The Authorial Intrusion

[Thanks to Suzanne Stroup]

Kara Rose Clement sat in front of her dressing room mirror, putting the finishing touches on her stage makeup. She was dressed only in a soft, comfortable robe; one of the many benefits of playing the lead female role and having her own room backstage. Of course, the privacy of her personal preparation space offered more perks than the ability to apply makeup while partially naked. Away from the boisterous babble of the cast and crew, Kara was able to think.

She thought of the best friends that she had ever known, the actors and stagehands that were chattering and laughing loudly outside her door. For four years they had played together, fought together, and grown up together. They had learned to cooperate, more like a family than a team, in order to create nights of enchanted illusion. Sadly, tonight’s illusion would be Kara’s last to craft with them.

She thought of Grady High School and its beautiful theater. It had been a pirate ship, and it had been a flowering field. It had been a dark castle, and it had been a cheerful village. But most importantly, Grady Theater had been a home for Kara and a refuge for the members of the drama department. The equipment was top-notch; the stage was beautifully large; the gallery, which could easily seat one thousand people, was reminiscent of a darkly carpeted coliseum. Kara wondered if her voice would ever again fill such a beautiful place with music.

She thought of Zack Stanley, the tall, blonde soccer player. They had been playing a game of cat-and-mouse high school romance ever since the day they first met, and Kara could feel it drawing to a close. Tonight would be the night that Zack would be waiting for her when she opened the large double-doors that separated the backstage from the gallery, where the actors exited after a performance. He would give her a bouquet of flowers, kiss her on the cheek, and tell her that she was incredible. She just knew it.

Kara was so absorbed in her thoughts that she did not hear her dressing room door being opened.

“Kara?”

With a startled gasp, Kara turned to see Abigail Baxter’s uncomfortably blue eyes peeking at her from around the door.

“Abby! You scared the hell out of me!” Kara exclaimed. Abby grinned, blushing slightly.

“Sorry. I just wanted to let you know that you’ve got a visitor.” Abby stifled a giggle behind her smile. “A gentleman visitor.”

Kara gasped. She jumped out of her high makeup chair and flung herself onto an old pink love seat that was pushed flush against the wall. Since its donation, this particular piece of furniture had been a place of repose for divas with headaches. It would have to do.

“Send him in,” said Kara. Abby withdrew her head from the room and closed the door behind her.

Kara took a deep breath, willing her heartbeat to slow and her cheeks to stop glowing. She had not expected Zack to come to her so soon. With growing anticipation, she recounted in her mind all of the close calls over the last few years; all of the near misses and misunderstandings. So many times they had been so close. So many times she had felt his breath on her lips, had traced the gray lines in his green eyes, like rivers cutting through dark forests. And now here she was, possibly seconds away from something for which she had waited years.

There was a knock on the door. Kara took a second to run a hand through her hair and to straighten the wrinkles in her robe.

“Come in!” Kara called in what she hoped was a charming and lady-like voice. The door opened. At the first sight of her visitor, Kara’s heart sank. The romantic adrenaline that had numbed her legs quickly dissipated.

A boy walked into the room, but not the boy for whom Kara had been so anxiously awaiting. Instead of the tall, strong figure of Zack Stanley, an entirely different creature stood in front of her. This strange visitor was short in stature and very skinny. He wore a handsome three-piece suit. Thin-rimmed glasses perched upon his pointed nose. The only physical attribute of this boy that impressed Kara was his hair, which looked very soft and was black as iron. The boy must also have shared a liking for his mane, for he ran his fingers through it lavishly as he entered the room.

Kara’s visitor wore a very strange expression. With eyes that seemed filled with surprise and wonder, he glanced around the dressing room as if he were astounded by all that he saw. His lips bent into a small smile as he considered the various pieces of furniture and decoration. Just as Kara was about to speak up, the boy turned his gaze upon her. His pleasant smirk grew into a wide, toothy smile.

“Hello Ms. Clement! My name is Erich Ackerman. Are you ready for your last big show?”

