Your amount of Reddit karma decides how long you have left to live

It was 3:27am, and Don was worried. He rolled up his sleeve and glanced at the dimly glowing, ever-changing numbers on the underside of his arm. He had never seen his own amount of time fall below 48 hours before, yet there on his arm, the digital display clearly read 00:00:040:37:21... 20... 19. These days it was rare for at least one, or two, maybe even three tabs of Don's internet browser not to be open to Reddit, constantly checking back to see if that small number next to his username had gone up. DonKeeHoTeh. He had come up with what he thought at the time was a cool username. Maybe it still was. At this point, he did n't really care. It only reminded him of simpler times, when Reddit was fun, and engaging, but disposable. That was then. Now Reddit had grown... morphed entirely into something else entirely... God, had 2016 been that long ago? It felt like an eternity ago, but that's always how it feels when you're glancing at a clock every 5 minutes, is n't it? 
 
 
 *ping* The soft alert sounded, but it was a sound Don had subconsciously learned to react to instantaneously, waking him from a light sleep he had n't realized he had drifted into. The computer pinged a second time. It was a wonderful sound, the sound Reddit made whenever your karma increased. Since the takeover, Reddit had begun an alert system. The ping sounded whenever your karma had increased in increments of 100, 500, or 1,000. Don was told it sounded at 5,000 and 10,000 as well, but he had never had a posting that warranted such an alert. He glanced quickly at the still-open laptop next to him on the couch. 6:27am. it had been 3 hours to the minute since he last had looked at Reddit. The room around him was growing slowly lighter. He looked quickly at his arm, and gave a small sigh of relief. The display read 00:00:373:37:48. Both of the posts from the previous night must have hit 1,000, he thought. That's a week a piece. Not too bad. It almost made up for the fact he had snuck those photos of her while she was changing. 
 
 
 r/gonewild was more popular than ever, and the `` unsuspecting'' look was what the masses were craving. She had seen him take the photo... at first she had been mad, even threatened to leave. But Don had coaxed her out of the idea, telling her she really was his everything in life, that she was his love. She had calmed down and gone to bed, but Don could n't sleep. Could n't shake the feeling that was growing in the pit of his stomach. Maybe it was something she had said. Maybe it was something he had known since the start. When the number of affirmations you receive from unknown strangers determines how much longer you have to live whatever semblance of a life you're leading, what wo n't you post for a little more time? And if you get just a little more, will you spend it searching for the next big karma catch, or appreciating the things around you that matter? 
 
 
 *ping* He looked up.
