Chapter Three: You Were Painted Too

Lin strapped the phone to his chest and kept drawing. Smoke lowered from the ceiling. The doorknob glowed red. Comments begged him to flee, but the girl inside the screen was watching him, silently forming words. His final stroke placed the beauty mark beneath her left eye. At midnight, the girl reached from the portrait, seized Lin by the collar, and pulled him into the screen. Blue fire consumed the room. The broadcast tumbled wildly. Millions watched two people emerge through the other side of a wall sealed by fire. The barefoot girl stood on an exterior billboard and touched its rusted frame. She closed her eyes. “The eastern bolt breaks in fourteen seconds,” she said. “Jump down.”