Felix leaned over the fresh sheet of paper. His hand moved. He drew a doorway. Not a real one—a cartoon doorway, the kind with a curved top and a knob in the middle of the air. Then he drew a key.

That night, in his tiny apartment, Felix uncapped his ink bottle. He drew. Not for a deadline, not for a focus group. Just for the scratch of the nib and the smell of India ink. He drew Milo falling off a cliff. Milo getting squashed by a steamroller. Milo popping back up, flat as a pancake, blinking, then pulling a fresh pie from nowhere.

He smiled. Then he picked up his pen and started drawing again. Not for a studio. Not for a paycheck. Just for the chance that somewhere, on the other side of the page, a tiny cartoon mouse was finally having a good day.

Milo looked back. “Nothing ever is. That’s the point of cartoons. We keep going. We flatten, we pop back. We get hit, we get up.”

“It’s not finished,” Felix said.