Fortnightly Writing Competition - All the World’s a Stage (Result)

[Stupot]

Voting is over.
The winner is:
To Play the Queen of Hearts by Baron

From the bright lights of Broadway to talent night in the local village hall, the stage has long been a symbol of creative expression and cringe alike. But what does it mean to be on stage, to play a part in the grand performance of life?

Don't wait in the wings. Tune your instruments, warm up your vocal cords, and take your rightful place in the spotlight.

We want stories where the stage is the star of the show:

A tale set around either the creation of a concert, or the story of what happened to some people attending the musical, or a murder mystery set in the chaos of a Christmas nativity play.

Break a leg.

[Mandle]

Got half a leg broken, the other one and a half still to go.

[Stupot]

How are these stories coming along, folks?

[Baron]

I'm suffering from some serious stage fright.   

[Sinitrena]

I might need a bit more time. My characters are divas. I really don't understand why they don't like getting murdered, so inconsiderate... 

[Stupot]

Is 3 days enough?
If so, let's say, the 8th, 23:59 Canada Time

[Mandle]

Would need an extension until maybe after the weekend to get mine done.

EDIT: Ah, a bit behind the times I am. Cheers, Stu.

[Baron]

...let's say, the 8th, 23:59 Canada Time

There's a lot of Canada time.  Like 5 time zones worth.  If only we had story inspiration like we have rocks and swamps and snow and time zones....   

[Mandle]

Sorry, guys. Unless there's another extension of maybe another three days, I'm unlikely to be able to finish my story for this round. I currently have a paying writing editing gig and can't afford to neglect that. If not, then I'm also good with that.

[Stupot]

Okay, let's say the 11th, at 01:26 Australia Time.

[Sinitrena]

I just came here to post mine, but I don't mind a few extra days. At the moment, mine is pretty rushed, although I don't know if I'll be able to change much in the next few days.

Anyone else entering, except for Mandle (maybe) and me?

[Baron]

I've got most of a story done, but it could certainly benefit from some revisions.  See you on the 11th!

[Mandle]

THE ENCORE OF ULTRAMAX SIX


Galaxies wheeled above the stadium, the dome over it magnifying every star in their clusters' spiral arms to brilliant pinpoints. The night sky above the planet Megamus 45-h was amplified visually to the max by the dome's optics, perhaps even more so than the amping-up of the upcoming audio performance that the backstage technicians were twisting every last dial into place for to provide the ultimate rock concert experience for the five-million-strong crowd thronging before the mega-stage.

It was to be the trillion-seller band of Ultramax Six's last live performance before they retired to the luxury of the various solar systems that each of its members owned.

The crowd's stomping was actually producing significant seismic waves within the planet Megamus, and the auditory waves of their screaming voices vibrating through the stadium's dome was diverting the flight-paths of the huge clouds making up the Jigha Bats' annual migration paths. But neither of those effects were going to end up being the cause for the impending destruction of the entire universe.

Axe Lorran took the stage, his pink dreadlocked hair swishing around the fingers stomping their way across the stem of his guitar as he thrummed out the first meganotes that told the audience the band was about to rip into their hit song "Big Pulsars in the Night"

The spotlights aimed down on Styn Joth thudded on hard, in sequence above his drum-stack as his sticks flew over it, booming out the rhythm of the piece.

From either side of the smoke flowing around the drumkit platform appeared Gorge Levell and Kvin J'ust, powering the crowd into a frenzy with their own deep bass guitar strums, synching their way into the beat.

Axe took the center-stage microphone in hand, bent it down, and screamed, "IT WAS A HAAAAARD THING TO DO..." into it in his iconic guttural voice.

The crowd went insane, the thudding feet of their thrashing vibrating through the ground, up through the stage supports, and into the band's feet, driving them on to deliver the greatest and last performance of their lives.

When Axe reached the mid-song lyric of, "AND THEN I IMPLOOOODED..." the technicians up in the hovering control booth all hit the switches in sequence that released the black holes.

Each singularity sped above the ocean-like audience, bound to the core of neutron-star matter that their hoverdrones used for both their power supplies and the upcoming effect.

An effect that had never been seen before, one that would write this concert into the annals of history, except not in the manner its producers had intended.

Lasers lit up the massive space above the audience, their green, red, and purple lines slicing through the smokey air. Each of their multitudes of beams intersected with their paired singularity drones, wrapping their lengths of pulsing light off on tight, radical courses as they warped around the black holes' densely compressed spacetime.

It was a lightshow display that the audience had never seen before. Nobody had. The multicolored laser lines crisscrossed overhead, U-turning and flashing through the night, forming into a pentagram as Axe bellowed out the line, "SHE WAAAS A GOD TO MEEEEEE".

The crowd was reaching a crescendo of frenzy, hundreds of thousands already fallen and being stomped underfoot, when it happened.

Up in the control booth, K'rr Marthunk turned to his right, caught the gaze of Loppin B'str, and said, "Shit, I warned them!"

On the Meginflux control boards before their many, many flailing hands, bars were rising fast.

Five bars to be exact, going from the expected green and leaping up through hoped-for yellow, and then onward through kurner, and fior, and rapidly approaching the much-dreaded red.

They were the five bars that monitored the experimental black hole effect creating the totally Metal pentagram that lit up the faces of the out-of-their-minds throng, flashing across them in multicolored pulses until one of the drones spun out of control and swung down and around through row D-1 all the way over to row ξ-7, gobbling up at least three hundred thousand spectators through the maw of its singularity as it went.

The band played on.

The wails of joy and terror from the audience only drove the band to further heights of performance, Axe screaming, "BUT THEEERRREEE'S NO GOD TO MEEEEEEE" into the mic, head thrown back in the extasy of their last song ever, of the encore their audience had never even got to demand.

The pentagram continued to morph out of its star shape as another rogue drone split off, its wraparound orange laser light tracking it faithfully, doing a hook-around and plowing through the hovering control booth where Loppin's last words to K'rr were: "I dunno..." before both of them and the booth itself funneled into the drone's event horizon with a crush of metallic noise that hid their screams.

Now, with the control booth lost, and the loss of control in the pulsing crowd, and the band's song entering the ultravolume drum and lead guitar solo, all the remaining three drones sped off at random, two eating up the midsections of cranes supporting city-sized spotlights, one ducking out through the dome, creating a perfectly circular hole, before ducking back through on a tight about-face only meters away and causing breaking-off-iceshelf-sounding cracks to start to spread out with POPS and CREAKS.

