A deranged man who likes to call himself the Director kidnaps a teenage boy and girl to be his actors. He expects them to perform the six acts of his play without messing up once, or else harrowing pain awaits them.
🥇1st place / The Cosmic Awards
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WHEN NATHAN SAID, "I have a really bad feeling about this," he actually meant that he could already imagine the stage strewn with broken glass or any type of sharp shit.
And now, standing like ordered right at the stage's threshold, Adelaide beside him and possible pain in front of him, Nathan realized that fate really liked conspiring against him (probably as punishment for all the shit he used to steal from hotel rooms).
"Hell," Nathan mumbled, turning his face slightly towards Adelaide but keeping his eyes on the stage. With how hard he squinted, his temples throbbed, though he managed to catch a less blurry sight of little dark things scattered over the planks. "Are these nails?"
"Uh, don't panic, but yeah they're nails." Adelaide kept a hand out as if to balance Nathan's reaction. "But like, don't panic, yeah?" she quickly repeated. "If you pay attention, you won't step on them."
"You've got to be shitting me." So either Nathan could jinx himself too easily or the Director really knew his way around his head. "How much attention can we pay to them while acting, considering our faces are gonna be shoved into each other? We need to push the nails-"
"Hush, my actors," the Director interrupted. "Prepare yourselves on stage."
Nathan didn't bother finishing his sentence. He carefully stepped on stage, neck hanging at a painfully strained angle as he focused on his pathway. Minding the nails. He peeked around him. Above him. Then, Nathan stealthily pushed the nails out of the way with the tip of his toe until he created a safe circle.
Adelaide must've noticed. "Good idea," she whispered, pushing aside some as she walled to their marked spot.
There, the awkwardness skyrocketed. For a second they didn't even know how to do it. Who to make the first move. Adelaide looked like she'd stay stunned like that for ages, so Nathan broke in first, extending a hand out to point at her waist. "Um, can I?"
"It's not like we have another choice." Adelaide adjusted her position so that she was face-to-face with Nathan, then gestured him to go on. As he slipped his hands around her waist, she placed hers on his shoulders.
Barefoot against heels, Adelaide almost towered above Nathan. Almost. Now they seemed the same height. Nathan clasped his fingers together around her waist so that they wouldn't end up splayed on her lower back.
Sighing, Nathan finally glanced forward, only to regret doing that because in this position Adelaide's face was too weirdly close. He looked away. But in the split-second he'd seen her, he noticed the acne scars riddling her cheeks. The freckles had been camouflaging them, or maybe his sight was just that useless.
"This is awkward," Nathan finally said.
"Yeah." It felt like Adelaide was having a hard time figuring out how to place her hands on Nathan's shoulders without bothering him; she kept readjusting, fingertips constantly sliding an inch down and an inch up. "I'm . . . I'm sorry. I'm not sure how to do this without anno-"
