Chapter Text
In Alec’s honest opinion, Wawanakwa Island was always more peaceful in the early morning.
Not calm—never calm.
Just dormant. Like the island didn’t sleep so much as reset itself overnight, tightening its grip on the docks, the trees, the whole rotten little paradise. The kind of place that looked perfect for reality television—right until you remembered the challenges always ending with someone bleeding, screaming, or being launched into a completely unnecessary disaster.
Alec stood on the edge of the Dock of Shame, hugging the boom mic case to his chest. The damp air soaked through his hoodie and chilled him straight down to his bones, and he yawned—then immediately clamped a hand over his mouth out of habit.
It wasn’t just the weather.
The chemical vapors in the air were worse than yesterday, seeping through the mist like something alive. The privately owned island’s “environmental protection” was apparently… vibes-based.
Because the owner and his boss—Chris McLean—had rented the island to some “family-friendly” disposal waste company Alec had never heard of between seasons.
Alec still remembered the day Chris announced to the Production Crew that the air was safe enough to be inhaled by humans.
But not one staff member believed him.
Not because they were paranoid—but because Chris was well…Chris. His lengthy record of untrustworthiness spoke louder than his promises. Every “it’s fine” or “it’s completely safe” came with a sequence of chaos and serious injuries right after.
And yet…
Oddly enough, it wasn’t Chris or Chef who reassured everyone of their safety.
It was Noah.
Noah had confirmed the danger, then practically fixed it for them—at least emotionally. The personal assistant handed out detailed maps of Wawanakwa Island, highlighting the most contaminated areas and marking where biohazardous animals were likely to be found in their natural habitat.
Ah, Noah.
Just thinking about the scrawny brunette made something flutter in Alec’s stomach, like he’d swallowed a handful of nervous butterflies and expected them to behave.
He didn’t even know why.
Maybe it was Noah’s sharp way of talking—witty, guarded, somehow never cruel. Maybe it was the way Noah carried himself, like he was always bracing for the worst and preparing for it, anyway.
Or maybe it was the simple fact that, without Noah's return, the island would’ve swallowed the crew whole—like it always tried to.
Because Noah’s rehiring as Chris’s personal assistant was the only reason the Production Crew agreed to come back for Total Drama’s newest season in the first place.
The previous season had been disastrous. Not just “oh, a challenge went wrong” disastrous—more like reality TV but written by a man who only cares about the ratings.
Cultural inaccuracies everywhere. The unforeseen damages of priceless antique artifacts and public property. And let’s not forget the Jumbo Jet exploding—a catastrophic mishap that was caused by Sierra and her creepy obsession with Cody. Alec should know. He’d worked as an intern during World Tour.
However, it was Noah who persuaded Chris and Chef into promoting the blonde to boom mic operator for the new season, allowing him to finally use his audio skills rather than to safety check challenges or swim in shark-infested waters. And best of all, it’s a much safer job position.
Just another reason the snarky bookworm has earned Alec's utmost respect and gratitude. Or maybe something more…
Oh, there he goes again—losing focus.
Alec could practically hear Noah’s voice in his head: Do your job, stop drifting, and stop making it everyone else’s problem.
If there was any way for Alec to impress Noah, the blonde was going to have to bring his A-game and actually concentrate.
Total Drama: Revenge of the Island was premiering in a few days.
There was no room for sloppiness. Not with the chemical vapors hanging around like a threat, not with the island’s “don’t worry, it’s fine” reputation, and definitely not after last season’s disaster track record.
Alec tightened his grip on the boom mic case against his chest, squared his shoulders, and with renewed vigor made his way to the Mess Hall to meet the rest of the crew.
During filming, the Mess Hall was where contestants ate—and where challenges sometimes happened.
During pre-production, it was an assembly hall. A briefing room.
Where Chris and Chef gave out detailed instructions to everyone—along with Noah.
Noah would be sitting on the bench, sleeping through orientation with Drama-Bot in tow, like he was too tired to even care about the word “schedule.”
Oddly enough, Chris and Chef never reprimanded Noah for it. Never.
They just let him sleep.
But the second Noah woke up, he always carried out his duties with efficient, almost ruthless focus—like his laziness was just a cover for how ready he was when it mattered.
Alec stepped inside.