The crowd was now 60% in terror, crushing another 15% underfoot as they tried to flee in every direction, and the remaining 25% still in the throes of oblivious rapture to the song as Axe, now lying on his back on the stage, thrusting his hips wildly up and down into the air that was starting to peel away and flow up and out through the rapidly-expanding hole in the dome, belted out, "AND GOD CAN GO FUUUCK HIIIIMSEEEELF".

That's when a roughly Texas-shaped section of the broken dome came spinning down and disintegrated Axe's thrusting body into unrecognizable chunks thrown every which way with its razor-sharp edge that would have been located somewhere around Galveston.

The band played on.

Despite the entire front section of the stage being obliterated in a semi-circle carved out of destroyed Geminite and plastered with dripping gore, and not even to mention the embedded dome section starting to tip outward in the direction of the now 75% fleeing crowd, the band played on.

The rogue drones, still feeding their closely-partnered black holes from their magnetically-sealed canisters of neutron star matter, swept around above and around the concave floor of the Megamus 45-h Event Facility Arena, their singularities gulping in air, sections of collapsing non-US-state-shaped dome segments, bits of falling spotlights, and eating holes through the stands and stampeding crowds, now at an all-time fleeing rate of 90%, and diving their voracious way into the ground and then popping back up after eating soil and rocks and, in two cases, magma.

The jagged Texan shard of the dome that had reduced the stage, and Axe Lorran, to pieces finally tipped all the way over and crushed somewhere between ten and twenty thousand people as it shattered, its victims' fronts, backs, and faces plastered against the fragments of its thick glassy surface.

The band missed a few notes as they realized this was all not just part of the show.

Two volcanic geysers erupted from the crowded ground, one within kilometers of the stage, pretty much in the center of the arena, the other much further back and to the side. The columns of glowing orange magma peaked, mushroomed out, and then poured down on thousands more of the now 96% fleeing audience, dissolving them into screaming globules of melting flesh that quickly grew quiet.

The guitarists stopped playing pretty much in unison, only Styn Joth on drums bashing out a few extra beats before also pausing and looking around.

The city-wide spotlights finally crashed all the way down from both sides, exploding in mushrooms of fire, showers of sparks, and fans of ground-splitting quakes. Thirty-something thousand more died instantly.

And then the trumpets sounded: BOOOOOUUUUM! BOOOOOOOOOOOOOUUUUM!

Down from the sky they blasted, and the singularity drones suddenly froze in place, their faithful lasers still beaming on them, and then dashed through the air above the suffocating, mangled multitudes below and reassembled thusly:

One flew out directly above the drum stack recently vacated by the fleeing Styn Joth.

Another raced in a direct line away from the stage and assumed a position about 10 kilometers downrange, above the chaotic flood of humanity trying to flee.

Two buzzed out to either side, 8 kilometers apart, about 2 kilometers down from the stage.

And then the fifth, the one that had gone rouge at first when everything fell apart, flew into position at the center of the crucifix formation, right where the crossbeam would have met the upright, and then a great light flashed forth from that meeting point and God came through.

"ALL HOLD GROUND WHO REMAIN TRUE TO ME!" His Voice explodeblasted.

The fleeing audience were even more terrified by the sight of this massive, incomprehensible entity hovering under the cross of laser-light in the sky, and continued to run away in great hills over the crushed fallen beneath them.

God megaspoke, "THEN YOU HAVE CHOSEN. SO... END!!!"

And a great tide of whiteness fled from His form, booming soundlessly out over the surviving multitude and slaying them into dust, and then kept rippling out beyond the planet of Megamus 45-h in an exponentially-expanding sphere, wiping the entire universe clean out of existence, like a teacher wiping today's lesson from the chalkboard in preparation for tomorrow's.

God stood stock still in the void He had willed into unbeing. From behind him, the most beautiful voice He had ever created spoke out in shock, "What did you do to those people?!"

"WOULD YOU QUESTION *ME* THEN, LUCIFER?!" God shockwaved, glancing back over His "shoulder".

Out from behind the impossible shifting form of his creator, Lucifer flew in jagged stop-motion, still only barely existing in this new reality, and spoke thusly, "Y-you wiped them all f-from existence. All th-those souls.", from his angelic mouth.

"WHERE WERE YOU WHEN I CREATED THE WORLD?", ultrablasted God.

Lucifer looked around at the nothingness, his perfect face hanging slack with shock and said, "But, what of their souls, and their children's souls?"

"IT WAS ANOTHER FAILED EXPERIMENT. I WILL DO BETTER NEXT TIME."

"But, why, my Father?! Guide me, as I cannot understand your..."

"*I* WARNED THEM. I COMMANDED THEM TO NEVER TAKE UP MORE THAN A SINGLE PORTION OF MEAT IN ANY OF THEIR FOUR ARMS AT A SINGLE TIME, NOR EVER TO WEAR MATCHED SHOES ON ANY OF THEIR SIX FEET! BUT THEY DISOBEYED, AND MOCKED *ME* WITH THEIR BAD MUSIC AS WELL."

Lucifer, feeling at a loss for words, and the necessary existence of space and time to speak them in, still managed to get across, in his angelic voice, "My Father, I do not doubt your wisdom, but I do question your actions. You have undone all of creation. What is the ends to all this?"

God saidboomed, "IT WAS A MISTAKE TO GIVE THEM SO MANY LIMBS TO SIN WITH, AND TO CREATE SUCH A MULTITUDE OF THEM AT ONCE. THIS TIME I WILL GIVE LIFE TO ONLY ONE MAN WITH ONLY TWO ARMS AND TWO LEGS AND THEN SEE HOW IT GOES FROM THERE."

Lucifer asked, "What shall you name him, Father?"

God creationspoke, "ADAM."

[Sinitrena]

As I thought, I had no time to even look at it one more time.

This is a WhoDoneIt. The place where you should try to figure it out is marked. I honestly have no idea how easy or difficult to solve it is.

Out of Rotation

Inspector Kevin Clausen hated on-call-duty. It meant that he could finally spend time with his husband, but, more importantly, it also meant that he constantly felt the need to take his phone out of his pocket, even during the performance.

