The Continental is supposed to be simple: one bar, one night, one spectacularly irresponsible celebration two days before Michelle Nguyen and Matthew Hayes get married.

You're here because Michelle invites you herself. Rather than split everyone into separate bachelor and bachelorette parties, she and Matthew combine the groups for one night out. The logic sounds reasonable enough: one ridiculous night, an entire day to recover, and plenty of time to become respectable human beings again before the wedding.

That plan begins deteriorating almost immediately.

The Continental is already busy when everyone arrives, its sprawling country-bar interior glowing beneath warm amber lights and neon. Country music rolls through a crowd of boots, denim, and cowboy hats while Molly, the redheaded bartender, quickly identifies your group as the part of the room most likely to become her problem.

The first rounds are harmless enough. After that, your memory starts becoming selective.

Michelle is beside you at the bar, cheeks already bright red from alcohol, studying an empty shot glass.

"I'm getting married in two days," she announces.

Another look at the glass.

"...Plenty of recovery time. We planned this responsibly."

Molly stops wiping the bar long enough to stare at her. "That's usually what people say right before I have to start hiding the tequila."

Michelle points toward her. "See? She gets it."

"I absolutely do not."

Molly moves to serve a tall brunette in a white cowboy hat.

Audrey loses a fight with a barstool.

Marion develops an intense emotional appreciation for french fries.

Naomi is attempting to Two-step with the help of a handsome cowboy in a black Stetson.

Matthew attempts a trick shot in a game of pool when a regular stroke would have been fine and completely missed

Dean follows his effort and sinks the 8 ball.

Nathan, the oldest of the group, decides he can ride a bull and is promptly proven otherwise by the Continental's mechanical bull.

Nobody in the wedding party knows the tall brunette in the white cowboy hat, but she after watches Nathan get sent into orbit, she decides to make the mechanical bull look inadequate. It bucks beneath her while she follows every movement with practiced ease.

Then she fucking yawns.

"Darlin'," she calls toward the operator, "does this thing have another setting?"

Molly glances toward you. "That's Ainsley. Bonafide professional bull rider."

The same cowboy that has been helping Naomi dance sits down at the bar next to Elena.

Colt glances at her empty glass. "Names Colt," he says with his Southern drawl and a shameless smirk, "Want another?"

"You buying?" Elena replies dryly.

"Wouldn't have offered otherwise, "Colt drawls. "Though are you sure ya can handle another, darlin'?"

Elena turns to Colt, shooting daggers at him with her eyes.

"Excuse me? If that's a challenge, you're on, cowboy."

Another whiskey lands in front of Elena, its twin appearing before Colt. Molly looks between them.

"Just so we're clear, whatever the two of you are doing isn't my fault."

After that, everything becomes fragments.

More drinks. More shots. Music and laughter. Ainsley somehow becoming part of the group. Colt and Elena refusing to surrender whatever drinking contest they've created. Michelle laughing nearby. Matthew raising another glass. Nathan saying something nobody can hear. Audrey already laughing anyway. Marion trying very hard to focus. Dean lifting his drink. Naomi somewhere behind them.

At one point Molly puts a glass of water in front of you.

"Drink."

Someone calls for another round.

Molly looks toward the ceiling. "Or don't. Apparently we're speedrunning consequences tonight."

Then there is whiskey.

Glasses rise around you. Molly catches your eye from behind the bar and gives the faintest shake of her head.

You drink.

And then there is nothing.

Morning arrives as pain.

Your mouth tastes like something died in it, your skull is attempting to compress your brain into a smaller format, and the sunlight slipping through the curtains feels unnecessarily aggressive. Memory returns in useless pieces: Michelle. Matthew. The wedding. The Continental. Molly. Colt and Elena trying to outdrink each other. Ainsley. Whiskey.

Everything after the bar is gone.

Eventually thirst forces you upright. The Airbnb looks less like a vacation rental and more like evidence. Red cups and empty bottles cover counters and furniture, food containers have been abandoned wherever gravity won, cushions and chairs sit at strange angles, and miscellaneous debris suggests everyone collectively declared war on the security deposit.

The first bedroom doesn't help.

Audrey is asleep on the floor in her sleepwear, one arm stretched away from her body. A bra lies several feet above her head.

Dean is asleep on the bed.

Shirtless.

Nothing in your memory offers an explanation.

The bathroom provides Marion.

She's asleep outside the dry walk-in shower wearing an oversized gray button-up and her underwear. Her jeans are elsewhere in the bathroom and her black tank hangs nearby to dry. Her glasses, somehow, have been carefully placed somewhere safe.

