God's Own Algorithm (Short Story)

A short horror story about social media as religion, and what it asks us to sacrifice

Heather pulled down the sleeves of her jumper, making sure to hide the highways of scars running across the landscape of her body. The little roads that led to knotted bumps and twisted lumps of flesh. The proof was still there. Always.

She checked her reflection on her phone and knocked on the door.

What if Lewis had invited someone unexpected? Someone who knew her from before? She shook her head to dispel the paranoia, which, as always, was tinged with regret. She was just spooked.

The door swung open, revealing Lewis’s stocky frame outlined by soft light.

@LewisDayton

335 posts 1,134 followers 1,901 following

🔥 Marketing Manager @BoldSportApp

🍷 Lover of all wine

📍 London Life

“Trick or treat,” said Heather, with a grin.

Lewis snorted. “Your treat is the food I’ve been slaving over all afternoon.”

He took her coat, guiding her past a pile of shoes and down the cluttered corridor. “I’m so excited for the big reveal,” he said.

Heather’s stomach twisted. “Reveal?”

“Yeah, Amy? I’ve been dating her for ages now. It’s about time I introduce her to my work family.”

“To be honest I only came for the pumpkin carving, mate,” Heather said with a smile, bumping Lewis’s arm as they walked into the old townhouse’s dining room.

Candles flickered from the bookshelves, table and windowsill. In the corner, newspaper was spread out on the carpet, along with four pumpkins surrounded by gleaming knives. Heather blinked, mesmerized by their shine.

Dev, the third member of Bold Sport’s marketing team, swooped over and hugged her.

@Dev_ine

192 posts 1,280 followers 1,045 following

📍 Shoreditch, London

🙏🏾 Speak your mind

He wore black jeans and an open black silk shirt that must have been freezing; the October chill was creeping in through the windows.

“Nice jumper. Orange and purple -- very Halloween vibes,” said Dev.

“Closest I’m getting to a costume,” said Heather.

The kitchen door creaked open and a girl emerged. Curly black hair, button nose, and a perfect figure.

“Ah, the guest of honour,” said Lewis. “Heather, meet Amy!”

@AmyKleese

192 posts 1,280 followers 1,045 following

✞ God first

🎓 UCL Grad

Heather had stalked her extensively, of course. She looked just like her profile, as if she were wearing a filter. Impressive, though jealousy prickled at Heather’s stomach.

Amy stared and smiled, those big blue eyes wide.

Heat climbed up Heather’s neck. Did she recognise the girl? There was something in the shape of the face, perhaps. Digging her nails into her palm, she snapped herself out of it. Ridiculous. Amy’s Instagram had shown she was fine – Heather could spot a dangerous person’s profile from a mile away. Amy was safe. Heather smiled through the paranoia.

Selecting a bottle of wine from his cabinet, Lewis filled up glasses for everyone.

Heather pulled out her phone. “Say ‘cheers’!”

This was great organic content for Bold Sport’s Instagram, the marketing team all together for a cosy Halloween. Boy, working at Bold Sports App must be super fun. What a great culture. She smiled and filmed the food spread across the table; pumpkin cheese balls, stuffed pepper jack o’ lanterns, candied apples and ghost cupcakes.

“So Dev, I saw you and Spencer went to Paris for the long weekend,” Heather said, through bites of a cheese ball. “How was it?”

“Amazing! Paris is so beautiful.”

“As if,” laughed Lewis, who had nearly finished his wine, a rosy glow in his cheeks. “You hate Paris. And I thought Spencer’s been getting on your nerves?”

Dev’s brows pulled together and he flicked a glance towards Amy, then relaxed, leaning back on his hip.

“I mean yeah, I’m dumping him next week after my mum’s birthday party.”

Heather recalled ‘liking’ Dev’s picture: him and Spencer kissing by the Eiffel Tower, captioned “I love you to Paris and back”.

“Finally. I can’t bear to sit through another rant about how shit Spence’s taste is, or how boring his stories are. Dump him and put us all out of our misery,” said Lewis. “Okay people, it’s time! Over there and onto your butts.”

He bustled over to the newspaper and the group migrated, settling on the floor cross-legged. Amy sat across from Heather. Dev scrambled back up and turned off the lights, the shadowy candlelight finally stepping into its Halloween role.

Heather rolled a fat, bulbous pumpkin over and lifted it into her lap.

The knife was heavy in her hands, a tool that could sculpt beauty and destroy it in equal measure. It gleamed with a sterile shine in the flickering half-light. She stabbed into the pumpkin’s meat and deftly worked the knife around in a circle, pulling the top off and reaching into its slimy guts.

Opposite her, Amy tilted her head, eyes narrow. “You’re really good with that knife.”

Flashes of a rainy day forced their way into Heather’s mind. The wet slice of a knife. So much blood she could taste it. Skin peeling back from flesh. The dank, musty smell of the caves.

She put down the knife and took a long sip of wine, hands shaking.

“Well, I’m vegetarian – carving up vegetables is kind of my thing.” Her head hurt.

Amy picked up her knife again and the group settled into their work.

“I don’t believe in just carving pumpkins,” Amy said, after a few minutes. She finished a cut with a flourish. “I think we should carve our deepest fears.”

She turned her pumpkin around to reveal its face. In the orange canvas of flesh, she’d carved one large eye. The temperature seemed to drop as the chatter died.

“That’s the symbol of that cult, right? The Eye?” asked Dev.

Slime coated Heather’s fingers and the flames cast twisted shadows on the walls. The air was thick with the cloying scent of pulp.

“Yes.” Amy nodded. “It’s Halloween. Why don’t I tell you a story... about The Eye”

“Oh hell yes,” said Dev.

Nausea squirmed through Heather’s stomach as her eyes met Amy’s.

