Donald J. Trump didn’t move as we stepped toward the bright side — he simply watched, the way monuments watch history pass: quietly, without blinking.
The chasm of light hummed beneath us, widening just enough to make the choice irreversible.
The shadow side roared behind us, smoky and trembling.
The underwater corridor flickered at the edge of the waves like a submerged heartbeat.
But the bright Malibu glowed.
And sometimes, humans run toward the glow even when they know it’s a trap.
My lover was the first to step through.
He didn’t hesitate.
His foot touched the sand on the bright side — and for an instant, the world flickered like a reel change in an old projector.
Then he inhaled sharply.
“It smells like nothing here,” he murmured.
“No smoke. No salt. No earth. Just… clean.”
Too clean.
Kellerman crossed reluctantly, muttering,
“If this is Paradise, it feels like it’s under audit.”
I followed last.
The moment I crossed, the temperature changed — not warmer, not cooler, just correct, in the way digital things feel correct: optimized, frictionless, suspicious.
Mr. Trump nodded once — a gesture of approval or victory — and vanished.
Not in a puff of smoke or a flash of light.
Just gone, like a screen blinking off.
THE CONVERTIBLE THAT SHOULDN’T HAVE BEEN THERE
The beach was empty save for one object parked fifty feet away:
A white convertible Mustang.
Pristine.
Polished.
Top down, driver’s door open, keys dangling invitingly from the ignition.
My lover froze.
“They planted a car for us.”
Kellerman frowned.
“That’s not a car — that’s a narrative device.”
But I approached anyway.
Because there was something magnetic about it.
Something too familiar.
The leather smelled new, like the first day of a rental destined for a road trip you’ll exaggerate in stories later.
A note sat on the dashboard.
Three words:
“DRIVE THE BRIGHT.”
The engine purred when I turned the key — a clean, cinematic rev, too perfect to be mechanical.
My lover slid into the passenger seat, pulling his hair slicked back as the wind caught it.
“You know this is bait, right?”
“Of course,” I said. “But it’s beautiful bait.”
Kellerman climbed into the back reluctantly, strapping in like we were boarding an experimental aircraft.
“Fine,” he muttered.
“But if we get absorbed into some Malibu simulation loop, I’m haunting both of you.”
THE BRIGHT HIGHWAY
The Mustang rolled with effortless grace, tyres whispering across asphalt that had no cracks, no oil stains, no signs of real life.
The sky above us was impossibly blue, as if the brightness had been calibrated by a software engineer.
My lover rested his hand on the dashboard.
“This Malibu… it feels like a postcard someone keeps rewriting.”
Kellerman held up his scanner.
“No background radiation. No atmospheric noise. No entropy. This place isn’t alive — it’s curated.”
The wind in my hair didn’t feel like wind.
It felt like an algorithm simulating wind.
We passed surfers who held the exact same pose for too long.
Joggers whose shadows didn’t change length as the sun shifted.
A dog walker whose dozen identical golden retrievers all wagged their tails in perfect synchronization.
This wasn’t Malibu.
This was the Malibu someone wishes Malibu were.
“Circle Four,” my lover said softly.
“It’s not testing obedience. It’s testing desire.”
THE FIRST GLITCH
The first glitch appeared near Pepperdine — a shimmer along the road where the light bent sideways like it had been draped over an invisible object.
As we drove through it, the Mustang’s radio turned on by itself.
A voice — calm, rehearsed, generically authoritative — spoke:
“YOU HAVE CHOSEN BRIGHTNESS.
CONTINUE FOR ALIGNMENT.”
Kellerman groaned.
“God, it’s like being inside a motivational poster.”
But my lover’s voice softened with worry.
“This isn’t the test,” he whispered.
“This is the seduction before the test.”
The road ahead straightened, too straight for real Malibu, stretching into an infinite-perfect horizon.
“Where does it lead?” I asked.
“Where all curated narratives lead,” he said.
“To the place where you stop questioning.”
We drove on.
The cliffs glowed a shade of gold no geology can produce.
The ocean sparkled like a screen saver.
The sun hung motionless, caught between seconds.
Then — up ahead — something appeared on the road:
A checkpoint of light.
A shimmering archway spanning the highway, humming with energy.
Words flickered across its surface like a glitching billboard:
ENTER TO BE REWRITTEN.
I slowed the Mustang.
My lover grabbed my hand.
“Don’t,” he whispered.
“Once we pass that arch, we’re not ourselves anymore. We become the version the Bright Side wants.”
“Which is what?” I asked.
Kellerman swallowed.
“Conformity,” he said.
“Sanitized truth. Manufactured optimism.
The kind of Malibu where nothing burns anymore — not forests, not illusions.”
The ocean beside the road shimmered unnaturally, reflecting not the sky, but us — staring back at ourselves through brightness.
“We have seconds to choose,” my lover said.
The archway crackled.
The Mustang idled.
The Bright Side waited.
And for the first time since the sky split, I wasn’t sure which version of us would step forward.