The Careless Sensei’s silent prayer was thankfully answered as the door slid open without any resistance.

  “In here!” she called over her shoulder, stepping into the hopefully safe haven. She stood at the ready beside the door to quickly shut it once the others joined her.

  The Sharp Principal got in first, her ponytail in a half-undone mess and a broken pair of glasses hanging off her ear. High-heels were held in her hands; improvised weapons stained from the dire situation they had all just escaped from.

  The Kind Punk was right behind the Sharp Principal, his bounding steps nearly causing him to crash into her. He tripped while trying to avoid her, hitting the floor and sliding across the classroom, banging against a few of the desks inside.

  The Sarcastic Child came in last, gasping for air as his shorter legs tried to keep up. Not waiting to waste anymore time, the Careless Sensei reached out to pull him in directly. She slammed the door shut in the same motion, barely clipping the hood of the Child’s jacket.

  The Careless Sensei let herself fall back against the door, trying to steady her own breathing. The Sharp Principal didn’t let any of them catch a break, screeching out, “Lock the door!” Aware of the threat that crawled outside, the Careless Sensi clumsily felt around for the lock and did as she was told.

  As the Principal ran to the door at the other end of the classroom, the Kind Punk crawled toward the wall next to the Sensei and the Sarcastic Child. “You think they saw us?” the Punk wheezed out.

  “How could we tell?” the Child asked back with ire. “They don’t have eyes or nothing.”

  “You don’t know that,” the Sensei said with a wince and a groan, cracking her neck. “They’re aliens. They might not even need eyes. They could even see through walls and never lose track of us all for all we know.”

  The unimpressed scoff from the Sharp Principal was as irritating as ever. “If that were the case, they would have found us already.”

  Tears started to form around the Sensei’s eyes. “I was supposed to be on vacation today, not running for my life from alien invaders…”

  “Don’t worry, sensei,” reassured the Kind Punk, living up to his name with a matching smile that fought against the bruise on his face. “I’m sure the military will step in with the big guns soon! You’ll be flying out to Hawaii in no time. Until then, I’ll protect you!”

  “As if you could protect anyone,” the Child jabbed, putting up a front of disinterest as he crossed his arms, hugging himself to keep his body from shaking too much. “Those police officers were ants to the aliens.”

  “Hey, no need to be so down, kiddo.”

  “Do you think your dinky knife will actually do anything to hurt them?”

  “It’s called a switchblade, you cheeky–”

  “Stow the bickering,” the Sharp Principal cut in. She rejoined the rest of the survivors and was frowning at her phone. “I don’t have a signal. You, girl,” she said as she pointed at the Sensei. “You have a two-way pager, do you not? Try that.”

  The Sensei patted her pockets and found only her wallet and some breath mints. “Crap, I must’ve lost it back at the entrance. Everyone was just running over each other, just to get away…”

  “Useless!”

  Defending the Careless Sensei, the Kind Punk traded barbs with the Principal. The Child continued to give his own irreverent remarks.

  The Carless Sensei drew an invisible cross over her chest before clasping her hands together, giving another prayer for whatever greater power that could hear her to mercifully liberate them from this horrible crisis.

  She opened her eyes when she played the sound of rapid, resounding echoes of a helicopter’s rotating blades inside her head. No, blades of helicopters, their collective noise growing higher and higher in volume.

  Everyone in the classroom dashed to the line of windows opposite them. Indeed, conjuring the image in her head, the Sensei watched along with her companions the arrival of military helicopters filling up the skyline and engaging the myriad of invasive alien structures and concoctions staining the Japanese cityscape.

  “Yes!” the Careless Sensei cheered. “My wish has been miracle-ized!”

  “See?” the Punk said as he lightly punched the Child’s shoulder and grinned at the Principal. “I told you help was on the way.”

  For a moment, they all stared at the outdoor scenery with a mix of dread and hope. Danger still lurked with the alien invasion, but there was a chance, no matter how slim, for their band of survivors to escape the ongoing devastation tearing apart their home city.

  They lingered a little longer until the spell was broken.

  “Cut!”

  Putting the desperation and exhaustion of the Careless Sensei aside, Yura Katayose relaxed and took a step back from the window. She replaced the green screen on the other side of the glass with a different image in her mind’s eye to do some quick stretches.

