Chapter 4

The air in the private karaoke booth was thick, heavy with the scent of expensive cologne, stale champagne, and the humid residue of thirty people who had danced until they collapsed. Now, most had drifted away, lured out into the cool night air by the after-party or simply exhausted by the sheer volume of the evening. We were the last ones left, or at least, it felt that way. The door was closed, the thick velvet seals muffling the distant thrum of the bass from the main hall, leaving us in a bubble of suspended reality. The room was a shrine to excess and nostalgia, designed to make adults feel like they could escape their responsibilities for a few hours. Strobe lights, still blinking sporadically from the last song, cast jagged shards of blue and magenta across the mirrored walls. The floor was covered in a plush, shag carpet that felt like walking on clouds, slightly sticky from spilled drinks. In the center sat a small, round table cluttered with empty shot glasses and the remnants of a fruit platter, its juice now dark and viscous. But our focus wasn’t on the table. It was on the corner booth, deep