Kara was momentarily without words. As soon as she heard Erich’s genuinely warm voice, a strange and sudden sense of recognition overcame her. She was certain that she had never seen his face or heard his voice, and yet Kara was equally sure that she knew this boy. Somehow, in some unknown or forgotten way, she knew this boy.

“Yes- I’m sorry, have we met?” Kara asked. Erich chuckled, once again combing his dark hair with his fingers. Then he abruptly said something strange.

“You feel like you know me, don’t you?” he said in an oddly knowing manner. “Nothing about me is familiar to you, but you still can’t get rid of that nagging feeling, right? The feeling that we know each other?”

Kara was momentarily speechless. As soon as those thoughts had formed in her mind, they were being spoken by Erich. How was that possible? How could he have known what she was thinking?

“But how-”

“A lot of people have said that to me tonight,” Erich answered before Kara’s lips could shape the question. “Tonight…tonight?” he repeated to himself, seemingly perplexed by his choice of words. “I wonder if this is all one night? It feels like it’s been days…” he trailed off, his eyes staring unseeingly at the wall.

This strange behavior confused Kara even further. Whatever game Erich was playing, she didn’t like it. She had a performance to prepare for, and she needed to be relaxed and ready. Erich’s presence, however, was only filling her with more and more unease. Unable to shake the unsettling feeling that she knew him, and unwilling to waste any more time by discussing it, Kara decided that it would be best if Erich left. She rose from the couch and began to clear away her makeup kits.

“Well, as you can imagine, I’ve got to get ready for the show. So if you’re finished with whatever joke the Morrison High School kids have put you up to…” she stopped there, as she considered the “get out” was implied.

Erich, to Kara’s extreme annoyance, didn’t move. His smile took on a touch of smugness.

“That’s very like you,” he said. “You can’t just say ‘get out’ or ‘please leave.’ You have to make a production of it. You really are a little diva, you know.”

Kara felt that this was going too far. She closed her eyeshadow case with a snap and turned angrily to Erich.

“Ok, listen, I don’t know who you think you are, but you’re being an ass. You don’t know me. We’ve never met. You have no right to talk about me like that. Please go now so I can get ready.”

Erich’s smile disappeared. He took a step backward in the direction of the door, his eyes now trained on the floor. Kara was sure he would leave now, but instead he spoke.

“I do have the right….” he said very quietly to the ground.

“What was that?” Kara asked hotly, unable to believe that Erich was taking his joke so far when it clearly wasn’t funny.

“I said I do have the right to talk about you that way,” Erich answered much more loudly. His eyes were now determinedly challenging Kara’s disgruntled gaze. There was an edge to his voice that frightened Kara. She was just about to exit the room to find someone to escort Erich away when he spoke again.

“Nothing here is real. It came from my head. I wrote you. I created you. Nobody knows you better than me. You came from me.”

Erich looked anxiously at Kara, as if afraid she might explode, awaiting her reaction to these words.

Kara didn’t know whether she should laugh or run for her life. For a moment she simply stood there, looking into Erich’s eyes, and he looked back, not a crack of a smile or twitch of mirth visible on his face.

“You’re actually the third person I’ve visited tonight,” he continued, cutting through the momentary silence. “I- I walk through doors and they take me to different times and different places, all places that I’ve written about. I don’t know why, but for some reason I’m being allowed to see what life is like from inside my stories. But- please, no, hear me out!”

She had taken all that she could. Kara, now extraordinarily flustered by this prank-pulling time waster, had walked around Erich and opened the door.

“Leave.”

“No, please wait, there’s more! I came to tell you-“

“Leave!”

“I can’t keep the stories alive; they’ll end. I don’t know what-“

“Get out!”

Erich’s eyes exhumed sadness and regret as profound as the curiosity with which they had glowed only minutes ago. With a nervous tug at his hair and one last glance around the room, he made his way through the doorway.

Just as Kara was closing the door behind him, he turned and said quickly, “I hope that you get those flowers from Zack tonight. I know you’ve been waiting a long time.” And with that he exited the backstage area, leaving Kara standing in her dressing room and feeling deeply troubled.

