By now, the rooftop had become more than a studio or a sanctuary. It was a world unto itself, a fragile bubble suspended above the city that neither understood nor controlled it. Every day, the four of them arrived as though stepping into a universe they alone inhabited, where time had its rhythm and the wind carried not just sound but intention.
Jordan had taken to filming obsessively, following every movement with the precision of someone determined to capture eternity. He lingered on shadows, on sunlight slipping through the rails, on the tremble of Susana's hand as she scribbled in her notebook. Margret's performances had grown more daring. She would sprint across the rooftop, fling herself against walls, scream into the wind until her lungs burned, and then collapse, gasping, laughing, tears streaking her cheeks. Mirabel painted on whatever surface she could find, her hands perpetually smudged with colour. Even the smallest objects — a tin can, a cracked bottle, a stray piece of cardboard — became portals into her delicate, luminous universe.
Susana, meanwhile, had begun leaving parts of her script in the strangest places: under bus seats, inside library books, even tucked in the folds of strangers' jackets as they walked past. She whispered her words into the night, letting them scatter like seeds on the wind. "If someone finds them," she said once, "maybe they'll remember, even if we are gone."
But the world beyond their bubble had begun to blur. At first, it was subtle. A store that had been open the day before would vanish, windows dark and empty. Teachers forgot lessons, or names, or faces. Margret received texts that seemed impossibly old, letters from her mother that referenced days she could not recall living. Jordan's university ID refused to scan. Susana's recorded voice went missing from her audio clips. Mirabel discovered that her enrollment had vanished from the school roster. And still, they pressed on, as though their determination could stitch the world back together.
Even amidst the strange disappearance of normalcy, the rooftop continued to pulse with life. They had developed rituals that seemed to anchor them: Jordan's mango soda, drunk only on filming days; Margret's wind-clearing screams before each scene; Mirabel's silent songs hummed under her breath; Susana's pen kisses before every line written. Each ritual was a thread, keeping the fragile fabric of their reality from unravelling completely.
One evening, as the sun melted into the skyline, Jordan followed Susana through a graffiti-lined tunnel. She read aloud a letter she had written to her future self, her voice low and trembling. The camera captured every subtle inflexion, every beat of hesitation. Margret waited at the tunnel's end, arms spread wide, letting the last rays of sunlight paint her hair gold. Mirabel sketched along the edges, painting figures that moved as though they were alive, the lines vibrating with the energy of something barely contained.
"This is it," Margret whispered afterwards, leaning against the wall, breathless. "This… this is the kind of magic you can't buy."
They laughed, collapsing against one another, the sound echoing in the empty tunnel. But when they emerged, the world outside had shifted. A café they had passed daily for years was gone. A mural they had once admired had vanished, leaving only bare bricks. Even the air smelled different, heavier, as if something had been removed.
Susana felt a pang of fear, the first real fear she could name since they began. "Are we… disappearing?" she asked, almost under her breath.
Jordan waved it off. "No. We're just… ahead of time. Ahead of everyone else."
Mirabel didn't speak. She just brushed a hand over her sketchbook, staring at the faint constellations she had painted earlier. Her eyes held a depth of understanding that none of the others could read.
The filming continued, relentless and obsessive. Margret screamed into empty streets, Mirabel painted on abandoned walls, Jordan followed every flicker of light with his lens, and Susana wrote lines that would become the spine of their movie. Every moment became a record, a monument to the lives they were living in defiance of the world that seemed to be fading around them.
At night, they would gather on the rooftop, sprawled on blankets, sharing stolen food and whispered confessions. Margret spoke of stages she longed for. Jordan spoke of slow-motion perfection. Susana spoke of lines meant to break hearts. Mirabel spoke of being seen. And in the midst of it all, they were alive — painfully, brilliantly, fully alive.
But the edges of their world were fraying. A teacher they had spoken to yesterday had no memory of them. A friend vanished from a social media platform they checked daily. And yet, when they huddled together on the rooftop, the wind around them seemed to say that nothing else mattered.
Because the rooftop was real. Their art was real. And even as the world began to forget, they would not.