The rooftop was quiet that morning, empty of the usual chaos that had marked their days for months. No laughter, no shouts, no hurried footsteps — only the faint hum of the city below and the wind brushing against the edges of the building. The four of them arrived as always, climbing the ladder in silence, their ritual now heavier, more deliberate. They carried nothing but the camera, a few blankets, and the remnants of their devotion to this project that had grown beyond them.
Jordan placed the camera on a tripod facing the skyline. He adjusted the lens carefully, fingers lingering over the controls as if hesitant to press the final record button. The city stretched below them, distant and indifferent, unaware of the four lives suspended above it. Susana clutched the final monologue, her hands trembling slightly, as if she could feel the weight of the words inside her chest. Margret tugged her red fur coat tighter, the fabric catching the last rays of sunlight. Mirabel stood barefoot, her hair loose, her hands streaked with tiny stars of paint, staring at the skyline like she could memorise every building, every flicker of movement, before it vanished.
"This is it," Susana said softly, her voice steady despite the tremor in her hands. "The last time anyone will see us. If we disappear tomorrow, don't look for us in the news. Don't search for our faces in frames. Look for what we leave behind — the colour, the voice, the echo."
Jordan nodded, pressing the record button with deliberate care. The red light blinked steadily. No one said "cut." There was no rehearsal, no false start. Only the four of them, standing against the skyline, caught in the golden light of a dying afternoon.
They remained still for what felt like hours. Time itself seemed to stretch and fold around them. Margret's chest rose and fell with the rhythm of the wind; Mirabel's eyes shimmered with unspoken sorrow; Susana's lips moved in silent echo of the words she had written; Jordan's lens captured every infinitesimal movement, every heartbeat.
Then it began.
The wind shifted. The light flickered in ways that seemed impossible. And from the edges of the rooftop, a faint, almost imperceptible heat began to rise. Susana noticed it first — the smell of smoke, not strong yet, but insistent. She inhaled sharply and looked at the others.
"Do you… smell that?" she whispered.
Jordan frowned, adjusting the lens. "It's fine," he said, though his voice carried a note of unease. Margret laughed nervously, brushing her hand through her hair. Mirabel said nothing, only tilted her head as if listening to something beyond the city.
Within moments, the heat became tangible. A flicker of orange danced across the corner of the rooftop. They froze, eyes wide. The building groaned beneath them, an almost sentient sound that made the hairs on their arms rise.
"We have to move," Jordan said, voice sharp now, the camera still rolling. But Susana shook her head.
"No," she said. "We finish this. We end it here. All of it. Everything we've made. Every frame, every word, every star."
Margret hesitated, looking at the rising smoke, but then she squared her shoulders. "She's right," she said. "We finish it."
Mirabel's hands hovered over her brush. She added a final streak of stars across the ledge, tiny flecks that seemed to glow even in the encroaching smoke. "For us," she whispered.
They began moving, slowly, deliberately, toward the edges of the rooftop, capturing one final sequence. Susana stepped forward, reading aloud the last lines she had written:
> "This is the last time you'll see us. Not because we're gone, but because you finally opened your eyes. We've been here. We've always been here."
Jordan whispered, almost to himself, "Cut," though no one moved. The camera continued to record, faithfully, as if aware that this was not just a film but a monument.
The smoke thickened, curling around their feet. The wind shifted, carrying the faint crackle of flame. Margret's coat caught a brief flicker of light, making it appear as though she were ablaze. Mirabel's stars shimmered and dimmed, absorbed into the air like fading constellations. Jordan's lens caught it all — the city below, the sky above, and the four of them standing in golden defiance against the creeping void.
Then the fire took hold. Not suddenly, not explosively, but quietly, like a whispered inevitability. The edges of the rooftop burned first, spreading along the old wooden boards and the tarred surface. Smoke filled their lungs, stinging, but still they held their positions. Susana's voice wavered only slightly, Margret's laughter had turned to a soft, trembling smile, Mirabel's eyes were wide and bright, and Jordan's hands did not falter on the camera.
The city below remained oblivious. Cars drove past, streetlights blinked, pedestrians moved, all unaware of the four teenagers standing at the edge of memory and flame.
And then — silence.
The camera continued to record even as the building groaned and shifted. The golden light faded to amber, then to smoke-streaked grey. Their forms blurred slightly, not from movement, but from the world itself bending, as though reality was folding in on the memory of them.
Somewhere, far below, someone would later find the camera, propped against the ledge. The battery is blinking red. The footage is intact. And on it, four teenagers captured in their last, immortal act: smiling, breathing, alive, standing against a skyline that would soon forget them.
The fire consumed the rooftop, the building, the fragments of their world. But the art remained. The script, the sketches, the scattered lines of dialogue, the filmed sequences — all of it endured. The camera preserved it. The city, in its quiet, indifferent way, carried their memory forward, even if it did not know it.
In the days that followed, articles appeared, whispers spread, and eventually, their story reached screens across the world: a Vimeo account uploaded "stars_final.mov," a simple, unedited recording of the four teenagers in golden light. People watched, mesmerised, believing in something they had never met, never known.
Susana's notebook became a published screenplay. Jordan's footage was displayed in silent exhibits. Margret's voice became an echo in acting schools. Mirabel's constellations were remade into murals. And somewhere, in the quiet spaces of the world, people paused, whispered the lines aloud, traced the stars with their fingers, and felt the presence of four lives that had burned bright and fast, like meteors across an indifferent sky.
The truth, though, was known only to those who had been there. The fire had come. They had been gone before anyone could notice. They had never grown old. They had never been found. And yet — through the script, the camera, the scattered pages, the memories, and the belief of those who saw — they lived.
Not in history books. Not in newspapers. Not in records or registers. But in something far more enduring: the art they had made, the moments they had stolen from time, the echoes of laughter and screams, the faint shimmer of stars painted on a rooftop, and the story that whispered through the city forever.
Even if no one ever saw them shine, the rooftop four were immortal.
They were gone. Not forgotten.
And the camera, blinking red in the empty city, kept their story alive.