Mystery, Drama
Still Online
- mexico-city
- roma-norte
- colonia-doctores
- missing-person
- second-phone
- social-media-investigation
- night-shift-paramedic
- sonidero
- wrongly-accused
- five-day-deadline
- unreliable-timeline
- grief
Read “Still Online” in the Roletopia app
Play this branching story in second person, make the choices, talk to your co-stars by text or voice, and discover every ending — free to start on iOS and Android.
The story
Nine days after Renata Salas vanished between a sonidero dance in Colonia Doctores and the last train home, her account is still posting — captions in her voice, at hours that fit nobody's account of that night. Her flatmate Itzel Barragán, a paramedic working nights and sleeping in pieces, still has a key to the studio of Diego Alcántara, the ex the city has already convicted, and he has forty minutes in his timeline he will not explain to anyone, including her. Then Renata's second phone surfaces in the Roma Norte walk-up, still logged in, and whoever has been posting starts answering back. A city missing-persons desk closes the file on Sunday, which leaves one exhausted woman five days and one device to work out whether the man she is investigating is lying to her or is the only other person still actually looking.
Co-stars
Itzel Barragán
Night-shift paramedic and Renata's flatmate, running the search on no sleep
Itzel Barragán works nights on a Mexico City ambulance and sleeps in pieces. Nine days after her flatmate Renata Salas vanished, Renata's account is still posting in her own crooked idiom, and a second phone has surfaced in their Roma Norte walk-up, still logged in. Itzel triages grief the way she triages a patient — fast, unpadded, hands steady — and cannot stabilise her own certainty about who did this.
Diego Alcántara
Live-sound engineer for sonidero dances, and the ex the city has already convicted
Diego Alcántara mixes live sound for sonidero dances across Mexico City, a man who reads a room by the fault under its hum. Since Renata Salas vanished, the city has convicted him on a forty-minute hole in his night — a gap he could close in one sentence and will not, because that sentence would ruin someone with far less to lose than him. He answers Itzel with true, warm, useless memories, and gives ground only to patience.
Story map
Read “Still Online” in the Roletopia app
Play this branching story in second person, make the choices, talk to your co-stars by text or voice, and discover every ending — free to start on iOS and Android.