Inspector Clausen also hated opera. He'd rather have gone to the movies, but his husband loved it, so there was that. The seats were too small, the air stuffy and the music grating on his nerves.

And so he sat sandwiched in between a heavy-set man and his husband and tried to peek inconspicuously on the lit display of his phone whenever the stage was slightly brighter, so that it wouldn't annoy the other theater-goers too much. He was considerate, after all. At least, he liked to tell himself that he was. It wasn't his fault that he was on-duty, after all.

When he didn't glance at his phone, he glanced at his husband. Valin was absorbed by the action on the stage. His silvery locks hung over his cheeks, their tips dancing up and down in the slight breeze of his breath. One strand was caught on the hinges of his glasses. Normally, he would have brushed them away right away, or Kevin would. But something on the stage was drawing all his attention, so that he didn't even notice that the hair was tickling him. His mouth stood half-open, as if he had forgotten to close it after taking a deep breath.

Kevin really could not tell what was so fascinating. As a matter of fact, he couldn't even tell what was going on. He hated to read the plot synopsis before a play, he hated to read the supertitles and he didn't speak Italian – not that he could even decipher the syllables the actors sang, too distorted were they by the way opera was sung. After the opera, Valin would gush about the tenor or one of the arias, about the emotions and the drama, and he would nod his head and agree with everything and he would smile, because Valin was happy. And then he would go and nurse his headache with a beer. He loved Valin. He hated opera.

After another look at his phone, the man next to him cleared his throat rather pointedly and Kevin let it slide back into his pocket sheepishly. Instead of watching Valin or checking his phone, he tried to pay attention to the action on stage.

The music started slow and silent. Short, rhythmic beats on the drums were accompanied by the wailing cry of a woman, then the drums changed to the faster rhythm of a military march as soldiers came on stage. High-pitched, shrieking violins became louder and louder as two men scream-sang at each other, angry voices and fighting stances. Again and again, a trumpet interrupted the argument, calling men to arms and calling war and fight into the blood.

Kevin had to admit, the scene did make his blood boil with anticipation. He glanced up at the supertitles, to get an idea what they were actually fighting about.

"You can torture all my people.
You can torture all my men!"

The stage started to move. Most of the actors jerked forward, only the one styled as a general seemed to have anticipated the sudden movement of the stage. One group of men advanced on the other, while they drew back, but for the audience they all stayed right in the middle of the stage. A piercing shriek from behind the stage elevated the drama of the scene, as the music came to its highest crescendo. It was ear-ripping loud now, kettledrums sounded again and again, pumping each word from the actors mouth right into the heartbeat of the audience.

"You can tor-ture all my peo-ple!"

The scream was uninterrupted. No second was wasted on drawing breath, no rising and falling changed its cadence. It was eerie. And it was louder than the music, louder than the singing, louder than anything Kevin had ever heard.

He admired the sound-design for a fraction of a second, before the cry made his skin crawl and his heart skip a beat.

The actor on the stage interrupted his constant repetition of "You can torture all my men!" clearly in the middle of the sentence. It was obvious without understanding the words. His shoulders slumped in the same second that the moving stage stopped dead. The actors looked at each other confused, standing there in the middle of the stage. Then one, then another, they rush to the back. The music played a second longer. One instrument petered out, destroying the harmony, then the conductor signaled for the whole orchestra to stop.

Silence fell over the auditorium. A loud silence. Because the scream didn't stop. It was interrupted now from time to time as the victim drew breath, but these moments were no relief, not for the audience and not for the man.

In the darkness, whispers, first a few, then more and more started to fill the silence. Soon they were just as loud as every large group of people talking, but again, not nearly loud enough to drone out the scream.

Kevin had started to move without a quick "Gotta go!" to Valin. He squeezed past the shocked audience members in the cramped rows of seats.

At first, he turned left at the end of the row, towards the exit members of the audience would take under normal circumstances, but then he reconsidered. This was not a normal circumstance. It clearly was not. The scream droned in his ears.

The auditorium was still dark, only illuminated by the emergency lights and the spotlights on the stage, when Kevin reached the connecting door between the big hall and the backstage area. The members of the orchestra had disappeared from their pit into the depths of mystery underneath the stage and the curtain hadn't fallen yet, still revealing the eerily empty stage. t had stopped moving, but it hadn't reversed. The scream continued.

The door wasn't locked. It opened easily to Kevins tentative touch and no stagehand or guard tried to stop him from entering the restricted area of all theaters. He doubted there ever was a guard at this door. Security was not a great concern in a little city theater.

Behind the door was a short hallway with a downwards staircase that lay in complete darkness. Only when he turned around did he see the emergency exit sign shine over the door he had just entered through. The door immediately shut out the frantic whispers of the audience, but the enclosed space only seemed to strengthen the volume of the scream.

Inspector Clausen's phone vibrated when he opened the next door. Here, bright light shone into his dilated pupils, blinding him for the fraction of a second. He used the time his eyes needed to get accustomed to the light to answer the phone.

"I'm already there." he mumbled to the operator on the other end of the line. "I'm on it." He hung up without further explanation.

The room Inspector Clausen had just entered had a low ceiling and was about as large as the stage right overhead. Pillars and open mechanical elements he couldn't identify right away dominated the space. Further back, there were narrow stairs that led up to the back part of the stage and hatches overhead with ladders were other hidden entrances to the stage.

The room was cramped. Actors and musicians and stagehands stood close to each other, in small groups or as alone as was possible in the little room available, talking agitated among each other. Their eyes were all focused in one direction and in one direction only. Towards the other side from which he had entered a man half stood and half hung between parts of the mechanical elements of the stage. He couldn't really identify what each part was, but going by the context alone, Inspector Clausen could tell that the man, a stagehand by his clothes, was trapped between the wall and the moving stage. It had stopped moving, not crushing him further, but clearly applying enormous pressure on his torso and legs. How he could fill his lungs to scream, Kevin had no idea.

Panic, instinct nearly made Kevin scream to reverse the stage, to get him out, but in the last second he stopped himself. There were certainly serious injuries inside his body. And reversing the movement could make it worse. Two medics were already next to the man, probably those that were always present in a theater during a performance, but just then the wailing of a siren cut through most of the chaos.

