Lights, Camera, Blood

The email landed in my inbox at 9:17 p.m. with three pink hearts, one diamond ring, and the kind of subject line only a government department could make threatening.

Congratulations, Sadie Lane! 🎉💍💖

I usually deleted anything with an emoji in the subject line on principle, but curiosity got me. That was my first mistake.

The second I clicked, a video hijacked my screen.

A man and woman in matching powder-blue suits beamed at me from a set that looked like someone had robbed a 1960s living room and sponsored it with washing powder. There were floral curtains, a fake fireplace, plastic smiles, and music so cheerful it felt medically unsafe.

“Congratulations, Sadie!” they chirped. “You’ve been selected to join this season of True Hearts, our nation’s most romantic competition!”

Selected.

That was the word that made my stomach tighten. Invited meant choice. Nominated meant flattery. Selected meant the State had found your name on a list and put a neat little tick beside it.

I sat there, sweaty from Muay Thai and halfway through a protein shake, wondering if I’d accidentally opened a cult recruitment video.

“Your journey to finding true love begins now!” the woman continued, clasping her hands to her chest. “And remember, True Hearts is more than a show. It’s the key to your future.”

My future. Cute.

In our perfect little dystopia, anyone over twenty-five and single was apparently a public health risk. The State claimed uncoupled adults created social instability, reduced birth projections, and distressed the elderly. I had never personally terrorised an old person by eating noodles alone on a Friday night, but the Population Management Office had graphs, and graphs were basically religion now.

If you paired up, you were useful. If you didn’t, you became a problem, and the State loved solving problems.

The video kept playing. Smiling women in pastel dresses. A man in a suit holding a rose. A chapel. A cheering audience. A quick flash of fireworks. Then a line of text filled the screen.

Attendance is mandatory. Failure to comply may affect your civic standing.

There it was. The romance.

I closed the video, and seconds later, my phone lit up.

Wardrobe fitting.

Interview preparation.

Beauty consultation.

Physical assessment.

Media conduct briefing.

All booked for the next three days.

I deleted every notification and threw my phone onto the couch like it had personally betrayed me. For ten whole seconds, I felt better. Then it buzzed again.

Reminder: Your attendance is mandatory.

“Fantastic,” I muttered. “Romance with consequences.”

The next morning, I went to work as if nothing had happened.

Black suit, black heels, black mood. Corporate camouflage.

By mid-morning, I had buried myself in analytics reports and almost convinced myself the whole thing was some automated error. There were millions of single women in the country. Surely the State could find someone prettier, sweeter, more obedient, or at least someone who hadn’t once told a man on a dating app that his personality had the texture of wet cardboard.

Then Hana dropped into the chair beside my desk and placed her bubble tea directly on top of my paperwork.

Hana was tiny, Korean, and had a fringe so perfect it looked airbrushed. She also owned a rotating collection of anime pins that she wore on her lanyard like medals of honour.

She leaned in, eyes bright. “So… you’re in True Hearts?”

I nearly choked on my coffee. “How do you know that?”

“News spreads.”

“It has been twelve hours.”

“My cousin works in casting.” She sucked at her straw, then lowered her voice. “You know what they say about people who run from the contest, right?”

“I assume it’s something supportive and legally reasonable?”

Her smile disappeared, which was rude of it.

“They vanish,” she said. “No records. No forwarding address. Nothing. One day they’re selected, then they’re gone.”

I glanced around the office. Everyone else was pretending to work, which meant at least three people were listening.

“Maybe they sign NDAs,” I said. “Maybe they move into luxury housing and spend the rest of their lives avoiding interviews about losing a state-sponsored game of Pin the Ring on the Bachelor.”

Hana didn’t laugh.

“They don’t come back, Sadie.”

The report on my screen blurred slightly. I took another sip of coffee because that was what adults did when fear walked into the room. We caffeinated.

“And the losers?” I asked.

Her fingers tightened around her cup. “Same thing.”

The silence between us felt suddenly too loud.

Outside the glass office walls, people typed and chatted and carried folders, all of them moving through the day as though the country had not turned marriage into a televised blood sport. Maybe that was the secret to surviving here. You learned where to look. You learned what not to ask. You learned to laugh at the jingle while pretending you couldn’t hear the screams underneath.

