Curtaincall

I hastily put the Emperor's costume over my school uniform after stripping myself of the blazer since that was the easiest to remove of them all. Lucky for me, the Emperor's costume was a coat modeled after the traditional Emperor's clothing, and all I had to do was put that on and button it up to conceal the regular clothing I had underneath. However, the process was still extremely tedious when a single second is as valuable as it was. My heart raced in my chest as my fingers quickly glided from button to button while I looked at the stage with wide eyes, knowing that if I didn't hurry, then blood will be shed and someone will lose their life.

"Why must it come to this?" Muria/Verinel asked out loud on the stage.

In her eyes, tears rolled about, threatening to climb down her cheek at any second. Her emotions felt extremely surprisingly genuine and fitting for the scene, making the climax of the story extremely absorbing. With a quick glance at the audience, I discovered that they were all silent with eyes fixed on the stage.

Hurry up, hurry up. If I don't get out there on time, then that girl will be dead.

Finally, I finished with the last button. I then adjusted the coat and made sure that the sleeves were aligned. Then, with a single and smooth movement of my hands, I pushed the long coat tails behind me into the air as I walked towards the stage.

"I'm sorry," Irina/Mary cried as she brought the dagger before her and started running towards Muria/Verinel.

Their positioning was that Muria was standing on the left side of the stage, which was the closest to me, with Irina quickly closing in on her. Seeing that she had started running, I knew that I needed to move quickly as well. Therefore, I started sprinting.

Even though it was only a short distance from me to the two actors, at most two seconds running, the distance felt extremely lengthy. Although in reality it was probably less than a second from where I was to where they were, time felt as if it had slowed to the point that each millisecond was like a whole minute.

Come on, come on! Just a little bit more! Please get there on time!

I reached out my left hand towards Irina's wrists since she had both hands on the dagger's handle and positioned herself in a manner that the dagger was on the side that was away from the audience with her back somewhat turned in their direction in order to shield the dagger from their view. The purpose of this positioning was that one, it would look genuine since it would appear that the attacker used their body's weight to drive the dagger into the victim, and two, when the dagger makes contact with the victim's body, its blade contracting could be concealed from the audience.

This positioning was what proved to be something that I had miscalculated. With the speed that she was going, I would miss what I had set out to grab with my hands which is her wrist. Therefore, I need to change the direction that I reached in quickly if I wanted to protect Muria and Irina from the consequences of the knife. However, the only problem is, I didn't have the time to calculate where I needed to aim. Therefore, to be safe, I chose to reach my hand further from Irina's body and closer to Muria's. This way, I can guarantee that my hand could reach the dagger.

Like I had predicted, my hand did reach the dagger on time. It was accompanied by a severe pain from each of my five fingers as well as my palm as the white blade of the dagger sliced right through the skin and somewhat into the flesh underneath. However, I didn't cry out in pain although I screamed loudly in my mind. If I were to cry out right now, the character of Emperor Lezus would be ruined and the play would likely be deemed a bust. That can't happen. Therefore, even though there were tears of pain in my eyes, I kept my mouth shut to not allow the desperate howl of pain from escaping me.

My sudden appearance on stage was a shock to everyone, from the audience to the two actresses to the other members of the club backstage. Muria and Irina both stared at me with a blank expression on their face due to the suddenness of my appearance and the shock that it brought.

Time seemed to have frozen still for a few seconds since no one moved. The only moving object was my blood that flowed down the length of the blade, my forearm, and between the crevices of my fingers until they slowly dripped onto the hardwood floor of the stage. For a moment there, the only audible sound was my blood dripping onto the floor, and that spell of silence was broken when the audience started to catch on to what was happening.

"T-that's real blood, right?" I heard someone in the front row whisper to their companion.

I could feel the dagger trembling somewhat in my left hand, and looking over, I discovered that the source of the vibration was from Irina's shaking hands. On her face was a look of terror and tears rolled down her cheeks. That horrified countenance was real, but it fitted the current situation perfectly.

Slowly, her hands softened their grip on the dagger until it fell out of her hands and clanged as it hit the floor. With the dagger now gone, my blood started to drip freely onto the floor, creating a small puddle of my crimson. Horrified from the view, Irina buried her face into her hands that were somewhat bloodied and wept.

"I'm sorry," she whispered, and the microphone attached to her clothing caught the sound and broadcasted it to the audience through the speakers. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to..."

Her entire body was shivering now and her voice was trembling. She was actually being tormented by guilt and terror at the moment, which explained her trembling body. To calm her, I did what I had to do, which was by placing my uninjured right hand on her hand.

"It's fine," I whispered. My voice was caught by the microphone attached to my outfit and played out through the speakers in the theater. Even though it was a play, what I was saying at the moment was genuine and stemmed from my heart.

"A-A..." Muria was about to say my name from shock but she regained her composure at the last second and restrained herself. However, even then her eyes wavered as she stared at me.

The show had came to a stop, but the pause felt as if it belonged to the script. That was the reason why no one in the audience said anything. They probably thought this was all part of the play, which worked for me.

"What is the meaning of this?" I said, mimicking how actors said their lines and by imagining how an emperor would say things. "In my house, in my castle, why're my two beloved attempting each other's lives?"

"E-Emperor," Muria stuttered as she was still affected by the scene that she had saw. "I-I..."

"Is it because of me?" I said as Emperor Lezus. "I should've known... I should've known my love for both of you will stem jealousy for the other... How foolish of me."

"It's not your fault, my dear," Muria said, playing along with my act. She then wrapped both her hands around my bleeding left hand, trying her best to apply pressure to stop the bleeding. "It's all me. It's my jealousy for my dear Mary that stemmed this tragedy."

"No," Irina sobbed. "I-it's me... I..."

"It's fine now, Mary." I smiled and brought my right arm around her shoulder, taking her into my embrace. "I do not blame either of you for this, for it's our fault. It's our love for each other that had stemmed this sin, so let us suffer together."

I then looked up at the lights in the most ending-like way that I could think of. I prayed that the theater club noticed my intent and would end the play right then and there. It seemed that they understood my reasoning for the curtains began to close, bringing with it the end of the play. As the curtains closed, a student took a microphone and began speaking into it as he quickly assembled the curtain call off the stage in front of the audience.

I maintained my pose until the curtain had closed fully before I relaxed and allowed my body to collapse forward. If it weren't for the arms of Irina and Muria there holding me up, I probably would've collapsed face-first onto the floor of the stage. I felt extremely weak and dizzy, probably from the large amounts of blood that I had lost.

"Alevian!"

I heard the theater club president rushing over to me while carrying a first aid kit in hand. Beside him, I saw Luna hurrying over as well. Luna then took out some rubbing alcohol from the first aid kit, and with her spare hand, she accepted my injured left hand from Muria and started cleaning the wound using cotton swabs.

"So reckless," Luna sighed as she cleaned my wound. It stung quite a bit whenever she applied the rubbing alcohol to the cut, causing me to wince in pain. "Stay still," she said with a smile. "Weren't you able to hold it in earlier?"

"That's different," I sighed. Then, I looked over at Irina who was still crying. "Stop crying," I said. "It's not like I'm dead or something."

"B-but," she sobbed.

"It's not your fault that the props were mixed up," I said. "So stop crying."

"Alevian,"

I heard Muria's voice from my left. I then looked in her direction to find her tearing up as she stared into my eyes.

"Thank you," she smiled in a grateful and caring manner that I had never seen from her before.