FADE IN…
Noah Grayson woke to a mouthful of battery acid and last night's regrets. Cheap whiskey, probably. The kind that left your tongue furry and your soul curdling like expired milk. He lay sprawled on the couch, one arm dangling off the edge, fingertips grazing something tacky and cold. Pizza grease? God, he hoped it was pizza grease. The alternative—some unnameable ooze crusted into the floorboards—made his stomach lurch.
Morning light cut through the blinds like razor wire, carving his throbbing skull into halves. He squinted, breath hitching at the rotten-orange stink of old whiskey seeping from his pores. The fridge hummed its death rattle in the kitchen, a sound he'd learned to ignore three breakdowns ago. That fucking thing had outlived his relationship. Poetic.
He rolled sideways, and the coffee table bit into his knee.
"The hell—?" His voice came out sandpaper-rough, echoing too loud in the stale air. The table had migrated overnight, invading the buffer zone he'd sworn to keep between couch and furniture—a minefield for drunkards and idiots. Mostly idiots, Mia would've said. Her voice still lived in his head rent-free, sharpening every fuckup like a knife.
The apartment hummed with quiet wrongness. Not ransacked. Not broken into. Just…edited. His laptop glowed on the desk like a misplaced star, far from its usual kitchen-counter orbit. The dish soap by the sink had turned neon blue, its lemony stench replaced by something cloying, like burnt sugar. And the knife block—
Noah's throat tightened. The largest blade was missing, its slot empty as a picked-clean grave.
But it was the photo that stopped him cold.
Mia grinned at him from the nightstand, her dimple creasing the left side of her face like always. He'd launched that frame into a dumpster six months ago, right after she'd said, "You're not present, Noah. You're…presentadjacent*. Like a knockoff version of a human."* The dumpster had been overflowing that day. Trash bags split open, spilling coffee grounds and chicken bones. He'd thought it fitting—tossing their memories where they belonged. Yet here she was, untouched, her edges glowing in the dust-flecked light. A ghost trapped behind glass.
The air smelled suddenly of her perfume—jasmine and regret. Or maybe that was just the whiskey talking.
"Nope." He shoved upright, knees popping like firecrackers. His phone lay facedown by the couch leg, charging cord taut as a tripwire. 11:46 AM glared from the screen. No texts. No missed calls. Just Lydia Chen's voice in his head: "One more strike, Grayson, and the Trib's done paying you to play Hemingway"
He could practically see her smirk—lips stained with kale-smoothie green, tapping her fucking gold pen against his latest draft. "This isn't journalism, Noah. It's a cry for help." Well, no shit.
He stumbled to the kitchen, throat raw as if he'd swallowed gravel. The cabinet coughed up a chipped glass, its rim jagged enough to draw blood. He didn't care. Pain was just guilt's ugly cousin. As he filled it, his reflection warped in the faucet's chrome—pale, stubbled, eyes bloodshot. Thirty-two going on cryptkeeper. "You're a cliché," Mia had whispered once, her lips brushing his ear. "A cautionary tale with good hair."
The coffee maker sat on the right side of the counter.
Noah blinked. The red BREW button smirked back. It belonged on the left, next to the microwave. He'd wired the outlet there himself three years ago, sweating through a hangover while Mia laughed at his inability to read an IKEA manual. "You're like a raccoon with a toolbox," she'd said. "All fury, no foresight." He'd kissed her then, tasting coffee and contempt. It'd been the best week of his life.
You're still drunk. Hallucinating.
But the whiskey fog was lifting, and the wrongness sharpened: The toaster angled northeast, crumb tray missing. A single Pop-Tart wrapper sat beside it, unopened. He hadn't eaten Pop-Tarts since college. The knife block gaped, its largest blade gone. He checked the sink. Checked the floor. Nothing. Just the ghost of an edge.
Tiny, impossible shifts, as if his life had been rearranged by a bored god. Or a meticulous psychopath.
The laptop screen pulsed. A siren song.
He slumped into the desk chair, wheels screeching like tortured cats. The email client glowed—1 UNREAD. No sender. No subject. Just an attachment: The Echo Script.pdf.
Noah's thumb hovered. Lydia's deadlines could wait. Viruses couldn't. But curiosity had always been his worst drug, cheaper than whiskey and twice as lethal.
"Screw it," he muttered, and clicked.
---
INT. NOAH'S APARTMENT – MORNING
NOAH (30s, hungover, clothes reeking of bad decisions and worse bourbon) stares at the coffee maker. A fly buzzes around his head—too loud, too persistent. The camera LINGERS on the Mia photo, her smile sharp as a knife.
CUT TO:
THE LAPTOP SCREEN. The script updates in real time: "Noah's fingers tremble, nicotine-stained and guilty, as he reads this line."
---
Noah's breath hitched. The words mirrored his morning—the shifted furniture, the email, even the goddamn fly now crawling across his sweating neck. "Condensation bleeds onto the desk," the script read. A water ring spread under his glass as if on cue.
His pulse roared. The fly landed on the script, antennae twitching. "Get the fuck off," he hissed, swiping at it. It dodged, circling his head like a vulture.
His head snapped toward the window.
Across the street, beneath Rossi's flickering deli awning, stood a man. Black hoodie. Hands in pockets. Motionless.
The glass slipped, exploding on the floor in a burst of diamonds.
"Jesus Christ!" Noah lurched back, chair slamming into the wall. Shards glittered at his feet, reflecting slivers of the man's silhouette. A face? No—just shadows. Always shadows. When he looked up, the street was empty.
Except for a single sentence now glowing on the script:
FADE OUT… BUT NOT FOR LONG.