Title: "Behind the Velvet Curtain: A Club Halo Mystery"

The relentless thrum of the bass had yet to start—at this hour, Club Halo was almost peaceful. Sunlight, reluctant as a stray guest, broke through the thick velvet curtains and skittered along the bar. Here, Emilie poured over her clipboard, her dark hair pulled up in a sharp ponytail, her lips painted a warning shade of red: Not Now. Tonight’s headliner DJ was already late, and the staff was popping and fizzing with nervous energy behind the scenes. It was Wednesday—usually slow—but not with the new promo she’d dreamed up.

She checked the clock above the bar. In two hours, neon would bounce from mirrored panels, and a hundred faces would tilt back martinis. For now, she slammed the freezer hard enough to rattle glass, sorting fruit for the garnish display.

Her mind, disciplined and ruthless, pushed aside the ache that always lingered just behind her routine. Apples, limes, cherries, lemons—then, inexplicably, she was peeling a navel orange, though she hadn’t ordered them in months. Her hands moved with habitual skill, but her eyes blurred as the peel fell into perfect curls like ringlets of her sister’s hair.

Clara loved oranges, she remembered. In winter, she would wedge them into her cheeks, cheeks sticky, always grinning, never mind the juice on her hands or the mess left on Emilie’s bedsheets. It had been two years, almost to the day. Two years since Clara left her apartment one evening, a lipstick-smeared “love you, Em,” ringing in her ears, and vanished into the city’s open mouth. No note. No body. Just a half-peeled orange on the kitchen table.

Emilie blinked. The noise of the club bled in: clattering from the VIP lounge, a dull shout from a delivery guy in the alley, her own quick, shaky breathing. She tried to set the orange on the bar, but her hand trembled. The orange slipped, dropped, rolled, and knocked a wineglass off the edge before she could catch it.

Shards skidded across the bar’s polished wood—a rain of crystal. Emilie swore under her breath, then another glass hit the ground, and another as she spun too quickly.

Then it happened: a break, as though nerves and memory in her body shattered alongside the glass. Cajoling words of confidence, lists and reminders—all dissolved. Emilie braced herself on the counter, the pain in her chest compressing the air in the empty club.

"Boss," said Jermaine, the bartender, his hand gentle on her shoulder. He didn’t ask. He simply ducked down, sweeping the glittering glass into a pile with practiced care. “It’s okay. Let’s grab the broom.”

Kumi, the floor manager, rushed in from the lounge, mop already in hand. “Don’t move, Em. We’ll get it.” She squeezed Emilie’s arm, her gaze softening. They both knew the date. They all did. Jermaine had worked here since before Club Halo was even legal—before irritation had settled in Emilie’s bones, before she stared hollow-eyed at crowds, searching for her sister’s face in every reflection.

Emilie wiped at her cheeks, leaving a smear of citrus on her skin. She murmured, “Sorry. I'm fine. I'm just—” She cut herself off with a ragged laugh, shaking her head. The hurt was like the sting of orange juice in a paper cut; unyielding, sharp, unforgettable.

“We’ll finish setup, Em," Jermaine said quietly, his broad hands scooping up the last of the glass with a dustpan. “Go get some air. We got this.”

Kumi darted behind the bar with sanitizer, knowing without asking what Emilie needed. Emilie, tension hollowing her, retreated to the office. She sank into her worn leather chair, back to the security screens, closing her eyes for one unguarded moment.

In silence, she allowed herself to picture Clara as she'd been at seventeen—impulsive, wild, a troublesome comet burning across Emilie’s sky. Emilie pressed her thumb against the old photograph she kept in her wallet: Clara, on the club's opening night, perched on a barstool with that perpetual, mischievous grin.

The ache lessened as the routine returned. In minutes, Emilie had reapplied her lipstick, scrubbed the glass cases of fingerprints, checked the bottle fills, and gave new instructions: “Tables six through ten get sparklers at midnight. The private booth wants a fresh bottle of gin, and only bring out the cake after the DJ set.”

Kumi grinned and gave a salute. Jermaine set out clean rocks glasses, lining them up perfectly, nodding at Emilie before the first guests arrived. At the door, she forced her most dazzling manager’s smile, accepted the handshakes and cheek-kisses, and—every time the door flickered open—her heart jerked, hoping against reason. No Clara. Just another night, just another crowd.

But later, as the bass rolled through the building and the club erupted with laughter and movement, her staff watched her closely, shoulders tense in silent support. And when Emilie surveyed the sparkling bar, now unmarred by broken glass, she knew: tonight, at least, she could hold every sharp memory without flinching. She could keep searching Clara out of the faces in the crowd, and hold her own against despair until morning, and the strange, unsteady hope that maybe—just maybe—tonight would bring a clue, a crack in the darkness, something more than two years of silence.

This story was generated by user ziggo.zane with assistance by one of OpenAI’s large-scale language-generation model; prompts used to help generate the story are shown below.

Images were generated with OpenAI's AI system, DALL·E 2, or uploaded by the user.

AI Prompts