At eleven, the drama teacher left him the keys. “If the work lights flicker,” she said, “thank him and go.”

“Thank who?”

But she was already gone.

Nico began. His first line vanished into the empty seats. His second returned as a whisper from the balcony. Halfway through the speech, a spotlight snapped on above him, though the control booth was locked. Dust spun in the beam like snow.

Then came applause.

It started with one pair of hands in the back row. More joined from the darkness until the auditorium thundered. Nico bowed before he remembered there was no audience.

A metal ladder stood in the aisle. He had not seen it before. It reached past the balcony into the black web of rigging. A custodian in old work clothes climbed slowly, carrying a replacement bulb. His shoes made no sound on the rungs.

“Sir?” Nico called.

The man looked down. His face was kind and terribly tired. He pointed toward the stage floor. A white X had appeared at Nico’s feet.

The rigging groaned.

Nico stepped away just as a sandbag crashed onto the X. The impact burst it open, covering the stage with pale dust. Above, the custodian continued climbing. The ladder ended, but he rose beyond it, hand over hand into the dark.

Nico should have fled. Instead he saw another X appear beneath the auditorium’s largest lighting instrument. Then another beneath the balcony rail. White marks multiplied through the room, each foretelling a place where something would fall.

The applause became frantic. Nico ran from mark to mark, dragging chairs aside, lowering battens, pulling the fire curtain. When he reached the last X, it was painted on the ladder itself.

The custodian was directly above him.

Nico caught the ladder as the man fell. For an instant the weight in his arms was real—bone, cloth, a jangling ring of keys. The dead man looked into his eyes and whispered, “Now somebody saw.” Then he passed through Nico and struck the stage with the soft sound of a coat dropped on wood.

Every light went out.