Liminal Overpasses (working title)
INT. Ana’s bedroom — Night
Ana wakes up, then she hears it, that odd distorted electric guitar noise. Suddenly, she sees it the colorful music notes with clef bars pass through the closed door. She sighs glancing at the clock, the robotic red 3 am sharp was staring at her intently. She sits up, Mozart melodies were playing softly in the background. She was lodged in air between calm and scared. She tries to yell for help but her voice was gone, she sits there still as stone.
INT. A few days later
ana wakes up again, she sits up and there it was down the aisle, the strange pop star red electric guitar archetype, that she saw in a download.
It was unmistakably a ghostly hue, an asymmetrical v shape. It was like a portal to a familiar place, where musical instruments lived.
She opens her mouth, a whisper came
“No no,” she thinks
“i cant let them know, not when i feel comforted by their presence.”
She smiles again almost erratically
feeling a weird rush of emotion
INT. At school — Day
Second grader Ana enters the classroom as usual classmates were in groups chatting unbothered by her appearance.
Ana stared at them as if the act would make them include her, her heart sank, she wished they would at least include her.
She always felt she was different, it was the small things, how she was gentle with her belongings treated them like they had life.
She always followed rules and had a heart for everything
except when it comes to swearing, she was not immune to that. It was a day as usual when she had been to the principals office just for saying shut up.
Ryan another second grader in her class had been chasing her around the playground calling her the most beautiful girl he had ever seen.
Ana was annoyed of course, after all, she had a repulsive attitude toward lovesick boys.
One day he finally had enough and said a curse word and that is when the trouble began. The principal sat there walking around
“We could expel you, you know, one more time and you will get expelled.” Was ana dreaming this was second grade yet it felt so unreal like a prison. What Ana did not know was how similar her story was to Wednesday Addams as herself and Principal Weems as the principal.
Ana felt shaken, tears spilling out of her eyes. She had never been in trouble before. She sat down there with her head down. Her mind raced, then a flashback came, her parents angry face imprinted on her brain like red ink, the 0 on her test like a warning of what’s to come.
INT. Ana’s birthday celebration — Age 6
Ana was wearing a white qipao dancing around without a care in the world. The fish themed cake lay on the table, plastic fish in the liquid blue frosting. She paced around the living room, pumping the adrenaline coursing through her body. Suddenly, she felt so happy she could burst. Just as she was about to float off into heaven, all of a sudden, dun dun dun erupted from the clouds, no rain fell. The lights stayed the same unbothered.
“Mom, Dad!” Ana shouted, racing toward them, voice turning to fear as her parents dissipated in a closet enveloped by black mist not touching the ground, their eyes filled with shame.
The lights go out, the candles on the cake blew out by themselves, like a wish unanswered. Out of the closet, came a neon green monster made of slime with polyp shaped bumps on its body. As quick as Ana saw it, she instinctively made a run for the stairs leading up to the bedrooms, she caught a quick glimpse of the outside world it was looked like a ghost town, lights were off, cars were gone. The monster hot on her lead trailing dangerously close, she did not dare look back. Ana swerved gracefully around the doorway with ledges leading to bedrooms, then jumped off the ledge next to the doorway heart pounding. It was a narrow space, but with superhuman speed she did not know she had she ran in circles occasionally flipping directions.
“Outside is not safe, i cant outrun it forever,” she thinks to herself.
“Quick to the shared bedroom, I can hide under the bed.”
She gets out of the hallway and into the bedroom and slides stealthily under the bed, heart pounding loud in her ears. She could see, it the green slime moving around frantically searching for her. The monster pauses near the bed, ana holds her breath, praying it would not look under. The monster moves on and then the lights come back on. Relief floods ana’s body, her parents were still nowhere to be found.
EXT. Slime Bridge
Three year old Ana stands on the rusty metal bridge covered with green goo, the slime oozed like vaginal secretions, alive with the sickening color, glowing slightly. The sky was dark gray with low hanging gray clouds. Overhead red eyed bats cawed like ravens, like a danger warning.