Hana leaned closer. “My cousin says the point isn’t finding love.”

I looked at her properly then. “Then what is it?”

She shook her head. “Nobody knows.”

I wanted to dismiss it. Rumours grew in places like ours. The State controlled the news, the schools, the transport zones, the job markets, and the dating pools. People made up stories because stories were one of the few things that still belonged to us.

Still, the words lodged somewhere under my ribs.

They vanish.

That night, I took myself out for dinner.

There was no champagne, no friends, no smiling waiter asking if I was meeting someone. Just me in a corner booth at a dingy ramen shop, wearing my work clothes and staring into a bowl the size of my head.

The broth was rich, the noodles were chewy, and the egg yolk was perfect. I barely tasted any of it.

My phone sat beside the bowl, glowing every few minutes with another pastel reminder.

Your beauty consultation is tomorrow at 10 a.m.

Your wardrobe fitting is confirmed.

Please review your contestant conduct expectations.

Smile. Be open. Let love in.

That last one made me put the phone face down.

Across the restaurant, a couple shared dumplings and laughed over something on a screen. Their matching civic bands glinted under the yellow lights. Registered partnership. Approved household. Stable contribution unit. The State had probably sent them a tax incentive and a congratulatory fruit basket.

My parents used to talk about before.

Before the Population Management Act. Before social quotas. Before every private choice could be charted, scored, and corrected in the name of national stability.

They spoke of bars packed shoulder to shoulder, awkward first dates, breakups that didn’t require paperwork, and people choosing wrong because at least they got to choose. They made freedom sound like a flavour that had disappeared from the world.

I used to think they were being dramatic.

Then I turned twenty-five.

My phone buzzed again. I didn’t look.

Somewhere between slurps, Hana’s warning curled back through my mind. Contestants vanished. Losers vanished. People who refused vanished. The State didn’t need to threaten you loudly. It just booked your appointments, sent a car, and let the silence around the missing do the rest.

For the next few days, I buried myself in routine like it could save me.

Work. Coffee. Ignore the notifications. Work again. Pretend no one was glancing at me in the kitchen. Pretend the women in my office weren’t suddenly kinder in that awful way people were kind when they thought you had a terminal illness.

After clocking out, I went straight to Muay Thai.

If I was going to be paraded on national television in a pastel death match, I might as well have killer kicks.

The gym smelled of sweat, disinfectant, and old leather. The familiar thud of gloves against pads settled something inside me. Here, bodies made sense. You moved, blocked, struck, breathed. Pain had rules. Fear had somewhere to go.

Felix was holding pads when I walked in.

Tall, lean, tattoos curling up his forearms, sweat darkening the front of his black tank top. He had that impossible mix of looking like he could break you in half and carry you home if you twisted an ankle.

He lifted his chin. “You’re late.”

“I’ve been selected for televised romance prison. My time management is under pressure.”

His expression changed so fast I almost regretted the joke.

“The show?” he asked.

“Apparently my national service is flirting.”

He lowered the pads. Around us, gloves cracked and trainers shouted, but the space between us went still.

“You’re serious,” he said.

“I got the confetti email and everything.”

“Sadie.”

That was the first warning sign. Felix almost never used my name like that, soft and careful, like it was breakable.

I tightened my wraps. “Don’t. I’m managing it.”

“By ignoring it?”

“Mostly.”

“That won’t work.”

“Thank you for your faith.”

He stepped closer, the pads hanging at his sides. “There’s a way out.”

I looked up.

“Pair with me,” he said.

For a moment, the whole gym seemed to quieten around us.

I laughed because my body had apparently chosen stupidity as a defence mechanism. “What, like fake dating?”

“Registered partnership. Temporary. Symbolic. Whatever we need to call it. They can’t take you if you’re already paired.”

I stared at him. “You’d do that?”

“Yes.”

No hesitation. No little laugh to make it lighter. Just yes.

My chest tightened in a way I did not appreciate.

Felix and I had been circling something for months. A look held too long. His hand at the small of my back when he moved behind me. Me pretending not to notice the way he smiled when I walked in. It had always been safe because neither of us named it. Naming things made them real, and real things could be taken.

For half a dangerous second, I pictured it.