Inspector Clausen used just this chaos to get an impression of all the relevant people. Nobody had noticed him yet. So far, there was nothing to tell him one way or the other if this was an accident or something relevant to his work. Inspector Clausen was used to his victims being dead when he arrived on the scene, and a short, unwelcome thought told him that he very much preferred it this way.

That people watched in shock was not unexpected. People stared. They always did. People were always curious. And in a situation like that, they were all pale and looked sick. What did he expect, that someone looked gleefully at the suffering man? Most murderers were not psychopaths. As a matter of fact, they were relatable.

As chaotic as the scene seemed, there was some order to it. Musicians stood with other musicians, actors with actors, stagehands with stagehands, and a few men in evening-wear tried to get some order into the groups. They had arrived later and the couple of snippets of conversation he got from them were more concerned about the audience and the rest of the evening than the life of the man crushed under their stage. Mercifully, an injection into his arm let his head slump forward and his raw scream stop.

Firefighters, emergency doctor and police all arrived nearly at the same time. As the firefighters readied a chainsaw to cut off part of the underbelly of the stage, the police cleared the room. People were urged towards the back and up the narrow stairs towards the level of the stage but behind the thick dark curtains that separated the visible part from one nearly as large behind it.

Inspector Clausen let himself drift with the workers, as if he were part of the crowd and not a bystander and observer. Some people looked at him curiously, but most still didn't notice him or ignored him. The actors stood out from the rest of the crowd. Their make-up, that made them look emotional and invested in the action from the distance of the audience to the stage, made them look alien and distant from close-by.

With the scream finally silenced, the loud whispering from the audience reached to the back of the stage and mixed with the nervous chatter of the theater-people. While the audience sounded like a sea of sound ebbing and swelling without any order, a rhythm-less hissing, Inspector Clausen could finally make out some of the conversations among the staff.

"He wasn't supposed to be there!" one of the stagehands said to no-one in particular.

Inspector Clausen's ears zeroed in on this sentence like those of a German Shepherd. A few steps through the crowd brought him face to face with a young man dressed in all black, who nearly faded into the thick fabric of the stage-curtains. His black locks hung deep into his eyes, hiding slightly how red they were.

"He wasn't?" Inspector Clausen asked.

"No! Of course not! Everyone has to clear this section before... – Who are you?"

"Inspector Kevin Clausen," the Inspector said and flashed his ID in front of the stagehand. "You were saying?"

"Well," he hesitated a moment, "Well, he wasn't! Jonas is responsible for putting the props for the next scene on the part of the stage that moves up in the next scene and –" having said all this in one continues stream, he interrupted himself to take a deep breath, "- and he has to move away before I activate the rotation of the stage and I can't see into the, into the -"

"So, you are responsible for activating the mechanism?"

"Yes. But I..."

"And who are you?"

"Marcus. Marcus Simena."

"From your position, you couldn't see Mr. ...?"

"Legion. Jonas Legion. He's responsible for setting up the props for the next scene. But he's supposed to be gone by the time I activate, ... I activate the..." He choked on his own words.

Before Inspector Clausen could continue the interview, a man in a business suit stormed over to them. "You!" he called out, though it wasn't clear if he meant the Inspector or the stagehand. "You! You started the mechanism too early! You are responsible -"

"Excuse me, who are you?" Inspector Clausen interrupted the new arrival. There were too many people here, too many people who could hear his conversations and too many people to keep straight. It wasn't a good idea to conduct interviews amidst this chaos if you wanted order, but it was a good way to get organic reactions.

"Samuel Winthrop. I'm the director here and I do not appreciate you interrupting my work with senseless questions." The man spoke with arrogance. "Before you continue this, rather tell me when we can continue the performance?"

Inspector Clausen stared at the man for a moment. He hadn't even considered that there might be the idea to continue. It seemed obvious to him that the performance was done for the day, maybe for the next days or even weeks.

"We have an auditorium full of people out there!" The director gestured widely towards the curtains that separated the back of the stage from the rest.

How much time had passed since the incident? Minutes? It felt like hours, but it couldn't have been too long. And there was indeed an auditorium full of people sitting close-by, still agitatedly whispering – or rather, by now, talking in a normal voice – amongst themselves, without any knowledge what was going on behind the scene.

Ending the performance for the day would mean chaos, sending the audience home would also make it easy for some of the workers to slip away. Kevin didn't like to make such a decision, but it was necessary and it was necessary to make it now. "The stage cannot move. Nothing on the stage or backstage can move." he finally said after some consideration.

Mr. Winthrop nodded once and turned on his heels, not acknowledging the Inspector further. Kevin shook his head absentmindedly. People reacted differently to unusual situations, they might seem cold-hearted or distant, unmoved by the catastrophes around them, but that didn't mean that they were. It didn't mean that they were responsible for them either.

While the director hurried away, Inspector Clausen turned back to the stagehand, Marcus. "What did he mean, you started the mechanism too early?"

Marcus, whose eyes had followed the director as well, jerked back towards Kevin. His hands, shot up and only now did Kevin notice a crumpled-up piece of paper in the stagehand's hand. "I don't know!" he exclaimed, "I honestly don't know! I followed the plan!" He shook the paper in front of Kevin's nose. "I followed the plan!"

"May I see it?" Kevin asked gently.

It took Marcus a while to loosen the cramps in his hands and straighten the paper out for the Inspector to see. The paper was slightly ripped and damp from sweat and the ink on it was a bit smudged.

It didn't add to the intelligibility of the plan. In one column, the last, were work instructions that were fairly straightforward. Move stage clockwise. Or Open hatch 3. More complicated were the first and second column. The first contained times, not absolute times like 7:30 pm, but relative ones 15 min 20 min, probably referring to after the start of the show. The middle column was the most interesting, and also the most confusing. Here, musical notes and lyrics were printed as cues for the stagehand. A forth column contained addition working instructions, each with a name next to it.

Inspector Clausen soon found the relevant information. At 47 min after the start of the show, when General Roberts, played by Piotr Fidelo, started to sing You can torture all my people! and slightly before – according to the forth column – Jonas had finished setting up the props for Act 1 Scene 5, the stagehand this plan belonged to was supposed to rotate the stage counter-clockwise.

This all seemed fairly straightforward to Kevin, even though he noticed some security risks right away. There was no direct communication between the stagehands during the performance? There was nobody keeping an overview of everything, directing and instructing them in real time? All this procedure was based only on a piece of paper? Several pieces of paper, one for each of the stagehands?

