– CHAPTER TWO –

  SINGING THE IMPOSSIBLE DREAM

  That Thursday in Malibu, the sun poured its golden rays upon the earth, warming it with a gentle touch. Light shimmered against the beachfront mansions, casting a near-mystical glow that seemed to emanate from the very heart of the city. The sound of waves breaking on the shore, soft, rhythmic, unrelenting, played like the perfect soundtrack to the footsteps of those privileged enough to dwell within that idyllic setting. Malibu, with its singular, radiant charm, exhaled a distinct atmosphere, as though it were a place where time moved with more grace, where luxury and beauty intertwined in something approaching enchantment. But, in the end, paradise was no more than an illusion. The perfection of the landscapes, the abundance of comfort, they paled in comparison to the quiet discontent harbored within certain hearts. And Miss Lily was one of those hearts.

  She had grown up surrounded by glittering trophies, gleaming medals, and diplomas that framed the walls of her home, each a testament to the extraordinary creature she was said to be. And yet, for all the acclaim, a constant sensation lingered: that it was never enough. Nothing quite filled that hollow space.

  At her side, like a permanent shadow, was her mother, Mrs. Karen, a woman with a ravenous gaze and a restless soul. She fed off her daughter’s triumphs, trying to relive, through her, the fleeting years of youth that time was quietly reclaiming. When the beauty pageants and the glamour she once claimed began to fade into memory, she saw in Lily not merely a daughter, but an opportunity, a means of continuing to shine in a world where appearance and status reigned above all else.

  Inside that house, Lily’s success was the axis upon which everything turned. The walls of the living room were blanketed with a collection of her photographs, a personal gallery of triumphs. Images of her clad in shimmering gowns, draped with oversized sashes declaring her supremacy, proclaiming her as the best, the number one.

  Atop the black grand piano, a gift bestowed upon her when she was merely one year old, more photos were meticulously arranged, each set in ornate frames worthy of a palace.

  But unlike the common photographs of childhood that capture moments of leisure and play, Lily’s images told a different story: one of conquests. Always at the top of the podium, her smile wide, her teeth so dazzlingly white they bordered on artificial, she stood as the star, while her competitors, faces downcast, lingered in secondary places. Lily’s spray-tanned glow stood in stark contrast to the fatigue etched into the features of those who had settled for second or third place.

  And amid it all, Mrs. Karen managed to weave herself in. Subtly, yet persistently, she found ways to include photographs of her own youth, as if to assert that her daughter’s radiance was not merely a reflection, but an inheritance; a continuity of the glamour she herself had once embodied.

  Among all the trophies ever won, there was one that stood apart, singular in its strangeness: Mister Bacon, the little pig Lily had received at her very first beauty pageant, held in a modest rural town. Since that day, he had become a centerpiece in her performances, a symbol of her originality, and at the same time, a constant reminder of the absurdity behind her success.

  The act was simple, yet charming in its own peculiar way. Mister Bacon, the pig, harbored an unusual dream: he wanted to be a beautiful girl. And in a certain sense, he was. Dressed in a sparkling purple gown that shimmered under the spotlight, and donning a blonde wig that matched Lily’s own hair to perfection, he stepped onto the stage, ready to enchant. Meanwhile, hidden in the shadows behind the curtain, Lily would begin to sing the powerful "The Impossible Dream," as performed by Shirley Bassey, her voice filling the air with a drama so tangible it held the entire audience captive.

  The pig, trained with patience and generosity, and, of course, with a generous supply of food, moved his lips with uncanny precision, as if lip-syncing the song. At the peak of the performance, just as the song reached its climactic height, Lily would make her grand entrance onto the stage, while Mister Bacon, with the grace of a seasoned artist, would quietly take his leave. The audience, gripped by a blend of surprise and wonder, would erupt in applause, swept away by the sheer boldness of a spectacle that shattered every expectation.

  That morning, however, something unexpected happened.

  Americ-Ana awoke with a colossal jolt. The sound of violent pounding on the door and furious screams sent her heart racing as though it might burst through her chest.

  “WAKE UP, YOU FILTHY WHORE! DO SOMETHING USEFUL!” came the shrill voice of Aunt Karen, slicing through the corridors of the house like a blade.