* * *

In all her years of performing, Kara could not remember putting on a better closing show. All dance routines were flawless, every note was sung on key, and the audience was one of the most boisterous and appreciative that Kara had ever seen. It was as if every person in the theater- actors, crew, and spectators alike- had conspired to make this, her last night, unforgettable.

But the show, sadly, soon came to an end. When Kara stepped from the wings to take her final bow, nearly one thousand pairs of hands radiated their admiration. Kara’s face barely had room for her smile as the massive crowd rose to its feet. As she joined hands with the entire cast for their last obeisance, she finally spotted the person she had been most anxious to see. Zack Stanley was beaming as he clapped, his eyes fixed on Kara.

Backstage there were hugs, congratulations, tears, and goodbyes. One by one, the young players changed out of their stage clothes and exited through the double-doors to the gallery, where two hundred appreciative spectators waited to greet them with gifts and more cheers. Every time the doors were opened a wave of cheering flooded the backstage dressing area, and Kara could see friendly hands pulling in the actors as the doors swung shut.

Kara had removed her costume and replaced it with a black dress, but she still wasn’t ready to leave. Instead, she watched as her friends departed through the doors, surrendering themselves to the handshakes and backslaps.

It might have been a little egotistical, but Kara wanted to be the last one to leave; to be the final member of the cast to emerge from behind the doors to greet the throng of admirers. She wanted everyone in the crowd in the gallery to think, “Wait! Where’s the star of the show? Where’s Kara Clement?” And then she would come out, assaulted by applause and accolades, and Zack Stanley would hand her an enormous bunch of flowers, kiss her, and tell her she was wonderful.

“Ready to go?” Asked Abby, tearing Kara away from her daydream. Kara realized suddenly that only she and Abby remained backstage.

“Oh… er…no,” Kara said, searching for an excuse to stay behind. “I lost my phone around here somewhere.” Of course, her phone was safely in her purse, but Abby didn’t need to know that.

“Okay, I’ll help you look!” Said Abby brightly.

“No, that’s alright, I’ll be fine!” Kara replied hastily. “I’ll find it, Abby, you go on ahead. I’ll be right behind you.” She turned her back on Abby, pretending to comb the floor for her cell phone, straightening only when she heard Abby exit the backstage.

I’ll just give her a minute to herself, thought Kara. After all, what kind of friend would she be if she came out too soon, distracted the crowd, and denied Abby the full attention that she deserved?

So Kara paced the large, empty coed makeup room, looking around fondly at the mirrors and chairs and thinking about all of the times she had used them. Soon enough, however, she stopped her reminiscing; she was ready to go.

She walked up to the double doors, going over in her head exactly what she was going to say to Zack Stanley. With a readying breath, she placed her hands upon the doors, pushed, and walked out into a gallery filled with....

Nobody.

To Kara’s amazement, there was nobody waiting for her outside the doors. In fact, there was nobody in the gallery at all. The crowd that she had seen no more than one minute ago had vanished, along with every other attendee that had been in the audience. Her mouth slightly agape with bewilderment, Kara slowly walked into the high-ceilinged chamber, hardly believing her eyes as they scanned row after row of empty, velvet-covered seats.

Suddenly a sound sliced through the silence. Kara screamed and jumped, looking around frantically for its source. Her surprise intensified as she realized that the theater was not abandoned, after all. Sitting behind a pillar that partially hid him from view was Erich Ackerman, and his solitary applause was what had frightened Kara.

“Excellent! Bravo! You really are something!” He said, wearing a proud smile. “I never wanted that show to end.”

Kara had no words. She suddenly realized why the gallery was devoid of all life except for Erich. For a few seconds she simply stared around at the many vacant seats, refusing to believe what the absence of her admirers must mean.

“No way,” she muttered to herself as she shook her head.

“Beg your pardon?” said Erich, a look of polite concern on his face.

“I said ‘no way.’ I don’t believe this,” Kara said. She was so angry that she was laughing in spite of herself. “You actually got everyone to hide outside, like they’d forgotten me? Is that the big joke? Is that what you were planning all this time?”