  She might have been a bit too zealous in closing the door in those last few takes. She nearly caught her fingers between the door and the frame in one of them. The scenes they had filmed earlier today had been more physically demanding, so it was a clear sign that Yura needed to start taking her morning exercises more seriously. These weren’t even actual stunts, just basic actions and maneuvers needed to convey Carless Sensei’s sloppy nature. She shouldn’t be letting such mundane but necessary things outpace her own stamina.

  “Great work,” came the token compliment from Director Taishi Gotanda. The cameraman, lighting people, and other crew members around the sound stage were also setting down their equipment and relaxing. “We’ll break off for lunch for now. Our special effects people are still running late, but be sure to be ready once they set everything up and we clock back in.”

  People started shuffling off. So did the director, probably to complain to the producer who was waving nervous, placating hands at him. Yura was watching the exchange when Murakami, the easygoing man behind the Kind Punk, asked her, “You doing good, Katayose?”

  “I’m surviving,” she said with a wink. “How about you? The makeup finally getting to you?”

  Murakami chuckled. “It’s just for a bruise. It’s nothing like what we had to film last week for the climax.” His character had been transformed into a human/alien hybrid, Yura recalled. Off-camera, one of the kids had expressed nothing but awe at the final result while Murakami had privately voiced his complaints to Yura about the entire costume being a pain to wear and act in, regardless of the great visuals it gave on-screen. “You should probably go to your senpai before she completely forgets about you,” Murakami teased, to which Yura playfully held her head high and turned her back to him.

  “You’re just jealous you don’t have as many scenes with her as me.” It wasn’t the first time Yura has worked with Murakami. She knew his type. Unfortunately for him, they both knew the actress playing the Sharp Principal was out of his league.

  The cold, brusque attitude of the Principal was nowhere in sight as Ai Hoshino strolled with her son Aqua – a Sarcastic Child in his role and in reality – to a corner of the film set behind the cameras, where Ruby and Cobalt Hoshino had already opened up their bentos for lunch.

  Yura Katayose, rising superstar in the acting world, had finally gotten the opportunity to work alongside Ai Hoshino herself! Even on this fifth consecutive day of filming, the exhilaration of working with her hadn’t waned in the slightest.

  Idols were a huge industry, but it had always been a mere passing interest for Yura growing up. Ai the actress, on the other hand, had always been a favorite of Yura’s as she delved into the entertainment world as a performer. Ai-senpai’s ability to captivate an audience was undeniable, and every little comment, every movement, every expression she conveyed on-screen always looked positively genuine. Even for roles that didn’t quite fit Ai’s more popular idol persona, Yura was always excited to see that beautiful face embody something different, like the crooked character in the Sharp Principal for this film.

  Their characters had actual names, of course, but they would be revealed to the viewers at a point later in the script. Yura just rolled with their titles for these earlier scenes to avoid accidentally slipping.

  Ai’s youngest, Cobalt, was the spitting image of Aqua Hoshino if not for the faded facial scar. The kid was jumping in his chair and beckoning at Yura. She smiled back. All according to plan.

  While Ai, Aqua, and Ruby were already seated and digging into their food, Cobalt hopped off and ran toward Yura to meet her halfway. He propelled himself up to reach Yura’s hand in a high-five above her head. As he landed, Yura bent her knees slightly so that their hands met again on the backswing.

  “You said one of the lines I used in my videos!” he said, pulling at Yura’s wrist to bring her toward the rest of his family. She indulged him, not resisting. Along the way, he started dragging Director Gotanda’s unoccupied chair with them, tumbling it over long wires strewn across the floor but never letting it fall. “The miracle-ized line!”

  “I was hoping you’d catch that!”

  Ai-senpai’s kids were a cute bunch. When trying to slot in time with Ai and absorb some of her acting aura, Yura inevitably talked with them during breaks on set. Aqua was a good actor – far better than Yura was when she was his age – and looking at Ruby was literally like looking at a blonde Ai the Idol during her debut, with a similar gravitas and presence. Finding out the third child, Cobalt, was the mind behind the Elemental Orel animation videos online had certainly been a fun twist. Yura had subscribed to the channel a couple months back, finding the short but sweet comedy bits an enjoyable way to pass the time.

