The Audition Nightmare
🔴 THE AUDITION WAS OVER, BUT MR. CARTER KEPT CALLING ME “VICTORIA”
I stood there, blinking under the harsh stage lights, completely and utterly confused.
He reeked of stale coffee and cheap cologne, and his voice dripped with this… familiarity that made my skin crawl. “Victoria, darling, don’t you remember me?” he asked, stepping closer. He gripped my hand. His palm was sweaty.
“Sir, I’m… I’m actually Sarah. This was my first audition with you.” My words felt thin and weak, even to me. He just laughed this awful, wheezing sound that echoed around the empty theater.
“Oh, Victoria. Always the jokes. But you’ve aged wonderfully, my dear. Just wonderfully.” He squeezed my hand tighter, ignoring my protests. “We have so much to catch up on.” Then, he looked past me toward the back of the theater, squinting.
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I tried to pull my hand away, but his grip was like a vise. Panic clawed at my throat. “I need to go,” I stammered, my voice cracking. “This is a mistake.”
He finally released my hand, but only to reach out and brush a stray strand of hair from my face. His touch was clammy, his eyes were too bright, reflecting the stage lights back at me in a way that felt…wrong. “Don’t be silly, Victoria. We have a whole production to discuss. Think of the possibilities! The leads! The… intimacy.”
My mind raced, trying to find an explanation, anything that made sense. Could he be suffering from some form of memory loss? Was this some bizarre, elaborate acting exercise? “Mr. Carter, I really don’t know what you’re talking about. I’ve never met you before.”
He chuckled again, that unsettling wheeze rattling in his chest. “Don’t play coy with me, Victoria. You always were so dramatic.” He gestured towards the empty seats. “Let’s sit. We can review the script, and you can tell me all about what you’ve been doing these last few years.”
Fear solidified into action. I took a step back, then another, desperate to put distance between us. “I’m going to leave now, Mr. Carter. I think there’s been some sort of mix-up.” I turned to flee, but as I turned to leave I saw a glint of something metallic in the shadows beneath a chair in the back row. A familiar object. A large, expensive camera.
Suddenly, the pieces clicked into place. I had to get out.
As I turned and bolted towards the exit, I heard him shout, “Victoria! Don’t you run away from me!” His voice was no longer jovial, it was laced with a chilling menace.
I didn’t stop running until I was outside the theater, breathing in the cool night air. I pulled out my phone and dialed 911, my hands shaking so badly I almost dropped it. As I gave the operator the address, I looked back at the theater. The lights were still on, but the entrance was dark. I’d never seen him before, I thought, yet the familiarity he exuded, the words he used, they felt designed to make me feel off-balance, isolated. A chill went down my spine, and I realized he’d been preparing.
Later, when the police arrived and searched the theater, they found something hidden away beneath the stage: a shrine. A collection of photographs, all of the same woman, and they were all me, from the age of a young child. Under the photos, a worn copy of the script, a title underlined in red: “Victoria’s Vengeance.”
The police were puzzled; they checked the camera and found a single, recent video. The recording started with the audition room empty. Then the camera zoomed in on the spot where the lights shone, the exact place where I had stood just moments before. The camera panned left, pausing on the back row. The screen displayed a figure in the shadows, raising a hand as if to say, “Action.” And it hit me – all I’d seen in the audition were props for a new production. The script. The stage. My life.