The Expiration of a Scavenger

The Averly Alley Artz hosted its annual Independent Creators’ Gala—a night where painters, poets, musicians, writers, and every flavour of tortured creative crawled out of their damp studios to display their work under dim lights and inflated egos. It was the kind of event that smelled like artisanal incense, generational wealth, and the faint, metallic tang of desperation. It was a room full of people trying to be “someone,” which made it the perfect hunting ground for someone who had long ago settled for being “no one.”

Naturally, the scavengers came too. The ones who sensed “expensive rewards for minimal effort” the way flies sense fruit left too long in the sun.

The gala took place in a converted warehouse in Shakespo—all exposed brick, curated graffiti, and pretension thick enough to butter bread with. The lighting was strategically dim, not for ambience, but to hide the fact that half the “rising stars” in attendance hadn’t sold a single book, and some had never progressed past the “drafts” folder on a cracked MacBook.

Clarissa Medici stood near the artisanal water station, her posture arranged in that delicate balance between approachable professional and accidental genius. In her hand, she clutched a vegan leather notebook filled with doodles of eyes, half-finished mandalas, and a few stolen passwords she’d convinced herself were “research.”

Clarissa wasn’t a writer. She wasn’t an artist. She wasn’t even a hobbyist. She was a biological misfire failing at failing—the kind of person who, when presented with the grand, open buffet of human potential, chose to lick the plates in the sink. Her mother had once slurred something about destiny between glasses of cheap rosé, but Clarissa had long since decided that integrity was too much effort. Why build a house when you can squat in someone else’s attic and complain about the Wi-Fi? To Clarissa, honesty was a luxury for people who weren’t born “wrong.”

“Useless,” she whispered to herself—a mantra she mistook for motivation. “They’re all so full of themselves. They won’t even notice the dent.”

She tapped her phone. Her latest target, a writer named Elle Tee, had posted a raw, bleeding piece of creative non-fiction about a toxic relationship. Clarissa hadn’t read it—reading required empathy, a cognitive function she’d traded for a Discord Nitro subscription years ago—but she’d skimmed for keywords. Toxic. Kiss. Heartbreak. Perfect. She didn’t see the soul in the prose; she only saw the hooks to hang her lies on.

She sent her script.

“I absolutely adored your story! I’m a professional commissioned artist… reach out to me on Discord…”

A thrill ran through her—the pathetic, shivering buzz of a mosquito hitting a vein. To Clarissa, this wasn’t theft. It was “leveraging assets.” She fancied herself a predator, a dark strategist navigating the digital underbelly. In reality, she was a hamster in a wolf costume, squeaking threats into the void, hoping no one noticed the sawdust on her paws. She was a human error, a person who had been born with the equipment for greatness and chose to use it to forge digital signatures.

“Clarissa? Is that you?”

She turned. Kaydee—an actual illustrator with paint under her fingernails and a mortgage paid by hard work—approached with the kind of poise that suggested she’d been born in a gallery and raised on critique panels. Her expression was a perfect blend of polite interest and quiet disdain, like she was observing a stain on an otherwise clean rug.

“Oh, Kaydee! Darling,” Clarissa chirped, her accent sliding into a brittle, posh register that she imagined sounded like old money, but actually sounded like a failing radiator. “I was just talking to my agent about you. We’re looking for high-concept stuff. Very visual.”

Kaydee’s eyes dropped to Clarissa’s stolen “VIP” lanyard—a badge Clarissa had lifted from a distracted poet in the coat check. Kaydee’s smile sharpened, taking on a jagged, clinical edge.

“An agent? How lovely. Last I heard, you were banned from DeviantArt for tracing. And not even competent tracing. Clarissa, darling… you couldn’t outline a still frame if it held still for you. A toddler with a crayon and a sugar high could’ve produced cleaner lines. Honestly, it’s almost admirable—failing at cheating requires a very rare kind of talent.”

Clarissa didn’t flinch. She held her posture the way a liar holds a story—too still, too rehearsed, too proud to collapse. Her confidence clung to her like an entire bottle of over‑floral perfume, thick enough to taste, announcing her presence long before she opened her mouth. Her smugness stayed lacquered in place, as if she believed the universe was simply late in recognising her genius.

“Small minds, Kaydee,” Clarissa said, smoothing her hair with a hand that trembled only slightly. “I’m into adaptations now. Comics. Graphic novels. I’ve just scouted a brilliant piece by an Elle Tee. Raw. Gritty. Very me.”

Kaydee’s laugh was soft, elegant, and devastating. “Of course it is. I suppose you’ll be illustrating it with the same ‘originality’ you used for your last portfolio? You know, the one that was sixty percent screenshots from Arcane?”

Kaydee walked away, leaving Clarissa to ferment in her own delusion.

Clarissa turned back to her phone, waiting for the hit—the submissive, grateful “Thank you so much!” she believed she deserved from a “lucky” writer. She pictured the writer’s gratitude already forming, imagined the smooth pivot toward a “materials deposit,” and the satisfying click of money she hadn’t earned landing in her account. In her mind, this wasn’t manipulation—it was the universe finally acknowledging her “potential,” even if she had to steal it from someone else. Clarissa didn’t see herself as a scammer; she saw herself as an entrepreneur of shortcuts.

