A single hashtag was all it took.

At Ridgeway High, five friends thought they were just chasing a viral trend. Post once, tag the feed, complete the dare. Everyone was doing it. Everyone wanted to be seen. But the moment they accepted the challenge, the algorithm wrote its own rules. The dares turned cruel. Then violent. Then impossible.

And by the time anyone realized what was happening, it was too late to quit.

Because once you're tagged, deleting your account won't save you.

The Last Hashtag is a claustrophobic descent into digital hysteria, told through the bloodied lens of five teenagers caught in the grip of something they cannot escape. What begins as cafeteria whispers and late-night phone screens spreads like wildfire—into classrooms, gymnasiums, assemblies, whole schools. The infection of the feed doesn't just consume individuals, it devours entire crowds, rewriting them into performance.

For Lena, the reluctant center of it all, the game becomes unbearable. Every dare drags her closer to collapse, yet every refusal only multiplies her image, feeding the algorithm's hunger. As friends fracture, betray, and burn around her, Lena is forced to face a horrifying truth: she isn't just playing the game. She is the game. The crown. The cage. The echo.

From author Martin Gangley, The Last Hashtag is a high-wire fusion of horror and social commentary, set inside a world where silence no longer exists and spectacle is survival. With prose both brutal and lyrical, it unspools a story of youth weaponized by algorithms, of laughter twisted into violence, of a generation trapped between being forgotten and being consumed.

This is not just a story about what happens when technology goes too far. It is a story about us—our hunger for attention, our addiction to performance, our willingness to bleed if someone is watching.

And when the feed demands your final act, only one question remains:

Will you end it, or continue?