There is only one place I can land, and it’s thirty feet down. Despite it being night, a sharp light bites into my eyes as I try to hone in on the target. Even if I jump perfectly, a glass roof still stands between me and my way out.

Bowing my head, I say a few words of prayer to Matty. I know he’ll get me through this unharmed.

I’m ready.

Action propels me forward.

Hoisting myself onto the banister is the easy part. But what goes up, must come down.

With no time to think, I let my instincts take over and leap.

Freefall.

Twist body, turn in air.

Back down, head tucked.

Engage core.

Braced for impact.

Glass shatters.

Rotate.

Land.

Hit with three points of contact; it doesn’t stop it from hurting, but it definitely hurts less. 

There is silence as I assess potential injuries, but Matty had my back once more. Literally. And though his smell is worse than I would have liked, he saved my ass so I can forgive him.

I give a big thumbs up and a thunderous roar of cheers takes over the room as the director yells, “CUT.”

My muscles didn’t feel great as I dragged myself off of Matty. Once I was clear some production assistant hauled him away. Until next time, buddy. It wouldn’t be the same Matty, but a crash pad was a crash pad and I trusted them with my life every damn time.

The stunt coordinator, Cory, raced over to remove me from my harness and disconnect me from the wires that lowered me safely to the ground. And with that, I was free.

Several members of the crew came up to pat my back and tell me how awesome I looked, and how they could never do what I do.

That was my moment. Every time. 

I lived for those cheers and compliments because once I left the set, nobody thought about me again. It was all about the faces people saw on screen, the actors, but no one ever talked about how cool we made them look.

Overtop of all of the commotion the producer’s voice called out, “That’s a wrap on Jade Sandoval!” 

I bowed my head and soaked in all the glory of a job well done, and the end of my fifteen seconds of fame. Then again, any day that I got to fall from something was a good day in my book; the glass crash was a sweet bonus. 

The fact that it was made of pure sugar was just a coincidence. 

The adrenaline still rushed in my veins, and my body still shook with tremors, but I felt alive and in control.

That was the end of one job, and in this town, who knew when another would come along.

“Hey, Jade. I have another job for you, by the way,” Cory, leaned over to me with a big old smile on his face.

“Does no one take a week off in LA?” I joked, but he knew as well as I did, I couldn’t go a week without purposefully bruising myself on something for a camera.

“Trust me, you don’t want to. It’s the double for the leading role,” Cory said with a knowing glint in his eye. 

He knew I’d never been so lucky to double the leading lady in a film, and how desperately I wanted to. But I couldn’t make that obvious, or they’d make me work for low pay and exposure.

I crossed my arms and held firm. “What makes you think that matters to me?”

“Because I know what you get paid, and a one-bedroom in Burbank needs a leading role.”

The worst part of that point was that I’d rather not have an apartment at all. Why was I paying seventeen hundred dollars a month when I’d be content living on set all day, all night.

“...When does it start?” I tried to make my voice sound dry, but the excitement couldn’t help but shimmer through. This is why I wasn’t an actor.

“Monday. In Denmark. Your flight leaves in two days. Get ready for fire.”

Shit. Fire hurts, and Matty usually isn’t there to help me. 

But damn, fire looked awesome.

Going back home was the worst part of every day. Why would I want to sit in an empty apartment with thrift store furniture, fueling my body with a protein shake, when I could have been jumping out of a helicopter and eating catering paid for by some rich white dude in Beverly Hills?

The only way I got through it was by routine; a few hours at the gym, maybe a good action flick and another protein shake, practicing jumps and falls at the pool, and then sleep because resting my body was most important.

Everything I did was to be sure I could get back on set and be thrown out of a window again and again. What else was there to live for, anyway?

Luckily I didn’t have to wait long before I was getting my passport checked and pulling through security at LAX. Believe me, I was always looking for an excuse to leave California.

I’d never been to Denmark but had heard it looked like a fairytale, and I could use a little magic in my life these days. 

Eleven hours, non-stop only to be filtered through customs like a herd of sheep. There was no crowd control at all. Several hundred confused tourists wandered around aimlessly looking for signs that didn’t exist.

Whatever. I was told there would be sword fighting, and the idea of getting to stab things got me through.

There was always something exciting about a new set. 

New characters.

New costumes.

But most exciting of all, new stunts.

I couldn’t wait to learn what shenanigans I was going to be forced into this time around.

It was a long drive, going from the hustle and bustle of the inner city to the outer edges where houses were few and far between. My field of vision was taken over by actual fields of yellow flowers and the one, single road that seemed to go on endlessly over the long, flat earth.

As someone who had the Hollywood hills peering down at me around every turn, seeing a land so vast and flat was off-putting.

After thirty or so minutes, the driver tried to make conversation.

“Will you be in Denmark long?”

“We’re filming a movie, so a few months.”

“Oh! You’re an actor. Did you know that Denmark was the backdrop for Shakespeare’s Hamlet? Elsinore is the Danish town of Helsingør.”

I wasn’t an actor, and I’d never read or watched Hamlet in my life. I had no idea what he was talking about, but he seemed so proud to share it. I couldn’t shoot him down. “Interesting. That’s very cool. I’ll look out for details next time.”

That was the only conversation we had.