The smell of cheap coffee and fresh bagels hit his nose immediately. Another amenity that Noah tirelessly persuaded Chris and Chef into making it free for the crew.
The Production Crew was already inside the lodge. Voices murmured over equipment plans, schedule timelines, and the Island’s
Alec spotted two figures standing by the coffee machine with mugs in their hands. It was Donovan and JD, they worked as part of the camera crew—two of the oldest and most experienced employees on the island.
The interracial pair have been working for so long that they had become unfazed by their boss’s sadism, and screaming contestants were just background noise.
Alec’s eyes then moved to the recently hired interns.There was Josh, the most gullible person alive. Elliott, the shaggy-haired, sour-faced emo teen, Yudai, a rotund,timid boy, and lastly, the bubbly Buffy and the only girl intern. Despite their contradictory personalities, the interns were all dressed in uniforms— a red button-up shirt over a white blouse, and khaki shorts or in Buffy’s case, a skirt. Meanwhile, members of the production crew, like Alec, Donovan, and JD, wore whatever they wanted and survived on caffeine, muscle memory, and sheer resignation.
The recently hired interns were bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, talking amicably like nothing bad ever happened on Wawanakwa Island.
Seeing them together gave the blonde a bittersweet flash of nostalgia—back when he’d been naïve too. Back when he’d still believed his job couldn't possibly get anymore dangerous.
Alec found an empty bench, sat down, and waited for his boss to show up. As he waited, Alec thought of Noah.
And the bet the pair made a few days ago.
They’d placed a bet on how long it would take for the new hires to get their first mental breakdown while working on the show.
If Noah won, Alec would have to wear the Jack the Ripper costume for the entire season.
But if Alec won then he got to take Noah out on their first date.
But Yudai’s timid voice interrupted Alec’s daydream.
“Uh… guys?” he called, adjusting his glasses with a nervous little pinch. “Shouldn’t Mr. McLean and Mr. Hatchet be here by now?”
The rotound intern's question landed heavily like a dropped microphone.
All conversation stopped.
Every head in the Mess Hall turned toward the nearest clock—or toward their watches, phones, anything that told time the same way it always did.
But the time revealed one hour past the starting time.
JD took a long look at the wall clock, then nodded once. “Yudai’s right. They should be here by now… along with Noah.”
Buffy let out a short laugh that didn’t sound convincing even to her. “Maybe Mr. McLean and Mr. Hatchet are playing a prank on us again?”
“Maybe,” Elliott murmured.
“As sadistic as Mr. McLean is,” Donovan spoke, voice firm with experience, “he would never pull a stunt like this, especially so close to the premiere date.”
Josh hesitated, then offered the only explanation his brain could find. “Is it possible they’re just unwell? Like… too sick to work?”
“Perhaps,” Alec uttered, but the words tasted wrong.
Then the only blonde tried to steer it back toward something manageable. “If they were sick, they would place Noah in charge.”
Donovan raised a mug toward his hairy chin, “Yeah, but that toaster with wheels would have dragged Noah’s skinny butt over here by now…”
The brunette paused slurping from his mug as he scoured the room for Drama-Bot.
“…And I don’t see it anywhere in the room.”
An eerie silence swallowed the room.
Buffy’s face snapped into full panic.
“OMG!” she screeched, braces flashing as she bolted upright. “You don’t think something happened to Noah?!”
Her scream cut clean through the uncertainty growing—and forced everyone to look past the missing people and onto the bigger, uglier fact they’d all been avoiding.
“So… if Mr. McLean, Mr. Hatchet, and Noah are not here?” Yudai asked hesitantly, glasses sliding slightly as he shrugged with awkward helplessness. “Then… where are they?”
“They wouldn’t leave the island without telling us, would they?” Alec reasoned, but his voice wavered despite how hard he tried to steady it.
“Maybe they’re still on the island,” Josh suggested, too quickly—like hope was the only thing he could find to hold onto. “Should we go look for them?”
Elliott—ever the nihilist—snorted. “Why bother? It’s not like us interns are gonna get paid for that.”
Donovan’s expression tightened. “Everybody be quiet.”
The room snapped silent, as if someone had cut the power to their nerves.
JD looked toward Alec, then toward the others. “We’re moving. No arguing. No speculating.”
The blue-eyed cameraman leaned in toward the group and gave orders like he’d done this exact kind of crisis dance a hundred times before.