Tears began to slip around her eyes, but she brushed them away furiously. How could they all do this? Were they really all hiding in the lobby, sniggering, without a care in the world about how upset this would make her? Didn’t they know how important this night was; her last chance to be temporarily famous?

“Actually, I don’t know where they all went,” Erich said slowly. “One moment they were all here, and the next, everyone was gone.” He was frowning slightly, as if only mildly troubled by the sudden disappearance of one thousand people.

“What do you mean, ‘they just disappeared?’ How do so many people just disappear?!” Kara cried disbelievingly. But she guessed what Erich was going to say before he had even opened his mouth to speak.

“I don’t know,” he replied, tugging absent-mindedly at his hair again, his calm contentment starkly contrasting Kara’s teary anger. “I think something is happening to me, you know, in the real world. My world. Maybe I’m dying….” His eyes glazed sadly for a moment as he said these words.

Kara didn’t care what Erich had to say. She groaned loudly and stomped her foot, not caring how childish she looked or sounded. “Oh don’t start with that stupid story again!” She wanted to howl at the top of her voice, to run at Erich and hit him across the face. The exodus of her admirers had shaken her like nothing ever had before. How had this boy, whom she had never met, planned such a malicious prank that had affected her so overwhelmingly? She turned on her heel and stormed towards one of the large, round doors that led from the main theater to the lobby.

“I wouldn’t bother with that,” Erich called.

Kara stopped just short of the door, her arm outstretched.

“And why not?” She asked hotly, letting the contempt that boiled in her stomach engulf her words.

“Because it’s probably not going to open. I doubt there’s anything out there at all. To tell you the truth, seeing as how everybody else has vanished, I’m surprised any of this is still here.” He gestured with his hands, indicating the empty theater around them.

Kara ignored this renewed foolishness and turned her back on Erich once more. She pushed on the door, but to her astonishment, it would not budge. Frowning, she threw her shoulder into the door, but still it did not move. Panicking slightly, she kicked out at the wooden barrier. It did not make a hollow knocking noise, as one would expect, but rather a dull thud, as if it were a marble slab. The door never shifted a single centimeter within its frame.

“What the hell….” Kara pressed her ear against the door, hoping to catch the sound of voices from the lobby. She heard nothing.

“Will you come and sit with me for a while? I’m sorry you’re so upset, but I’d like to talk to you. That’s why I’m here,” said Erich.

“Fuck off, creep,” Kara replied. She banged her fist against the door- pointlessly, for again she could make no percussive sound- and began to yell. “Whoever’s out there, open the door! This isn’t funny… I mean it!”

Nobody answered. The door remained closed.

“You!” Demanded Kara, swinging around and pointing a finger at Erich. “Open this door. Right now. I’m through playing around.”

Erich bit his lip and pushed his dark hair away from his face nervously.

“I don’t know… are you sure….”

“Of course I’m sure! You think I want to be stuck in here with you anymore?”

Erich sighed, rose slowly from his chair, and walked around the rows of seats to join Kara at the door. She started to withdraw slightly when he approached.

“Stay close,” Erich said solemnly. “You need to see this.” Before Kara could reply, Erich pushed open the door.

Kara was too shocked even to scream. The door hadn’t opened to reveal a lobby full of chuckling people. Beyond the doorway was endless, limitless darkness; nothing. Erich regarded Kara grimly, watching her as she stepped closer to the dividing line where velvet carpet met eternal emptiness.

Never in her life had Kara feared the sight of anything more. This wasn’t simply darkness, she realized as she steadied herself by clutching the doorframe. This was the complete absence of existence in any form. It was the purest deletion, the sincerest annihilation. And then, with icy suddenness, Kara realized that it was coming for her.

She raised her hands to cover her face and screamed. Erich reached into the void and quickly pulled the door shut. Kara sank to the ground, sobbing, terrified, hiding her face in her hands so she wouldn’t see the door. Because she knew that the blackness couldn’t be shut out, and that it was still there, waiting to grab her and take her away and squeeze her into nothing.