Eventually, small buildings started to pop up past the fields and we drove into a small town. I could hardly believe how colorful everything was. Buildings. Flowers. The fucking sky. Los Angeles was glass, metal, concrete, and a cloudless red haze instead of blue. The only color we got was graffiti. 

It felt like a fairytale, just as promised.

The driver dropped me off in a small field between the buildings and along a channel of water. Hundreds of crew members wandered around, looking like headless chickens in stark contrast to the peaceful environment around them. 

There were multiple trailers set up—the nice kind with bathrooms.

This set looked like it had a real budget. 

Finally, I’d get to do some awesome stunts, for a lead role, on a big-budget Hollywood film. Today was the day my dreams started to come true.

I found Cory among the panicking set workers, talking into a headset and holding a script in his arms.

“Hey! Jade. You made it! How was the flight?”

“Long. Ready to stretch my legs. Got anything fun for me?”

“They are starting with scene one today. You’ll start tomorrow. For now, rest up. Read some of the script, and get over that jet lag.”

“They’re starting with scene one?”

“Yeah. This director has some… innovative ideas for how we should film. I recommend keeping an open mind—Oh! Here he is now.”

I spun around to be met with the top of a man’s broccoli hairstyle. He had a model-looking Barbie doll with blue hair linked to his arm, reigning over him by at least five inches. 

“Jade, this is Arri Ryker, the director and co-writer.”

He was the definition of a man-child.

There was no way he was older than twenty, poking around his phone with one hand, having the other one firmly grabbing the side-piece’s butt.

Once again I felt keenly why I could never have become an actor, my smile was slipping at the thought of me having to respect him this whole shoot.

“Ah,” I said as my face melted to a full grimace. “Ryker? Like Christopher Ryker?” 

Who didn’t know the three-time Oscar-winning director of masterpieces like The UnTitled and Empty Colors?

“Yep,” Arri said without looking up from his phone.

“Cool. This your first movie?” I asked, out of an obligation to be nice.

“Yep.”

“...Your dad must be so proud, you want to follow in his footsteps?” 

“Yep.” 

Well, that was a waste of time. Not so much as a twitch of his eye.

I looked over at Cory who was forcing nervous laughter with a grin so tense I thought his teeth were going to crack.

Not a good sign.

The director finally looked up from his phone to eye me up and down like I was just a piece of meat, with no expression on his acne-scarred face. Then, he looked at Cory. “This is Krystal’s stunt double, right?”

“I have a stunt double?” The side-piece shrieked happily and clapped her hands a million miles an hour.

“Not you, babe. The Krystal from the movie. I changed her name to yours, isn’t that fun?”

“Oh yeah. Cool. Thanks, baby.” She leaned down… down… down and kissed his cheek. It was impressive she could keep her balance in those heels in that position.

Aw shit. This movie was going to be the definition of nepotism, wasn’t it?

My first big break and this was the dude I needed to listen to for twelve weeks? Part of me wanted to toss myself back on that plane and ride home before I got in too deep.

But a big budget meant big stunts, and I was holding out for something awesome, regardless of how the film turned out. Maybe that was the good part about being a stunt person: no one knows who you are when the movie sucks.

“Is she ready for the dance jump?” Arri asked Cory, “We want to film at dawn. They are going to set up the rig over the river.”

Cory shook his head. “No. We agreed it’s not safe to land in water from fifty feet up. We need to use a green screen mat.”

Arri stomped his foot and groaned like a toddler who got his favorite toy taken away. “Aghh. I promised the people that this movie would be all practical!”

“Just because you put a green screen behind a stunt, doesn’t mean it isn’t practical.” Cory’s patience was clearly waning as he dealt with this single-brain-celled organism. I didn’t blame him for not being willing to upset the director on day one, though. 

Arri went back to his phone and poked around once more. “Whatever. I’ll make it work with my genius, I guess.”

He walked away with his side-piece in tow, going to ruin someone else’s day, I imagined. 

When he was long gone, I turned to Cory with my eyebrow raised. “Dance jump?”

“Yeah, he wants some viral dance before the jump. He’s trying to bring this story to a younger audience, is what the producers tell me.”

“Oh. Great.” I couldn’t think of anything I wanted to do less than some childish dance routine, except for maybe talking to that director again.

“Get some rest, and loosen up those hips. 6am call time tomorrow,” Cory said with an apologetic hand on my shoulder. “You’ll be needing this.”

From behind his back, Cory produced a mangled mess of dark blue hair in a lace-top wig and a thick-as-shit pile of papers. I snatched both from him with a look that told him I would never forgive him for this.

Stuck in Denmark for three months with that asshole and a crappy set wig, not exactly the summer vacation I was hoping for.

But hey, if I got to jump off of something, that could make it all at least a little bit better.

I looked down at the stack of papers with the words, “DAWN OR KNIGHTFALL” in bold letters. 

Sounded like an old young adult novel I never would have read growing up. At least the word “Knight” had the promise of horses and swords. I did like horses and swords.

Off in the distance, a sound rumbled through the air that sounded suspiciously like elephants.

It couldn’t be actual elephants, right? A sound effect maybe?

The fuck kind of movie was this?

As I walked to the craft services table, I chucked the script into a bin. I didn’t need to know what was happening, only where to land. For a moment I considered throwing the blue mess with it, but no. I wanted this job despite everything.

It would all be fine once I got into gear.