  Still dazed, Americ-Ana tried to make sense of what was happening. Everything around her seemed to spin in a whirlwind, and a deafening hum filled her ears. Slowly, the memories of the night before began to rise, like a crushing wave:

  A lime-green cat.

  A boy with lime-green hair.

  Strange things spilling out of the mouth of the boy with lime-green hair...

  No. That couldn’t have been real.

  With trembling hands, Americ-Ana reached for her phone. Her heart pounded out of rhythm, and a creeping sense that something was terribly wrong settled over her. She searched through the sheets, fumbled beneath the pillow, until finally, her fingers brushed against the cold surface of the device.

  On the screen, the familiar icon of the Novaxtraai app was blinking, pulsing with a disquieting intensity.

  Before she could begin to grasp what it meant, Aunt Karen’s voice sliced through her thoughts, more threatening than ever.

  “If you don’t get up right now, I’m calling immigration!”

  Americ-Ana leapt from the bed and rushed to the kitchen. But upon entering, she nearly fainted at the sight before her.

  Mister Bacon lay on his back, covered in chunks of cake. A few candles still flickered with a feeble flame, while others exhaled only smoke, as if desperate to vanish before anyone could notice they’d been lit. The air in the kitchen was thick, unbearable, soaked in the nauseating stench of vomit.

  The cake.

  The cake that had come from the boy’s mouth.

  The cake she had thrown at the pig.

  It hadn’t been a dream.

  The truth hit her with the force of a punch to the gut. Lily, crouched in the corner of the kitchen, was crying uncontrollably, clutching the pig as if he were her only hope. That evening’s pageant, an event in Hollywood, was supposed to be her big break, a direct leap toward fame. And yet, there lay her trump card, her star act, Mister Bacon, now sick, now jeopardizing everything.

  “Stop crying, princess!” shouted Aunt Karen, her voice laced with panic. “Your face will swell! You’ll ruin the pageant!”

  It was then that Americ-Ana caught the look in her aunt’s eyes. First, a wave of hatred. Then, a deep, nauseated disgust. And finally, genuine fear.

  “What is that?!” Aunt Karen stepped back, eyes wide, as though she were staring at a monster.

  “Is this some trend from your people? No, no, no!” Karen’s voice trembled with indignation. “It starts like this, with tattoos... then comes the drinking... then the drugs... And before I know it, you’ll be robbing this house to feed your addiction!”

  The word “tattoos” cut through the air like a cold blade. Americ-Ana felt a wave of despair, a sudden collapse. Her mind reeled as her aunt stared at her in scandalized horror. Panicking, she ran to the toaster and looked at her reflection in the metal.

  The marks were there.

  The cat.

  The owl.

  The triangle with an eye.

  All of them covered in QR codes.

  Americ-Ana scrubbed her face hard, as if she could erase what had appeared there. But the marks wouldn’t come off.

  Suddenly, Aunt Karen grabbed her by the collar and dragged her to the sink. She turned on the faucet full force and began scrubbing Americ-Ana’s face with soap, her fury unhinged.

  “I... WILL... NOT... TOLERATE... A... CRIMINAL... IN THIS... HOUSE!”

  With each word, she shoved Americ-Ana’s head into the freezing water.

  Americ-Ana tried to break free, but the soap filled her eyes and nose, suffocating her, making everything even more unbearable. She thrashed, desperate for air, until with a frantic shove, she broke free and collapsed onto the floor, gasping for breath.

  “STOOOOP!” she screamed, curling into a corner, her eyes burning red from the sting.

  Aunt Karen took a deep breath, as if struggling to contain the rage boiling inside her. Then, in a chilling tone, with a calm that bordered on terrifying, she declared:

  “I bet it was you. You poisoned Mister Bacon. You couldn’t bear to see your cousin rise to stardom, so you decided to destroy everything.”

  Americ-Ana froze, her heart pounding as her aunt’s words echoed in her mind. The silence in the kitchen was broken only by the sound of Mister Bacon vomiting.

  “But this won’t go unanswered...” Aunt Karen growled, her teeth clenched, her eyes burning with fury. “Just wait.”

