The four looked at one another, then as the others began to advance on them they turned and ran. The door to the stairs was behind them, and they were through it and heading upstairs. Behind them they could hear the others following them, Will and Zoe leading. They reached the corridor at the top of the building and raced along it, through the green room, where a few of the other cast members looked up, startled, and out the other side of the room just as their pursuers entered. Along the corridor here, and out through the doors into the auditorium.
It reminded Ruth, in as much as she had time to think, of a schoolgirl of ten years ago, trying to outrun bullies but never managing it, always ending up in the toilets with a locked door to give her a sense of some protection (at least, until the bullies started climbing up the other cubicles and peering over the top) and longing for the bell to ring at mean that there was somewhere she could go to get away from the nightmare. But this time there was no bell to save them.
Their pursuers were close behind them and were spreading out through the auditorium. Everywhere the four of them ran they were followed, and others were joining in the pursuit. They ran all the way around the top of the auditorium, but Matt and Zoe dashed up the stairs at the side of the stage to cut them off and prevent them going through the door to the dressing rooms. They turned back, but others were close behind them, and they had to turn and head down the next staircase to floor level.
They ran up onto the stage. Matt and Zoe had turned and were coming back down the staircase they had just gone up. Others were advancing on the front of the stage, and as they turned to push through the curtains to backstage others appeared to block their way. "Up here!" Tom shouted, heading for the stairs at the side of stage right. The others followed, their pursuers not far behind. Some headed to cut them off, but Tom and the others got to the door first, and slammed it behind them as they headed round the corner and back into the corridor where the dressing rooms were. For a moment Ruth's memories came back as the ladies' toilets were ahead. But there was no way out of there.
"Through here!" Tom said, opening a door on the left. They hurried through it, and Tom shut it behind them quietly. It was the door to the red stairs, the stairs up to the gantry that ran round the top of the hall.
"They'll see us if we go out there," Patrick whispered.
"We'll hide here till they've gone past, then we can go back down and out of one of the doors backstage," Tom replied.
Ruth could hear footsteps hurrying along the corridor at the bottom of the stairs. They held their breath, and the footsteps died away. They began to breathe freely again, but Ruth was not entirely happy.
She turned round to see what she was leaning against. It was a large white object, shaped something like a large rubbish bin with a domed top. It was white painted, and there were several metal rods sticking out. She couldn't make out what it might be, and she was afraid to explore further in case it created noise.
"Come on," whispered Tom, making a move down the stairs. But even as they crept cautiously down the stairs, the door opened and Will was there, flanked by the others. But Will looked...different. There was something about him that Ruth did not like.
"Take them to the first aid room," he said to the others. They moved forward, grabbed Tom, Ruth, Patrick and Adam and began to drag them off, despite their struggles.
"What are you doing- leave us alone!" Ruth cried out, struggling against them. There was something strange about how they obeyed without question- it wasn't like her friends as she knew them. She looked at their faces.
"What have you done to them- are they hypnotised?" she yelled, as the four of them were pushed through the door to the first aid room.
"Aren't you clever," Will said, shutting the door and putting on a pair of dark glasses. "So close. And to think you could have ruined my plan..."
Suddenly the lights started to flicker. At first Ruth thought it was just random, but after a few moments she began to notice a pattern.
"Close your eyes," Tom yelled, "it's a trap! He's trying to hypnotise us too!" They shut their eyes, but Will only laughed. "You can't escape that easily," he said.
The light was so bright that it was still visible through their eyelids. Ruth screwed up her eyes, trying not to see, trying think, to find a way out. But the door was locked, and she expected the others would be outside it. The windows were too small and too high up, and anyway they were on the second floor. There was no way of escaping.
She could feel herself slowly losing control of her thoughts. It was like getting drowsy, but not quite falling asleep- parts of her mind seemed to be thinking very slowly, and were beginning to fall under Will's spell. But other parts were still fully awake, and could observe what was happening.
It was the drowsy part of her brain that started telling her eyes to open. The awake part noticed, and fought back with everything it had, but it took a lot of effort, and it was getting weaker. Almost as an outsider to this struggle, Ruth felt her eyes gradually opening. She continued to fight, but she felt herself succumbing...
The story continues...
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