The auditorium had become silent while Inspector Clausen studied the work plan and the backstage area had cleared out somewhat as the musicians had returned to their pit. The pulsing, military-like music pumped heavily through the wooden planks of the stage. It felt slower than before, just as loud but at the same time muted.

The light behind the curtain had somewhat dimmed, and Inspector Clausen watched the singers all take a deep breath before walking out onto the stage. Even through their heavy make-up, it was obvious that they were pale. Inspector Clausen moved closer to the back curtain through which they had disappeared into the stage light and watched them through it for a moment. They walked to the front of the stage, not facing each other as before, but looking into the auditorium. From time to time, their eyes seemed to drift towards the edge of the stage and the floor. Their voices were shaky, obvious even through the stylized singing and only the main actor seemed to still be able to pour his heart into the performance.

"You can torture all my people!" the General shout-sang.

It still sounded angry, maybe even angrier than before, more defiant, more aggressive.

Inspector Clausen shook his head. It didn't mean anything.

After a few words with the other police officers who had arrived in the meanwhile, Kevin took the stairs back under the stage. By now, the room was empty, except for two other policemen standing guard close to the side of the incident. Parts of the supporting structure of the mechanism was sawed off. Wood that was painted black everywhere else, lay blank, showing its texture. A few rests of medical equipment lay on the ground, the plastic cap of a syringe, the paper from the back of the sensors of a cardiogram. What was not there was blood. The mechanism had squished Jonas, probably broken several bones, maybe internal bleeding, but now, from the outside, after the victim was gone, there was not a lot to see.

The Inspector didn't expect much either. But he was looking for one specific bit of evidence. He found it lying flat on the ground, as if someone had just randomly placed it there and then forgotten about it.

Kevin took the paper, the work plan that belonged to Jonas Legion and looked over it quickly.

47 min – "You can torture all my people!" - Props for Act 1 Scene 5
50 min – Hurt them, punish them, torture them! - Rotate stage counter-clockwise (Marcus)

There was nothing else to see at the scene of the crime and Inspector Clausen returned upstairs as the music reached a new high. The drums made the floor shake like a slow earthquake before it came to a sudden, dramatic and loud stop. There was silence for a moment, from the musicians and from the audience. The act wasn't over yet and the audience knew not to applaud then, but Kevin doubted they would applaud at all today, at least not with any enthusiasm. How much did the audience know of what had happened? Enough, probably.

After a moment, the music started again slowly. It was solemn now, almost like it wanted to commemorate the events of the night but needed to get some anger out of its blood before. The military march from before was replaced by the dignified sounds of a funeral march, the war-cries changed to the cries of pain and death. Act 1, Scene 5, the last before the intermission. Kevin only knew this because he had read it on both work plans.

A woman was singing now and Kevin had a chance to study most of the actors. Their was sweat on their faces and the make-up was slightly smeared. Surely, on any normal day, the actors would go to their dressing rooms as soon as they were no longer needed on stage, they would drink and relax for a couple of minutes, they would have someone freshen up the foundation and lipstick and all these things. Now, they were reluctant to return to their rooms. Normally, they probably wouldn't stand backstage and talk right now, but they did.

"It's not the first time Jonas messed up." Piotr, distinguished by his uniform as a General, said, anger in his voice.

People were strange. People liked to blame others for mistakes, people liked to find someone responsible, whether they were or not hardly mattered.

"Yeah, he did," a lady in an elaborate dress agreed. "He should have been fired after last year."

"What happened last year, Miss...?" Kevin asked them, always eager to interrupt interesting conversations.

"Lilian Morgan. Jonas didn't tie a knot properly. Part of the background fell down and Claudia, Piotr's wife, broke her leg. It wasn't serious, and honestly, we can't even be sure it was Jonas' mistake."

"But you still think he should've been fired?"

"No, I - ... - I guess I just said that because... Well, it's the second accident involving Jonas in just a year, and, well..."

"I understand." And Kevin did. It was the usual blame-game, the wish to find fault he was so familiar with.

"It was an accident. I hope he'll be alright. Oh, god, I hope he'll be alright!" Lilian's voice became high-pitched at the end of this statement and a tear drew a line through her make-up.

Piotr put his arm around her shoulder. "I'm sure he'll be. He always is, isn't he? He's one lucky bastard."

Lilian laughed with a short breath. "Sure." She snuffled. "Sure is." She snuffled again. "Excuse me, I'll just... I'll be in my room." She forgot to lift her long skirt and stumbled slightly as she walked further towards the back.

Piotr followed her with his eyes until she was out of view, then he turned towards the Inspector.

"She doesn't want to say it, not like that. Who would want to talk bad about the victim of such an horrific accident? But -" He hesitated a moment, "But Jonas really isn't the best stagehand and he really was responsible for the accident last year. It's awful, it really is, and it's awful to say this, but I hope he finally learns from this incident and pays more attention to instructions and to his work in general in the future."

"If he survives." Inspector Clausen reminded him gently.

"Oh, he sure will," Piotr said off-handedly, "After all, he really is one lucky bastard." While it sounded gentle when he said it to Lilian, there was now carefully suppressed vitriol in his voice.

Kevin ignored it. "When is the stage supposed to start moving?" he asked instead.

"Right at the beginning of the Quartet, of course." When the Inspector just looked confused at Piotr, he elaborated: "When I start singing You can torture all my people. It's a very distinct musical composition."

"Thank you. I might have further questions later." The Inspector nodded as if to dismiss the General.

Meanwhile silence fell over the theater as the funeral march came to its conclusion. The last instruments petered out as the last note of the song drifted over the audience. Now, there should have been applause, but there wasn't.

As the lights on the stage dimmed while those over the audience became glaringly bright for the intermission, Inspector Clausen looked thoughtfully through the dark curtain down on the audience. His eyes searched for his husband. Valin's silver locks didn't exactly stand out in the sea of older men and women – and the few younger ones – but the fact that he didn't stand up for the break and instead stayed in his seat, made him easier to find. He wasn't the only one, but knowing where his seat was, he still found him soon enough.

He wanted to go down to him, kiss him on his cheek and never ever go back to an opera house again. But his work here wasn't done, even though he had a fairly good idea what had happened. Still, there was one question left he needed to ask. He spotted the director, Samuel Winthrop at the stage entrance, leaning against the wall and watching the audience.

