Luna Park's Arc

Chapter 1 of 14

Luna Park crouched beside a stack of weathered stones at the edge of the plaza, phone clutched in both hands. She refreshed the fan portal again. Her 'Butter' video sat buried under a scrolling wall of comments. Somewhere on that ranking page was her one shot at the BTS tour stage, the dream she had not built any backup for. Across the plaza, a wall of jagged ice pillars rose into the sky, crowned by huge frozen screens. The viral dancer's audition played on every panel, looping in perfect sync. A crowd pressed close, phones lifted, voices rising. Luna's own submission number ticked down the leaderboard with each new view their rival collected. A tall billboard near the monument shifted images, flashing the dancer's name in glowing letters across the frozen sky. Hearts streamed across its surface like snow. Luna watched her view count freeze, then drop. She tapped share. Nothing moved. The wave was too big, and she was standing alone behind a pile of cold rocks. Luna lowered the phone. She pressed her palm flat against the top stone of the cairn and made herself say it out loud: the portal alone would not save her. If she wanted that stage, she would have to be seen another way. She turned her back on the glowing screens and started walking toward the noise.