“There was a girl,” Amy paced her words like the steps of a predator, “a nobody, really. Living a grey little life in a suffocating flat. One evening, she gets a follow request. A profile named The Eye— filled with pictures so perfect, they felt impossible. Beautiful people travelling, working, volunteering. The bio simply read, ‘See through the divine lens.’”

The hairs on the back of Heather’s neck prickled and raised. Her legs were screaming to run – this was bad, this was really bad, but she was frozen, eyes locked on Amy. She leaned towards Amy’s hypnotic voice.

“This girl met up with the people running the account. A group of gorgeous young people who spoke of Instagram’s cosmic algorithm. God is speaking through the app. He shows you a snapshot of your potential in every filtered picture. They promised the girl beauty... salvation from mediocrity. Her filtered pictures were beautiful, after all. But the price,” Amy hissed, “sacred surgery. No painkillers. Each slice, a prayer. Each scream, a hymn.”

And suddenly Heather’s headache gave violent birth to a memory. An older man in robes snaking an arm around her waist, holding a mirror to her spotty, oily face and whispering “Do you really think this is God’s image?” No. Of course not. But she could fix it. Become the vision that God showed her on her phone. Heather could smell the iron tang of blood mingling with the odour of pumpkin innards.

“And the girl?” Lewis’s voice broke the trance.

“She survived. Was reshaped, reborn. The Eye gave her a new life. She looked exactly as her Instagram profile showed her. Beautiful, witty, well-travelled.”

The candles seemed to breathe in rhythm with Amy’s tale, casting her shadow across the room. Amy looked directly at Heather, a sinister smile twisting her plump lips. The slime on Heather’s hands dried to a sickly crust.

“And I’ve heard a rumour,” Amy said. “That the girl left the cult. She was a coward. Worst of all? She now works here, at Bold Sports.”

Lewis and Dev followed Amy’s piercing gaze, eyes landing on Heather. Her heart pounded through the web of scars crisscrossing her body.

Oh god. They knew. They all knew what she’d done. Her secret.

Heather stood up. “I’m not feeling well. I think I’ll head home.”

“Now, now,” said Amy. “You can’t go out into the cold if you feel ill. You should lie down.”

“No, I …”

Amy turned to Lewis, “I’ll put her in the bedroom. We can talk, there,” she turned to Heather, “just until you feel better.”

Dev and Lewis looked at Heather, heads tilted, like identical twins. Curiosity lit their faces, their knives glinting in the light.

Amy captured Heather’s arm, pinching skin as she pulled her down the claustrophobic hallway into the bedroom.

The door locked with a resounding click.

Heather shakily sat on the bed, her legs weak with fear.

Amy gazed from under those long eyelashes, the knife still clutched in her hand.

“You don’t recognize me, do you?”

“Recognise... no, what?”

Amy toyed with the knife, a manicured finger trailing through the slimy pumpkin pulp.

With a sickening jolt, Heather realised that those too-blue eyes must be contact lenses. And that ski-jump nose… if it was a little wider, a little less upturned. If the breasts were smaller, the hips less round… the hair more mousy…

“Kira?” Heather’s voice was a ragged gasp, the scars on her body pulsating reminders of a past that now stood stark before her.

“Are you proud of me, Influencer?” Kira spun. “Am I not in God’s image?”

A wordless cry choked in Heather’s throat, raw. Her wide eyes darted between Kira’s transformed face and the glint of the knife.

“Kira, I’m so sorry,” the words garbled and panting. “So sorry.”

“You tortured me.” Kira’s beautiful eyes were wide, her breath fast.

Heather herself had recruited Kira, The Eye’s youngest ever follower, just sixteen years old. She’d poured all her self-hatred into the girl, working her mind for months. Telling her she was vile, ugly, a failure. Until Kira was so broken she would do anything to become better. The girl joined The Eye.

Heather was rewarded with a blue tick. Verified.

The next step was ordained – she must bring Kira closer to God’s own image. So, she’d taken her to that cave. Carved and sliced as followers chanted over the girl’s screams. Heather didn’t know what she was doing. Every chunk of flesh, a guess. The bleeding result, a horror.

The violent surgery haunted Heather. She fled The Eye at the age of twenty-two. Went to university and started again under a new name. Tried to forget.

“By bringing me to The Eye, you also saved me,” said Kira. “I would have been fat,” she spat the word like the world’s worst insult, “asymmetrical. Wrong. You taught me that Instagram is God’s vision. The algorithm shows me what I can truly become.”

“You… look amazing.” Under all that blood in the cave, had Heather made this?

“I was ruined, after that day. Influencer Kim fixed it. I didn’t think I’d survive another round of surgeries with no painkillers. But I did it, and now look at me. All pain is growth. Is God. Look at me.” Kira loomed over Heather. She held the knife tightly, her hands shaking.

“Kira, don’t –”

“God’s latest command,” Kira hissed. She pulled out her phone, an instrument of divine decree, and scrolled. It cast an unnatural glow, painting her face with mottled light.

She brandished an album of AI-generated images. In it, Heather was an astronaut, then, a fantasy princess. The next, on the floor, a red slash through her neck.

Heather clutched the thin bedspread, fighting back the cold metallic taste of fear on her tongue.

“No. AI-generated images are made at random, Kira,” she said, voice breaking. “You upload pictures of all Eye followers, right? Eventually, it’s going to spit out something like this.”

Kira bared her gleaming white teeth. “And every time it does, we perform the sacrifice. When God commanded your death, I knew I had to be the one.”

Heather screamed.

A commotion in the dining room told her that her colleagues had heard her.

In a flash, Kira’s knife bit Heather’s throat. The girl started to slice; God’s wish, her command.