Erich sat down on the floor next to Kara. He wrapped his arms around her shoulders and gently pulled her towards him. T o her own surprise, Kara found herself unwilling to resist. She descended softly into Erich’s arms, resting her head on his chest. One hand held her steadily to him, the other stroked her hair. He lowered his lips to her ear.

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

With each frightened tear that soaked into his jacket, Kara’s previous disdain for Erich dripped out of her. In its place arose the inexplicable familiarity that she had felt when she first met him, only now it was much stronger. Kara felt closer to Erich than she had ever felt to anyone, and without any words or explanation, Kara knew that Erich was everything that he had claimed to be.

They sat there, huddled together, for several minutes before Kara was able to speak. She wiped her face with the palm of her hand, trying desperately and unsuccessfully to think of something to say. Here she was, in the arms of the person responsible for her existence, so many questions in her head clamoring to be asked that they made a din, and she could give words to none of them. Finally, she removed her head from Erich’s chest and looked into his face.

“I was terrible to you. You were telling the truth, and you only wanted to see me, and I was terrible.”

“No, it’s alright,” Erich replied. He smirked down at Kara. “That’s just how you are sometimes, isn’t it?”

At these words, Kara fell silent. A new dread began to overtake her as she considered what Erich had said. How was she? Was she nothing but a puppet, a meaningless character driven by the whims and ideas of another, unable to see the cogs that kept her moving? The way she had always lived, the way she had thought of herself, could she be responsible for any of it? Her entire persona; was it the way she was, or was it the way Erich had made her?

Erich briefly squeezed her shoulder. “You’re worrying.”

Kara sniffed. “How do you know that?”

Erich regarded her incredulously. “Well, I mean… I’d be worried if I were you.”

“Is that it? Or do you know I’m worried because… because you’re making me worried?

Erich looked puzzled, but then his face slackened with apprehension. “You think I’m controlling you right now… controlling everything that happens?”

“What am I supposed to think?” Kara asked helplessly. “If you made me, if I’m here only because of you, how can I know that I can do anything by choice?”

Erich frowned. “I didn’t make you,” he replied. “I just put you down on paper. You’re every bit as free as anyone could be. Besides, if this was some fantasy that I controlled completely, like a playground that has to obey my rules… if I couldn’t meet you, argue with you, learn more about you…” he shook his head. “I wouldn’t be here. I wouldn’t care.”

Kara sighed with relief. Her fears had been allayed, and in their place arose a hungry curiosity. She gently pulled away from Erich and scooted on her hands and hindquarters until her back rested against the darkly-papered wall.

“Can I ask you something?”

Erich laughed and raised his eyebrows.

“Some thing?”

“Ok… several somethings,” Kara corrected herself.

Erich relocated himself as well, so that he sat with his back against the railing that separated the gallery from the raised entrance wings. He shuffled for a moment, searching for a comfortable spot on which to lean. When he was content with his position, he crossed his arms across his chest.

“Ask away.”

After a moment’s consideration, Kara knew what she wanted to ask first.

“How did you get here?”

Erich looked thoughtfully at the ceiling before answering.

“I’m not really sure.” He closed his eyes tight, frowning with the effort of remembering. “I was lying in my bed, and I think I closed my eyes just for a few minutes, just to try and sleep a little, but when I opened them I wasn’t in my bed. I was lying on my back on one of those big blue mats they use for high-jumping.” Kara furrowed her brows, completely lost. “I was at a track… In the middle of a track meet, actually,” Erich clarified.

“What were you doing at a track?” Kara asked.

“Same thing I’m doing here,” Erich answered. “Visiting a friend.”

Kara smiled. “So how did you end up here?”

“Well, I’ve already visited a few places. The change always happened the same way. After I found the person I was looking for, and after I talked to him or her for a while, I would start to feel really… tired. Like I couldn’t hold on to things anymore, you know? And I would close my eyes, and when I opened them again… I’d be somewhere else,” he concluded simply. “That answer your question?”