Instead, her phone buzzed with a notification from Read 'N' C. A reply.

She opened it. Her smirk didn’t fade—it curdled. It was like watching a beautiful fruit rot in time-lapse.

“I’m flattered you think my exploration of toxic cycles... would look good in a speech bubble... I think the ‘comic’ here is actually your attempt at a scam. The weak die—usually while waiting for a Discord message that’s never coming. Best of luck with the grift.”

The words hit her like cold slush. Not a rejection—a dissection. Elle hadn’t just seen through her; she’d reached through the screen and pulled Clarissa’s spine out. It was a level of wit Clarissa couldn’t mimic because it was born from actual pain and actual talent—two things Clarissa had spent her life avoiding.

“The weak die,” Clarissa muttered, her voice cracking. “What a bitch.”

She scanned the room for a new target—someone softer, someone who didn’t use words like psychological disintegration as weapons. She needed a win. She needed to prove she wasn’t the leftover scraps of a future she never earned. She needed to prove she was a predator.

But the warehouse had shifted. The ambient hum of the Gala changed frequency. The chatter dropped an octave, replaced by a heavy, expectant silence.

A man stepped onto the pallet-wood stage. Marcus—the event organiser, known for sharp suits and a legal team that functioned like a pack of Dobermans.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” he said, his voice amplified and cold as a winter morning in London. “Before we begin the keynote, I’d like to address a special guest. Someone very active in our community. A ‘scout’ for comic adaptations.”

Clarissa straightened her stolen lanyard. A surge of frantic, misplaced adrenaline hit her. He’s talking about me. He’s going to announce the collaboration. Her delusion was so thick she actually managed to wink at Kaydee across the room.

“This person,” Marcus continued, his eyes scanning the crowd like a spotlight, “represents everything we are trying to eradicate. The entitlement. The lack of humanity. The absolute arrogance of thinking a writer’s trauma is a free meal for a failed thief who couldn’t amount to much more than a digital panhandler.”

The warehouse went ice-cold. A spotlight swung across the room—hot, white, and unforgiving—and pinned Clarissa against the artisanal water station. The plastic cups on the table seemed to tremble in the glare.

“Clarissa Medici,” Marcus said.

The crowd parted—not respectfully, but the way people move when a sewage pipe bursts in the middle of a dinner party. There were no murmurs of sympathy, only the dry, rattling sound of people who were tired of being bullied by bottom-feeders.

“I—I’m here for the signing,” Clarissa stammered, her posh accent collapsing into something shrill, common, and desperate. “I’m a professional commissioned artist. You can’t do this.”

“You’re a script,” Marcus replied, stepping down from the stage. “And a poor one. Did you really think we wouldn’t notice the Discord logs? Or that the ‘Elle Tee’ you messaged ten minutes ago is our guest of honour tonight?”

A woman stepped from behind the stage. She was calm, grounded, and holding a physical copy of a book—heavy, substantial, and earned through years of surviving the very kind of toxicity Clarissa tried to mimic.

It was Elle.

“I promised I’d let you be happy,” Elle said, quoting the very story Clarissa had tried to parasite. “But you aren’t happy, are you, Clarissa? You’re just expired. You’re the stale remnants of a person who was too afraid to actually try, so you decided to steal the lives of those who did.”

The gala wasn’t a gala. It was a sting. Every “emerging creator” in the room had been briefed. Every “agent” was actually a member of a fraud prevention unit. They hadn’t invited Clarissa to celebrate her; they’d invited her to document her expiration.

“This is bullying!” Clarissa shrieked—the classic, pathetic cry of the caught predator suddenly realising she’s in a cage. “You’re taking advantage of me! I have a passion for creativity! I’m an artist!”

“No,” Elle said, stepping into the light, her voice a surgical strike of truth. “You have a passion for survival at the expense of others. You’re not an artist. You’re not even a good scammer. You’re the stale, expired potential of a life that refused to start because it was too entitled to learn the craft. You’re a failure failing at failing.”

Two police officers in plain clothes approached.

“We’ve got the logs, Clarissa,” one said, his tone one of pure, unadulterated boredom. “The fraud, the impersonation, the petty theft of intellectual property. It’s a real page-turner. We’ve been waiting for you to hit a high-profile target like Elle here to make the charges stick.”

Clarissa looked around for compassion, for a lie she hadn’t used yet, for a single face that might believe her. But she had spent her life proving she was “no good,” and the world had finally decided to agree with her. She was useless in every single way, a parasite that had finally run out of hosts.

As they escorted her toward the heavy metal doors, her phone buzzed one last time in her pocket.

User ‘Clarissatakesitall’ has been banned for violating Terms of Service.

The warehouse doors slammed shut behind her, sealing in the warmth, the lights, the applause meant for people who had actually created something. Outside, the Shoreditch air was damp and indifferent, swallowing her whole without ceremony.

In the back of the police van, Clarissa sat rigid, staring at her reflection in the darkened window—a warped silhouette with nothing behind the eyes. No story. No legacy. No audience. Just the echo of a life spent scavenging from others.

For the first time, she understood the truth she’d spent her life dodging: she wasn’t the protagonist, or the villain, or even the cautionary tale.

She was the footnote—the kind readers skim past without noticing—in someone else’s success.