  With heavy footsteps, Aunt Karen climbed the stairs, the sound of slamming doors reverberating through the house. When she returned, she held a black bag in her hands, which she hurled at Americ-Ana with a violent flick of the wrist.

  “Your cousin’s big night will not be ruined. I will make the impossible possible. Put this on and start rehearsing. I’ll call your job and tell them you’re not coming in. They can dock your pay, I don’t care.”

  With that, she turned swiftly toward Lily and began tending to Mister Bacon.

  Still sobbing, Americ-Ana opened the bag with trembling hands. Inside, she found a pig costume, identical to Mister Bacon. The fabric was so realistic that, for a moment, one could almost believe it was real pigskin.

  Hours later, Mrs. Karen was behind the wheel of her metallic pink Bentley Continental GTC, her oversized sunglasses covering half her face, and a silk scarf tied meticulously over her hair, protecting every strand as if her very life depended on it. With a firm grip on the steering wheel, she sped down the road toward the Hollywood Palladium, where that evening’s beauty pageant would take place. The winner would earn the chance to appear as an extra in the next James Bond movie, and for Karen, this was merely the first step in her daughter’s cinematic career.

  In the passenger seat, Miss Lily mirrored her mother’s affected poise. Also wearing dark sunglasses, her face was coated in a layer of green clay mask, now hardening in the warm breeze, giving her a moldy, larval appearance, as though she were being prepped for some kind of metamorphosis. Her hair was rolled up in curlers, elegantly tucked beneath a flawless silk scarf. For Lily, every second of that ride was a sacred ritual of transformation before her grand debut.

  In the back seat, Americ-Ana was crushed against the door, with barely any room to breathe, as beside her sat Mister Bacon, the enormous pink pig, occupying nearly the entire bench. As if that weren’t enough, she had been forced, ever since leaving Malibu, to wear the upper half of the pig costume, not only to hide the mysterious marks on her face, which resembled tattoos, but also as punishment decreed by Aunt Karen, who was now utterly convinced that Americ-Ana had poisoned Mister Bacon in an attempt to sabotage Lily’s chances at victory. To Karen and Lily, Americ-Ana’s jealousy of her cousin’s dazzling future was so transparent, so obvious, that she would stop at nothing to dim her light.

  This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  Beneath the stifling pig mask, tears streamed down Americ-Ana’s face, mixing with sweat and the nauseating scent of synthetic fabric. Beside her, Mister Bacon rode along with a thermometer in his mouth, dark sunglasses, and a thermal cap on his head. The pig let out faint grunts, and Americ-Ana, holding a vomit bag in her lap, was bracing herself for the worst, in case he decided to get sick again.

  Upon arriving at the dazzling Hollywood Palladium, Mrs. Karen stepped out of her metallic pink Bentley as if setting foot on a red carpet, each stride a performance of her own magnificence. At her side, Miss Lily adjusted the scarf over her curlers, fussing over every detail of her appearance, while Mister Bacon was carefully lifted from the car and placed into a wheelchair. The pig was styled like a true star: sunglasses, thermometer, thermal pack. And pushing the wheelchair, of course, was Americ-Ana, still wearing the upper half of the pig costume over her head, suffocated and without choice.

  As they made their way toward the backstage area, weaving through the makeshift dressing room behind the stage, the unfolding scene caused quite the stir. Pageant organizers, contestants, and mothers cast bewildered glances, whispered behind hands, pointed and snickered. The image was impossible to ignore: a girl with a pig’s head pushing a wheelchair carrying... another pig, who looked like her sickly twin. Mister Bacon, with the air of an ailing celebrity, seemed more theatrical than any contestant presente, effortlessly stealing the spotlight with his bizarre, scene-stealing presence.

  Upon reaching their assigned seats, Americ-Ana could barely breathe beneath the costume. The heat of the pig suit and the relentless discomfort smothered her. All around her, the other contestants stood in perfect formation, as if rolled off some gleaming assembly line: unnaturally white teeth, skin tinted orange from self-tanner, impossibly high hairdos, and eyes so blue they looked entirely synthetic. It was a parade of clones, each one more indistinguishably identical than the last.

  Mrs. Karen, utterly elated, swelled with pride as she noticed a small detail: on the row of numbered seats, there was a sign that read "SuperStar Lily – No. 029."