Kara nodded. She pictured it in her head; Erich travelling from story-world to story-world like some sort of transdimensional sleepwalker. “Can I ask you something else now?”

“You sure can.”

“Alright.” Kara tried to keep her voice calm and her face impassive, but she was beginning to grow more anxious as she considered the possible consequences of her next questions. “Why did you make me- I mean… why did you ‘put me down on paper?’”

To Kara’s surprise, Erich’s cheeks began to glow pink. “Tough questions…” he mumbled sheepishly.

“Well?” Kara prodded.

Erich cleared his throat uncertainly. “I was… lonely.” He waited for Kara to smile, maybe even laugh, but she did nothing but evenly return Erich’s gaze, so he continued. “I never really… had many opportunities to go out and actually meet girls. The only ones I ever knew well were in books or on TV.” His voice was steadily losing its bold confidence. For the first time, Kara thought, it seemed as if Erich didn’t know what he was going to say next. “So one day I decided that, if I couldn’t go out and be with real girls, I’d… well, I’d just write about a girl. So I wrote about you.”

Once again, Kara found her mouth in debt of words. Erich mistook her silence for pity or disgust, and quickly spoke up again.

“I’m sorry! I know how weird that sounds. I shouldn’t have said anything… But trust me, it’s nothing… bad. I never wrote myself into your life. It was never anything like that. I just wanted to… to be familiar with the life of a girl, to watch you and get to know you. It was like… I wrote about you so that I could… sort of feel like I was a part of your world, this ideal world of beautiful, talented people. But I didn’t belong in it. That’s why I wrote about Zack Stanley. He could do the things I never could do. And even though I was jealous, and even though some days I wished I was him, just being able to watch the two of you was… enough.” He looked desperately and dejectedly at Kara. “I’m really sorry. I know that none of this makes any sense. I’m terrible at explaining things like this….” He hung his head, staring at the floor.

Kara suddenly found her voice. “Hey,” she said gently. Erich didn’t move. “Hey, look at me,” she repeated. Erich raised his head, revealing a face colored with embarrassment. “Don’t be sorry. You should never be sorry for doing something that makes you happy… at least, that’s what I’ve always thought. And like you said, you weren’t doing anything wrong, you weren’t living out any… fantasies or anything. You were just telling yourself a story. Right?”

Erich considered her words for a moment, then nodded his head slowly in agreement. “Thanks,” he said in a voice filled with relief. “To be honest, I thought you’d be angry or freaked out when I told you about that.”

“’When?’” Kara repeated. “You already knew I was going to ask you that question?”

Erich’s sly grin slipped back onto his face. “Pretty much, yeah.”

“Well then, do you know what question I’m going to ask you now?”

The smile fell from Erich’s face so quickly that you might have heard it shatter on the floor. He looked grave, maybe even frightened. “Yeah… I can guess,” he said quietly.

Kara could tell that Erich was upset by the direction in which the conversation was going, but she pushed on. “Well then, tell me: Why could you never go out and meet girls? Why do you say you don’t belong in a world of beautiful people? Why do you talk like....” She stopped abruptly. Erich’s face was stone. A terrible possible had revealed itself to Kara, as in her head echoed words that Erich had spoken only minutes earlier.

Maybe I’m dying….

“Erich…” her voice was barely more than a whisper. “Erich, what’s wrong with you? In your world I mean, what’s…” she gulped. “What’s happening to you?”

Erich sighed deeply and shrugged his shoulders. He tried to accompany this with a reassuring smile, but the upward curl of his lips was immediately beaten down by the coldness of his eyes.

“I’m sick,” he said, staring through the wall behind Kara’s head. “I’m very sick. I always have been, ever since I was little.”

Kara couldn’t stop herself. She began to cry. Even though she had hated this boy until very recently, even though they had never met before this night, she cried. And as the sobs left her throat, the reason for Erich’s visit became clearer.

“Is-is that w-why you’re here?” She gasped. She took several breaths, trying to control herself. “Erich, you’re dying?”

