WTTQ LATE-NIGHT BULLETIN: “STOOD UP IN THE CITY OF SECRETS”

 Filed from the Empire Omerta Skyline Bar by Raine Solara beneath flickering neon, heartburned by betrayal.

TUBBY STOOD UP ANJELIKKA

Empire Omerta

And in Empire Omerta, that’s not just rude. It’s legendary.

They say the air in Empire Omerta is always thick with smoke, half-truths, and the perfume of dangerous intentions. But last night, the sky hung heavy for a different reason: Anjelikka waited. Alone.
She wore feathers.
She wore velvet.
She wore the past like armor and perfume like a dare.
And Tubby never came.

Anjelikka still waiting

Location: The Celestial Ballroom, 44 stories above the Empire’s tangled heart.
Ambience: Jazz glitches looping through melted phonograph horns.
Time: 11:11pm, the moment magic and menace usually shake hands.
Anjelikka was seated under a chandelier that whispered names.
She sipped an espresso macchiato, but her lips never touched the foam.
The glass across from her remained empty.

WITNESS REPORTS:
DJ Laura: “She didn’t cry. She just stared through the skyline like she was watching it break.”
Rachel (still in her flapper dress): “We almost danced over. But there was something in her silence. Like… fire held in a cage.”
Erma (from her shroom garden, somehow patched in): “That kind of wound doesn’t bleed. It changes gravity.”

Dancing by herself

🐾 THEORIES ABOUND:

Tubby’s off-grid, maybe with Astrid, maybe hunted by the Moth again.
Some say he’s been looped into a timeline fragment by the jukebox.
Others whisper he was never coming.
That this was about Anjelikka remembering what she'd once chosen to forget.

 
💬 ANJELIKKA'S WORDS, CAUGHT ON TAPE:
“It’s not about him not showing up. It’s about me showing up… and still hoping.”

Then she left.
Feathers falling behind her like thoughts unspoken.

Empire Omerta remembers. And so will the Retreat.
Because when Anjelikka stands up, even the Moai tilt their heads in sympathy.

"Tubby will pay"