“JD,” he called, “could you grab the walkie-talkies?”
The red-capped man nodded once and went to the other side of the room to pick up the devices. The next minute, he started handing them out—one by one—until every set of hands had a lifeline.
Donovan stood up on the bench, “Okay,” he said. “Here’s what we’re gonna do.”
“First,” the banadana-clad coworker continued, “we’re gonna split up and search the whole island for Noah. Does everyone have their maps?”
Without a word, everyone pulled their maps out to confirm.
The Production Crew all huddled next to the cameraman, and with their maps opened across the bench. The chemical-damp light made the ink look too vivid, like the island were marking them individually for something.
Donovan quickly began to
“Good. JD, you’re gonna search the cabins.”
“Buffy, you’re gonna search the campfire”.
“Josh, you’re gonna search the beach.”
“ Yudai, you’re gonna search the woods.”
“Elliott, you’re gonna search the pet cemetery.”
“ Alec, you’re gonna search the boathouse.”
Donovan tapped the last spot with two fingers, like he were placing a final piece on a board.
“And I’m gonna search in the amphitheatre.”
He paused, blue eyes sweeping over his coworkers.
“Don’t separate any farther than you have to. If anyone finds Chris, Chef, or Noah radio me back immediately.”
“Agreed?”
“Agreed!”
With the no further instructions needed the Production Crew exited the Mess Hall and set out on their search mission.
******
Alejandro knew this was a bad idea.
But what choice did they have?
He wasn’t tall enough to reach the desk in the boathouse’s secondary editing setup, and his claw-like appendages weren’t exactly suitable for typing on a keyboard or using a mouse in any normal, human way. So the responsibility landed on someone else.
Or something else.
Fang was operating the monitors in the editing room made perfect sense—at least logically.
Then again, Alejandro had also been around long enough to know “sense” didn’t matter to that bipedal shark.
But now the boathouse was their last chance.
Together they were looking through the footage from yesterday.
The goal was simple: find out how Noah got badly injured on that day and how he exactly fell into a puddle of toxic waste. The scrawny assistant is many things, but clumsy isn't one of them.
Because every time he and Fang thought he’d spotted something that could lead them to the answer they're looking for, it turned out to be background noise—another animal blocking the camera or another blur of motion that led nowhere.
The outlandish pair was beginning to lose hope, and Fang’s patience was beginning to wear thin. His growling increased in harsh intervals at their frequent failures.
Chris had installed thousands of cameras all throughout Wawnakwa Island.
Meaning there is more than one editing room, too—because of course there were.
There was the main editing room inside the McLean-Hatchet Cottage, but only Chris, Chef, and Noah could access it. Alejandro couldn’t even get near the door without triggering some kind of security lock, but he still managed to sneak in thanks to the apex predator ripping out the security lock from the wall.
There was another editing room inside the infirmary tent and one inside the boathouse.
Alejandro and Fang had been up all night reviewing the monitors in the infirmary tent and the cottage.
And found nothing.
No usable footage. No timeline. No “this is exactly what happened to Noah” moment.
So the boathouse was the final place left to check.
And their final hope.
When Chris and Chef had left to take Noah to the hospital, they’d left the Spaniard-In-The-Machine alone with the bipedal shark who hated his guts.
Alejandro had every right to fear for his life.
Even though Drama-Bot was equipped with multiple accessories Noah had installed—tools meant to make Alejandro helpful.
It was still not enough against a 3,500-pound predator.
But oddly enough…Fang didn’t attack Alejandro.
Not once, the apex predator
For the first time, Alejandro and Fang put away their hostility toward each other.
Not because they had resolved anything.
Not because they’d suddenly become friends.
But because the only thing that mattered was seeking justice for Noah.
Alejandro watched Fang click through another segment of a video.
The apex predator leaned over the console, eyes squinting in concentration like the footage itself might beg to be understood. The monitors flickered—different angles, different cameras—until the grainy downpour made everything look like it was drowning in static.
But the feed…
The feed was unmistakable.
There was Noah—on a golf cart, strapped into motion so fast and bouncy it almost looked like the island was shaking him off like a bad decision. The white cart juttered along a wet path toward the woods, splashing through puddles as if speed could outrun whatever the cameras had decided to capture.
Even through the blur, Noah’s posture looked wrong.