  To her, the fact that it said SuperStar Lily was the ultimate confirmation, proof that her daughter was destined to shine, even among so many aspiring stars.

  “Mommy, did you notice all the other girls are wearing white?” asked Lily, her voice tinged with suspicion as she scanned the room, looking for flaws to exploit or last-minute ideas to steal.

  Mrs. Karen, in the middle of snapping photos for her social media, paused for a moment to take it in. It was true: a sea of white dresses stretched across the dressing room, each with a different cut, texture, or sparkle. But none, in her eyes, could compare to the uniqueness of her daughter.

  “Yes, darling. It’s probably one of those silly competitions that go viral on the internet... nerd stuff. Don’t worry about it. In fact, your dress will make you stand out even more. Never forget: authenticity is the soul of appearance,” said Mrs. Karen, casting a look of disdain at the other mothers before turning her full attention back to her daughter.

  That was when a man entered the dressing room, his appearance nothing short of theatrical: eyebrows perfectly sculpted, lips painted red, and cheeks heavily dusted with blush. His arrival was punctuated by a high-pitched, overly dramatic voice that echoed through the room:

  “Seven minutes, my little coconut sweets! Seven minutes and the show begins! Everyone, eyes up!!!”

  Immediately, the dressing room descended into a frenzy of last-minute adjustments. The air filled with vocal warmups, rushed stretches of arms and legs, the acrid smell of scorched hair mingled with styling gel, and, of course, an overdose of hairspray. Every gesture, every movement, resembled a routine rehearsed to exhaustion.

  Amid all of this, Americ-Ana, still leaning against Mister Bacon’s wheelchair, struggled to find a center, a breath, a thought, a silence of her own. Her eyes locked on the sheet in her hands, she read and reread the lyrics of the song she would have to lip-sync with the pig on stage:

  “To dream the impossible,

  to fight the invincible,

  to endure the deepest pain,

  to go beyond the limits,

  to right the unrightable,

  to try when strength is gone.

  To march without hesitation

  for a cause far greater,

  faithful to the very end,

  certain the world will be better

  because someone, though wounded,

  dared to reach

  the unreachable star.”

  The pig costume’s head had never felt so wet and suffocating. The only smell Americ-Ana could sense was her own breath, sour and bitter like bile, echoing back at her after hours without food, trapped inside the mask and pressing against her face. She was fully dressed now: pig head and pig body. Over that, a heavy, glittering dress, hand-sewn, and a voluminous blonde wig. Everything on her frail, starved frame felt like it weighed a thousand pounds, crushing even her ability to breathe.

  Her stomach growled loudly, a cruel reminder of deprivation. A burp rose up, thick and painful, the product of an entire day without a single drop of water. But she swallowed it down. She had to endure. She had to hold on just a little longer.

  Then, suddenly, a sharp, unexpected grip tightened around her left arm. It was Aunt Karen, emerging from the shadows behind the spotlight, her presence as piercing as a drawn blade. She leaned in close, her breath like acid, and hissed:

  “If you ruin Lily’s big performance, I’ll finish you myself before immigration even gets here. Got it?!”

  Her voice dripped with venom, like a snake poised to strike, fangs soaked in poison. And without waiting for an answer, she vanished into the shadows of the stage, leaving Americ-Ana alone, more exposed, more vulnerable than ever.

  Then came the booming voice of the Master of Ceremonies:

  “Ladies and gentlemen of the jury. Audience. Please welcome our next contestant: No. 029, the one and only SuperStar Miss Lily!”

  The velvet curtains, green with golden trim, began to part slowly, revealing the stage. Behind the pig mask, Americ-Ana’s vision was blurred, warped by sweat and suffocating heat.

  Before her, a sea of people dressed in white, their phones raised like inquisitive beacons, capturing every movement. In the front row, three judges watched in silence, pens poised, blank sheets stacked beside them, waiting to record the slightest misstep.

  The music began to play: “The Impossible Dream.”

  With trembling hands, Americ-Ana started to push the wheelchair in which Mister Bacon, the real pig, was seated. The pig, wearing the same dress and wig as she was, looked like a grotesque mirror of her own appearance. She tried to find the rhythm of the song, moving the chair to match the beat of the opening verse.

