Chapter Three: The Deleted Screenwriter

At the sixth floor, 602 read 13. “Is this reality,” Lin asked, “or are we in the movie?” Gu scratched the wall with a key. Plaster came away, revealing thin set plywood. “Someone wants us unable to tell.” Inside, Lin found a biscuit tin under her childhood bed. It held a brass key tied with red thread, 13 cut into its teeth; a family photograph with its left half removed; and three pages in a child’s hand. The first showed two sisters and their mother. The second showed a soundstage, people wired to headphones, and young Zhou beside a projector, his face savaged with black crayon. The third read: SISTER SAYS IF THEY FILM MOM LIGHTING THE MATCH, THE BAD MAN WILL BECOME MOM. DON’T LET SISTER FINISH THE MOVIE.