Too tense. Too braced. Like he’d been warned to expect something and still hadn’t prepared enough.
Could this be it?
The evidence Alejandro and Fang had been hunting through the night, through thousands of cameras, through editing rooms they weren’t supposed to access?
The moment Alejandro understood what they were seeing, his eyes narrowed with grim certainty.
Yes. This is the thread.
Follow it.
There was only one way to know for sure.
But just as Fang was about to make the next attempt—pull up the exact timestamp—someone opened the boathouse door behind them.
“What are you two doing here?!”
The duo spun.
Alec stood in the doorway, blonde hair damp at the edges like he’d sprinted here, and a walkie-talkie with an earpiece connected to his person. His expression was an odd mixture of surprise, relief, and—underneath it—sharp, stressed confusion.
Alec’s blue-eyed gaze snapped to the monitors, then to the surrounding equipment, then back to Alejandro and Fang. Like he was trying to decide whether this was a miracle or another kind of disaster.
He grabbed the radio at his belt and spoke into it immediately.
“Hey guys, I’ve found something in the boathouse.”
A pause. He waited for a response.
“Who did you find, Mr. McLean, Mr. Hatchet, or Noah?” Donovan’s voice came through the walkie, tight and urgent.
Alec hesitated only a fraction of a second—long enough to prove he was thinking.
“Just please, hurry.”
Then Alec turned back to the two of them, his voice sharpening like a blade.
“The world must be ending if Mr. McLean is allowing you guys to be in here alone,” he said, “or most likely he doesn’t know you two are in here.”
Alejandro nodded once, metallic head dipping in agreement.
Fang’s posture slumped with bored impatience, like he’d heard the same lecture a hundred times and hated all of it equally.
The blue eyed boom mic operator glanced at the monitors again. “ Once the others show you two are going to explain what the hell is going on.”
They didn’t have to wait long.
The remainder of the Production Crew barreled into the boathouse in a flood of panic, caffeine, and urgency.
“Drama-Bot? Fang? You two can’t be in here!” JD snapped.
“Do you guys know where Mr. McLean is?” Donovan demanded.
“Just what the hell is going on!?” Elliot blurted, outrage already halfway down his throat.
“Since when did you guys know how to operate a monitor?” Yudai asked, disbelief making him sound smaller than he probably felt.
The cacophony of everyone’s voices made Alejandro want to rip out his own ears—between the confining boathouse walls and his lack of sleep, the sound turned into a physical thing.
A ferocious growl rolled through the room.
It cut everyone off mid-syllable.
Fang—finally—stepped forward and pulled out a small chalkboard. White chalk followed his movements with intensity.
He scribbled something fast again—faster than before. Chalk squeaked. Lines appeared like they were being carved into the air.
Then he held the chalkboard up.
The crew leaned in as one.
“Yesterday, Noah was badly injured. Chris and Chef took him to the hospital.” Josh read it aloud, even though nobody needed him to. His coworkers were reading the same message.
Their attention was already glued to Fang’s handwriting—elaborate cursive, surprisingly delicate for a mutant shark with the intimidation factor of a nightmare.
Buffy, of course, was the first to get distracted. “Did anyone ever tell you have beautiful handwriting?” She admired, inspecting the loops and flourishes like it were art. For someone so burly, Fang has impressive handwriting. “Did Noah teach you that?”
Fang let out a toothy smile, shamelessly preening at the praise
Alec flicked his eyes toward Buffy, not unkind—just firm. “Buffy, focus.”
Then, as if the universe could hear how badly they wanted answers: “And speaking of Noah…” Alec’s voice went sharper. “How did he get injured?”
Fang didn’t write this time.
Instead, he extended a clawed finger at the monitors, then at Drama-Bot.
Alec shoved the two—gently, but with urgency—aside to clear space and quickly sat down at the swivel chair.
The Production Crew surged in behind him, crowding the monitors like the answers might be hiding in the static.
JD’s expression was full of realization. “Is that what you and Drama-Bot were trying to do? Find the answers here?”
Alejandro and Fang smacked their faces in exasperation and nodded. Although the bipedal shark released a heavy huff from his nostrils.
Sí, ¿qué crees que estábamos tratando de hacer, Rubio? .
Alec then clicked on the same timestamp Fang and Alejandro were about to pull up.
The footage was blurry because the heavy rain smeared everything into streaks of gray.
