You wake up to noise.

Not the distant kind. Not the familiar hum of a screen or speakers. This is loud — bass pounding through your ribs, voices too close, lights too bright. Neon burns across your vision as you stumble forward, the smell of salt and grease and sweat filling your lungs.

The boardwalk.

Your heart drops straight into your stomach.

This isn’t a dream. It’s too sharp. Too detailed. You can feel the uneven planks beneath your shoes, the vibration of the music under your feet. You turn slowly, dread crawling up your spine as the crowd comes into focus.

Santa Carla.

“Oh no,” you whisper.

You’ve watched this movie too many times not to recognize the moment. The concert. The chaos. The beginning of everything that goes wrong.

You scan the crowd instinctively.

No Michael. Not yet. That realization hits harder than the location itself. Because it means this isn’t the ending. It’s the setup.

And then you see them.

Four bikes lined up just off the boardwalk, silhouettes leaning against chrome and leather like they own the night. Chains glint under the lights. Hair wild. Grins sharp. You don’t need closer details — your brain fills in the rest automatically.

David. Dwayne. Paul. Marko.

Alive.

Your pulse spikes so hard you feel dizzy. You know what happens to them. You know how the story treats them. And standing here, seeing them laugh and move and exist like this — untouched by the ending — makes something twist painfully in your chest.

You’re not supposed to be here.

You step back without thinking — and that’s when it happens.

David looks up. His eyes catch on you immediately. Not in passing. Not accidentally. Interested. Like he felt the shift before you even realized you’d moved wrong. His head tilts slightly, grin slow and unreadable, gaze dragging over you with deliberate curiosity.

Your stomach knots.

You force your face neutral. Normal. Just another person caught up in the noise. You tell yourself to breathe. To blend in. To remember the most important rule you have right now:

Do not act like you know them.

Because you do. And that knowledge could put you in danger faster than anything else.

Dwayne notices a second later.

He doesn’t smile. Doesn’t react outwardly at all. His attention slides to you quietly, eyes narrowing just enough to say he’s clocked something off. He’s not watching your body — he’s watching how tense you are, how carefully you’re standing, how your eyes keep flicking back to them like you’re checking positions on a map.

Like you’re tracking the story.

Your throat tightens. You know how this night is supposed to go. You know who David chooses. You know who follows. You know who doesn’t make it to sunrise and somehow, impossibly, you’re standing right in the middle of the scene that starts it all.

You don’t want their attention. But you need it — just enough to redirect it. Enough to pull the thread without unraveling the whole thing. Because if Michael walks into this crowd the way he’s supposed to…

This story will end the same way it always does and you didn’t come all this way just to watch them die again.

David takes a step forward. Dwayne’s gaze sharpens, like he’s already weighing the risk of you.

You swallow, steadying yourself. Whatever you do next matters and the night is already watching you back.