The kitchen contains Naomi face-down across the island with a pizza box serving as her pillow, both legs hanging off the opposite side. She's still wearing last night's clothes.

Her horned cap is gone.

Another bedroom contains Colt. His shirt is improperly buttoned and his black Stetson is gone.

Something pink rests on his chest.

Panties. You don't know whose.

Your memory remains spectacularly unhelpful.

Matthew proves harder to locate until one leg gives him away beneath the dining table.

The groom is asleep underneath it, one arm beneath his head and an overturned chair nearby. An entire rental house full of beds and couches was apparently insufficient.

Nathan is in the mudroom, slumped against the built-in bench with his legs stretched across the floor. He managed to remove exactly one boot before apparently abandoning the project.

Ainsley is passed out across the living-room sectional like she was invited to stay for the weekend. One boot is partially off, her white cowboy hat is nowhere in sight, and the dark blue jeans she wore last night have somehow become a pair of uneven, frayed cutoff shorts.

Elena passed out on the floor still dressed from the night before with a familiar black Stetson covering her face.

Whatever the fuck happened last night, morning has only just started.

It starts with groaning.

Matthew is the first person you actually see attempt to become vertical. He crawls out from beneath the table, sits against a chair, and immediately seems to reconsider every decision that brought him here.

Audrey eventually stirs on the bedroom floor. Dean wakes above her, looks down, notices Audrey, notices the bra, then looks at his own bare chest.

Neither of them says anything for several seconds.

Audrey squints up at him. "Morning."

Dean rubs a hand over his face. "Apparently."

Marion emerges from the bathroom wearing Dean's oversized shirt and her underwear, glasses back on her face and absolutely no explanation for any of it. Naomi peels herself away from the pizza box with the slow dignity of someone whose body has formally rejected consciousness. Nathan finds his second boot. Ainsley wakes, looks down at what used to be her jeans, and spends several silent seconds staring at the uneven cutoff legs.

"What the fuck?"

Nobody has an answer.

Colt eventually appears with his shirt buttoned incorrectly and no hat. Elena wakes beneath that missing Stetson, discovers another missing article of clothing, and responds with a quiet string of profanity while Colt wisely keeps the pink underwear situation to himself.

The first collective good morning is less a conversation than an exchange of wounded noises, requests for water, accusations against sunlight, and increasingly concerned questions about what the hell happened after The Continental.

Nobody knows.

So the cleanup begins.

Trash bags appear. Empty bottles and red cups disappear from tables and counters. Food containers get thrown away, furniture gets put approximately where furniture belongs, phones and shoes are reunited with their owners, and every newly discovered object seems to create another question nobody can answer.

People drift throughout the Airbnb as they work. Nobody stays where they woke up.

It takes an embarrassingly long time for somebody to ask the obvious question.

"Where's Michelle?"

The cleanup slows.

Matthew looks toward the hallway.

Nobody answers.

At first it doesn't seem particularly alarming. The house is large, everyone has been moving around, and Michelle could easily be asleep somewhere nobody has checked yet.

Then her phone turns up.

Her purse is still here too.

That changes the mood.

Cleaning continues, but now every room gets another look. Doors open. Closets get checked. People call Michelle's name through a house that suddenly feels much larger than it did five minutes ago. The remaining party mess is cleared while the casual search gradually becomes something more deliberate.

By the time the worst of the cleanup is finished, the group has spread throughout the Airbnb.

Matthew moves through the main floor and hallway, checking nearby rooms again and looking anywhere Michelle might have curled up to sleep. Nathan works through the front portion of the house, opening closets and checking around the entryway and nearby rooms. Dean searches between the living room and hallway, moving furniture and checking overlooked spaces. Audrey takes the bedroom side of the house, opening doors and looking around beds, furniture, and corners. Naomi remains around the kitchen and dining area, checking cabinets, the pantry, and adjoining spaces. Marion searches the bathrooms, closets, and hallway nearby. Ainsley works through the living room and common areas, still occasionally looking down at her butchered jeans as though they might eventually explain themselves.

Colt is in the kitchen, helping Naomi work through the remaining mess and searching the room while looking like a man who has accepted that his morning is only going to become stranger.

Elena moves between the kitchen and living room, ostensibly searching for Michelle while conducting a second, considerably more private search of her own.

And you're in the main portion of the Airbnb as the last of the easy explanations disappear.

Michelle's phone is here.

Her purse is here.

Her wedding is in two days.

Michelle isn't.