She was safe. For now.

Then, the final blow. The banner returned. But now, there was no ‘X’. It took up the entire top third of the window. It was no longer a suggestion; it was a blockade.

Megan sat back in her chair. The internet felt… cleaner. Lighter. She realized, with a jolt of surprise, that the anxiety she had felt for the last three days hadn't been about her work or her emails. It had been the low-level stress of trying to navigate a world that had moved on without her.

But the alternative was staring at a broken internet where buttons floated in the ether and her bank account was inaccessible.