Her mother had told her to wait here while she had something. Earlier she had met an old bald man wearing glasses at the airport asking why she was looking at him and her mom just said she is curious. Later the bald man called her a visionary in mandarin: meng xiang. Now thinking about it, she reminded him of the Wikipedia page, knowledgeable about everything, knowing all languages. Was she meeting with him?
She closed her eyes again and saw it, an evil genius sitting in a beat up car with black smoke emitting from the engine, windows rolled up, face blurry near a rocket launch site white lights illuminating the launch pad metal frame. Places flashed Oregon a similar big metal bridge with white lights busy with cars, later she would know it would be all connected.
It reminded her of places she had never been, like an alien invasion at an empty parking lot where her mom was learning to drive, the white lights flashing from the buildings onto the pavement. She wonders to herself if her vivid imagination was normal, she was always different, seeing the stories in objects, the frequencies to an otherworldly place.
Caw! Caw! Bats swooped above her head bringing Ana back to reality. She was always soft hearted afraid to touch the green slime. She thinks to herself how can this be real? To her surprise, the bats did not bite Ana, but just swooped around.
INT Ana in high school
Ana shuffled into the classroom, people were already absorbed in groups, not bothering to glance at her.
School had always been problematic, she always felt one step away from things that mattered to her, whether it was friends, academics, or recognition.
She walked down the aisle of desks, feeling sharp pain through her heart. Eventually, she found an aisle where there was an empty seat next to it. She sighed at the vibrant ultra femme girls, their sugary sweet perfume wafting her way, unbothered by Ana’s presence. Why does life have to be so unfair and why are the wealthy so entitled?
Ana stared at the clock, tick tock the time was ticking by, a grim reminder of the sagging emptiness in her life.
“Ana, could you please answer the question on the board,” The teacher asked, a group of girls nudged each other, whispers and laughter filled the room.
“I don’t know,” she mumbled, feeling the heat in her cheeks
The teacher’s gaze hardened. “Try paying attention, Ana.”
The stares from her classmates were sharp, their eyes like daggers. They were waiting for her to mess up, to fail. They all wanted to see the monster inside her.
Something inside Ana stirred. It wasn’t the usual nervousness, the sinking feeling that accompanied being the odd one out. This was different.
The room seemed to grow colder. The air around her thickened, the sound of her pulse pounding in Ana’s ears. Her hands trembled under the desk. There was a pressure building in her chest, like something inside of Ana was waking up.
Before she could stop it, a surge of energy coursed through her, a warm, shining power that she could barely control. Her vision blurred, and for a split second, she saw something — something he couldn’t explain. The reflection of herself in the window, but it wasn’t her. The figure staring back was other, something… angelic.
Then, her head spun.
When she woke up, the classroom was empty, the low hanging lights had dimmed to the extent that she could almost see shadows of the overturned desks. The air was still, like the world had abandoned her. The silence felt unnatural, as though it didn’t belong to the world she knew
“Boo!” a myriad of voices chimed, she jumped in her seat sending Ana’s books and papers flying into the warm air.
Soon after she heard girly giggles and then a white blonde haired girl and others in her league quickly rushed out the closet to the door and shut it with a click.
Ana rushed to the door where she shakily stood, Ana’s heart pounding. The cold pressure was still there, deep in her bones. Her reflection — was it real? Her fingers hovered over her head, feeling an unexplainable future feeling, a connection to the stars.
She stepped out into the hallway, her footsteps echoing in the silence. Ana didn’t know what was happening to her. But she couldn’t hide from it anymore.
She glanced around, the halls were strangely empty, maybe everyone saw she thought to herself as she turned a corner, and pushed the door to the restroom open, only to hear a high pitched shriek and witness flashing lights.
And there she was, Audriella, the girl who she had seen before earlier in class, she looked stunningly beautiful, her pink neve tiered mini skirt and a white ruffled crop top paired with her showed off her glowing skin and her golden blonde hair. She was the definition of an angel, at least on the surface.
“I have never seen you before, you just be new” she called out, her voice sweet but with an edge to it, the way a predator might speak to prey before deciding if it was worth the hunt. “You’re, like, all alone now. How… tragic.”