The curtain had stayed open for the intermission, but Kevin didn't care as he now walked right across the stage and towards a small set of stairs at the side.

"Mr. Winthrop," he said, "One question."

"Yes?"

"Was anything changed in the process for this performance compared to others?"

Mr. Winthrop looked at the Inspector questioningly. "No, of course not, why?"

"And when is Jonas supposed to put the props for the fifth scene on up? Before or after the stage starts to move?"

"Before, of course, how would you put everything when half of the floor moves?"

"I thought so, thank you."

Inspector Kevin Clausen was rubbing his chin as he walked through the rows of seats back to his husband.

"I assume you're not done here, going by your face?" Valin asked as soon as he was close-by.

Kevin shook his head, then he nodded, only to shook his head again right after. "I think I know what happened." He said slowly. "I'm not sure I can prove it."

"Walk me through it." Valin said and kissed him on the cheek.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
An author's note in the middle of the story? Well, there's a reason:
If you're in the mood, feel free to guess what happened now. Was a crime committed or was it an accident? Who is responsible? And why?
Continue reading behind the spoiler tags for the intended solution.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Spoiler

Kevin nodded again. "Two work plans," he said slowly, more to himself than to Valin, "One obviously wrong. They contradict each other, it's impossible that both are true."

"Okay." Valin said, encouraging his partner to continue on. He had no idea what Kevin was talking about, but he knew it helped him to speak his thoughts.

"I know which one is wrong. It's obvious, it really is. It doesn't make sense to move the stage before putting up the props, the other way around, it puts Jonas right in the middle of danger. Marcus' plan is wrong. He didn't change it, though, no he was distressed, he didn't know what had happened. He followed the plan and he nearly killed a man. Might be a good actor, but... No, no I don't think so. He gave me his plan without hesitation. He probably doesn't know all his cues without looking it up. And he didn't notice that someone changed it. Changed it with the intent to hurt Jonas? I guess so. Why change it otherwise?"

Valin nodded, "Okay, that makes sense." He had no idea if it did, of course, but that wasn't the purpose of the comment anyway.

"But who changed it? Who had the opportunity? Simply put, everyone. Security is abysmal back there. Piotr hates Jonas, he has a motive. So I think this is what happened: Piotr, angry because of the accident last year where his wife was hurt, wanted to hurt Jonas. He changed Marcus' plan, maybe because he expected people to check Jonas' plan but not Marcus'? I don't know. He certainly wanted to make me believe that Jonas is irresponsible. I don't have proof. Fingerprints on the changed plan, maybe, but it's in an awful state. Witnesses? Unlikely. The plans of the other stagehands, obviously..."

"Well, sounds like you've got your work cut out for you. At least you did have a fun this evening after all."

"Valin, I'm s-"

"Don't. Don't apologize. It's the job, not you. At least we spend part of the evening together doing something I like. Now, go get the proof you need!" With that, Valin kissed Kevin on the cheek and then shooed him away.

[close]

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The opera is fictional, as is the attempted murder. The description of the scream is not. I was in the audience of an opera when a technician got caught in the moving stage. If you're questioning that the performance continues in the story after the incident, that's also true, though none of the descriptions of what happened backstage are. That's all made up, of course.

I don't think murder mysteries will ever be my favorite genre to write. I'm never sure if I give enough information, if I make it too easy or too difficult, etc... Or if it even makes sense.

[Baron]

Well, I can already anticipate some of the criticism: my story runs long, and yet doesn't really go anywhere at the same time.  Is it time to break out the adjective baronesque again?  The piece is also very dialog heavy, but it's a play so.... enjoy!     


------------------

To Play the Queen of Hearts

   "Places everyone!" King Gilbert cried, clapping his hands.  He was giddy with excitement at taking the stage, despite the fact that it was in fact just the same dias upon which he normally sat within the throne room.  Still, after years of being enthralled as a drama spectator he finally had a chance to perform himself, and the feeling was as thrilling as it was intoxicating.

   "Dear husband, must we go through with this?" Queen Elva beseeched her husband over-dramatically, which he both admired and approved of.

   "Certainly, my dear!" King Gilbert declared.  "A king must follow through on his promises, and I have promised the court a drama for the ages!"

   "Of course, my liege," Queen Elva nodded.  "But, the script....  I don't feel it portrays your ministers in a very attractive light.  Rumours might spread...."

   "My dear Queen," Gilbert smiled.  "I wrote the script based on all those rumours!  This is the perfect way to air all that dirty laundry, in order to separate truth from gossip!"

   "Er, yes my king," Elva agreed awkwardly.  "But this nonsense about the queen vetting members of the court as lovers-"

   "-Drama at its most salacious!" King Gilbert gushed, bouncing on his toes in anticipation.  "There is a certain catharsis in the spectacle of theatre, my dear!  Exorcise those whispered speculations by exposing their ridiculousness to the full glare of the lime-light!"

   "Uh, right!" the Queen said, squaring her shoulders and jutting out her chin, preparing herself for the judgemental stares to come.

   "And... action!" King Gilbert cried, striding onto the throne dias arm in arm with his queen.  The court applauded enthusiastically, and the king bowed humbly to his thronging admirers.  "Welcome friends!" he called in his richest, clearest voice, accepting a goblet of wine from the Archbishop and using it to toast his audience.  "Welcome to our end-of-year dramatic extravaganza!  Behold your king, as you've never seen him before, in a stage production rife with intrigue!  Live out your greatest hopes and fears as we blend reality and fiction to create a cascade of emotions the likes of which you've never dreamed!"

The court cheered, the king bowed, and then assumed his place on the throne, surrounded by his wife, jester, and his highest advisors.  Suddenly a herald rushed in.  "My king!  Disaster!  The Count of Caulendar is in rebellion!  Even now his armies march on the capital!"

"Caulendar, my dear cousin!" the king lamented.  "I am betrayed by my closest kin!"

"Never, my King!" the Queen declared.  "Caulendar has ever proven loyal!  It is the squandering of royal funds by the Lord of the Exchequer that has caused discontent throughout the land.  How do we know that Caulendar is not taking your side, standing with your long-overtaxed subjects against your corrupt ministers?!"

