One more time. One more group. One more Golden Weekend. I will follow four users for three very different reasons.

Additional Video Notes by SilentStar

Jewel is sitting close to the camera. Torso completely in frame. Background is the Pink Room and appears to be unremarkable. Audio distortion appears at 00:02:47 and 00:03:20. No clues present in autogenerated or user-corrected subtitles. The video also appears to be edited, as several jump cuts are present throughout. Since Jewel is known for filming in one take, this is cause for documentation. Replies were disabled on the video.

PART I

SOME ASSEMBLY REQUIRED

“When the world burns, at least I’ll die in comfort.”

—JEWEL VAN HANEN

SILENTSTAR

After school, Luna sat alone under her favorite tree on the front lawn, eating the rest of her lunch while waiting for her ride home.

And then she started choking.

Her mouth opened and closed like a fish gasping on land. She blinked in disbelief, eyes watering as she pulled at her collar. Air could get in, whistling past the lump of mush bulging in her throat, and luckily, it was just enough to keep her alive. She took a final breath, clenched her core muscles, pushed on her diaphragm, and coughed like her life depended on it. Because it did. She spit the food out into a napkin and collapsed on the grass next to her phone.

Really, eating and reading were two activities that Luna had no business doing at the same time. The girl simply was not built for that kind of multitasking. But in her defense? The gaspworthy news was probably worth dying for.

Jewel Van Hanen had finally returned to Golden Rule.

Everyone had speculated and wondered, but Luna believed.

She took a moment to relish the feeling of breathing. The crisp fading-winter air smelled like pine needles and felt just as sharp in her lungs. Sunlight streamed through the leaves, making shadows on her hands. The wind fluttered softly through her hair. She had half a mind to make a new video for Golden Rule and title it something like Resurrection in Green in honor of not choking to death and Jewel’s return.

Videos on Golden Rule were technically called diary entries, and Luna’s always kept her face in frame—the app wouldn’t record otherwise—but she never spoke. Her silence got filled by the roaring wind on blustering days, the panging echoes of emptiness when her sister left her alone on weekends, the cacophony of her loud classmates, and the like. Crickets at the park were her costars on good days, as were the sounds of speeding cars while she stood on a bridge on bad days.

True to her screen name, Luna was the SilentStar of Golden Rule and one of the Founders of the Goldspiracy Forums.

A steady thrum of too much bass peeled around the corner. Luna rolled over, smiling as she packed up her stuff, and ran for the sidewalk.