Quoted By:
"Accountability."
"Forgotten. Like a nightmare. Not what I wanted. I want." It tightens its many arms around the television. It loses whatever energy it had left, only having enough to stare blankly at the TV.
The static in the air is fluctuating now. It's as if it's trying to communicate something to you. Ashton has already turned her attention away from the anomaly.
You shift your focus back to the static-laced air. You take in a deep, deep breath before trying to, on some level, 'connect' with the signal. Ashton's eyes are firmly shut, clearly already one step aside of you. Let's see what's going on here...
>2 SUCCESSES!
Incoherent flashes of color and sound immediately slam into your mind, exactly like someone was flipping through a million channels at once. An intense pressure builds in your head and a sharp pain jabs into your abdomen, like a knife is crammed inside your guts.
Your eyes begin to water but you're able to tune a good chunk of it out. You begin to see something.
<span class="mu-i">An old woman sits behind the concession counter. It's another long, boring day. She's the only one still here, she can't justify hiring anyone. Not with the state of her theater.</span>
<span class="mu-i">The theater has been open for eight hours and she's only seen ten or eleven people stumbling in. She all knows them by name and she suspects that they're only here to be polite. To show that she's still part of the community.</span>
<span class="mu-i">The buttery smell of popcorn is almost enough to mask the stench of dust hanging in the air. She makes barely enough money to keep the theater open at this point. She grabs her walking cane as she slowly walks over to one of the two active screens.</span>
<span class="mu-i">As she stumbles into the dark room, her eyes lock onto the bright screen displaying some movie she already forgot the name of. A young actress is giving her male co-star googoo eyes. Another romcom.</span>
<span class="mu-i">She wishes she was young again. That she could take the place of that actress. To be the one that everyone is looking at, someone that people would remember.</span>
<span class="mu-i">She could've been like her. She could've followed her dream. She should've gone to college to get an acting degree, she should've moved to California before the acting market there calcified.</span>
<span class="mu-i">But she didn't. Now, she works here. A way to vicariously live through her dream.</span>
<span class="mu-i">It's not enough. It was never enough but by the time she learnt to regret her choice, it was too late. Her dream was left to rot. To fester.</span>
<span class="mu-i">Eighty something years down the drain. It's almost enough to make her scream right then and there but she doesn't want to ruin it for her customers. She exits before anyone noticed she was even there.</span>
<span class="mu-i">She glances down at old rose pinned to her dress before she finds somewhere to sit. It's time for her afternoon nap. One of her only reprieves from this sad, pathetic excuse of a life. She really only has one wish left at this point. One that she's been thinking about for a while.</span>
