I pushed open the large doors emblazoned with the name Red Rose Community Theatre and some masks surrounded by roses. The lobby felt abandoned, a small ticket booth a snack stand with an empty popcorn machine and other foods sat in the right wall, ready to have someone run it for a show. A chuckle rumbled in my throat. Yeah, my dad loved this. I remembered him fiercely acting on stage back home. He loved playing villains, from the enraged Jonathan Brewster to the cackling dentist Orin Scrivello. I could only imagine what they had him doing now. I exited the lobby and thousands of chairs greeted me. Large, red velvety chairs peered onto the stage, where a group of people fitted my father with something.
"Fey! Fey! Look!" He called to me like a small child when his eyes connected with my face, waving his arms. The people laughed, stepping aside to let him off the stairs and towards me. "They made me Erik! Look at my mask! I'm so excited." He snickered, playing with the half-broken white mask on his face.
"Our Erik dropped out. We were desperate." One of the women on the stage winked, waving at me.
"Congrats dad." I smiled, hugging my ecstatic father. He always dreamed of being on Broadway, but then I came along. In a way, I kind of feel guilty for halting that dream, but he seemed happier than ever, and he would always be welcome to pursue that dream when I graduated. "You can sing along to all the beautiful piano pieces."
"Of course!" He leaped back onto the stage, and I gazed into the lofty rafters and across at the wings of the stage. Honestly, this place looked impressive. After taking in the huge curtains and echoing walls, I remembered the secondary reason I stopped by this place.
"Um, hey, what's your name?" I asked the woman that addressed the fact someone dropped out.
"Tanya." She threw up a peace-sign greeting with her left hand. "Why?"
"Not to be nosy, but uh, do you guys have a trap door in your stage?" I asked, pointing to the center of it.
She stepped back, and slammed her foot on the base. Her green eyes watched me through strands of brown hair, and her dark-skinned smile stretched across her face. A loud, hollow thunk echoed through the rafters. "Yup. Why?"
"I need to open it." I stepped up onto the stage, approaching the woman. She pointed to a place on the floor, the only indicator being a very fine seemingly black line around a rectangle in the floor.
"Why? You from the school?" She raised an eyebrow, and my dad looked more confused than I've ever seen him. "Team, kiddo? Gotta report your victory to the big lady, so she can award points." For some reason a surge of excitement rushed through my chest. I actually found it! Me, a lowly newbie, found that stupid rock and got my team some points, and I couldn't be happier about it. That was my stupid rock; I earned it. Now I could see why people loved this and took it so seriously. The rush of amazing feeling you get when you've accomplished something just ensnared me.
"Yeah! I'm in Copper Phoenix!" I chimed, rocking back and forth on my heels. "My name is Fey." I offered, and she took out her phone. A few seconds of silence passed, and then she threw her head back so she could see up above the seats in the audience. A sound booth sat above everything in the top of the entire room.
"Yo, Keith! Hit a twenty-six, please!" Tanya called up into the blackness, and next thing I knew, the space in the floor vanished and an empty hole showed up in its place. Upon closer inspection, the door just fell down to open the hatch. She hopped down into it, only disappearing down to her knees. The woman kneeled down, vanishing into the compartment, and then when she returned, a box sat in her hand. She carefully placed it in my clutches. "Go for it, kiddo." She shrugged as the trap door closed behind her.
I could barely contain my excitement upon opening the small cardboard box, and my heart soared when my dark eyes landed on that stupid little stone. The gem sparkled in the light above, and next to it was a small display setup that you could use to stand it up. "Nice," I breathed, starting to get the feel for all of this. Man, why did I have to be a senior? I'd love to be here longer and experience more of the game.
"Wow, Fey, this sounds like a big accomplishment." My dad laughed, looking over my shoulder into the box. "What in the world have you been doing in that school?"
"It's an A.R.G. that the school hosts; it gets the kids more involved with their community and makes them work for it." Tanya explained, pointing to the small cardboard box I held. "Kinda cool, honestly."
"What's an A.R.G.?" My dad scratched his head, finally having his nerd knowledge stumped.
"It's a game that you play that involves your real life surroundings, an alternate reality game." I elbowed him, smiling. "Kinda like your college buddies and their GPS treasure hunts. Except this one is more fantasy based." I snickered in response.
"Wow, sounds like this new school is all kinds of new experiences and fun, eh?" My dad smiled, crossing his arms. Something akin to pride swam across his face. Maybe he really did feel proud of me.
"No kidding," I said, but the buzz in my pocket distracted me. I pulled my phone out just to see a message from Rowdy, freaking out because he saw the shift on the boards. I promised him that I would tell him what happened tomorrow, and he asked me to meet him out at the school; some in-game announcement was going to be made anyway.
