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The town itself was odd, with boarded up windows and “For sale” signs in the windows of stores being a normal occurrence on the streets. But what was out of the ordinary was the fact that people were there for a reason other than the vandalization of the clearly abandoned buildings.
Four teenagers stood outside the glass doors of the once glorious Crestfallen Theater, one of them was crouched down in front of the lock that kept the doors from opening. All of them were wearing some type of heavy clothing, a feeble attempt at keeping the winter breeze from affecting them, but an attempt nonetheless.
The oldest girl, Madeline, was leaning against the wall next to the glass door and scoffed at Daniel’s inability to pick the lock that kept the doors from opening, her patience wearing thin.
The blonde-haired boy looked up at her, a hint of annoyance visible in his eyes, clearly having heard her impatience towards his attempts.
He eventually gave up, realizing the door would not budge.
“What if we break it open instead? It's not like anybody would notice.” Asher suggested, holding up their baseball bat to the rest of the group.
Cassandra, the youngest of them all and the newest member of their odd little group, looked puzzled as to why Asher had a bat in the first place, but didn't comment on it. Daniel stepped away from the door as Asher got ready to swing the bat at the door.
When the bat made contact with the door, it shattered as easily as a cup hitting a wooden floor. Very carefully, the four of them picked up their backpacks from where they were resting against the old brick walls of the theater and stepped through the now shattered entrance, glass crunching under their shoes. Cassandra coughed and covered her mouth with the sleeve of her sweater.
“I didn’t expect it to be this dusty” She stated, glancing around at the lobby of the theater. The carpet under her feet looked like a million people had walked on it over the years, the original design barely visible anymore.
“This dump hasn’t been used in at least a couple decades, what did you expect?” Daniel joked, stepping in front of her and opening a door that held a rusting “Employees Only” sign on it. He peered down the darkened hallway before closing the door.
“Where did you find this place?” Asher asked Madeline.
“And how are we supposed to clean it at all, I wouldn’t even know where to start.” Daniel added, turning to her.
It was her idea in the first place really, to use an old theater instead of just giving up on the show. Something about this being her last show before she had to leave for college. The other three went along with it because what was the worst that could happen. Someone reporting them to the police? That was unlikely.
The question went unanswered by Madeline, but she smiled. She seemed to be unbothered by the amount of dust in the air. She pulled out some masks from her backpack and handing them out. the other three took them gratefully and put them on to block themselves from inhaling the dust while they went through the theater and stage to clean it.
0-0-0-0-0
After a couple of long hours spent cleaning, the group deemed the theater clean enough to use without it feeling like they just opened the bag of a vacuum and inhaled it. The doors separating the lobby and the theater itself are shut, stopping the cold breeze from making its way inside.
The teens placed their backpacks in the first four seats closest to the stage and took the scripts out. Climbing up onto the stage, either by using the stage or climbing over the edge, they started to rehearse.
“What scene do ya’ll want to do first?” Madeline asked the rest of them.
“I think that starting from the first scene would be fine” Asher responded.
Cassandra put her script down and laid down on her back, she wasn’t in this particular scene despite being the main character. The intricate patterns on the ceiling caught her eye as she tuned out the sound of her friends practicing their lines. A crystal-looking Chandelier hung from the rafters, it was more likely to be glass, but it shone beautifully under the lights of the stage regardless. But something standing over the decor was more interesting to Cassandra. A black figure standing in the rafters, more specifically, and rafter the chandelier as hanging off of. Slowly sitting up from her place on the stage, Cassandra alerted the others of her discovery, interrupting their rehearsal.
“There probably isn’t supposed to be someone up there, right?” Cassandra whispered, as if talking at a normal tone would alert the figure that she had seen them.
“What?” Daniel asked, following Cassandra’s gaze. Madeline seemed to not have anything to say about the current situation.
“I can go see if there's even a way to get up there, maybe a staircase or something.” Asher suggested, putting down their script and going through the door behind the curtains, leading to a hallway containing the old dressing and storage rooms. The sound of their footsteps slowly faded as they walked farther away.
Daniel climbed off the stage, seeming angered by the thought of someone breaking into the theater, even though that was exactly what he had just helped to do.
“What are you doing here?” He exclaimed loudly at the figure. They didn't seem, though, as they didn't move from their place above the chandelier.
Seeming even more angered by the lack of a reaction, Daniel yelled “Get out of the theater, you don’t have any business being here!” That seemed to affect the figure, as they crouched down and took something out of their pocket, the light reflected onto the metal, a knife.
Cassandra leapt off the stage, about to warn Daniel about what she assumed the figure’s plans with the knife were. But Madeline had grabbed her arm in an attempt to stop her before she got too close, it was already too late. The chandelier itself had to be old, seeing as the theater hadn’t been used in decades. The rope holding it up was probably way older, so it wasn't surprising that it was so easy to sever.
The ear piercing noise as the glass shattered on the ground was so forceful that it knocked both Cassandra and Madeline onto the ground. A scream erupted from Daniel’s mouth as the glassy hail came raining down on him, causing him to fall to the ground almost instantly. Madeline gasped as she stood up and pulled Cassandra with her, seeing Daniel’s limp corpse crushed under the frame of the now destroyed chandelier.
0-0-0-0-0
The sound of shattering glass reached Asher from their place in the back stairwell, effectively stopping them in their tracks. They briefly thought about turning back but decided against it, the door to the rafters was so close and all this time would have gone to waste.
Sighing and hoping for their friends safety, they took the last few steps needed to reach the door and pushed it open with a shaky hand. The door creaked open and Asher looked out across the rafters, trying to find any sign of the mysterious figure. Don't look down, don't look down, they thought, focusing their gaze on the wooden boards connecting the rafters instead of the floor below. However, as if nothing would ever go right for the teenagers, Asher looked down, and was met with the sight of the once glittering chandelier on the ground, smashed all over Daniel’s corpse.
