A Horrific Fantasy

Chapter 28

When Charlie and Vaggie finally reached the end of the corridor, they discovered a door surrounded by colorful chaser lights that flashed on and off. Charlie gave the door a polite knock and it made the door slowly swing open. The girls went inside.

They were now in a dark room that smelled of velvet but the darkness did not last long, soon more chaser lights flashed on revealing a long hallway and the end there was an opening with two signs pointing in different direction.

The sign pointing left said:

Charlie please go here.

While the sign pointing right said:

Vaggie please go here.

Charlie and Vaggie looked at one another confused for a moment but then shrugged and did as the signs told them to do. Charlie went left and Vaggie went right. Charlie was led down another hallway and she could see a bright light coming from an opened door. What lay behind the door was a dressing room.

A beautifully elegant dressing room, it was Parisian chic that went hand-in-hand with Sage Green. There was French-style furniture, a grand wardrobe, a golden vanity with a crystal mirror surrounded by lights. It was a dressing for an actress, a real professional actress.

"We best get you ready."

Charlie turned around to see Mia standing in the door way.

"You go on in an hour."

"I go on?" Charlie said confused. "Go on for what?"

"It was a surprise. Levana wants you to perform on stage tonight."

"Tonight? But I'm not prepared. I haven't rehearsed."

"Don't worry, it's a play that you know by heart. The Loneliest Heart. You have the lead role."

"I do?"

"Yes and everyone in the theater is so excited to see you. For many this will be the most grand show of the year."

"You mean we're in a theater? A real theater? Like the kinds they use on Braodway?"

"Yes."

Charlie was speechless with wonder upon hearing this. She was actually going to play the lead role in her favorite play and she would be getting ready for the part in her own dressing room, and acting on a real stage, in a real theater. It seemed too good to be true.

"Now hurry, we must not dilly-dally." Mia opened the wardrobe and pulled out the costume Charlie was to wear tonight.

It was a sage-green, silken, Renaissance dress with golden leaf embroidery along the fabric and it came with a pair golden wings to pin on the back. Mia brushed and styled her hair up into a gold-threaded hair net and painted her face with powder, rouge, and glitter before placing a sage-green mask over it. Charlie looked at herself in the mirror, she looked like a fairy. A real life fairy actress. Yet for a moment, she felt like there was nothing not right about this. That there was something missing.

"You look gorgeous." Mia said.

"Thank you Mia." Charlie said.

"Five minutes til curtain."

"Thank you, I'll be ready."

In five minutes, Charlie stepped on to the stage and was in front of the velvet curtains. Then the curtains rose up and she could see a marvelous theater full of people who's eyes were all on her. The audience clapped for her and quickly became silent as the show began. Charlie wasn't the least bit nervous and she performed her part flawlessly, which she found slightly odd due to the fact that she had never practiced but she didn't think on it long. She was too astounded and amazed to think on it. Everything she had ever dreamed of was finally happening.