MARC
The smell of stale coffee and dry-erase markers clung to the air in the community center's makeshift classroom. Marc adjusted his glasses and drew a bold, looping arc across the whiteboard, then capped the marker with a satisfying click.
"Setup. Tension. Twist. Punchline." He turned to the class, a cluster of earnest faces half-listening, half-scrolling on their phones. "Comedy is about rhythm. Mislead them, then surprise them. Simple."
A woman in the front row raised her hand, her nails painted a glittering red. "What if the punchline's sad?"
Marc smirked. "Then you're halfway to winning an Emmy."
Laughter fluttered around the room—polite, thin.
Marc checked his watch. Almost done. He hadn't been onstage in years, not since Eden Gray's breakdown went viral and comedy stopped feeling safe. Teaching was safer. Clean. Controlled. And no one heckled you in a workshop.
Still, as he erased the board, his reflection ghosted in the glossy surface. A trick of the light twisted his features into a grotesque smile—wide, unnatural, familiar.
Just like Eden's.
He blinked, and it was gone. He blamed the headache he hadn't shaken in days, rubbed his temple, and packed up. Outside, the sky was a blank slate of gray, indifferent and vast.
LENA
Lena's voice, calm and measured, drifted into a microphone wrapped in lavender cloth.
"You are not your past," she whispered. "You are not your mistakes. Breathe in. Hold. Now let go."
The red light blinked. She paused, inhaling slowly, eyes closed. Her studio was small—a converted walk-in closet padded with foam panels and affirmation posters. Shelves of crystals lined the wall behind her.
She had learned how to speak gently after years of yelling. Learned stillness after living with Eden's chaos.
Now, she helped others quiet the noise. Her podcast, Zenstate, had over a million downloads. She got messages every day thanking her for the calm she inspired.
She rarely replied.
Today's episode was about releasing guilt. She hadn't planned it that way. The topic had chosen itself.
As she reached for her tea, her hand froze mid-air. A soft voice echoed through her headphones—not hers.
"I'm still waiting for the apology punchline," it said.
Lena ripped the headphones off. Silence.
She looked around. Empty.
Her breath hitched. Just a sound glitch, she told herself. Nothing more. But her pulse told a different story.
DARREN
The bass throbbed through the concrete walls of the club like a second heartbeat. Darren leaned against the backstage railing, arms crossed, watching the headliner chug a beer before stepping under the lights.
"Five minutes till you're up!" he shouted.
The comic gave a thumbs-up and vanished behind the curtain of LED fog.
Darren turned to his assistant. "We good on the comp list?"
She nodded. "Thirty-seven influencers. Six agents. One TikTok dog."
He grunted. Close enough.
Tour management used to mean vans, green rooms, and sleep deprivation. Now it was brands and hashtags. Darren adapted. He always did. He was good at smiling when things fell apart.
Still, every so often, he'd see a comic on stage, a flick of the wrist or a crooked smile, and the memory would slam into him like a freight train.
Eden. Bathed in spotlight. Delivering a joke so sharp it made people gasp before they laughed.
And then that night. The final show. The punchline that never came. Just the silence. And the camera phones.
A speaker popped overhead, and for a split second, Darren swore he heard her voice in the static:
"Let's give 'em a show they'll never forget."
He turned. Nothing there.
But the hairs on his arms stood straight.
VIVIAN
"Cut to confession cam!" Vivian shouted, striding across the studio floor in high heels that echoed like gunshots. "I want mascara tears and a backstabbing story in the next ten minutes!"
Her production crew scrambled. The set—plastic chandeliers and gaudy velvet chairs—gleamed under too-bright lights. The show was trash, and it knew it. Laugh or Leave, the reality show where washed-up comics battled for a comeback, was a runaway success.
And Vivian? She was its queen.
"Who's crying now?" she asked, sipping iced coffee through a metal straw.
"Contestant three. Her dog died," her assistant replied.
"Good. Feed her lines about grief. Let's milk it."
Vivian turned to the monitor. A contestant on-screen was mid-monologue, voice cracking.
But as she watched, the audio warped. The contestant's voice twisted mid-sentence into a laugh—deep, ragged, too familiar.
Vivian's grip on the straw tightened.
Then, on the screen, static washed over the image. A single frame appeared—Eden, alone on a stage, eyes too wide, smile too sharp.
"Cut the feed!" Vivian snapped.
The screen went black. The room held its breath.
Vivian adjusted her blazer, plastered on a smile, and whispered to herself, "She's dead. She's gone."
But it didn't feel true.
THEO
The glow of Theo's laptop cast shadows across his cluttered apartment. Old case files spilled from manila folders, red strings pinned to corkboards crisscrossed headlines: The Eden Gray Breakdown, Tragedy of a Comedic Genius, Who Killed the Punchline?
He wasn't proud of that one.
Theo wrote the article that started the landslide. He hadn't meant to destroy her—only to expose the machine behind her rise. But Eden had unraveled after the piece dropped. Public meltdowns. Canceled tours. Then silence.
Then death.
He never wrote about her again.
Now, he mostly covered small-town cults and murder podcasts. Safe, detached horror.
But tonight, something pulled him back. He'd found a clip—one he swore didn't exist. Eden's final set. Uncut. Untouched. Sent from an anonymous email.
He hit play.
The footage was grainy. Eden stood center stage, staring at the mic like it had betrayed her.
"I wanted to tell a joke tonight," she began. "But I forgot the setup. And now all I have is the silence."
The screen glitched. Her eyes locked on the lens. Her voice deepened.
"Did you laugh enough, Theo?"
The screen went black.
Theo sat frozen. Then, slowly, the printer behind him came to life. A single sheet rolled out.
It read: "One last performance. Grayfall Manor. Come laugh with me."