Erich didn’t answer. He pulled himself up off the ground, walked over to Kara, and held out his hand to her.

“Come on. Come with me.”

Kara looked from Erich’s hand to his face. He was suddenly calm and standing tall with an aura of purpose. She took his hand, and he helped her to stand. Still holding on tight, Erich led Kara towards the seating gallery. When they had reached the middle row of the main aisle, he stopped and turned to face her. Her hand was still in his.

They stood there, in the middle of the theater, surrounded by dimly-lit walls and thousands of empty seats. Kara’s tears had retreated from her face, but were still hiding behind her eyes. Erich examined her, his gaze concerned and anxious. With an unbidden sadness Kara recognized it, the “are you going to be alright” look.

“I think it’s time for me to go now,” Erich said softly. “Don’t be scared.” His eyes began to flutter, as if he was having trouble keeping them open.

“Wait!” Kara said, shaking him. “Wait! What happens to me when you go?”

Erich shook his head, trying to clear it. He suddenly looked like someone who hadn’t slept in days. His skin was becoming pale and loose. His eyes were bloodshot.

“I don’t know…” he said groggily. “I hope… but I hope you’re ok.” His eyelids couldn’t be denied any longer. “It was nice meeting you,” he said with a sleepy smile. His eyes closed and did not open again. For a fraction of a second he swayed on the spot, then, like a board, he began to fall backwards. Kara yelled and grabbed for him, but it was too late. By the time she had raised her hands, he was gone, and she was completely alone.

Kara turned in all directions, looking around the gallery, but she knew it was useless. She knew that Erich had gone for good.

The theater was perfectly quiet. Kara’s pulse quickened as she surveyed her surroundings, frantically wondering what she would do next. She didn’t dare go near either of the doors again; the thought of what lay beyond them made her hands shake. No, she wouldn’t take two steps nearer to the darkness if it wasn’t absolutely necessary.

But I can’t very well stand here waiting forever, can I? She thought to herself.

Kara ran her hand along the back of one of the chairs. They were made of black plastic and augmented with red cushions; typical of any theater. She found herself wondering how exactly it was that the chair had come to be there. Had somebody made it? If so, who had made the person who made the chair? Was it Erich? Or did the chair have no maker? Or did the Chair come from Erich as well?

A dull noise snapped Kara from her reverie. She looked around for the source of the sound but saw nothing. She waited, completely still, to see if it would come again. A few seconds later, it did; three consecutive strikes.

“Hello?” Kara called out to the empty theater. No reply came. She heard the strikes again. “Hello?!” She yelled more loudly, but still there was no answer. The strikes came again, only louder this time. Kara thought it was coming from the wall to her left.

Louder now. BANG BANG BANG. With horrible certainty, Kara realized where the noise was coming from: The door to the lobby; to the darkness. Something was knocking on the door.

“H-hello? Who’s there?” She yelled. For a long moment, there was silence. The knocking stopped. The only sound Kara could hear was her heart throbbing in her ears. And then, without warning, a terrible crash came from the door and reverberated across the room. Kara screamed and jumped backwards. The crash came again. The sound was tremendous and violent. The door shook in its frame as some angry, massive force collided with it from the other side. Kara could do nothing but cringe and stare. It was as if a hurricane was trying to break its way into the gallery.

And then Kara heard another sound, one with which she was very intimately familiar, a sound that she would have given anything not to have heard.

“Please. Please no,” she sobbed. “Please….”

KA-CHUNG

It was the sound of the house lights turning off.

The top rows of the coliseum-like seating gallery were plunged into complete and absolute darkness, a terrible gaping void, and Kara understood: the darkness had gotten in somehow. It had gotten in and it was coming to take her.

KA-CHUNG

The lights illuminating the exit wings were extinguished. Kara screamed. She turned and fled towards the only side of the room that was still visible, the stage. She sprinted past the rows of chairs and scrambled onto the warm wooden platform. Panting, she stood and chanced a glance behind her. The lights were going out more quickly now, and the darkness was steadily approaching the stage.

