Noah stared at the script, the cursor blinking like a deranged heartbeat. What the actual fuck is going on?
The air hung thick with dust and the sour tang of yesterday's coffee grounds. Paranoia clung to him like the grease on his hands—pizza grease, probably, but when had he last eaten? The script had narrated his 4:12 a.m. panic attack verbatim. Not a fluke. Not a joke. A predator.
He slumped into the mahogany desk chair—the one with the broken armrest Mia had duct-taped three times, her laughter still etched into the frayed edges. His fingers hovered over the grime-caked keyboard. A test. A fucking experiment.
NOAH TYPED: I'm gonna get myself a whiskey.
He stood.
His feet carried him to the kitchen, past the ghostly outline of her flamingo lamp. The half-empty bottle sat untouched, its rim dust-furred. The same bottle she'd poured from that last night, her nails chipped black, her voice slicing through the silence: "You'll regret this." He'd laughed then. Now the glass taunted him.
"Fuck it." He grabbed the bottle, the label peeling like sunburned skin.
---
The first sip tasted like gasoline and regret. Noah gagged, slamming the bottle down. The screen flickered.
[INT. NOAH'S APARTMENT - MORNING]
Noah hesitates, the whiskey half-raised. Flashback: HER hands, steady, pouring. HER voice: "You'll choose it over me every time." He drinks anyway.
"Bullshit!" he muttered, but the words slithered deeper, dragging the memory with them. Mia's face materialized in the air, pixelated and cruel. "Every. Time."
"Fuck you" He hurled the bottle. It shattered against the wall, amber poison bleeding into the Guernica-less plaster. The fly from yesterday buzzed past his ear, wings vibrating with a sound like static.
His lungs constricted. Second panic attack today, or fourth? Time had gone slippery, a greased clock hand. He crawled to the bathroom, tile cold as a morgue slab against his cheek. The shower roared, steam fogging the mirror until his reflection vanished. Good. He couldn't stomach those hollow eyes, that stubble like rust on a coffin lid.
Under the scalding water, he scrubbed until his skin burned raw. Alive. Real. But the script's words coiled in his skull: "It's reading him."
He emerged trembling, wrapping a torn bandage around his forearm. The cut was fresh—had he done that? The fly perched on the medicine cabinet, wings glistening with malice.
His laptop glowed from the desk. The script's icon pulsed, a neon wound.
"Not today, Satan." He shoved it into his backpack, the zipper catching on a frayed strap. In the hallway mirror, the hooded figure's shadow flickered—a smudge of ink on glass.
---
The childhood photo stopped him cold. Him and Dad at Coney Island, 1999. Dad's arm around him, both grinning under a sky the color of wet newspaper. Except—the Ferris wheel behind them blazed candy-apple red. He'd sworn it was blue. The same red from Mia's shattered dream-photo.
"No. No—" He stumbled back, knocking over the broken whiskey. Liquid seeped into the carpet, reeking of betrayal. The fly drowned in the puddle, legs twitching in mock salute.
The doorbell rang.
Mrs. Kowalski stood on his porch, her rheumy eyes narrowing at his sweat-stained shirt. "You look like hell, kiddo. Still burning the candle at both ends?"
"Deadlines," he lied, nodding at his childhood home across the street. The door he'd painted eggshell blue with Dad the summer before the accident. Before the lab. Before the silence.
"That painting's something, eh?" She jabbed her broom at the red door. "Took your old man three tries to get the shade right."
His stomach dropped. "It was blue. You said it looked like a hospital."
"Pfah." Her laugh rattled like loose change. "Red as a stop sign. Always gave me a headache."
The script hissed in his mind: "The man questions the neighbor. She lies. Or does she?"
---
Work was worse.
His reflection in the elevator mirror lagged a half-second behind—a glitchy marionette scratching its neck as Noah froze.
**The fly buzzed in the corner, impossibly alive, wings humming liar, liar, liar. **
"Jesus Christ—"
The doors dinged open. Lydia stood there, tie strangling his bullfrog neck. "Late again, Nolan."
"It's Noah."
"Right, right." Lydia's smile didn't touch his eyes. "How's that passion project? The… ghostwriter thing?"
"Screenplay. It's—"
"Sure, sure." Lydia's grip tightened on his shoulder, knuckles whitening. "Just don't forget who signs your checks, eh?"
The script snarled in his skull: "The boss knows. The boss always knows."
Noah bit his tongue. Eat a dick, Lydia.
---
He crashed home at midnight, his body a live wire. The fly trailed him, a fuzzy black comma in the dark.
Sleep didn't come.
At 3 a.m., he collapsed by his bed, laughter bubbling raw in his throat. "Never drinking that fucking whiskey again." Sweet until you realize it's poison. Sweet like her.
His hand brushed a box of college relics—mix CDs, a frayed graduation cap, Mia's first note ("Stop stealing my pens, asshole"). Beneath it all: a recorder labeled PROTOTYPE 366 in his own jagged scrawl.
He pressed play.
Static hissed. Then his voice—older, wearier: "If you're hearing this, you're awake. Sort of. You're Prototype 366. This isn't your first time. They reset you when you get too close. Don't trust the script. Don't trust—"
The recording died.
Noah pressed replay.
Nothing.