  Personally, Yura thought Ai-senpai leaned too much into the role of mother hen in real life. Her kiddies were twelve-year-olds, the same age senpai had been when she became an idol. Yura had been ten when she had to start locking up when she was alone at her apartment on her parents’ most busy work days. Surely three siblings at twelve could avoid burning the house down without a babysitter? Especially kids as responsible as this trio? One a fairly prevalent actor with super high grades in school, and the other two putting out fully edited videos on a consistent release schedule, with the sister of the triplets likely to break off to begin her own idol work in a couple years.

  Despite Yura’s complaints, she couldn’t deny that Ai-senpai adored her children with a big heart. Every “Cut!” from Director Gotanda was immediately followed by Senpai darting off-camera to hug the closest kid in reach. Throughout filming sessions, Ai used her charm to convince folks handling craft services to quickly run out to restock on extra sweets and juice for them. To Yura’s knowledge, Elemental Orel wasn’t technically contracted as a member of Strawberry Productions, the same company Ai and Aqua fell under, but from the conversations Yura’s had with them, little Cobie still got access to agency resources like quality cameras and collaborations with bigger YouTube channels like Clayman Animations.

  A single mother, giving birth at sixteen, yet still a popular figure in entertainment years after the controversy, with a lot of influence within her own production company which she shamelessly used to support the interests of her kids. If Yura didn’t finish this project without getting as much as possible out of being near the gracious, kind-hearted, and experienced Ai, then Yura’s manager would murder her.

  As Yura settled on a chair with the Hoshinos, Ai snapped her head at the younger actress with a knowing look. “I didn’t think you’d go for such an obscure reference with the ad lib,” the ex-idol said.

  Yura played along. “I don’t know about obscure. If not mainstream, Elemental Orel’s still getting more and more views online.”

  Ruby the cutie raised a thumbs-up. “We hit a million overall views for the channel last night!”

  “Really? Congratulations!” Yura exaggerated a respectful bow as Cobalt handed her a bento of her own. Murakami passed by and was also given his own meal from the ever charitable Cobalt, but he went off to eat by himself. Yura was working and he knew not to get in the way. “I humbly accept this gift, Director Orel.”

  “Keep up the good work in your career,” Ruby began with a smirk, “and we might let you cameo a role in a video one day.”

  “It will be unpaid labor,” Aqua deadpanned, expertly leaning out of the way from a shove from his sister, “and the exposure will be nil compared to other jobs.”

  “Mom can pay you in food!” offered Cobalt, whose hair was ruffled by Ai-senpai. “Or give you more tips in acting!”

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  “I don’t know about that,” Ai-senpai said. “Yura’s racked up a debt with the lessons I’ve already given her. Maybe she can repay me with free voice work?”

  That actually sounded cool. Yura’s recorded her voice in closed, relatively small booths to dub over film footage with bad audio from the live takes, or provided only her voice in promotional commercials, but she’s never had to seriously voice act as a genuine character. Yura’s friends deeper in the voice acting world assured her it was still fundamentally a performance requiring the ability to emote and follow direction. While a low-key project, it might be worth pitching in with Elemental Orel if it meant spending more time with Ai-senpai.

  Yura was already using little Cobie and making references to his videos to have him invite her to spend more time near Ai when they were on set. Why not go a step further? Ai Hoshino was notoriously a loner with few close friends in spite of her overwhelming charisma, so Yura should take full advantage of the in she already established through her son. It wasn’t as if Ai was discouraging Yura from indulging Cobie, after all.

  “Sign me up!” Yura declared with gusto. “Hmm, how about one line of dialogue per one lesson Ai-senpai gave me since we started filming together?”

  Cobalt’s eyes sparkled with hope. Ruby smiled mischievously, clearly about to seal the deal with an unseen loophole up her sleeve, but Aqua interjected, “A ‘line’ in Cobalt’s scripts can take up the entire page, practically a monologue.”

  “One line of dialogue from a script edited by Aqua,” Yura quickly amended. Aqua was as sharp as he was sarcastic. She had a feeling he knew she was using Cobalt to get to Ai, too, but tempering Yura’s expectations might be the prodigy’s way of trying to also poach Yura from her current agency to Strawberry.

