Chapter 4: The Trial of the Narcissist
The trial was brief, because the evidence was impossible to refute. The cloud-synced footage was played in a courtroom so silent you could hear the hum of the air conditioning. Every attendee watched in horror as Elena framed the shot of a dying child, her face glowing with the light of her phone.
The defense attorney tried to argue diminished capacity, claiming Elena was a victim of social media addiction. But Mark’s testimony was the final nail in her coffin. He stood on the stand, not as a grieving father, but as a man who had witnessed a crime against humanity.
May you like
"She didn't just neglect him," Mark told the jury, his voice cold and clear. "She commodified his life. She chose the number of likes on a screen over the heartbeat of my son. If that isn't malice, I don't know what is."
The jury deliberated for less than an hour. The verdict was guilty on all counts of attempted murder and criminal negligence. As the judge read the sentence—twenty years in a maximum-security facility—Elena finally broke. She didn't scream for fame anymore; she screamed for her life. But the doors were already closing on the digital prison she had built for herself.
