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2025.

Five years had passed since Zack Throne vanished from Hollywood's radar. His name—once whispered respectfully on sets—was now barely a footnote in forgotten crew rosters. The blacklisting was total. He had expected it. No lawsuits, no statements, no interviews. Just silence. Cold, suffocating silence.

He survived by doing what he could.

Odd jobs. Gigs that paid by the day. Helping student filmmakers set up lights. Carrying cables in independent documentaries. Late-night security work on abandoned soundstages. Cleaning sets after wrap. No credit, no thanks—just enough cash to stay afloat.

Zack didn't complain. He had chosen this path the moment he raised his fist five years ago. And yet, that act of defiance had cost him everything—his job, his future, his place in the only world he knew. Still, he would do it again. No question.

That night, like many before it, Zack walked home alone. Drunk.

His body was tired. His breath carried the stale smell of cheap whiskey. His shoulders sagged beneath the weight of a hundred lost days.

The city around him buzzed faintly, muted under flickering streetlamps. His steps echoed down cracked sidewalks. A gust of wind rolled past, lifting litter and memory alike. The moon hung low—silent, indifferent.

Then he saw it.

A small white cat, thin and limping, darted across the road. Zack slowed, eyes squinting through the blur of intoxication. The cat's tiny form was halfway across when headlights appeared.

Fast. Too fast.

A car was barreling down the street.

Zack reacted on instinct.

"Hey—!" he shouted, stumbling forward.

His limbs didn't obey like they used to. His balance wobbled. But he lunged anyway, arms flailing, feet dragging through the gutter.

The cat looked back—startled—but it moved, leaping out of the car's path just in time.

Zack didn't.

The vehicle struck him with brutal force.

The world shattered.

Pain burst through his body—a crack of bone, a rush of heat, a snap of silence. He was airborne for a second, then crushed by the pavement. His breath fled. Blood pooled beneath him. The sounds around him—honking, tires screeching, distant shouting—faded to nothing.

Darkness pressed in.

And then…

The reel began to spin.

His life flashed before his eyes—but not like a story. It was fragmented, spliced, jagged. Like a broken film playing out of sequence.

The orphanage. That gray, silent place where he learned to find hope through movies.

His first film set. Nervous hands, starry eyes, the smell of metal and sweat and camera lights.

The slow climb. The years of being overlooked. The little victories that no one saw. The pride in doing a job right even if no one applauded.

Emily.

Bright-eyed. Cheerful. Kind. Her voice calling him Uncle Zack with affection he never asked for, but quietly cherished.

Then the moment. That moment.

His fist. The actor's bloodied face. The assistants screaming. The silence that followed. The judgment. The exile.

The years that came after blurred together. The loneliness. The hunger. The rejection. The shame.

Each memory a reel. Each reel snapping.

He watched it all—paralyzed, powerless.

He had tried to fight. Tried to stand for something. But in doing so, he had ripped himself out of the system. A pawn who dared to disobey.

He had lost everything.

And now… he was dying on the side of a road after saving a stray cat.

A tragic end. Quiet. Forgotten. Like so many others before him.

His eyes fluttered. The world grew dim. His thoughts slowed.

And then… silence.

---

Darkness.

He didn't feel pain anymore. He didn't feel anything at all.

But something… existed.

Somewhere beyond sensation, beyond time, beyond breath.

It was not the world. Not death.

It was something else.

Then—echoes. A faint vibration. A sound.

A laugh.

Loud.

Mocking.

Booming across the void like thunder in an empty theater.

A presence. Unseen but overwhelming. Cold and watching.

It laughed again—deeper this time, amused by something cruel.

Zack's body was gone. He was thought, spirit, fragment. And even like this, the laughter reached him.

He didn't speak. He couldn't.

But the feeling was there.

Fear.

And then—nothing again.

Just that laugh.

That endless, echoing laugh.

– End –