Page 38

La Estrella

Marsh screams like she’s on fire, and falls over onto the cool, soft, safe couch.

She sits up. She’s in her telenovela trailer, the way the first episode in Mexico started. But the couch is pure white now. Like someone forgot to dye it.

Wait.

She looks around.

Most of the furniture and decorations are missing this time, in fact. The little room looks colorless and empty.

“Ezra?” she whispers, hesitant.

Lito555: Parang may kakaiba

Monsterrific: It’s almost like the Bubble is still trying to fill in the details of the scene or something

It doesn’t matter. Marsh lurches up from the plain couch. If Chrysalis was trying to interfere with the telenovela storyline in this path, she knows where to start. She has to get to the set, and then find the director’s copy of the Un Juego Peligroso script.

“Wait, where are you going?” Ren asks as he appears spontaneously— what?

Marsh startles, surprised, but doesn’t slow.

“I want to finish blocking the romance scene befo—” he continues, but Marsh is already to the door. She opens it and steps out before her eyes catch up.

She was expecting to land on a busy street somewhere in Condesa or Polanco, but what’s outside now is nothing like that.

Because it’s literally nothing .

The door opened up to an endless void.

SharpTruth541: Look out!

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But Marsh’s foot is already dangling in the air, past the trailer’s metal steps, and she begins to plummet.

Just before she hurtles into the blackness, she grabs the last rung to stop her fall.

Moms4Marsh: MARSH!!!

LunaMágica: NOOOO!

“Help!” she screams as she hangs on for dear life.

“Malvavisca!” Ren howls. He throws himself to the ground and leans out of the open door, reaching desperately.

“Ren!” she shrieks.

“Grab on!” he begs, his hands stretched as far as they can go. “Quick!”

Marsh lets out a fearful grunt, and swings one arm up. She almost misses, but then her fingers graze his, and she grabs hold. She seizes his wrist with her other hand.

“I’ve got you!” Ren grunts as he begins to haul her up. Her legs dangle and she screams again. “Don’t let go!”

As soon as her head appears, Ren snatches her shoulders and yanks her inside the trailer. Together, they collapse in a heap on the floor as the door slams shut.

“ What was that? ” Marsh cries, terrified.

SharpTruth543: Shit! I can’t get the rest of the scene to load!

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SharpTruth544: It’s too unstable here

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“I don’t know where else it could be,” she replies aloud, before she can help it. She’s still too rattled to pretend everything is normal in front of Ren. Tahiti was a bust, and so was Iceland, but whatever is happening here seems really off. “Should we go forward? Or back?”

“Go forward or back? What are you talking about?” Ren asks, as she blinks through the frantic comments still screaming about her near-miss with death. “You want to redo an episode?”

Marsh is about to call for Ezra again, but the shout dies on her lips.

She turns to him slowly.

Is she misunderstanding?

“What?” she asks.

“What?” he repeats.

But she doesn’t give up. “What do you mean, ‘redo an episode’?”

“Like we always do!” he says. “To make each one better. Each one perfect.”

Her chest feels as if it’s in a vise. Her breath is shallow, nervous. Out of the corner of her eye, she sees the doorknob on the trailer door go fuzzy, then crisp again.

SharpTruth545: Marsh, get out of here

SharpTruth545: It’s glitching—

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“How do you know about the show?” Marsh presses.

But Ren just laughs. “I’m in it, Malvavisca!” he says. “I’ve been a series regular ever since they revealed me as the cartel boss.”

Marsh puts her head in her hands and sighs, frustrated. Everything is so mixed up now—so many things getting scrambled, bleeding over, repeating themselves—she can’t tell what’s suspicious and what’s just the paths scrambling anymore.

“I know this is hard,” he says, his voice gentle. “But you’ve wanted this for so long. I know you can do it. You were made to be a star.”

Marsh opens her eyes. As quickly as it was gone, the dread is back again.

Is Ren talking about Un Juego Peligroso ? Or All This and More ?

SharpTruth546: Something’s very off

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“What is Chrysalis?” she asks shakily.

Ren cocks his head. “What?”

“What is it, Ren?”

“I don’t have the script. We only get it the day of.”

“It’s not a script,” she insists. “You know that.”

She knows she’s not making any sense to him, but something is different about this argument. Ren never understands what she’s talking about, but as they argue now, she realizes that rather than bafflement, he’s watching her with what almost seems like fascination. His eyes are glittering, the way that a child might study a magician at a magic show.

It almost looks like he’s... smiling .

“I know how important this last episode is,” he finally says. “Let me help you. That’s why I’m here.”

Over Ren’s shoulder, the doorknob goes fuzzy again, and stays that way. The rest of the door slowly warps.

He takes her hand. “Everything is going to be okay.”

“Will it?” Marsh asks.

“It will,” he says. “I promise.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I want the same thing you do,” Ren says.

The door vanishes, the blackness gapes.

Marsh looks up at him. Her stare is both a challenge and a plea.

“And what do I want?” she whispers.

SharpTruth549: Marsh—!

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“To make this show perfect,” Ren answers.

Marsh watches him as he holds out a Nobel award to her, that famous giant golden coin nestled in its velvet box, as the trailer starts to pixelate.

“Isn’t it?” he asks, his eyes eager, full of hope. “Pretty damn close?”