(3rd POV)
The whole cast and crew packed into the private theatre, and the mood was tense in a way nobody was saying out loud.
Everyone knew the editing had wrapped in two days. That number had spread through the group like a rumor, and now it sat in everyone's chest like a stone. Murmurs moved through the seats.
Keanu looked unbothered. Scarlet was unreadable as always. Everyone else was quietly falling apart.
Sebastian especially. The bald demon sat rigidly near the middle, jaw set, eyes locked on the blank screen. This was supposed to be his break. Joseph Jackson had auditioned for Morpheus and lost to him — and if the editing came out a disaster because two days wasn't enough, he wasn't going to forgive himself for letting this opportunity slip.
'Just watch the damn movie.'
Arthur settled in with Firfel on his right, Sylwen beside her, Vivienne on his left, Shafel at her side.
Firfel looked at him. "You didn't rush it, right?"
Then through telepathy: Be honest. Is this because of Solarus?
Solarus? Arthur sent back, dry. I'm gonna beat that man half to death in a few years. Relax.
Out loud: "It's gonna blow your mind. Stop worrying."
Firfel studied his face, then gave up and leaned into him, head on his shoulder, hand curling around his arm. "Okay. I trust you."
His hand covered hers.
"Get a room," Vivienne muttered, eyeing them.
"We're just sitting here," Arthur said.
"She's wrapped around you."
"I'm comfortable," Firfel said flatly, shifting closer to make the point.
"It's starting!" Sylwen cut in. "Everyone shut up!"
The lights dropped. Hellfire logo. Then Matrix began.
The anxiety lasted maybe fifteen minutes. Then the film just took everyone.
It opened on Neo — ordinary life, ordinary demon, except for that persistent itch that something wasn't right. His first encounter with Agent Smith pulled the whole audience forward in their seats without them deciding to move.
Then the worm scene.
On set, that had been a basic illusion spell — functional enough for the actors to react to, but genuinely unconvincing up close. That was the whole point of CGI, to cover what the illusion couldn't sell on camera.
Watching it now, nobody remembered any of that. The creature moving under Neo's skin looked real in a way that went straight past thinking. People shifted back without realizing it. Someone in the third row made an involuntary sound.
'Was that even CGI?' Sebastian thought. 'It's been two days — how the hell—'
He felt robbed. He also felt the most intense relief of his life. Both, simultaneously.
After that, the editing was the last thing on anyone's mind.
The chase sequence wrecked the room. Agent Smith splitting into copies, closing in from every angle — the audience gripped their armrests. These were the same people who had filmed that scene. Didn't matter. Their hearts were going anyway.
Herald Jason, who played Agent Smith, sat completely still watching himself on screen.
'Why am I scared of myself right now?'
Scarlet had gone still in a different way. She watched Trinity across the screen — her face, her movements, her own voice coming back from the dark — and felt something she hadn't prepared for. She'd taken the role because of how it felt watching herself in Titanic. That was all. She'd just wanted that feeling again.
She hadn't expected this.
'I literally just did it because it felt good,' she thought. 'How is it this damn good.'
She'd nearly forgotten Trinity was her.
The betrayal gutted the room. Morpheus taken, the team fractured — then the long climb back as Neo started understanding what he actually was. What the rules were. Why they didn't apply to him.
Then Agent Smith emptying rounds into Neo's chest — and Neo, slowly, looking down at the bullets suspended in the air before him. Reaching out. Letting them drop.
What followed wasn't a fight. It was a dismantling. Neo moved through Agent Smith like resistance had simply stopped being a concept. Every desperate counter, every attempt to regain control swatted aside like it meant nothing.
When Agent Smith finally came apart and the code scattered, the theatre went dead silent.
But the film wasn't done.
Neo stood there for a moment, just looking around at the simulation like he was seeing it for the first time. Then something settled in his expression — calm, unhurried. Like everything had finally clicked. He walked forward and the world just bent around him. Walls, gravity, none of it stuck.
And when he took off into the sky like it was the most natural thing in the world, the music rising underneath him—
The room lost it.
People were on their feet before the credits rolled. Clapping, shouting, complete chaos.
"That was insane — Neo actually did it!"
"Best movie I've seen in my life, I mean that—"
"FUCK YOU, AGENT SMITH!" Someone in the back, no regrets.
"When he stopped the bullets — I grabbed your arm, sorry, I literally grabbed your arm—"
"I knew he'd figure it out. I knew the whole time."
Sebastian stood without remembering the decision, clapping hard. The crew member beside him grabbed his shoulder. "Bro. Your Morpheus was insane. That chair speech — I had actual chills—"
Sebastian opened his mouth. Closed it. Nodded once, carefully, because his voice wasn't going to cooperate right now.
Herald Jason stared at the rolling credits and said nothing. Still back in that hallway. Still watching himself come apart frame by frame.
He needed a minute.
Firfel, Vivienne, Sylwen, and Shafel watched the chaos with matching expressions — four people baffled by others losing their minds over something they personally created.
"Look at them," Firfel said. "Going crazy like they weren't the ones who made it."
"Herald looks like he needs to see someone," Vivienne said.
"He's fine," Arthur said.
"He's staring at the credits like they owe him money."
Arthur smiled to himself.
What none of them knew was that S-C hadn't only handled the CGI — it had quietly fixed everything else too. Performances, atmosphere, the weight of every scene. That was why nobody felt like they were watching actors they personally knew.
Looking at the result, you'd think S-C could make a film entirely by itself. But it wasn't that simple. It still needed real footage, an actual outline to follow and build from. Without that foundation, the decisions it made would fall flat — didn't matter that it could simulate a galaxy for a few minutes. That wasn't the same as making something people felt.
Either way, filmmaking was never going to be the same for Arthur with S-C around.
The crowd came over in waves to thank him. Arthur waved them off, and the moment the last of them cleared out his attention went straight back to Firfel.
She was still tucked against his side, warm and unhurried.
"Well?" He looked at her.
Firfel tilted her chin up at him. "Okay, fine." Her fingers traced an absent pattern on his arm. "The concept is genuinely fascinating — that the world everyone lives in is just a lie, and that these weird creatures are sitting underneath it all, quietly draining people of their magical power while keeping them none the wiser." She frowned slightly. "But it ended too fast. I felt like the story was only just getting started—"
"Because it is," Arthur said. "There's gonna be a sequel. Two of them, actually."
Firfel sat up. "What?"
Vivienne, Sylwen, and Shafel all turned at the exact same time.
"The people in the Matrix are still trapped," Arthur said. "Neo just figured out what he is. He hasn't done anything yet."
"Oh thank god." Firfel grabbed his arm. "I was already upset thinking it was just over."
"You're welcome," he said.
She narrowed her eyes at him. Then smiled and pressed back into his side.
Vivienne said nothing, which was somehow worse.
"I've been questioning if any of this is real since halfway through," Sylwen announced. "Genuinely. What if we're in a simulation right now?"
"We're not," Shafel said.
"How do you know."
"Because we're not."
"Shafel that is literally not an answer—"
"It's just a movie." Arthur said. He paused. "Probably."
Sylwen stared at him. Then groaned and buried her face in her hands.