Previously on Renzo: After Hours: In Greece, Renzo, Xander, and Sebastian found Nocturne II, a reel left behind by Jules that showed him alive and speaking directly to Renzo: “Keep making light out of what tries to disappear.”
The film ended with an image of the trio themselves, seen from their own balcony — proof that
Jules had seen further than any of them.
Now, they know the cycle isn’t finished.
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Venice greeted them like a painting that refused to dry.
Mist drifted through narrow canals, cloaking the city in silver. The air carried the scent of rain, film emulsion, and something else—anticipation.
Their flat sat above a forgotten glass-maker's studio. It was damp, quiet, and perfect. Renzo unpacked the camera case as Xander hung blackout cloth across the windows. Sebastian found a bottle of aged grappa on the counter and held it up like a trophy.
“To Jules,” he said.
Renzo shook his head. “Not to him. To what’s left.”
“Then,” Sebastian said with a grin, “to what’s left.”
The clink of glasses was small and real in the soft echo of the room.
For two days, Venice hid her secrets well. Every lead about the missing Third Reel ended in polite shrugs, closed archives, or blank stares.
But on the third evening, Xander found a clue in the most unassuming place—a shop selling antique cameras near Campo San Polo.
Among the dust and brass lenses sat a box marked RVB – 3/3.
The shopkeeper, a quiet man with film-stained fingers, watched them closely.
“You’re looking for ghosts,” he said in Italian. “Most people don’t find them.”
Renzo answered in the same language. “We don’t want to find them. We want to understand them.”
The man smiled faintly, slid the box across the counter, and disappeared into the back room.
Inside was a reel wrapped in linen, identical to the others.
And beneath it—a small glass slide etched with three names: Renzo, Xander, Sebastian.
They returned to the flat as rain began to fall, canals trembling with reflections.
Renzo threaded the film through the projector, hands steady despite the tremor beneath his ribs.
The light filled the room with that familiar ghostly rhythm of frame and flicker.
At first: the sea, the cliffs, the balcony. Then a room that wasn’t theirs but almost was—three men, their faces indistinct, moving close in and out of focus. The camera lingered not on touch but on nearness, the space between breaths.
Sebastian’s voice was barely a whisper. “He filmed us before we existed.”
Xander reached for Renzo’s hand without looking away from the screen.
The next sequence froze them all: Jules behind the camera, filming a mirror.
In the mirror’s reflection stood Renzo—not a younger version, but exactly as he was now.
Jules’s voice came softly through the static.
“Every frame is just a memory waiting for its moment. When the camera turns, you’ll know what to do.”
The image shifted once more: three empty chairs by a canal window. Then black.
Renzo shut off the projector. The silence that followed was thick enough to feel.
“He wanted us here,” Xander said.
“Then he wanted something recorded,” Renzo replied.
Sebastian moved closer, gaze steady. “Then let’s make our reel.”
They set up the tripod by the open window, the night outside painted with lights rippling across the water. The camera’s red lamp blinked softly.
Renzo adjusted focus; Xander adjusted the lamp; Sebastian adjusted the space between them until there was none. The air smelled of rain and warmth and metal.
Renzo pressed record.
No one spoke. No posing, no performance. Just presence. Fingers brushed. Breath mingled. The camera caught the smallest truths—the pulse in a throat, the slow closing of eyes, the moment when silence turned into gravity.
The reel spun for minutes that felt eternal.
When Renzo finally stopped it, the three stood together, still caught inside that shared heartbeat.
He said quietly, “We’re the third reel.”
Xander smiled, eyes bright. “Then it’s complete.”
Sebastian leaned against them both, head resting on Renzo’s shoulder. “And this time, we keep it for ourselves.”
Outside, the canals carried the echo of distant bells, soft and uneven, like applause from another lifetime.
Next On Renzo: After Hours - The Stolen Reel
The trio’s private film is stolen before they can develop it. The thief leaves behind a calling card marked only S.
As they track the missing reel through Venice’s underground art world, Renzo discovers that what was stolen might reveal more than they ever meant to show.
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