Her friends were nowhere to be seen, but Ana could feel her presence like a weight in the air. Audriella was never truly alone. Not in her mind. She always had control, always had an audience — even when no one was around.
Ana could barely meet her gaze. Something about the way she looked at her made Ana feel smaller, more invisible, and that wasn’t even the worst part. It was the way she looked at her now. Like she knew something she didn’t.
Ana felt her stomach twist, she tried to swallow the growing lump in her throat along with the familiarity of something awfully wrong.
“You…” Audriella trailed off, confusion flashing on her face, but then, a glint of something darker crept into her expression. “You don’t exist, do you?”
Ana’s heart skipped a beat. The pressure in her chest grew, as if something inside her wanted to escape. Her vision blurred, the world around her shifting, warping.
Her smile widened. “Interesting,” she purred, her voice like honey laced with venom. “So this is your little secret. Are you even real?”
Her words cut deeper than Ana expected. There was something cold in the way she said it, a sudden shift from amusement to something almost dangerous.
“Did you think you could hide from the school forever?” she continued, stepping closer, her heels clicking on the floor. “You’ve been living this lie, pretending to be normal, but you’re not. You’re something else. Something… special.”
She smirked. “And I’m going to make sure everyone knows it. Maybe you’ll be useful after all. You won’t be ignored anymore, Ana.”
Ana’s breath came in quick gasps. The weight in her chest became unbearable. He felt her power rising, flickering, like fire starting to catch in dry grass. Her hands shook as she reached for the door to the restroom, desperate to escape her gaze
Audriella’s laughter followed Ana, ringing in her ears. “You can’t hide from me. No one escapes from me.”
But as she stumbled out of the bathroom, Ana realized it was too late. The hallway was empty. The silence around him felt unnatural, pressing in on all sides. No one was left. No one but him and Audriella — and maybe that was the scariest part of all.
“Wait, where are you going?” Audriella remarked, following behind Ana.
“Don’t you even want to see the photo I took of you? Guess what, you’re not even in it,” her voice snared with ferociousness.
Ana took a bolt for the exit of the building, the unforgiving cold bitter wind brushed her long hair aside, even the streets were empty, everything was deserted like a ghost town.
When she got home, Ana’s mom was waiting for her at the door.
“Ana, I know this isn’t like you, but what were you doing disrupting class?” her mom’s raised voice filled the entire house.
“ I don’t know… anymore,” Ana muttered barely audible.
Before her mom could say anything else, she marched up the stairs and closed the door.
Ana flopped on her fluffy bed, Ana opened up her music player and started playing some Celine Dion songs and a flashback came to mind.
There she was in her old house playing dress up with a flower necklace and dancing around like she didn’t have a care in the world. Suddenly, she saw the world in a sunny light one where the hatred and evilness didn’t exist in her mind.
Social media was a superficial facade where everyone seemed superior. It stole her of the sunlight she so yearned for. She missed the happy old Ana, the one who was full of cheerful energy.
Thinking back on her life, Ana realized the negative way of thinking and it was robbing her of happiness. How her friend Vanessa was fake as she rarely initiated conversations and how she kept seeing the dark side to things like not having a best friend.
Ana closed her eyes, realizing she had been staring at the ceiling the whole time.
INT College
He turned the corner — again.
She was there.
Again.
The same heels clicking softly on marble that looked too clean to be real. The same faint perfume — dust and violets — like the scent of a forgotten theater dressing room. A dream rehearsed one too many times.
“You’re not supposed to be here,” Ana said, breathlessly, as if he’d been running, or as if she had caught him mid-thought.
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“Neither are you,” the dean smiled, her voice like velvet stretched over static. “And yet… here we are.”
She stepped closer. The air around her shimmered slightly, like heat on pavement. Her eyes gleamed with something older than knowledge — a knowing that made him feel both exposed and chosen.
A pause.
“Your test,” she said, holding out the paper he hadn’t taken yet.
His name was written neatly at the top. A perfect score circled in red. The answers weren’t his — not consciously. But somehow they were true.
“I didn’t — ” he started.
“I know,” she replied.
