The school auditorium had never looked more alive.
Spotlights flickered on the ceiling like miniature suns. Velvet curtains waited in silence, ready to part. Rows of metal chairs filled with murmuring students, clapping parents, and stoic teachers stretched out into the dark.
It smelled of fresh paint, old wood, and nerves.
Aarav Mehta stood backstage, just off the curtain line, notebook in hand, heartbeat in his ears.
Tonight was the performance of The Mirror Room.
And his words were about to walk out into the world without him.
---
Kabir paced nearby, wearing his costume—a simple gray coat with scuffed buttons and a scarf that didn't belong to the school's wardrobe department.
"It's weird," he muttered. "I'm sweating and freezing at the same time."
"That's called stage fright," Aarav replied, voice even.
"Stage death, more like."
"You'll be fine."
Kabir shot him a look. "You always say that when I'm about to do something stupid."
Suhani stepped in just then, clipboard in one hand, walkie-talkie in the other, hair pulled back into a bun that somehow made her look both artistic and administrative.
"We have exactly four minutes," she announced. "Everyone breathe. Don't trip. And please, for the love of drama, don't forget the second mirror prop this time."
"Yes, ma'am," Kabir said with a mock salute.
Then she looked at Aarav.
He wasn't wearing a costume.
He wasn't acting.
But she saw something in his eyes.
"You okay?" she asked.
Aarav nodded, but his hands trembled slightly around the spine of his notebook.
"I don't know what happens after this," he said.
She tilted her head. "After the play?"
"After… caring this much."
Her expression softened.
"That's the risk of creating something. Once it's out there, it's not just yours anymore. But maybe… that's the point."
He didn't reply.
Just looked at the curtain.
And waited.
---
The lights dimmed.
The murmurs faded.
The curtain rose.
And The Mirror Room began.
---
Aarav had heard every line before. He had written them all. He knew the rhythm of each sentence, the breath between pauses, the metaphors hidden beneath monologue.
But watching them spoken—felt—in front of a full room was something else entirely.
Kabir transformed on stage.
Gone was the goofy, confident boy who cracked jokes with juniors and dominated class debates.
Now, he was The Stranger—a boy without a past, standing in a room full of reflections, searching for who he was before the world told him.
The lead actress—Meher, from Class 11—played the girl who saw lies. Her voice, soft but cutting, gave Aarav's lines a tenderness he hadn't realized they held.
The boy who played the mute character—the one who only communicated through gesture and silence—brought a tension to the performance that made even the teachers lean forward.
And in the final act, as the mirrors were rotated to reflect the audience instead of the characters, a hush fell over the room.
It was working.
Aarav's words weren't just being heard.
They were being felt.
---
Backstage, he stood frozen.
His palms were damp. His breath shallow.
Suhani came up beside him.
"You okay?"
"I've never felt this before."
"What?"
"Alive."
She didn't answer.
Didn't need to.
Instead, she placed her hand gently on his shoulder and let it stay there.
For a moment, everything—school, grades, past pain—fell away.
There was only this.
---
On stage, Kabir spoke the final monologue.
He stepped forward, stared into the audience, and said:
> "I am not the echo of my mistakes.
I am not the shadow of others' dreams.
I am what I choose to reflect—
and I choose light."
Silence.
Then thunderous applause.
The curtain fell.
The audience rose.
And somewhere in the back, a parent was crying.
---
Backstage erupted into chaos.
Props fell. Students screamed. Someone tried to hug everyone at once.
Kabir stumbled off stage, sweaty, breathless, but grinning like he'd just survived a war.
Aarav stood there, stunned.
Kabir pulled him into a sudden hug.
"Dude. We did it."
"You did it," Aarav replied.
"No," Kabir said firmly. "You wrote it. You made it matter."
Suhani appeared behind them. "Okay, group photo before you both disappear into existential monologues."
The three of them stood under the yellow backstage light.
Someone snapped the photo.
It was blurry.
But perfect.
---
Later, when the crowd had dispersed and the auditorium began to empty, Aarav lingered backstage.
The stage lights had been switched off.
Only the ghost light remained.
That single bulb, kept on overnight so the theatre is never in complete darkness.
He stood there, alone, staring at the worn boards beneath his shoes.
It felt sacred.
Like the stage still whispered with echoes of the story.
He walked to center stage.
Closed his eyes.
And whispered the first line of the play.
> "Where do we go when we forget our names?"
The silence answered:
Here.
---
He didn't cry.
But his eyes felt full.
Of everything.
---
Outside, in the cool corridor behind the theatre, Suhani leaned against the wall, sipping from a thermos someone had left behind.
He approached her slowly.
"Waiting for me?"
"No. Hiding from people who want to hug me."
"Valid."
They stood together.
Didn't speak for a while.
Then Aarav said, "Do you ever feel like something huge just happened, but you don't know how to name it?"
She nodded.
"That's how I felt when I almost died," she said softly. "And now… how I feel when I choose to live."
He looked at her.
Not at her face.
But into her.
And she looked back.
The moment stretched between them.
Nothing was said.
But everything was known.
---
That night, back in his room, Aarav opened his notebook.
Wrote with fingers that trembled.
> "The stage was never about acting.
It was about revealing.
And tonight, I stood behind the curtain
and felt the weight of being real."
He paused.
Then added:
> *"Maybe I'm not just the boy who watches.
Maybe… I'm the one writing the script."*