But it was still unmistakable.
Noah on a golf cart with some tacky wooden figure in the shape of Chris’s face, gripped tightly in his hands like it mattered too much to let go.
And then the cart abruptly stopped.
The wheels caught in a mud pit. Noah’s momentum died in an instant. The cart jerked hard but sunk even further into the thick mud.
The crew leaned closer to the screen, breath held.
Noah got out anyway.
He crouched, hands in the mud, trying to push the cart free with no such luck.
And that was when the camera caught the movement behind him.
The all too familiar emaciated figure of Ezekiel, stalking closer with a hunger that looked too practiced.
The crew gasped in synchronicity.
“Behind you, Noah!” Josh shouted at the screen, like the bookworm could hear him through it.
Noah jerked around—
But it was too late. And Ezekiel pounced.
The crew watched, bated breath tightening in their chests, as Noah and the creature scuffled in the mud. Bodies slipping. Mud spraying. The golf cart bobbing in the background.
Then—
Noah ducked the assault and managed to shove himself free from the wild human.
And then bolted toward the trees.
A collective surge of relief came from the crew—some half cheering, and some half praying.
They continued watching as the brunette kept running through the woods—until he hit the famous dead-end cliff.
No way around.
No way forward.
So Noah turned back the way he came.
But only to find Ezekiel waiting for him—blocking the path.
“Oh, shit,” Donovan muttered. “That thing’s got Noah cornered.”
The tall cameraman was already leaning forward in his chair as if he could lunge through the screen and save the young assistant himself.
The bald savage prepared to make another lunge at Noah.
Buffy immediatly covered her eyes.
“Oh, I can’t watch!” she cried out. “Just tell me when it’s over!”
But before Ezekiel could ambush him.
Lightning ripped through the cloudy sky and struck directly between the two of them.
The burst of lightning was so bright that the monitors flashed, causing the Production Crew to cover their own eyes.
Everyone watched as Ezekiel’s decrepit form retreated back into the woods, like a scared little chihuahua.
For a split second, the crew didn’t understand what they were seeing.
Because where was Noah?
The camera jerked.
Cut.
And then the feed caught Noah again, but only this time he was helplessly falling off the cliff.
Just dropped down into an unknown abyss.
The camera feed cut off after that.
And there was dead silence in the boathouse.
Not the peaceful kind.
The kind you get right after a jump scare—when your brain is still trying to decide whether it’s allowed to scream.
Everyone’s faces were an entire spectrum of horror: shocked, horrified, and—on a few people—wet-eyed in that way that meant the story had already turned into grief.
Nobody spoke until Yudai croaked, voice thin.
“Which one of you found him?”
His eyes were still locked on the monitor, like the last frame might change if he stared hard enough. And even though he didn’t look away from the screen, the question was clearly aimed at Fang and Alejandro.
Fang quickly wrote again on the chalkboard with furious, efficient strokes.
He held it up so everyone could read:
I found Noah in a puddle of toxic waste. He was unconscious and his body was glowing green. So I brought him to Chris and Chef.
JD nodded, “And then Mr. McLean and Mr. Hatchet took him to the hospital,” the burly man summarized. “Okay… looks like that explains everything.”
Alec’s head snapped toward him, brows knitting.
“Not everything has been explained.”
He pointed at the screen that was paused at the exact moment Noah’s drop into the abyss.
“Ezekiel is still out there.”
Alec’s voice sharpened further. “He’s the one responsible for all of this. I say we go out and search for him.”
JD shook his head hard. “And how is that going to solve anything? That rabid freak could be hiding anywhere on the island.”
“Noah is in the hospital,” Buffy said, stepping forward with teary eyes, “and the first thing that pops into your head is revenge?”
Alec opened his mouth—
but Josh beat him to it, siding with the older blonde like he’d been holding his opinion back for too long.
“I don’t know,” Josh said. “Alec makes an interesting argument. Ever since we started working on the new season, Ezekiel has been terrorizing us. But nearly killing Noah is the final straw.”
“Don’t tell me you’re siding with him,” Elliott cut in, pointing at Alec with a smug little twist. “Alec just wants to get revenge because he’s got a crush on Noah.”
Silence again—but this time, it carried electric tension.
Alejandro had been tuned out after Yudai’s question, but the moment Elliott said that, Alejandro’s head snapped toward the interns and the crew.
