February 2, 2026
Seven blocks fromthe film studio on a street illuminated only by dim moonlight, Dimple hailed a cab. She adjusted the wig she’d borrowed from the set. The light brown was cut to shoulder-length, rather than down to her waist like her natural dark brown hair. It was cold enough to warrant a light scarf, which Dimple used to cover the lower half of her face, and the gloves were swiped, funnily enough, from craft services.
Not even her own mother would be able to recognize Dimple now. Though, that was a terrible example. Her mother had never gotten to see what Dimple looked like.
The taxi dropped her off a block away from her blackmailer’s apartment, which, as she approached, seemed much nicer than what most people in the heart of Los Angeles could afford on a waiter’s salary alone. Open-air corridors with everything but the apartments exposed to the elements, black railings gating every floor.
In a way, life itself was a movie set. Everyone was constantly performing and even if they didn’t do it for the cameras, those too were everywhere. This constant documentation meant that much of the world’s knowledge was readily available if one only knew where to look.
The waiter hadn’t been stupid enough to give away any incriminating information, but Dimple knew the catering company he’dbeen working for the same night Irene died. It took no longer than an hour of browsing through the company’s database of employees on networking sites to stumble across a familiar face. The waiter she’d bumped into at Irene’s party. It was the same man who’d been working craft services on set. No wonder his voice had sounded familiar. From there, Dimple had access to where he went to high school, the names of his closest friends and family, and even his job history. And it became clear that on the grand stage of life, his role was infinitesimal.
Isaac Klossner was an aspiring—or rather, failing—actor who split his time between working as a waiter for a local catering company and crafting services on film sets. His career was even worse than Dimple’s, his only credit being an extra in some flop of an action film three years ago.
Dimple skipped the elevator and the unavoidable cameras in them, choosing to climb the stairs instead. Every step had her too-small shoes pinching her heel, but these would make it more difficult to trace any footprints back to her. She ducked her head out of view of the visible cameras. Once she reached Isaac’s floor, she scanned the walls until she found what she was looking for—the placard for room 422. She peeked into the spyhole. It was impossible to make out anything specific, but Dimple was looking for signs of life. Lights turned on or the brightness of a television screen, nothing more. She found none but decided to double-check anyway.
Raising a fist, Dimple knocked very lightly on the door. Loud enough to alert a conscious person, but soft enough not to wake someone from a heavy slumber. It was two in the morning now and Isaac’s work schedule said he was supposed to come in at six, so he should already be deep into a REM cycle. As expected, nothing within the apartment so much as stirred.
Being locked in her room as a child for days on end meant Dimple had no choice but to become very adept at lockpicking. And without waking her guardians, at that. Though she hadn’t done so in many years, it came back to her at once. Like riding a bike, or so she imagined.
The door clicked open.
Dimple let out a breath of relief. She did a quick survey of the space, examining trash that hadn’t been taken out in what had to be months. A quick glance to the open room to her right revealed a bed with a man-shaped lump atop it. Dimple stepped across so she was no longer in his line of sight.
In place of where a television might go, three expensive monitors emitted a soft glow in Isaac’s living room. And on the desk, a stack of blue sticky notes. This was also the only corner of the apartment that his selective cleanliness seemed to extend to, not so much as a speck of dirt in sight.
Dimple jostled the mouse and squinted when the monitor came to life. The resulting password prompt was not unexpected. Given all the research she’d conducted, it was easy enough to bypass with his mother’s maiden name.
All at once, Dimple had access to every one of Isaac’s saved files. None of these contained what she was looking for, but that in itself was not discouraging. Even an amateur wouldn’t make it that easy.
It was curiosity that brought her to a window still open in Isaac’s browser. There she was met with a candid photo she vaguely remembered Priyal sending to her for review. Dimple’s frown deepened, dread settling in her stomach as she traversed through several open tabs of her own social media accounts.
He was following them all, had liked all of the photos. On one of them—a post announcing that she would be playing the lead inInsomnia—he’d even commented.
ik_1204:when does filming start?
|_ dimplekapoor: @ik_1204 feb 2nd! :)
A shiver ran down her spine as she closed every tab as fast as she could, uncaring of how the clicks sounded like gunshots in the stillness of the apartment. But it was the last one that she’d been waiting for.
An online drive full of various celebrities caught in compromising situations. From fights to drugs to nude photographs, there was alittle bit of everything. Isaac was not one to discriminate when it came to his victims. Dozens of people, from Dimple’s coworkers to those far her superior. Everyone the public adored, this man had something on them all. And there was clearly a market for them. Isaac would get paid—either through the blackmail or through the publications willing to buy these stories. Perhaps he was the type to take the money and then sell the photos anyway, given that most of these looked familiar. She’d underestimated him.
Not a single movie open on his computer, not so much as a DVD on his shelf or a poster on his wall; this was what Isaac Klossner chose to devote his life to. There was a reason people like him never made it in this industry. It was because they did not know what art was. To them, art was what made them money. But true art was remembrance. The careers of each and every one of these people had eventually recovered, and most of the public couldn’t recall the details of their controversies. Nor could they recall a man named Isaac Klossner.
It was one thing to break the law. Dimple had done her fair share for survival. But this was perverse. Part of her wondered if Isaac gained some kind of sick pleasure from seeing successful artistry—something he could never himself achieve—at its lowest.
A video at the bottom of the page was the most recent entry. For all his shortcomings, Isaac Klossner was not a liar. Hands shaking in anticipation, Dimple muted the volume and pressed play.
The camerawork was shoddy, taken from behind a pillar on the ground floor. Dimple’s throat dried when Irene’s face took up the screen. The woman’s innocent shock as a hand pushed her—asDimple’shand pushed her—was palpable. The memory of acting out a scene was never quite the same as seeing it on-screen for the first time. Dimple had replayed this moment so many times in her mind, yet it was so vastly different from the real thing. Irene’s expression wasn’t as exaggerated. She seemed more frozen and uncomprehending than betrayed. She’d barely gasped, so why could Dimple hear her screams so vividly in her mind?
Dimple paused half a second before Irene’s neck hit the staircase, as though that could save this pixelated version of the actress fromher inevitable fate. And there, in the last few frames, this naïve version of herself had turned unknowingly to face the camera, blank incomprehension clouding her features. From the beauty mark at the corner of her mouth to the stain on her polyester red gown, her likeness was unmistakable. The evidence was worse than damning. Her blood boiled. She deleted the entire folder, but it wasn’t enough. Isaac Klossner had seen everything.
There was a loud thud as Dimple ripped the keyboard from its wires and threw it against the hardwood. Keys clattered across the ground, scattering in every direction. Another thud and there was subsequent scrambling from the bedroom.
“Who’s there?” Isaac Klossner came barreling out of his room.
He looked exactly as she remembered from the party—exactly as the photos online depicted him. Lanky and pale. His clothes were ill-fitting, his hair untrimmed. It was easy to see why someone like him could never understand true artistry.
Isaac came to stand in front of the open door, his attention landing first on the broken keyboard and then on her. Dimple lifted her chin so he could get a better look at her face. It wasn’t until her cheeks hurt that she realized she’d been smiling this entire time. In some ways, she’d been craving this. The same fear he’d instilled in her now reflected in him.
