The studio audience was chanting now—rhythmic, primitive, hungry.
"SHOW! SHOW! SHOW!"
It shook the set walls like a storm.
Leila stepped back, eyes wide.
"Selene... we don't have a show."
Selene didn't blink.
She still felt the warmth of Leila's breath between them—too close, too charged, too deliberate. A breath away from something neither of them had language for.
Then she whispered:
"Maybe we do."
Somewhere behind them, a stagehand slammed a clipboard against a table.
"We're live in sixty seconds!"
Live.
Sixty seconds.
No script.
No writers.
No clue what universe they were even standing in.
Selene lifted the ancient brick phone again, desperate.
"Adrian? Adrian, can you hear me?"
Static.
A faint voice.
Sand. Wind. Echoes.
"...pyramids... throne... you're not... supposed to..."
Then silence.
Dead line.
Leila swallowed hard.
"Okay. So Adrian is in Egypt. In 1991. Or 1491. Or 2091. Whatever. We're alone. What do we do?"
Selene turned slowly toward the glowing red ON AIR sign.
Her face changed—something sharp, something knowing, something that had been asleep for years.
"We give them 1991," she said softly.
Leila's breath hitched again.
"Meaning?"
Selene leaned in—closer than close—her lips a whisper away.
"We give them the version of us they think they own."
The audience roared as the countdown hit:
5...
4...
3...
Selene took Leila's hand.
Not delicately.
Claiming.
"And then," she whispered,
"we take it back live."
2...
1...
The applause erupted.
The lights slammed on.
And just like that—
The show began.
Except this time...
they were the ones writing it.
YOU ARE READING
The Invisible Ascent
ChickLitChapter 1 Ending Hook She closed the laptop one night after her fiftieth signup of the week. Her phone lit up again. Another client. Another yes. She laughed - not from joy, but from disbelief. Because this wasn't work anymore. This was gravity. And...
