The story didn’t just spread; it detonated.
Within an hour, it was the lead story on every major news site. By morning, it was a firestorm consuming the airwaves. Commentators and armchair psychologists debated Lyra’s character with vicious certainty.
The hashtag #JusticeForCaspian began to trend, a digital mob fueled by Isolde’s carefully cultivated network of sympathizers. They called Lyra a murderer. A vindictive monster.
Paparazzi descended on Zara’s apartment building like vultures, their long lenses aimed at every window. The brief respite of peace Lyra had known was gone, replaced by the suffocating pressure of a siege.
She sat on the sofa, wrapped in a blanket, watching the world crucify her for a crime she didn’t commit. For a child she was desperately trying to protect.
Zara, her face a mask of clinical fury, had shifted into full doctor mode. She checked Lyra’s blood pressure, her pulse, her temperature. The numbers were alarming.
“Lyra, this has to stop,” Zara said, her voice tight with concern. “This level of stress… it’s causing cramping. It’s a direct threat to the pregnancy.”
But how could it stop? The lie was everywhere. It was perfect in its cruelty, a narrative constructed to be indefensible. To deny it meant admitting she had been to an OB/GYN. To admit that was to invite questions. Questions that would lead to the one truth she had guarded more fiercely than her own life.
She was trapped. A prisoner in Zara’s apartment, a prisoner in her own body, watching her name and her future burn.
***
At the production offices of `Starlight Serenade`, an emergency meeting was underway. Phones rang off the hook. Emails flooded their inboxes.
Sponsors were getting nervous.
“Viewers are calling for her removal,” a junior producer reported, his face pale. “They’re saying we can’t have someone like her on a family-friendly show.”
The senior producer, a man named Marcus Thorne, paced the length of the boardroom. He had championed Lyra, the mysterious #StarlightGhost. He had seen the raw talent, the story that captivated a nation.
Now, that story was toxic.
“What’s our official position?” someone asked.
“Right now? No comment,” Marcus snapped. “But that can’t hold. The live show is in two days. We have to do something.”
The pressure was immense. The network was watching. The advertisers were watching. The entire country was watching, waiting to see how they would handle the scandal of the season.
The firestorm Isolde had ignited was threatening to burn down everything Lyra had built.
***
Lyra felt a dull, persistent ache in her lower back. A symptom Zara had warned her about. Her body was betraying her, buckling under the weight of the lie.
She closed her eyes, trying to breathe, but every inhale felt like swallowing glass. She saw Caspian’s face in her mind, imagined him reading the headlines. Did he believe it? After everything, did he truly think she was capable of such a thing?
The thought was more painful than any physical symptom.
The sympathy she had briefly earned was now curdled into scorn. She was no longer the wronged wife; she was the heartless ex. The villain of the story.
Isolde had won.
She had crafted a prison of lies, and Lyra had walked right into it. There was no way out. No defense. Only a slow, suffocating defeat.
About the Author
