.

Martha’s profile wasn’t the only one. Other friends from long ago—people Ellen knew had passed—were posting.

Their messages felt warm, nostalgic, and personal. And yet, something was off. They were just too perfect, like someone—or something—had cracked open Ellen’s head and scooped out memories.

She brought it up at the diner over pie and coffee with her neighbor, Ray Donaldson. “Have you seen those weird posts on Gathered?” she asked, keeping her voice low.

Ray scratched his grizzled chin. “Yeah, a few. Thought it was some AI gimmick, scraping old data to make people feel good. You know these tech companies.”

“Martha’s been dead for fifty years, Ray,” Ellen whispered the last word like saying it louder might summon something.

Ray didn’t answer right away. His fork hovered over his slice of cherry pie.

“You remember Charlie Webb? My fishing buddy?”

Ellen nodded.

“He posted last week. Said I should come visit him at the lake.” Ray’s voice faltered. “Charlie drowned in that lake. Twenty years ago.”

The platform grew darker with each passing week. The dead weren’t just posting memories anymore. They were inviting, suggesting, and calling.

Ellen couldn’t shake the sense that each post left an imprint, a faint yet visceral pull to follow where it led. And then the living began disappearing.

Michelle came to visit Ellen one weekend. She’d flown in, a rare treat, her toddler in tow. Ellen tried to warn her about the posts and the notifications.

Michelle laughed it off. “Mom, it’s just an algorithm. Some bad-taste viral marketing.”

But one night, Ellen woke to Michelle crying softly in the living room. She was cradling her phone, her face pale.

“What’s wrong?” Ellen asked.

Michelle held the phone out, trembling. On the screen was a post from her father, John Harper. “I miss you. Come see me.”

John had died five years ago, buried on a cold December day, a service Michelle herself had planned. Ellen snatched the phone away and threw it across the room.

It hit the wall with a crack, the screen shattering into a spiderweb of glass. But the notification sound dinged again. And again. And again.

The posts kept coming. From John. From Ellen’s long-dead friends. From neighbors who had died decades ago. The messages began appearing on every screen: televisions, digital clocks, even the smart fridge Michelle had insisted on buying Ellen for Christmas.

“We’re waiting.”

“Come back to us.”

“It’s so beautiful here.”

It wasn’t just Klamath. The news reported that Gathered had gone global, with over ten million users and hundreds of billions of posts. But something else had shifted. When people logged on, they often didn’t log off. Their accounts became active. Friends reported hearing strange noises—whispers, shuffling footsteps—before the missing person’s profile joined the chorus.

Ellen’s final notification came on a stormy November night. She hadn’t touched her computer in days, hadn’t dared. But it glowed on her desk now, the screen flashing faintly like a heartbeat.

“Martha Taylor has tagged you in a photo.”

Her hands trembled as she clicked. The image was old, but Ellen recognized it immediately: a snapshot of the lake, their secret escape.

But something new was there, just beneath the rippling water–face smiling and waiting. Ellen’s laptop shut itself down.

The house went dark. And from the kitchen, she swore she heard her husband’s voice.

“Ellen, come home.”