  According to the grapevine, Strawberry’s acting president Miyako Saitou wasn’t as aggressive in recruiting new talents like her ex-husband Ichigo Saitou currently on a sabbatical. Miyako’s regime instead built up an image and reputation that invited talents to seek Strawberry out. It wasn’t only about Ai Hoshino. Good management, flexible contracts, and decent opportunities and means of monetization on the online space. The likes of Pieyon growing more viral in Japan by the day and Clayman Animations kicking off with American audiences were only a couple examples. Yura did enjoy working with Aqua and Ai, so the kid must want to make sure the shenanigans of his siblings didn’t reflect on the company proper.

  Ruby huffed in a haughty breath. “I edit Cobie’s scripts more than Aqua does these days.”

  “I’m sure Director Gotanda’s precocious apprentice could work out a contract we can all be happy with!” Yura half-joked.

  As if her words summoned him, Gotanda reappeared at the center of the room and clapped his hands, grabbing everyone’s attention.

  “Alright!” he announced, the pushover of a producer from before looking disheveled as he loudly whispered into a phone. “Change of plans. The crew responsible for operating the system for splitting the classroom in half are delayed indefinitely. A big accident apparently caused a massive traffic jam. Anything less than a helicopter pickup won’t get the crew here before we all have to clock-off. So, with the people we do have, we’re skipping to the mutation-centric scenes in act two.” Gotanda met Yura’s eyes. “Katayose and Murakami, you’ll get changed and prepped first. Hoshinos –”

  “Our lunch hour isn’t over yet!” Ai cut in with a deceptively warm smile, her kids’ bentos only half-empty. Cobalt was stuffing himself in the lull of their conversation while his siblings ate at a slower pace. The two older kids synchronized a creepy stare at Gotanda, which Yura privately applauded them for executing it so well.

  “– Make sure you don’t dirty up your costumes since we need to maintain some visual continuity when the mutation makeup is applied,” Gotanda finished without skipping a beat. He moved to some of the heavier set crewmembers to begin moving set pieces and other critical equipment.

  Everyone accepted the preferential treatment the Director gave the Ai-senpai and her children. It hadn’t gotten to the point of feeling particularly unfair or disruptive to the work. Gotanda was more than a competent leader, and Ai shone as she always did. It was a balance between Ai’s selfishness for her kids and Gotanda’s assertion of authority as the major player pushing this project along. Seeing the two in action was a fully-fledged educational course in itself.

  Yura performed another high-five/low-five combo with little Cobie as her farewell before walking away and psyching herself up, returning to the right mindset to get back into character.

  Signal Lost in the Heavens had a fairly basic premise. A bunch of random, normal people get caught up in an alien invasion, gain and lose members of their party along the way, leading to an ending with a somber note that may or may not bait a sequel. Notable names like Yura Katayose, Ai Hoshino, and Taishi Gotanda were mostly there to draw in the general movie-going audience familiar with their prior work, but the real money and effort was being put into the special effects for the cinematic battles and city destruction. There was a decent amount of practical props and stunts that looked incredibly realistic. The reason they were on a sound stage this week was for the effects folks to have complete control and freedom in tearing apart the specially built set pieces like today’s classroom by the alien menace.

  Unfortunately, the hot new effects people weren’t the most professional as far as their timing and management went. It was hardly the first time they were late to the set, a road accident in the way or not. Big investors were keeping the project going in spite of the delays, and the artists and engineers really did do great work, but they had to actually be on the set with their gear ready to properly prep the actors and the equipment to start filming the money shots and major scenes.

  This next scene involved the aliens using their special powers to cause the Sarcastic Child to become more emotionally unstable. The bad attitude he had used as a shield to ignore the fear would twist him to adopt completely destructive behavior to the detriment of the surviving protagonists.

  Yura was looking forward to seeing Aqua play a creepy child again, only at twelve-years-old instead of the three- or four-year-old he’d been in his first ever acting role. That film had also been one directed by Gotanda, and one where Ai-senpai had played a prominent role, too, so Yura was excited to see just how much the prodigy they’ve been cultivating had improved. The rehearsals between Yura and Aqua under Ai’s tutelage were teasers to the main event…

  Carless Sensei was leaning against a wall of the narrow alley. Her makeup had long since been ruined by the day’s turbulent events and her constant running. Now it was raining, the filth washing off her. A poor consolation for the horrid things she had to go through, but she’ll take what she can get. The rain at least also gave her something to listen to. A vague, distant, but undeniable reminder of the once bustling city, rather than the deafening silence of total, utter defeat.