An extreme sense of nausea overcame them, a type of nausea that could only be derived from pure fear, whether it was for their friends or their own safety, it caused Asher to walk back over to the rickety staircase.
Looking back one last time, Asher finally spotted the mysterious figure they had been looking for all this time. However, they also realized that they had left their only form of a defense on the stage. It's not worth it. They thought, as they started to descend back down the old set of stairs, internally praying that the figure had not seen them.
0-0-0-0-0
After recovering from the shock of the accident, Cassadra released herself from Madeleine's grasp and grabbed her backpack from where it was lying next to the edge of the stage. She threw her backpack over her soldier and started towards the door.
“What are you doing? We should wait for Asher!” Madeline exclaimed.
“I don’t care about Asher! For all we know they could be trying to kill us! Why do they even have that bat?” Cassandra relplied, pushing on the door. Instead of walking into the lobby, Cassandra was stopped by the door of the auditorium, it was locked. Turning around, she saw that her only other option to leave was a door that led backstage, she suspected that wouldn’t do her much good.
“You’ve known them for a week! How could you possibly know that?” Madeline exasperated as Cassandra gave up on opening the door. She instead made her way back over to Madeline and stood next to her, not answering the question.
Frantic footsteps from behind the stage alerted the girls of Asher’s return. The kid in question walked through the backstage door and towards the edge of the stage.
“I couldn’t see anything up there, let alone some sort of murderous psychopath” They lied, not wanting to say the real reason was because they got too scared.
“We need to come up with a plan then.” Madeline suggested, looking between Cassandra and Asher.
“And what would that plan be, Madeline? Going on a manhunt for a literal psychopath and hoping we make it out of this godforsaken theater?” Asher snapped, making eye contact with Madeline.
Madeline shrugged sheepishly, even the suggestion itself sounded absurd now that she was thinking of it.
“What if we split up, me and Madeline and Asher can go by themself.” Cassandra muttered, barely being heard by the other two.
“Why do I have to go alone?” Asher questioned, confused.
“Because you have a bat,” Cassandra replied, as if it was obvious. She went over to Asher’s backpack, picked up the bat, and handed it to them.
“Me and Madeline will take the west end of the theater, you get the east.” She stated, clearly not open to suggestions.
“Lucky me,” Asher said sarcastically, making their way through the door they had come through only minutes before. Madeline grabbed Cassandra’s hand and pulled her through the door on the other side of the stage.
“What were you thinking?” Madeline whispered, even though they were alone in the hallway.
“They’ll be fine,” Cassandra whispered back. Madeline sighed and walked down the hallway checking every corner, Cassandra followed close behind. Suddenly, a sound came from the bathroom, and Madeline went inside to check it out, telling her friend to go on without her.
Despite the stupidity of the idea, Cassandra listened to her anyway, and she would live to regret it.
A scream filtered through the walls of the theater, it was clearly Madeline’s. Cassandra froze, debating between going back to save her friend and potentially being hurt, or trying to go find Asher. As it turned out, Asher found her first, their face looking panicked as they rounded the corner into the hallway, still carrying the bat. Their hand planted itself on Cassandra’s shoulder.
“I heard someone scream, where's Madeline?” They asked, clearly concerned.
“I heard her scream from the bathroom, I don’t know what to do,” She replied shakily.
Asher handed her the bat before making their way into the bathroom. Cassandra watched as they walked slowly out of the bathroom, shaking their head.
“Yeah, she's expired,” Asher confirmed. Madeline had become the second victim of this mysterious figure’s murderous ways.
“I found a way out earlier, follow me.” Asher whispered.
“What? No way! Now we have to catch this guy!” Cassandra said, not moving from her place.
“And what will we do when we do find him?” Asher questioned, they had started to become annoyed with all this nonsense. Cassandra looked at the floor, unable to think of an answer.
Asher sighed and grabbed the sleeve of her sweater and started to lead her through the winding hallways, this time she followed them without protest.
0-0-0-0-0
After walking hurriedly through the winding hallways of the old theater, the pair stopped at a stained glass window, overlooking the rest of the town. Cassandra could vaguely make out what looked to be police cars blocking the road.
“Looks like someone realized we were missing,” Asher sighed, taking the bat back from Cassandra. She hadn’t even realized she was still holding it.
“What’s your plan here?” Cassandra asked, skeptical.
“Breaking the window, climbing onto the awning and hoping for the best,” Asher shrugged. After all the things that had happened that night, that was probably the least dangerous. Swinging the bat, Asher broke the window, the glass shattering immediately. Cassandra watched as Asher climbed over the edge of the windowsill, being careful to not cut their hand on the leftover glass. Holding out a hand to Cassandra, Asher assisted her in climbing onto the awning. They seemed surprised that it held the both of them without breaking under the weight.
Before Asher and Cassandra even had time to take a breath of fresh air, a police man spotted them and made them get down immediately. As they were ushered into separate police cars, Cassandra wondered what would have happened if the production didn’t get shut down, if Madeline hadn’t gotten them to break into the theater, if the chandelier never fell, if her and Madeline had decided to leave without Asher, or if she had never let Madeline go into that bathroom by herself, if Asher had never brought that stupid bat with them.
Only a car away, Asher had started to feel guilty about not going after the figure when they had the perfect chance, the three of them could have made it out of that theater and Madeline would have still been alive.
But wondering wouldn’t change anything for the two, because the damage had already been done, and there was no way to bring back Daniel or Madeline, no matter how much they both wanted it to happen.