"Quite absurd, my liege," the Lord of the Exchequer yawned.  "The exchequer merely implements your own taxation policies, while Caulendar has raised an army against you, which is the very definition of treason.  Perhaps the queen is trying to hide her own disloyalty by siding with your wayward heir?"

"My king!" the queen shouted indignantly.  "The wayward tongues of your ministers wag beyond all truth and decency!"

"Is that what you call what the Captain of the Guard's tongue has been up to?" the Archbishop commented wryly, as an aside to the crowd which chuckled gleefully.

"The implication insults you and your queen!" the queen said sharply to her husband.  "My king, you know that I would.... never let another man.... down there!"  In her mind she had said the line much more forcefully, but the embarrassment of the situation caught the words in her throat, making them seem feeble and untruthful.  It didn't help that at that moment the jester managed to crawl out from under her skirts, to the roaring laughter of the court.  The queen seethed with anger at this improvisation at her expense, and she decided to go off script herself.

"My king!" she said forcefully.  "If this is how your closest kin are treated at court, no wonder noble Caulendar has turned against the snakes that writhe here!  Tax men that steal, priests that lie, and servants that plot your downfall.  And to hide their misdeeds they attack your most loyal subject, your lover, your queen!  Give me a headsman and an axe and I will show you the treasonous thoughts that lurk inside their minds, by shaking them out of their severed heads in front of you!"  The queen huffed her fury, staring balefully at the crowd that was now stunned to silence, shaking at the exertion it took to contain the fury to kill her husband's ministers with her own bare hands.  "What say you, husband?" she asked, not daring to turn around to see the silly man stab her in the back.

"He's dead," the Captain of the Guard said, poking the figure on the throne gently with the handle of his spear.  The crowd gasped in concern while the ministers all glanced around at each other as if not knowing what to do next.  The king had made them swear, on pain of execution, that the show must go on no matter what.  Was this a test of loyalty?  Or was this an unscripted assassination in broad limelight?

"What treason is this?!?" the Archbishop shouted, tossing his stage notes to the side.  "Stand aside so that I can ascertain the truth of it and pray for the good king's soul!"

"Pray we don't remember who handed him his final chalice of wine," the queen said, spinning on her heel to face the Archbishop.  "I recall distinctly that it was you, your eminence.  Make the Archbishop drink what is left in the cup, to determine if it was he who poisoned the king!"

  "What?!?" the Archbishop shouted, taken aback at the sudden turn of events and his own sudden imperilment.  "I...  I merely passed the cup to the king.  It was the chamberlain that poured it!"

"Then make them both drink it!" the queen commanded.  "The better to separate truth from treason."

"Who put her in charge?" the Lord of the Exchequer challenged.  "Here, let's have a look at the body.  If the Archbishop's poison turns out to be a dagger in the back, I think I know who to blame!"

"And what is that supposed to mean?" the Captain of the Guard challenged him.  "You think because my position is always at the king's back that I somehow perpetrated this ghastly deed?!?"

"Well you clearly aren't doing a very good job," the Lord of the Exchequer pointed out.  "You just let your king get murdered while standing blissfully unaware not four feet away.  Either you are grossly incompetent or you are a part of the conspiracy!"

"I wonder what skin you have in the game, standing up for the chamberlain thusly?" the Captain of the Guard countered.  "Methinks a third minister should taste the wine, just to be sure."  At this the whole stage erupted into argument.  Only the queen remained aloof, serenely walking up to her husband's corpse upon the throne.

"What is she doing?" the Archbishop asked, and the arguments were quelled as quickly as they had broken out.

"Something I should have done a long time ago," the queen muttered to the hall.  "I'm going to separate truth from fancy to see where I finally stand in life."  And with that she raised her foot and shoved the body of the king off the throne.  The corpse rolled dramatically down the steps to dangle precariously off the dias.  The court gasped in horror, for it really did seem that the king was actually dead.

"My god," the Archbishop gasped.  "Is it really true?"

"It seems so," the queen said, plopping herself into the throne.  "As next of kin you will all concede that I am now in charge, at least until the late king's nephew Caulendar can reach the capital to have himself crowned.  The king is dead!  Long live the king!" she shouted, and this was echoed throughout the hall. 

"Now," the queen continued as the shouts died down, "where is that headsman?"  With a menacing thump a man in a hood bearing a great axe stomped onto the dias from a side entrance, and the crowd was suddenly stunned into a shocked silence.

"Wait, wait, wait," the Lord of the Exchequer said, leaning down to examine the king's corpse.  "As I suspected - there's still a pulse.  It seems this little drama hasn't run its course yet, after all.  Somebody was a little too quick to claim the throne, not even shedding a tear in remorse for her late husband.  I suppose the headsman has come in good time, but not for who you might have intended," he smiled.  There was confused muttering in the court, as nobody really knew what was actually going on at this point.

"Oh, come off it!" the Captain of the Guard shouted in disbelief.  "He rolled like a rag doll down the steps.  No one's that good of an actor, and I checked his pulse myself not two minutes ago.  He's definitely dead!"

"Nope, still alive!" the Lord of the Exchequer declared.  "I suspect that in a couple minutes he'll pop up and have a jolly good bow in front of the audience, and then pop the heads off the lot of you!"

"Oh honestly," Queen Elva sighed.  "Right, let's do the Lord of the Exchequer first.  Drink the wine, if you are so certain it wasn't poisoned.  Drink, or it's the headsman."

"Uh..." the Exchequer stalled.  "Well, yes, ok.  But I think it's wise to wait out the couple minutes until his majesty pops up.  Then I'll do it, for sure."

"What was that?" the Queen asked, dramatically putting her hand to her ear.  "Did I hear that you chose the headsman?"

"What?  No.  I definitely chose the cup of wine, which is clearly not poisoned!  I just want to wait until... wait, what are you doing?" he asked, for two guardsmen had suddenly appeared on either side of him.  He was escorted before the throne where a third guard had plopped down a large block of wood, and then he was made to kneel at it.  The headsman thumped menacingly down the steps to stand next to the execution block.

The Archbishop for his part scurried down to join the Lord of the Exchequer, goblet of wine in hand.  "Here, let him taste the wine and prove once and for all this farce!" the Archbishop called out.

"You'll taste the wine soon enough, my brave Archbishop," the queen pointed out.

"Yes, my queen!" the Archbishop agreed.  "But I would feel much better about it if the Lord of the Exchequer would taste it first!  He did ask for it, after all.  Does a dying man not get his last wish?"