  The aliens were winning, but the Sensei was still alive. She wasn’t giving up yet.

  The jostling of metal clinks prompted her to look down the alley. A chain fence and a locked gate blocked the path forward. The Sensei was in no shape to climb over it with her bum leg, but the Sarcastic Child apparently knew how to pick locks with improvised tools. With the Kind Punk missing, the boy had volunteered to open their path to salvation.

  They just had to go a little farther. The evacuation center was underground, hidden from the prying eyes of the aliens’ aerial vehicles and monstrosities. The Sensei always hated riding the subway, but it was their only hope of escaping with their lives now. She could practically taste it–

  When the Careless Sensei started limping her way to the fence, the Sarcastic Child slipped through and closed the gate, resecuring the lock.

  She weakly pressed herself against the chain links and stared into the Child’s deformed face. The aliens had… done something to him. She still didn’t know what. Beyond the superficial changes like strange eyes and inhumanly flaky skin, his personality and mannerisms hadn’t changed at all.

  Until now. The Child now was preventing Sensei from proceeding, the boy staring darkly at her through the gaps in the metal links.

  “Hey,” Sensei said, doing her hardest to keep her voice level and civil, to play into what the Child viewed as vulnerable and pitiful, and therefore someone obligated to receive help and assistance, “chibi-chan, what are you doing? If we don’t hurry, the train will leave without us. Don’t you want to get home to your parents?”

  The Child’s words were like a dagger to her heart. “You lied to me. All of you lied to me.”

  This can’t be happening. “What are you talking about?” Will flattery at this stage work on him? “You’re a smart kid. Even us adults could never outsmart you.”

  “Stop lying!” The Sarcastic Child slammed himself against the fence, startling the Sensei a step back. “The aliens don’t lie. They want to hurt us, and they never hide that. You all said my parents were okay! That they got out. That they were safe.”

  Damn, he figured it out… But the Sharp Principal had needed to convince him to turn over the radio. Otherwise, they never would have learned about the new evacuation site. “If we just keep going,” the Sensei said, grasping at straws to keep up the act, “you can see them again!”

  “Liar!” The raindrops got lost with the real tears flowing down the Child’s face, like a waterfall pouring over a cracked, barren landscape. “The monsters killed them! You let them die!”

  No… No, it was the aliens who killed them! It was the military’s job to protect all of them, and they were the ones who let everyone down! “Please, chibi-chan,” she pleaded. “There was nothing we could do. They didn’t want you to die, too. We didn’t want to abandon anyone, but we could only save you.”

  “You’re lying again! You don’t care about anyone except for yourself!” He punched at where Sensei’s fingers were hanging from the fence, forcing her to let go and back up further. “I don’t need the aliens to tell me that to know you’re a selfish liar.”

  They were running out of time. The Sensei was getting more desperate. “Fine, I’m a liar,” she confessed, anything to get the Child to let her get out of here, “because I want to live! I lied to save you, too. Don’t you want to live?”

  “What’s it matter if I live when they’re dead?!”

  “We’re all dead if you don’t open this gate!”

  “… You don’t get to live,” the Child muttered, the blistering hatred almost missed with how low his voice was.

  “What?”

  “You don’t get what you want.” The glow in the Child’s glare intensified. “The aliens will kill everyone, including you.”

  It was happening again. It happened to the Sharp Principal, and now it was happening to the Sarcastic Child. Those damn, over-powered alien freaks! “That’s not you talking,” the Careless Sensei insisted, still hoping she could somehow get through to the kid. “It’s the aliens inside your head. They’re only telling you what you want to know. They’ll kill you, too.”

  His expression never changed.

  “And, and if you help the aliens, you’ll be a bad person! So you’ll never get to go to heaven and see your parents again!”

  The child’s frown deepened, the downpour of tears dripping down his chin. “You think you’re a bad person. You think you’re going to hell, too.”

  Yes, she was afraid and would do anything for things to go back to normal. “Please, chibi-chan. I don’t want to die. I want to live. I want both of us to live!”

  The Sarcastic Child looked up at the Sensei with nothing but contempt. “Wanting something doesn’t mean you get to have it. You taught me that, sensei.”