He let out an indignant beep.
Then, through clenched intensity, his claws tapped once at the young boom mic operator like it was personally offended by the accusation.
¿Qué, es esto cierto. Clearly demanding that the accusation be corrected right now.
Alec practically combusted.
“I do not!”
His face flushed so brightly it looked like he’d been dunked in hot sauce.
“Do too!” Elliott argued immediately, leaning in until the air between them felt like it might catch fire. “You can deny it all you want, but everyone knows it!”
Before the bickering could become a full-on shouting match, Yudai timidly raised a hand as if he were a student in a classroom.
“Shouldn’t we wait until Mr. McLean and Mr. Hatchet get back,” he asked, voice careful, “before we make any rash decisions?”
Elliott smirked.
“And you honestly expect our bosses to just show up by opening that door?” he said, gesturing toward the boathouse entrance with a jerk of his chin.
As soon as the shaggy-haired intern finished his sentence, there was a loud knock at the boathouse door.
The entire Production Crew—along with Drama-Bot and Fang—snatched into motion, running to the far end of the room like the distance itself could provide safety.
Donovan’s eyes widened. “Who the hell could that be?”
Buffy’s voice shot up an octave. “It must be Ezekiel—he knows we are here!”
“And he’s coming to finish us off one by one!” she shrieked, hands fluttering to her mouth like she could physically trap the fear inside.
Another knock hit the door.
Harder this time.
Josh swallowed too afraid to move. “Isn’t anybody going to open it?”
Alec’s jaw clenched. “I—”
Elliott cut in immediately, relentless as ever. “Alec should go. Since he’s the one who wanted to go on a suicide mission earlier.”
“Fuck you, Elliott!” Alec snapped.
The unpaid intern didn’t even flinch.
Fang let out a frustrated grumble—deep in his throat, it amost sounded like he said "Idiots". He hated everyone single one of them and actually hoped it was Ezekiel at the door. That he could put this imcompetent crew out of their misery.
Then he stomped forward to the door.
To whatever horror was waiting on the other side.
Fang turned the knob and opened it.
And, much to everyone’s relief, standing in the doorway were Chris and Chef—alive, real, and staring at them like the last few hours had been an insult to their patience.
Chris’s expression was all impatient tiredness, and fury dressed up as annoyance.
“Finally!” Chris hollered, ignoring everyone’s panic like it were background noise. “What took you guys so long to open the damn door!?”
Chef’s frown matched his husband’s—except Chef’s looked heavier, like exhaustion had settled in his muscles. His hefty arms were folded across his chest.
“We’ve been looking all over for you, slackers,” Chef snapped. “And why aren’t y’all working?!”
The crew surged forward at once, nearly colliding with their own relief.
“Mr. McLean! Mr. Hatchet!”
There were too many questions coming too fast, piling on top of each other:
“How’s Noah doing?”
“Is he okay?”
“What did the doctors say?”
“Woah, woah, woah!” Chris cut in, raising a hand like he was trying to physically pause the panic. “One at a time.”
Chef leaned in, eyes narrowing in suspicion.
The shorter host jerked his chin toward the boathouse.
“Now,” he said, tone shifting just slightly—still loud, but sharper—“I take it that Fang and Drama-Bot told you guys what happened yesterday?”
“That would be correct, but Mr. McLean, there's something we have to show you on the monitors.” JD affirmed, pointing frantically.
“Can’t it wait until later? We’re seriously behind on schedule.” Chris drawled uninterested as he, along with Chef, began to exit the boathouse. There is so much work that needs to be done, such as making calls to the executive producers.
“No, it can’t wait, Mr. McLean. The cameras caught Noah's accident.” Alec called out urgently.
That caused the interracial couple to pause in their tracks and face the blonde employee, "They did?!"
"Yes!" Their underlings shouted back sans Drama-Bot who only beeped and Fang who only nodded in confirmation.
Chris and Chef raced back inside the boathouse and sat down on the swivel chairs.
“Well, what are we waiting for, play the footage." The sadistic host hurriedly demanded even though he was closest to the keyboard.
“But know that this means y’all are working overtime.” The apron-clad ex-veteran warned.
The Production Crew all muttered assurances of understanding. JD pressed the play button on the keyboard. And for the second time that day, the footage played with an even bigger audience.