Your choice changes what happens next
The wrong applause
Tess, sixteen, delivered her exit line to an empty auditorium. Three claps answered from the left balcony box. Then two more. Against crimson curtains, a pair of cream costume gloves rested over its rail, fingers limp. Nobody sat behind them. Tess tugged her teal overshirt straight. "Omar. Your audience is broken." Her short black curls trembled despite the joke.
Omar, seventeen, looked up from his rewrite of The Last Guest. His straight dark hair fell across his eyes; his burgundy sweatshirt had acquired a chalk elbow. "You said the wrong line." "You changed it again." June, their adult stage manager, shut her pencil case. Her silver bob and mustard jacket caught the work lights. The Halflight community theatre had booked this supervised evening rehearsal until nine. The old building was open, not abandoned.
Tess held her brown hands flat. Omar showed his warm olive palms. June called towards the box. No answer. The gloves stayed still. Tess repeated, "You may go." Five claps. Omar had replaced that farewell with "You must stay." On June's table lay the old rehearsal folder; onstage stood a cardboard doorway and a prop suitcase. Tess could examine the earlier script or test their impossible audience.