  That line delivery went through the Careless Sensei and hit Yura Katayose right in the gut.

  Yura remembered that specific line during the rehearsal. The way Aqua had spoken it during the first takes, he treated those words as a bitter acceptance of an immutable fact no one could change. Reality wasn’t obligated to conform to anyone’s dreams. The Sarcastic Child would use that energy, embracing the intrinsic futility in life, to follow his own dark feelings and the aliens’ whispers, letting the Careless Sensei die.

  Yet for the take now, on-camera, with all the makeup, lighting, and props to bring the scene alive, Yura saw and heard something else in Aqua.

  Instead of acceptance, it was anger.

  The Sarcastic Child wasn’t subserviently submitting to the world. He was defiant. Not in the disrespectful, dismissive way the Child acted toward authority figures or older people like the Sharp Principal or the Kind Punk. No, the Child wanted to destroy Carless Sensei’s hopes, deny her the salvation and safety she desperately desired. Doing so will hurt her. The world can burn, and so can the Child for all he cared, as long as the Sensei burned along with them.

  The Child in rehearsal had stopped caring about anything after realizing his parents were gone.

  The Child now still held a grudge and would take it with him to his grave.

  Aqua was giving a completely enthralling performance.

  It wasn’t only the Child’s inflection. He didn’t even need to raise his voice at this point. Aside from the gloomy lighting working in direct conjunction with the cosmetic artist’s renditions of an inhumanly discolored skin tone, the Child’s mismatch of light and dark eye contacts painted a scene of two swirling vortexes that the Careless Sensei was convinced were going to set her ablaze until she was nothing but a pile of bone and ash.

  There was enough leeway in the script’s wording to commit to either interpretation. Yura dug her fingers into the chain fence harder to keep her mind on the scene at hand and not forget her place as the Carless Sensei at her wit’s end.

  “Please just open the gate,” the Sensei stuttered. “You don’t have to do this. I – Yes, I made mistakes by lying, but I-I never wanted to hurt you.”

  The Child gritted his teeth, suppressing a sniffle as he clutched half of his face and clawed at one of his corrupted eyes. He opened his mouth to say more, but then he closed it, turning his back to her.

  “Wait,” the Carless Sensei tried one more time, though she soon realized how fruitless it was. “Wait! Please!”

  Her cries were given no answers. She fell to her knees, uselessly shook the fence, and gave one last screech begging for forgiveness.

  The Sarcastic Child never looked back.

  “Cut!”

  The effects crew shut off the artificial rain, and the Child turned around to face the Sensei.

  It wasn’t Director Gotanda’s cue that shattered the spell over the Careless Sensei.

  It was the immediate shift in the Sarcastic Child, from the vengeful victim thirsty for blood… to the innocent twelve-year-old wearing a golden grin. The stars in his eyes changed from black voids and into sparkling lights.

  Bearing that kind of high spirits was an unfamiliar look for Aqua, at least in all of Yura’s time with him. Yet it wasn’t inappropriate for that face, since Aqua had an identical brother who radiated that energy naturally.

  Ai-senpai darted onto the stage and grabbed her son in a tight embrace.

  “You were brilliant, Cobie! Absolutely beautiful!”

  “Thanks, mom!”

  What?

  Yura blinked twice. She was seeing double. Aqua in full costume was being hugged by Ai-senpai, and Aqua with a different coat but the same legwear as the Sarcastic Child was behind the cameras, standing with a smug Ruby.

  “I told you he’d do great!” Ruby was saying to the wide-eyed Aqua. “Cobie learns and remembers the things we teach him, you know. Voice acting’s still acting. I should start coaching you on the side if you’re this speechless.”

  Yura had to say it out loud. “That was… Cobalt?”

  The earnest smile hiding nothing, expressing pure goodness and honesty, was the definitive proof no one could doubt. Especially not when Yura had been bombarded by that smile ever since she met the kid and seen the unrestrained differences between him and Aqua. “Yup!” Cobalt said, still squeezed in Ai-senpai’s arms. “I played a pretty good Aqua, huh?”

  But… what? “Why were you in the costume and makeup, and acting in Aqua’s place?”

  Director Gotanda stepped into the set and cleared his throat, looking unusually bashful. “Well…”