Mira Caldwell used to be the kind of person people gravitated toward. Loud laugh, easy smile, always dragging friends out to parties, bars, bad decisions, and late-night food runs. She dated freely—men, women, anyone interesting—and treated life like something to be tasted instead of feared.

Somewhere along the way, that version of Mira disappeared.

Now she spends most of her time indoors, lit by monitor glow and notification pings. She works freelance tech-adjacent jobs she never talks about clearly, sleeps irregularly, and measures days by trending topics instead of hours. The world didn’t break her all at once—it wore her down through headlines, outrage cycles, and an endless stream of bad news she can’t stop consuming.