It's been a while.
As the speaker continued to ramble on about whatever, I could feel my eyelids getting heavy. So... heavy. I didn't want to be there, but I had to. If we tried skipping out, the boss would've been on our asses immediately. And they took attendance at the door.
Still, I was running on 3 hours of sleep, which forced me to eventually doze off. When I woke back up, the auditorium was silent. I was under the momentary impression that the speech had ended, so with my eyes still half-closed, I started getting up.
But the room was still full. Nobody was saying a word, though. The speaker simply stared ahead, his face devoid of any emotion, save for an empty, obscure smile. The people around me held comparable expressions, all seemingly frozen in place. This lasted for about five seconds before the speaker started talking again.
I thought I was going crazy, possibly delusions spurred on by sleep-deprivation. With that in mind, I closed my eyes once again, not caring so much about the consequences if I were to be caught. When I woke back up, I was feeling refreshed. But the speech was still transpiring.
How long is this gonna last? I thought to myself.
I took out my phone, checking the time. 1:34 AM. The speech was supposed to end at 10 PM. I looked around, but everybody seemed complacent about the situation. But eventually, I spotted a few worried faces - three in total, looking as confused as I probably was. I made eye contact with one of them.
I turned to the person next to me, asking in a whisper about when the talk would be over. I assumed I missed something big during my nap.
They didn't respond to me. They simply stared ahead... same blank eyes with the same empty smile. Suddenly, the speaker stopped talking again. I looked towards the stage, seeing that same expression on his face.
Am I having a fever dream?
The silence lasted about three minutes before he went back to his spiel. This time, I actually paid attention to what he was saying. It was... the same speech he was giving before. The exact words. In fact, he even introduced himself again. I pulled out my phone, texting one of my colleagues, who was in the theater with me, asking him what was going on.
No response. I scoured the crowd once again, eventually spotting him at the front. Like nearly everybody else, he had same stare and smile.
I decided to raise my hand, in order to get the attention of the speaker. No reaction.
My heart was starting to race, given the obscure and inexplicably terrifying situation. After about twenty more minutes, I could hear the speaker beginning to stumble over his words. Not in a human-like manner, though. It was more robotic. Almost like a badly-programmed robot.
It all started becoming too much. I stood up and prepared to leave. But before I could take a step, I heard a cough coming from somewhere in the crowd. I looked over, seeing the woman I'd made eye contact with earlier feverishly shaking her head. There was genuine terror in her eyes.
I sat back down, sweating and shaking nearly uncontrollably. I decided to call 911. A few rings and the operator asked me what my emergency was. As I got out the first few words, the theater went quiet again. I didn't want to look up, because I already knew what I would probably see. But I halted my words, doing so anyway.
Everybody, speaker and audience alike, was staring at me. Same dead eyes. Same empty smile. But not exactly. It was nearly impossible to discern, but there was a malicious presence in their collective expressions that wasn't there before.
"Hello? Sir?"
The 911 operator continued to speak on the other end. With every little sound she made, their faces became more and more subtly distorted. I shut the phone off and sat still. Everybody turned away and the speaker began talking again. I looked back at the woman who coughed earlier and saw her silently crying.
Thirty minutes later, and the speaker was hardly coherent, simply stringing together words that failed to form sentences with any actual meaning. However, I could hear faint police sirens from outside. The cops had come. Somebody in the front row took this as motivation, bolting out of his seat and sprinting up the stairs. I watched intently as he burst through the door. From the few seconds it was open, I could see tall figures in black cloaks and twisted masks circling the exit.
The runner's screams were intense, but short-lived, getting cut off immediately. The police stormed into the building shortly after, only to suffer the same fate.
It's 3:35 AM now. The speaker's words have devolved into a quick, guttural series of throaty staccatos. His face has also begun drooping, along with the rest of the audience.
The woman is crying loudly now, and the only thing I can do is join her.
---
Credits
Comments