Kara ran backstage and hurtled down the main hall that connected the dressing, prop, and costume rooms. Behind her, she heard the spotlights of the stage pop out of existence. She ran the hall’s length and burst into the main cast dressing room, where she had waited hours ago, expecting to exit the double doors into the gallery to be greeted with cheers and applause.

There was a fluorescent click from the hall she had just vacated, and it too became lost in empty black. Now Kara had no choice; she had nowhere left to run except for one room: her private dressing room. She bolted the length of the long dressing room, past the swivel-chairs and makeup tables, reached her door, pried it open and slammed it shut behind her.

The room was exactly as she had left it before the show had begun. Kara looked around in vain, searching for some means of escape. Then, as before, there was a knock at the door.

“Go away!” Kara screamed. But the knocking continued.

Kara turned away from the door, unable to bear the sight that she knew was inevitable; the door breaking open, the darkness advancing with its mouth open wide, coming to engulf her. However, once her back was to the door, she noticed something that made her gasp.

The mirror of her makeup table was not reflecting the dressing room. Instead, Kara realized as she slowly walked closer, it was providing her with a view of what appeared to be an immaculately clean, white-tiled bathroom.

The knocking on the door had evolved into a malicious raucousness. The thin wooden door trembled. Kara looked from this frightening scene to the inexplicable window she now had to an unfamiliar restroom. Cautiously, hardly daring to hope, she reached out a hand towards what was once her mirror. Her heart leapt with both excitement and fear as her fingers passed right through the vanity and into the phantom room.

With a final, wall-quaking percussion, the dressing room door flew open. Kara didn’t risk a second in looking back. She leapt onto the table on her hands and knees and rolled into the white bathroom.

Kara’s knee smashed against the sink fixture, and she came crashing down onto cold tile. She sat up quickly, grabbing her bruised joint with both hands, and looked up at the bathroom mirror. There was no blackness, only a regular mirror, reflecting the white wall and ceiling. Kara sat still and quiet, listening for the sound of knocking, of light bulbs dying, but she heard only the hum of air conditioning and the buzz of fluorescents.

Breathing deeply, Kara sat there with her eyes closed and her back against the wall, simply appreciating the solid ground beneath her backside and tasting the clean air in her lungs. Several small tears of relief descended her cheeks, but quickly dried.

After a minute or so, Kara stood up and looked around. She was indeed in a bathroom, complete with a commode and a shower, but it was unlike a normal bathroom in that it was uncommonly clean. The entire space smelled strongly of disinfectant, and reminded Kara of something she couldn’t quite identify.

Timidly, Kara walked to the small white door and placed her hand on the knob, but was afraid to open it. She placed her ear against the cold metal and listened. There were no sounds from the other side. With trepidation, Kara turned the handle and exited the bathroom.

She emerged into a darkened room. Tables and counters and shelves lined with various strange instruments and implements, unidentifiable in the half-light, covered the walls. Against the far wall was a pipe-frame bed. Several machines were stacked beside the bed, emitting tiny sounds periodically. Bundles of cords ran from these machines to the bed, atop which lay a young man in a gown. Kara raised her eyebrows in surprise; she had walked into a hospital room.

As quietly as she could, she crossed the tile floor and made her way to the bed. She came to a halt beside it, gasping as she looked down into the face of the occupant. His hair was completely gone and his face was horrifically thin and withered, but there was still no mistaking the bold lips or the confident cock of the eyebrows.

“Erich,” she whispered as she bent closer to him. “Erich, wake up. It’s me.”

With a slow effort that was painful to watch, Erich’s eyelids opened and he turned his head slightly. When his eyes focused on Kara’s face, he went into a fit of coughing. He rolled over onto his side and brought his hands up to cover his face as his lungs heaved. Not knowing what to do, Kara placed a hand on Erich’s shoulder in an attempt to calm him.

When the attack had subsided, Erich rolled onto his back and stared up at Kara. He opened his mouth as if to speak, but then closed it again. He shook his head carefully, a tiny smile appearing on his lips.

“You weren’t supposed to be able to do that.”