It began, as these things often do, with a link.

He didn't try to leave. He didn't fight Isabel. Instead, he sat down on the floor of the looped villa, pulled out a ghost of his phone (which now only showed subtitles and timecode), and began to recite the exact, original, terrible ending of Devuelveme La Vida —the one Ruiz had smashed.

His blood ran cold. He wasn't watching a movie. He was inside one.