  One to the left, two to the right.

  One to the left, two to the right.

  The audience laughed, amused by the spectacle: a real pig, in a wheelchair and dressed like a movie star, being pushed by a “fake pig”, a human being trapped inside a costume.

  The music pressed on, and the cue for Lily’s entrance was drawing near. Americ-Ana tried to stay in rhythm, but something was off. Confusion began to creep into her mind, her coordination unraveling.

  Two to the left. Three to the right.

  Two to the right. Three to the left.

  Three quarters... which way again?

  The pressure of standing there, exposed before the audience, combined with the heat of the costume and the toll on her body, made everything begin to spin in Americ-Ana’s mind. Each movement felt harder to perform, the world around her starting to blur, dissolve, bleed into a haze.

  Her throat tightened. No food. No water. And now the unbearable heat closing in, the stench of her own breath invading her nostrils again, nauseating, a rancid blend of sour milk and roasted chicken left out for days under the sun. A burp surged upward, thick and boiling, turning into a blister of vomit in her throat. She swallowed it down with force, refusing to surrender. Just a little more. Almost there.

  One... two... three to the left... four, twenty, thirty... all to the left...

  And then — it happened.

  BLEARGHHHH!!!

  Mister Bacon vomited onstage. The grotesque, greenish liquid splattered across the stage floor, coating the surface with its viscous stench. The audience responded with a mixture of horror and laughter. Some covered their eyes, but none, not a single one, lowered their phones. Every last one of them kept filming, capturing the moment for social media.

  It was time for Lily’s grand entrance.

  Focused on the music, her voice aimed at hitting the final note with Shirley Bassey level perfection, she stepped into the spotlight, eyes locked on her goal. But Americ-Ana, exhausted and drained, lost control. Her arms, trembling and weak, couldn’t hold the weight of Mister Bacon’s wheelchair. She slipped, skidding on the pig’s vomit, and fell, clumsily and disastrously. She was still there, onstage, when she should have vanished into the wings.

  Lily, in perfect concentration, took a misstep. Her heel twisted, and with a muffled cry, she fell face-first into the still-warm vomit. Stunned, she tried to rise and keep singing, but the audience, now in total collapse, howled with laughter, filming every second, streaming the disaster across every app imaginable.

  In a desperate attempt to salvage the moment, Americ-Ana tried to push the wheelchair offstage, to flee the scene. But then... the worst happened.

  Mister Bacon toppled from the chair. His heavy, greasy body crashed straight into Lily’s face, still pressed against the floor. The pig’s weight, dozens of kilos of fat, lard, and sheer ch?os, slammed her head into the stage. Lily flailed, her arms and legs kicking at the air in a frantic struggle for escape. The audience howled louder, the scene becoming a full-blown spectacle for everyone presente, and for the countless others watching online.

  Mister Bacon rolled to the side. Lily reemerged, dazed, pig vomit streaming from her nose and mouth. But something else was happening. A red stain began to spread. Blood. Her teeth, shattered from the impact, formed a tableau of pure terror. What had moments ago seemed like bizarre comedy had curdled into a waking nightmare. The panic etched on her face was now the only visible thing, cutting through the laughter like a knife, ushering in the creeping dread of something horribly wrong.

  The laughter faded gradually. A few still chuckled, unaware of the gravity of what was unfolding. Others, more perceptive, began to realize that something was deeply wrong. But not a single person, at any moment, lowered their phone. No one stopped filming.

  In a split second, Americ-Ana couldn’t hold it anymore. The weight of the moment, the unbearable discomfort, the suffocating costume, the humiliation, it all drowned her. She vomited inside the pig mask.

  BLEARGHHHH!!!!

  The hot liquid surged upward, filling the mask until it touched her hair, engulfing her in a sea of nausea. The headpiece, soaked and collapsing under the weight of her own sickness, slid off with a heavy thud.

  The audience, who until then had watched with amused detachment, finally saw her face. The pig mask fell to the side, revealing Americ-Ana’s face: pale, twisted by pain and shame. Silence fell for a single, suspended moment, as if the shock of the revelation had frozen the room.

