• This had never happened before.

    And there she was, in her first show, standing on that shining hardwood floor, her heeled feet shaking nervously. Her face remained blank as her bright green eyes scanned the whispering heads, barely visible in their darkness. Their eyes did not shine like hers did. Each whispering creature seemed to have blank orbs underneath their lids, or perhaps none at all. She could not tell, seeing as the only light was shone on her. No, the retched monsters watching her were cloaked in the blackness. Watching, whispering, muttering horrible sounds she could barely hear.

    And she couldn’t do a thing about it.

    Breathe.

    Her limbs were stiff and immovable on the floor or at her sides, and yet her fingers twitched on her limp arms and her toes curled inside her shoes. Why was this? Why was she so paralyzed? Why was she letting those creatures watch her so intently? She didn’t belong there. She shouldn’t be the only bright figure in a room of darkness. She pleaded with god in her mind, praying to be the one watching as they cower in the light. This was extremely strange, since she did not believe in a god, especially at that moment…but she had run out of options.

    I have to breathe.

    It was strange, so quiet yet no choas all around her…Not anymore. It was all gone, leaving this wooden platform creaking loudly while she backed away as if it were screaming in pain. No, she was wrong about that. There was chaos all around. A quiet chaos, spoken in whispers and stares. Her chest tightened; she wanted to grip her collar, do something to let them know what they were doing to her.

    Why can’t I breathe?

    And up there among them…She couldn’t do a thing.

    “How pathetic,” the darkness said. No, not the darkness…the darkness could not speak. It was a creature.

    She couldn’t decipher which one it had been, for they all had begun to mutter more curses, more insults. It was insanity, at least that’s the only thing she figured it could be.

    “Why isn’t she moving?”

    “What an idiot.”

    “This is a disaster.”

    “Why don’t they just close the curtains?”

    “What a screw up.”

    And yet her lips did not move, she remained silent. They muted her. The awful monsters covered in black had stolen her voice.

    I have to...breathe...

    Her gasps grew as her throat clawed for her voice. They kept laughing, cackling at her pain. Her legs shook wildly as her hands continued to sweat. And her body waited; it waited for a friendly voice in the howling laughter of the demons.

    Maybe it won’t come...Maybe...

    “That poor girl.”

    She felt her muscles loosen as her knees gave out and the world began to spin quickly around her. Her body crumpled to the floor with a series of thuds.

    And there among the whispers, the spotlight had gone, leaving the cold blackness and the growing clacking of feet. The creatures are coming for me.

    The clacking faded.

    Such a horrible moment for such a young, fragile thing. It had never happened before, and surely would never happen again.