Chapter 1: The Unwanted Pilot

Chapter 1: The Unwanted Pilot

The casting room in Burbank smelled of desperation and stale coffee, a scent Alice Vance knew better than her own cheap perfume. She sat on a plastic chair that had seen better decades, clutching a resume that was ninety percent creative embellishment. Across from her, a man whose soul had clearly been replaced by a low-carb protein bar sighed with theatrical boredom.

"Alice Vance," he droned, not looking up from his tablet. "We're casting for 'Worried Girlfriend #3' in a procedural cop drama. Can you give me... worried?"

Alice dredged up the memory of her last credit card bill. She widened her eyes, let her lower lip tremble, and infused her voice with the perfect cocktail of fear and helplessness. "Detective, you have to find him! He... he wouldn't just disappear!"

The producer, Chad or Brad or Tad, finally looked at her. His eyes were as empty as a soundstage after wrap. "Hmm. It's a little... theatrical. We're looking for someone with a little more... sparkle."

The word hung in the air, a final, pathetic nail in the coffin of her audition. Sparkle. As if she had any left to give. It was the last thing she heard before the world dissolved into a blinding, agonizingly bright white light.

It wasn't a fade to black. It was a violent smash cut.

One moment, she was in a beige, soul-crushing office. The next, she was standing on a sidewalk of swirling, pearlescent pink, blinking against a sky the perfect, artificial color of a blueberry slushie. Sleek, chrome-finned cars zipped silently through the air between pristine, pastel-colored houses with impossibly green lawns. The air itself smelled sweet, a cloying blend of freshly baked sugar cookies and ozone. An inoffensive doo-wop tune seemed to be emanating from the very atoms around her.

Panic, cold and sharp, tried to claw its way up her throat, but her training kicked in. Find your mark. Know your environment. What's my motivation? Right now, her motivation was to not have a complete and total psychotic break.

"What in the ever-loving, retro-futuristic hell?" she muttered, smoothing down her clothes. Her worn jeans and faded band t-shirt had been replaced. She was now wearing a ridiculously vibrant poodle skirt, a crisp white blouse, and a neckerchief tied with painful precision. She looked like a refugee from the set of Pleasantville.

Before she could scream, a translucent blue screen shimmered into existence before her eyes, accompanied by a cheerful, three-note chime.

[Welcome, Co-Star Alice Vance!]

[You have been selected for a leading role in Charmaland's #1 hit broadcast!]

[Show Title: My Neighbor, the Charmer]

[Your Role: The Sweet-but-Clumsy New Neighbor]

[First Objective: Introduce yourself to the show's Star #1, Bella Sterling. Maintain Audience Approval.]

[Consequence for Failure: Cancellation.]

Alice stared, her cynical, media-saturated brain kicking into overdrive. This was... a system. An Isekai plot. She'd been dropped into a video game, or a simulation, or some god's twisted idea of a reality TV show. The word "Cancellation" pulsed with a faint, ominous red light. It didn't feel like a threat to her career; it felt like a threat to her existence.

"You have got to be kidding me," she whispered. The System screen remained, impassive and cheerful.

A nearby door, painted a shade of mint green that hurt the eyes, swung open. Out glided a woman so perfectly beautiful she seemed computer-generated. Blonde hair, coiffed into a flawless flip. A smile brighter than the California sun. A gingham dress that cinched a waist that defied physics. A faint, shimmering aura of literal sparkles seemed to follow her. This had to be Bella Sterling.

Bella's smile widened, but it didn't reach her eyes. Those eyes, a stunning cerulean blue, were scanning Alice from head to toe, calculating, assessing. It was a look Alice knew well. It was the look of a lead actress sizing up the competition.

"Oh, you must be the new talent!" Bella's voice was like honey and wind chimes, and just as artificial. "How... fresh. I'm Bella Sterling. It's just a delight to have you move into the neighborhood."

Alice forced a smile, the muscles in her face feeling stiff and unused to this level of saccharine sincerity. "Alice Vance. It's, uh, a delight to be here." She gestured vaguely at the impossibly perfect street. "This place is... something else."

In the top right corner of her vision, a small meter flickered. [Audience Approval: 52%]. A bar, half-full, glowed beneath the numbers.

Bella's eyes darted to the empty space where Alice was looking, a flicker of understanding in their depths. "Oh, you'll get used to it," she said, her smile tightening a fraction. "We all do. The key is to find your light, hit your marks, and always, always give the audience what they want."

She stepped closer, her sweet perfume momentarily overwhelming the smell of sugar-cookie-air. Her voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper, the honeyed tone replaced by something sharp and cold, like a shard of glass.

"A word of advice, newbie. See that number in your vision? That's your Rating. It's everything. It's your health bar, your bank account, your lifeline. Every line you say, every action you take, it makes that number go up or down."

Alice's blood ran cold. This confirmed it. This was a performance, and the stakes were real. "And what happens if it goes down?"

Bella's perfect smile returned, but now it looked predatory, utterly chilling. "Let's just say the laugh track isn't the only thing that's canned around here. The Network Director doesn't like performers who can't hold an audience. They have a very strict cancellation policy."

She leaned in, her blue eyes boring into Alice's. "I've seen dozens of 'new neighbors' come and go. The ones who try to improvise, who go off-script, who think they're too clever for the role? Their ratings plummet. And in Charmaland, when your show gets cancelled... so do you."

She paused, letting the weight of the threat sink in.

"Permanently."

Bella straightened up, her posture once again that of the perfect, bubbly sitcom star. She patted Alice's arm with a hand that felt shockingly cold. "Welcome to the show, Alice! I just know we're going to be the best of friends."

She turned and glided back to her mint-green house, the door clicking shut behind her with a sound of absolute finality.

Alice stood alone on the pearlescent sidewalk, the cheerful doo-wop music suddenly sounding like a funeral dirge. The blue System screen still hovered in front of her, the word [Cancellation] pulsing its gentle, terrifying rhythm. Far above, so high it was almost invisible against the blueberry sky, she thought she saw a glint of light, like sunlight reflecting off a camera lens.

The camera in the sky winked, and for the first time in her life, Alice Vance was truly, deeply terrified.