I checked the website he showed me this morning, and sure enough, it had been updated to say I'd earned two hundred points for Copper Phoenix. We now claimed second place, right behind the vicious Badgers. While this filled me with pride, something told me it couldn't be good. A sickening feeling told me the only thing standing between a raid and us would be Taylor.
The door to the lobby opened, and I turned to see two people about my age, and one smaller child.
The smaller person had bright dyed red hair, and in that bobbed mess, a small clip perched on the side of her head with a pointed hat on top of it. Her icy grey eyes watched everything with a vision I had yet to comprehend, a vision of complete optimism. She wore a long sleeved shirt that hung past her fingertips unless she lifted her hands, coated with images of spider webs and a cat. She had a frayed skirt, too, with knee-high stockings and cute little boots. Yeah, I really needed to get myself a costume. Everyone else looked like their characters.
The taller girl of the group looked like an elegant supermodel. Her hoop earrings sparkled in the low theatre light, and her smirk filled you with fire. Her dark blue eyes stirred your soul and her dark brown hair framed her face in a perfect, short, and wavy mess. A staff and music notes lined the bottom of her shirt, falling onto regular, stylist jeans.
The person in the front of the group, a boy, scanned everything with an analytic dark brown gaze. His black, thick eyebrows pulled together in an annoyed expression across his dark skinned face. His shirt displayed the image of a shield with a halo and wings attached. It reminded me of Nashita's own shirt, but hers had a sword instead. Was this boy an angel, too?
All of their eyes landed on me, and the boy in the middle approached as the actors all went back about their business, including my dad. He stopped just in front of me, pushing up his thickly framed glasses to look me over.
"Who are you?" The simple words hit my ears, and finally, introductions came naturally to me.
"Fey Norris, Harpy. Copper Phoenix." I felt myself straighten up and become confident, ready to stand up to this much taller figure.
"Tariq Baksh, Seraph. Administrator of Vanguard's Elite." He said in a gruff voice, narrowing his eyes. We passed that team, just barely, by a few points in the rankings with my find. Nashita's brother intimidated me more than I wanted to say. Tariq would definitely crush me if I so much as looked at his sister, or even him and his team, wrong.
"I'm Winifred Delacroix!" The small girl leaped forward to Tariq's side. "Resident witch and Advisor freshman." She seemed much too bubbly for the other two's demeanor.
"Lark Everset, muse and Moderator." The woman shrugged as she slinked forward.
"Nice to meet you." I said, looking them all over again.
"I would say the same, if it weren't for the circumstances." Tariq rumbled, eyeing the box in my hand. "Looks like you were right, Winnie. Just a little bit too late. What's in the box, harpy?" He rolled his shoulders back, like a menacing pose. Then again, everything he did wracked my nerves, like a militant beast.
"I found it first! It's my gem." I held it close to my chest, trying to protect the small box from him.
"No worries! We aren't the Badgers. We won't take it from you!" Winnie laughed, shaking her head. "Though we are a little upset you found it first."
"Exactly. We just wanted to know if that was it." A thought occurred to me that even though Tariq looked like a belligerent tyrant, he wasn't. Maybe I shouldn't have judged him right away. A smile finally came back to my face, and I opened the box for them to see.
"Yeah, it's the Ruby Gem of Valiance." I explained, and they leaned over to look at it.
"Good game newbie. Just don't get in our way, okay?" Tariq turned his back, and he took a step away. "We could capture you, too, but again, not that rude. Keep that in mind when you face other teams. Goodbye, harpy." He disappeared out the door with his two lackeys following him. I looked back at the stage.
Tanya handed my dad a script and ushered him into a cape. He caught my eye and I waved, signifying that I meant to head home now. He smiled and waved like a big dork; I couldn't help the laugh that bubbled into my throat.
I left, heading out the double doors and out onto the street again to catch a bus back home. My plans included a bubble bath, grunge music, and chocolate. I needed a bit of a reward after that.
As I got onto the bus and found a seat, my mind wandered to the school day. Honestly, even though I barely knew them, I felt worried about Jules. Injuries like that couldn't be good for anyone, and with all of the talk of the Badgers being so ferocious, I somewhat felt like the group held responsibility. However, if Jules wouldn't even tell people they knew, how in the world could I find out what happened? Arthur's face came to mind. I had to talk to him. Tomorrow would be perfect, he would be out of ISS and school wouldn't be in session. I had to come up with a game plan. Then, the next problem I faced returned to the front of my brain. I needed a costume. I just needed to figure out what in the world I had in my closet.
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