Desperate

“Your voice is dry, Celeste. You sound like you’ve been eating sandpaper for breakfast. We’re doing a romantic lead, not a heavy smoker in a tragedy. Get out of the booth.”

The director’s voice crackled through my headset, cold and sharp enough to draw blood. I stood behind the heavy glass of the recording studio, my fingers gripping the edge of the music stand so hard my knuckles were white. I could feel the sweat pooling at the small of my back, my throat tight with a thirst that went deeper than water.

“Please, Mr. Vargas,” I whispered, my voice cracking the moment I leaned into the microphone. “Just one more take. I haven’t slept much, I just need a minute to—”

“We don’t have minutes. We have a schedule. You’ve wasted an hour of studio time because you can’t hit a simple high note. You’re done. Send the next girl in.”

The light in the booth turned from red to a cold, dead white. The silence that followed was deafening.

I stepped out into the hallway, my legs feeling like lead weights. I watched as a younger girl, fresh-faced and glowing with the energy I used to have, bounced past me into the booth.

That used to be me. Two years ago, I was the “Girl of a Thousand Voices,” the rising star of the dubbing world. But that was before the accident. That was before Noah became my entire world.

As I reached the lobby, the accountant handed me a small envelope without even looking up. “Management decided to pay you for the half-session, but don’t expect a callback, Celeste. You’re unreliable lately.”

I opened the envelope. Three thousand pesos.

I stood on the sidewalk outside the studio, the midday sun beating down on me like a physical weight. Three thousand pesos. My rent was three weeks overdue. My electricity had already been cut. And Noah’s maintenance meds for the day? They cost four thousand. The math didn’t work. It never worked.

I didn’t eat lunch. I couldn’t afford the luxury of calories. Instead, I took the crowded, humid jeepney to the hospital, clutching my bag to my chest as if I were protecting a fortune instead of a handful of crumbling dreams.

“The charity ward is loud, Ms. Harper. It’s crowded. The ventilators are older models,” Dr. Arnel said, his eyes filled with a genuine pity that made me want to scream. “For a patient in Noah’s condition—with the brain swelling still being a major concern—the stability of a private ICU suite isn’t a luxury. It’s a requirement.”

I looked through the glass partition at my ten-year-old brother. He looked like a porcelain doll—pale, fragile, surrounded by the rhythmic humming of machines that were the only things keeping him from drifting away.

“I know,” I said, my voice barely a thread of sound. “I just… I just need a few more days. I have another gig on Friday.”

“The hospital administration doesn’t work on ‘Fridays,’ Celeste. It’s twelve noon. If the balance isn’t settled by midnight, we have to move him. We have a waiting list for this bed.”

“Please,” I begged, the sting of tears finally breaking through. “He’s just a kid.”

“I’m sorry. My hands are tied.”

I walked out of his office and let my body sink onto the cold linoleum floor in the middle of the hallway. I didn’t care who saw me. I didn’t care about my pride; I had traded that in months ago. I dug into my bag and pulled out my wallet, counting the bills again as if they would somehow multiply if I stared at them hard enough.

Two hundred. That was all I had left after the med prep. Just two hundred pesos between us and the end.

“You’re a very good sister, Celeste. But love doesn’t pay for oxygen.”

The voice was like silk—smooth, expensive, and entirely out of place in this hallway that smelled of bleach and dying hopes. I froze, my hand still clutching the crumpled unpaid bill. A pair of sharp, designer heels, polished to a mirror shine, stopped just inches away from my tattered sneakers.

I looked up, squinting against the harsh fluorescent lights. The woman standing over me looked like she belonged in a palace. She was draped in a coat that probably cost more than my entire life, her face a mask of cold, calculated elegance.

“Who… who are you?” I asked, my voice raspy from the salt of my tears. I wiped my face with the back of my hand, trying to reclaim some shred of dignity as I forced myself to stand up.

“A woman who recognizes a rare talent when she hears one,” she replied, her eyes scanning my face like I was a piece of art being appraised for auction. “I was at the administrator’s office earlier. I heard you speaking to the doctor. Your voice… it has a very specific frequency. A very familiar one.”

My guard went up instantly. “You were eavesdropping on my brother’s situation?”

“I make it my business to know everything about the people I hire,” she said simply. She gestured toward a private waiting area at the end of the hall. “Walk with me.”

I felt a chill. I didn’t have the luxury of saying no, not with a midnight deadline hanging over Noah’s head. I followed her, my heart hammering against my ribs.

“How do you know my name?” I whispered as we moved past the buzzing vending machines.

“My name is Emelia Aldridge,” she said, not looking back. “And I know everything I need to know. I know you’re a voice actress who can mimic any accent. I know your brother is ten years old and has a fifty-fifty chance of waking up if he stays in this hospital’s private wing. And I know that as of twelve minutes ago, you are officially bankrupt.”

She sat down on a leather bench and placed a heavy, silver suitcase on the table between us. With a sharp click, she snapped the latches open.

The sight was blinding. Neatly stacked bundles of thousand-peso bills. More money than I had ever seen in my life.

“There is one million pesos in this suitcase,” Emelia said calmly. “It’s a down payment. If you agree to my terms, I will settle Noah’s entire hospital bill—four million pesos—by five p.m. today. He will stay in this suite. He will get the best specialists. He will live.”

My breath hitched. I looked at the money, then at the photo she slid across the table. It was a woman laughing, a glass of champagne in her hand, looking effortlessly cruel and beautiful. Vivian Lancaster.

“My son, Lucian, is in a darkness he refuses to leave,” Emelia said, her gaze locking onto mine. “Not just because he is blind, but because he is waiting for a woman who will never return. A woman whose voice sounds exactly like yours when you’re not crying like a child.”

She pulled a small recorder from her bag and pressed play. It was a clip of me from an old radio drama—a scene where I played a haughty, aristocratic heiress.

“That,” she pointed to the recorder, “is the voice of Vivian Lancaster. My son’s fiancée. She left him the night of the accident, but he doesn’t know that. He thinks she’s just… away. Healing. If he hears that voice again, he’ll agree to the surgery. He’ll come back to the world.”

“You want me to lie to him,” I said, the horror of it sinking into my bones. “You want me to pretend to be someone I’m not to trick a blind man.”

“I want you to be his tamer,” Emelia corrected, her tone sharpening like a blade. “He is a beast right now, Celeste. Angry, broken, and destroying our family’s legacy. He needs to hear Vivian. He needs to believe she’s back to beg for his forgiveness. You provide the voice, and I provide the millions for that boy in the ICU.”

She stepped closer, the scent of her expensive perfume clashing with the medicinal air. “One million pesos as a down payment. The rest of the bills settled by tonight. No more debt. No more charity wards. Just a job, Celeste. A performance of a lifetime.”

I looked back toward the ICU doors. I thought of Noah’s small, still hand. Then I looked at the suitcase.

“What if he finds out?” I asked, my heart hammering.

“He won’t,” Emelia said with chilling confidence. “He’s blind, desperate, and in love. He’ll believe whatever his ears tell him. The question is, Celeste… how much is your brother’s life worth to you?”

I looked at the money, then at the door where my brother lay fighting for his life. My voice was all I had left. And if it could save him, I was willing to sell it to the devil.