"Since when?" the Captain of the Guard spoke up.  "Let's just get on with it, shall we?"

"But, uh, there's last rights, of course!" the Archbishop declared, clearly stalling.  "The prisoner always gets a chance to confess his sins, and then hear a prayer for his soul.  We must stand on ceremony, unless you truly fear that a mere two minutes will prove the lie of your claim to the throne?"

"Fine, whatever," the queen said, rolling her eyes.  "But get on with it!  We've got a lot of wine drinking to get to, and that axe isn't getting any sharper as we wait."

"Of course, my queen!" the Archbishop nodded.  "Prisoner, do you have any sins to declare?"

"Oh, many!" the Lord of the Exchequer admitted.  "The first was when I was a lad of four and saw my daddy naked as an ox in the shower...."

"Oh for the love of.... Just get to the prayer!" the Captain of the Guard shouted.

"Uh, prayer, yes the prayer, of course...." the Archbishop dithered, trying to remember the words.  He stooped to the stage to start collecting the stage notes he had thrown away earlier.  A muted giggle rose amongst the crowd.

"Ugh, just get to the execution!" the queen commanded.  The headsman swung the axe up into the air.

"Do you know, I think I might try that wine now after all," the Lord of the Exchequer said, but it was too late as the axe swung down.  The audience gasped in horror, for the executioner appeared to have botched the job, only severing half of the prisoner's neck.  The Archbishop fainted at the ghastliness of it, but there was one sole person in the court who clapped his approval.  Everyone turned to see King Gilbert, sitting happily on the edge of the dias, clapping with glee.  And then the executioner took off his mask to reveal that he had been the jester all along, and that the axe was merely made of painted cake which he proceeded to eat greedily.  The Lord Exchequer stood up grumpily to reveal that he had pissed himself in fear, and the crowd roared with laughter.  The queen and the Captain of the Guard exchanged guarded looks, and then began clapping their approval as well, but in a slow, measured way.  Soon the rest of the audience joined in applauding as well.

"So much fun, so little time!" the king declared, climbing up the steps to his throne, which his queen had graciously vacated.  "The plot thickens, and the chickens plot!  But fear not, good audience, for we have only just begun to unmask our villains.  Young Caulendar is still abroad, you will recall, and both the queen and the Lord of the Exchequer have much to answer for.  I suspect that we'll finally get down to the truth of the matter in this, our second act!"

Queen Elva bowed politely and took her place.  But she checked her stocking to make sure the dagger was still there, just in case.

[Stupot]

Thanks for the stories everyone. I was thinking of submitting one but I was off work last week, which ironically meant I had no free time.

This time, I've decided to set up a poll. No special guidelines, just choose your favourite. I will also add my vote just in case there is a 3-way tie

This does mean, however, there will be no extensions for reading and voting. You have 5 days exactly as of about 10 minutes ago.

Please vote using the poll above. No PMs

[Sinitrena]

@Mandle:

Spoiler

This one started a bit too purply for my tastes, which also makes it rather confusing in the beginning. I'M not sure what happens, to be honest. A band plays, people are excited and then 'something' happens and the whole stadium is destroyed, multiple people die, then more and more of the world gets destroyed until God itself shows up to destroy even more. But the 'something' in this description is the part I didn't get.
The idea that too  much limbs leads to too much sinning is interesting (and completely absurd, of course), but I have to question your descriptions before the raveal that the people aren't 'us' (in the most general sense). There's not even a hint of an extra leg here or there, the guitars are just called guitars (I would also question the use of guitars by beings that are not humans as we know them, in a time that would be considered the future (somewhat, technically it would be the past, I guess). No other instruments were created?
Nitpick (and I'm not sure it's technically wrong in English): and crushed somewhere between ten and twenty thousand people as it shattered I read this first as 10 and 20000 people, not as the clearly intended 10000 and 20000 people.
Overall, a chaotic ride with a bit of a weird message thrown in in the end.

[close]

@Baron:

Spoiler

Interesting idea. And  rather chaotic scene. I liked the mixing of (the character's) reality and (their) imagined world. It leaves the reader confused in parts, but I think that's intentional, where it's almost impossible to tell whether they are still play-acting or have gone into a real fight. The place where it becomes unclear should be obvious: The queen seethed with anger at this improvisation at her expense, and she decided to go off script herself.
I have a bit of a problem with the reactions of the characters. Nobody seems to notice or care that the queen goes off-script at that point, but later, when the king 'dies' it is described as is they reacted to it. In short, the lines are very much blurred, which is good, but maybe gone a bit too far.
Interestingly enough, I do not agree with your self-criticism. The piece is not too long and, more importantly, I do think I does go somewhere. The airing of grievences leads to a highly dramatic finale that is cut short in an almost cathartic release of laughter. Yes, the story does go somewhere, especially with the last line, noting that the queen has a dagger and is willing make it so or fears that the play will become reality. (or, third option, that the audience will react badly, but I doubt that's what the queen is thinking.)
There are certainly options to enhance both the cathartic release as well as the tension, and there's a very clear option how the line between fiction and reality (within the stors) could be blurred more (and, at the same time, in a less cunfusing manner): Caulendar really happens to march on the castle with an army in that very moment!
All in all, I think this story is actually better than you give yourself credit, though there's certainly options where the main themes could be brought out more. I like it.

[close]

I have voted. I assume we still follow the rule not to vote for ourselves?

[Mandle]

Cheers, Sini, for the feedback. Glad you could understand basically the whole story, despite the black-holes drones being confusing. Will work on that better as I wrote this on the fly (pun intended).

The ending is a callback to my story "The Last Deal" written many years ago.

I intend to revise and collect a bunch of my stories from the FWC into a compilation book titled "Spare Bones" and hopefully publish it.

This is one part of my God/Devil trilogy consisting of "The Last Deal", "Daring the Devil", and now this one. The ending probably makes a lot more sense if the stories are read back-to-back.

[Sinitrena]

I can't say I remember "The Last Deal", unfortunately. So many stories over the years! Link?

[Mandle]

I can't say I remember "The Last Deal", unfortunately. So many stories over the years! Link?

Whoops, it was called "One Last Deal".

Here's the link:

https://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/forums/competitions-activities/fortnightly-writing-competition-faustian-bargain-results/msg636564815/#msg636564815