  One of the judges stood abruptly. He pointed at Americ-Ana, his other hand covering his mouth, frozen in disbelief.

  Then, as if some spell had been cast, a sudden crackle of energy tore through the Hollywood Palladium, the air vibrating with a palpable tension.

  One by one, every phone turned toward Americ-Ana, their screens lighting up the faces of the crowd. Eyes filled with shock, curiosity, and judgment converged, the faces of children, the elderly, men and women. Every gaze locked on her, every camera flash like a bullet, as if she stood at the eye of a storm about to erupt.

  A murmur began to swell, like an invisible wave rolling across the audience, growing in intensity, as though the very air were charged with an unbearable anticipation.

  Then, a woman stood from the front row, the mother of one of the contestants. Her phone live-streaming, her eyes ablaze, as if she had just uncovered something irrefutable. She screamed, her voice slicing through the silence like a blade:

  “THE QR COOOOOODEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!”

  And that scream...

  That scream was the starting gun. The signal of something yet to come, a race that, somehow, had already begun long before Americ-Ana even understood what was happening.

  A deafening noise echoed through the Hollywood Palladium, the shrill scraping of hundreds of chairs being dragged at once, like metal clawed by invisible fingers. The roar was so loud it could be heard at least two and a half blocks away, reverberating like thunder through the heart of the city.

  The audience, once silent and focused, exploded into a frenzied horde. People shoved, clawed at hair, arms, legs, in a blind, uncontrollable stampede, all surging toward a single target: Americ-Ana. More precisely, her face.

  The tattoos on it, a cat, an owl, and a triangle with an eye at its center, now revealed the true treasure. Each symbol was veined with a gleaming QR Code, pulsing with a life of its own, as if the codes themselves had a soul, an energy that beckoned everyone within reach.

  The Master of Ceremonies, in absolute panic, tore the microphone stand from its base and held it like a makeshift shield as he tried to reach Americ-Ana, battling through the human avalanche.

  The three judges, transformed into reality-show gladiators, leapt onto the stage, hurling crumpled paper and sharp-pointed pens in a wild attempt to hold back the crowd, now scaling the stage from both sides like an immense tide, swallowing everything in its path.

  In the blink of an eye, the hall transformed into a living tide, not of water, but of flesh and bone, voices and lights. A human wave surged forward, swallowing the entire stage, sweeping away everything in its path.

  Flashes erupted from every direction. The sound of apps being opened blended with the endless hum of phones, tablets, and laptops, all connected, all poised to capture the moment. Every second had become a spectacle of chaos and anticipation.

  No one cared about the pig vomit smeared across the floor. They slipped, fell, rose again, crawled, all consumed by the frantic need to see and record that moment.

  Men. Women. Children. The elderly. From every direction, every age, the crowd pressed toward the stage. An old man, his cane raised like a paddle, cut through the human storm with furious intent. A child, no more than seven, sprayed milk from her baby bottle into the eyes of anyone daring to pass her mother, a primal defense in miniature form.

  Miss Lily and Mister Bacon were shoved offstage, swallowed by limbs, elbows, and a forest of raised cameras, lost in the churning mass now devouring the theater.

  And at the center of it all: Americ-Ana.

  Suddenly, the nausea and sickness that had followed her all day began to fade. In their place, a new sensation surged through her, hot and urgent: survival instinct.

  She had to run. Now.

  But it was already too late.

  Arms and hands reached out from every direction, closing in around her. Flashes blinded her vision, her eyes tried to adjust, but everything dissolved into a blur of lights and distorted shapes. Fingers pulled at her cheek with such force she thought they might tear it from her face. Others clawed at the skin on her forehead, as if trying to peel it off, to strip her down, to rip away her very identity.

  Then, a singular, terrible sound sliced through the air. A gunshot. The firearm cracked across the hall, halting the frenzy, but not slowing the madness.

  And then… a hand emerged.

  No! A claw.

  Long nails, lacquered in neon pink.

  The claw clamped down hard on Americ-Ana’s ankle, yanking her from beneath the swarm. She had no time to react. In a single instant, she was dragged downward.

  Her body slammed violently, her head striking the stage floor, the impact echoed through her skull like a bell struck in a crypt.

  And then...

  Everything went silent.

  Everything went dark.