Felix as my registered partner. Training together. Eating noodles after class. His hand wrapped around mine at a government office while some bored clerk stamped us safe.

It was tempting. Too tempting.

I forced a smile. “It wouldn’t be real.”

His eyes held mine. “Doesn’t mean it wouldn’t work.”

“That’s fraud.”

“The State turned dating into a compliance mechanism. I’m comfortable with fraud.”

I almost smiled properly then.

He stepped even closer. “Sadie, I’m serious.”

“I know.”

“And?”

And I wanted to say yes.

That was the worst part. I wanted to step into the shelter he was offering and pretend the world could still be tricked by paperwork. I wanted to believe a signature could save me, that the State would shrug and move on to the next woman on the list.

But Felix was too real. Too good. Too much of something I hadn’t let myself want.

If I said yes, they might investigate him. If I said yes, he would become part of whatever this was. If I said yes and it failed, he could vanish with me.

So I did what I always did when something mattered.

I made a joke and stepped away from it.

“I appreciate the offer,” I said, picking up my gloves. “But I refuse to begin my great love story in a government registry office under duress.”

His jaw tightened. “This isn’t funny.”

“No,” I said, sliding my gloves on. “It’s national programming. Humour is all I have left.”

Felix watched me for a long moment, and I hated how much he saw. Then he lifted the pads again.

“Fine,” he said. “Hands up.”

We trained harder than usual.

He made me work for every strike, pushing me through combinations until my arms burned and sweat ran down my spine. Jab, cross, hook, kick. Again. Again. By the end, my hair was plastered to my face, my knuckles ached, and the fear had become something hot and useful in my muscles.

When the session ended, Felix walked me to the door.

“Think about it,” he said quietly.

“I will.”

“You won’t.”

“I’ll think about thinking about it.”

He didn’t smile. “Sadie.”

There was my name again, careful as a hand around glass.

I looked away first. “Goodnight, Felix.”

I made it three steps into the car park before I saw them.

Three men in powder-blue suits stood beside a sleek electric sedan, their smiles fixed and lifeless beneath the harsh security lights. They looked as though they had been printed from the same government brochure, right down to the polished shoes and cheerful posture.

The tallest one stepped forward.

“Sadie Lane?”

I considered several responses, most of them involving violence, but there were cameras mounted over the gym entrance and Felix was still behind me.

“Depends who’s asking.”

He flashed a grin that probably came with a jingle. “We’re with the Contestant Liaison Office. Big day for you, Miss Lane. We’re here to get you settled for True Hearts.”

The shorter one opened the rear passenger door with a flourish. “We’ve got a lovely place waiting for you. Can’t wait for you to meet the other ladies. Cameras start rolling in no time.”

Felix came up beside me, his body suddenly very still.

“She hasn’t agreed to go,” he said.

The tallest man turned his smile on Felix. It did not reach his eyes.

“Miss Lane has been selected under the Population Management Act. Her attendance is mandatory.”

Felix’s hand flexed at his side. I knew that look. I had seen it in sparring when someone pushed too far.

I touched his wrist before he could do anything heroic and stupid.

“It’s fine,” I said.

“It isn’t,” he said, low enough that only I could hear.

“I know.”

For one second, his fingers turned under mine, catching my hand. The contact was warm, solid, and almost enough to undo me.

The men watched us with their brochure smiles.

“You can’t just take her,” Felix said.

The tallest man’s expression brightened. “Of course we can.”

There was no threat in his voice. That made it worse.

I looked at Felix and gave the smallest shake of my head. Whatever happened next, I didn’t want his name on a list beside mine.

Then I let go of his hand and climbed into the back seat.

Ten minutes later, I was still in my sweaty tank top, gym shorts, and the ponytail I’d wrestled into place before class, now frizzing like it had fought in the match too. The sedan slid silently through the streets, delivering me to my doom in eco-friendly comfort.

A tablet screen lit up in the headrest in front of me.

Welcome, Sadie Lane. Your journey begins now.

I stared at the words until they blurred.

Somewhere between my apartment, the gym, and this leather back seat, I had gone from person to contestant. From woman to storyline. From citizen to state-issued meat parcel.

My parents used to talk about freedom like it was something you could keep.

Turns out, it was more of a rental.