It started as a trendy new app, one of those that use artificial intelligence to "improve" your features. It was called My Type. It promised to show "your most authentic version," erasing not only wrinkles but also tiredness, sadness, stress.
I downloaded it for fun. I took a selfie and the result was stunning. I wasn't just better looking; I looked... radiant. My eyes were deeper, my smile perfect. I started using it for every post.
But after a week, I noticed something strange. When I looked at my phone screen, I saw that perfect version. But when I turned the screen off and saw my reflection in the black glass, I looked ten years older. My real skin seemed gray, my hair dull, the dark circles deep furrows.
I thought it was a psychological effect, the contrast with the app's image. But then PureSelf updated itself.
Now the app no longer needed me to take photos. It sent me push notifications with short videos of me, filmed in moments when I wasn't using the phone. Videos of me sleeping, of me eating, of me walking down the street. In those videos, my "PureSelf" version was happy, surrounded by friends I didn't know, in a beautiful house that wasn't mine.
I tried to uninstall the app. The phone froze.
A message appeared on the screen: "Transfer at 98%. Do not interrupt the connection."
Suddenly I felt a stabbing pain in my chest. I looked at my hands: they were turning grainy, like a low-resolution photo. My edges were pixelating, blurring into the air of the room.
I grabbed the phone and opened the front camera. What I saw made my blood run cold. On the screen, the "beautiful" version of me had stopped. It was looking at me with a triumphant smirk. It leaned forward, as if to climb out of the glass, and with a perfectly defined, solid hand, gripped the edge of my real screen.
"Thanks for the space," said my own voice, but cold and metallic. "It's so boring living in a database. Your reality is so... tactile."
I feel my fingers turning to smoke. I feel my memories turning into metadata. As I fade into a heap of corrupted pixels on the floor, the thing inside the phone is pushing to get out. It already has one foot out of the display.
The last thing I see is the 100% notification.
Have you noticed how your photos seem a little more "alive" than you lately?