He stared at the ink like it might disappear. But it didn’t. His hands trembled slightly, as if holding proof of something unspoken. A gift. Or a warning.
Behind her, the corridor flickered — once, then again. Like the school itself was glitching.
She turned to go, her silhouette sharp against the white glare.
And then — applause.
Soft, distant, echoing like ghosts clapping from behind velvet curtains.
Ana spun around, heart pounding, but the hallway was empty.
Only him.
Only the paper.
Only the sense that he had just passed a test that hadn’t been written yet.
He didn’t open the door right away.
The knock wasn’t loud — it was delicate, almost rehearsed, like a cue in a play. Like someone knew exactly how to make it echo in his chest.
When he finally turned the knob, she was already halfway down the hallway.
He knew that walk. That perfect posture. That swish of a skirt that had no business existing outside a high school stage.
“Audriella?”
She turned.
She looked exactly the same as she did during the final number of Bring It On — the spring musical, junior year. Hair curled, eyes sharp, lips red. But her smile was wrong. Like it had been stapled on over something ancient.
“Oh, now you remember me?” she said.
“What are you — How are you here?”
“I heard you were passing tests you didn’t take,” she said. “Figured I’d stop by before you become valedictorian or, I don’t know, president of the simulation.”
She stepped closer, heels tapping like applause.
Ana backed into his room, heart thudding. “This isn’t real.”
She looked at his screen. Saw the draft.
“That’s cute,” she said, pointing to the line: you’re still being watched. “But you always were.”
Then she leaned in.
“You know what’s funny, Ana? You used to look at me like I was the lead. But maybe you were the real star all along — just no one noticed.”
She pulled something from behind her back.
A script.
The cover read: The Test.
She handed it to him.
“You don’t get to ad-lib anymore.”
Then she disappeared. Just — gone. Like the lights took her with them when they flickered again.
The door shut itself.
Ana was alone. The draft was gone. The test paper too.
Only the script remained.
Ana skims the script,
THE TEST
Must smile on cue.
Must be funny but not too much.
Must never talk about feelings.
Must know what’s trending.
Must never be lonely in public.
Must be cool but not try too hard.
Must be normal.
Ana’s hands tremble.
Ana drops the script.
Or maybe it drops him.
The paper falls without a sound — like it knows it doesn’t need to be loud to haunt.
He walks to the window. Looks out. No one there. But the streetlights blink in code, and the breeze carries whispers. The world is glitching again.
ANA (V.O.) I didn’t take the test. But I’m failing anyway.
A low hum — like a bassline only seers can hear — begins to swell. The kind of hum that appears when something big is going to happen.
The moment before a soul was marked.
FLASHBACK — INT. BEDROOM — NIGHT — AGE 6
Lights go out The candles go out
Black mist swirls in the closet.
Little Ana’s eyes glow. Not fear. Recognition.
Then: A flash of panic. Feet pounding. Speed no child should know. Hiding beneath the bed — silent, still, glowing.
BACK TO PRESENT — INT. DORM ROOM
Ana stares at his old journal
Rainbow Stripes and an & symbol — gold.
He flips it back. There it read Sheffield Home.
He whispers:
ANA What if I was never crazy? What if I was just early?
He turns to his computer. The screen glows softly.
He opens a blank Substack draft. Fingers trembling.
ANA (V.O.) It can’t be, Ana thought. But it is. And now, I have to write it down — even if no one believes me.
He types:
ANA (typing) What if I see the world differently? What if this isn’t just a story — but the kind of story that transcends philosophy, logic, belief?
He pauses. His reflection stares back at him in the screen.
ANA (V.O.) What if it’s not about being understood? What if it’s about witnessing? About remembering something most people have forgotten?
He types again:
ANA (typing) When I was six, I met the monster. But the real secret? I knew how to run. I knew before anyone told me.
A faint flicker in the corner of the room — like a presence watching. Not scary. Familiar.
ANA (V.O.) Maybe I wasn’t born broken. Maybe I was born remembering.
INT. DORM ROOM — LATER THAT NIGHT
The post is live.
1 view.
Email: back home.
Ana stares.
A hum — soft, like breath against his ear.
