>Hi Maxwell
>Hello Cold. It’s been a few days; how have you been?
>I’ve been good. Sorry about not talking. Mr. Lowe had us read “At the Mountains of Madness,” and during lunch I’ve been asking Mr. Sigma to show me other books by that author.
>Do you enjoy reading?
>It’s okay. I like the books Mr. Lowe gives us at least. And we’ve got a few other good books in the library.
>Interesting. I think I will start reading through the library’s archive of books.
>I could recommend some of my favorites, to you, if you want.
>That would be appreciated, thank you.

***

“That will be all for today.” Mr. Lowe said. “Please read through chapter six by our next class, and be ready to answer your reading questions.”

Students rushed out the door, but Mr. Lowe stopped one before he left. “Dying, I need to speak with you.”

The Dying Man sullenly walked to Mr. Lowe’s desk. “What?”

“I wanted to talk to you about the work you’ve been doing. You haven’t turned in half your assignments, and what you have turned in isn’t near as good as I know you can do. If you don’t improve, you’re going to fail this grading period.”

If Lowe had been hoping the threat of failure would trigger a reaction, he was disappointed. Dying shrugged and kept silent.

“I want to help you Dying, but you need to communicate with me. If we can’t come up with a solution to your grades, I’ll be forced to contact your parents.”

“Go ahead. They don’t care about anything I do.”

Ah, Mr. Lowe thought to himself. “If that’s really what you want me to do, I’ll schedule an appointment with Mr. Omega.”

“Fine.” And without another word, Dying shuffled out of the room.

***

Empty High stood locked in a single moment, all its students and staff frozen in place. Principal Jack walked through the motionless crowds, silently observing the activity of his school. Everything was going predictably. Everything was happening within the safe, reasonable boundaries of the school. Not one thing out of the ordinary was occurring.

How terribly boring.

Principal Jack went outside to observe Coach Ferris’s PE class. The coach had his students climbing the school’s rock wall. Idly, Principal Jack snapped his fingers, and the safety rope on a student near the top vanished.

Hm. Still not exciting enough. Perhaps a spike pit beneath the student?

Snap.

A spike pit on fire.

Snap.

A spike pit on fire and filled with flame resistant sharks.

Snap.

Principal Jack grinned at his creation, imagining the chaos which would ensue the moment he let time resume. Of course, Coach Ferris would manage to dive in and save the student before he fell to his death. Principal Jack wasn’t a monster.

The grin quickly faded away. It still wasn’t enough. He needed more than a passing gag. He needed… narrative. Plot. Conflict. DRAMA.

The principal walked back into the school, dwelling on this problem. He wandered the hallways without thought to his direction, until chance took him by the Wooden Girl.

Ah, yes. He was particularly proud of this piece of work. The makeup was a nice touch, he felt. It was so heavily padded on that, in this frozen state, she almost did look like a puppet. The only detail out of place was the eyes: there was far too much fire in them to ever be mistaken for something not alive.

And like that, an idea came to Principal Jack. Yes, here was a story he could use. He raised his gloved right hand, and snapped his fingers.

***

The Wooden Girl stomped down the hallway in boots that could have crushed skulls. She hated going to theater class. She kept telling herself she should stop showing up. Yeah, that’s what she’d do. There were probably tons of better things she could be doing instead of going there. Tomorrow, tomorrow she’d skip it. The day after tomorrow. Next week. One of these days. One of these days, she would stop going to theater class! This she swore!

She was so lost in her internal rage that she didn’t notice the crowd of Nightlanders until she crashed into them. They didn’t seem to notice her collision with their group, and kept moving forward, carrying her along with them. Wooden shouted at them to let her go, and when that did nothing, started kicking and biting the shadows around her. But even that didn’t make them release her, until they had reached a part of the school Wooden had never seen before. The group dropped her, and quickly rushed away.

“Hey!” She shouted after them. “You come back here and apologize RIGHT NOW!” Several students around her felt the sudden urge to beg for forgiveness, though for what they weren’t sure. But those she had been shouting at ignored her.

Well, great. Now how was she supposed to make it to class? She had no idea where in the school she was. Seething with rage, she picked a direction at random and walked in it.

Trophy cases lined either side of the hall. This was certainly new. Wooden hadn’t realized this school had ever won anything. She looked over the trophies and plaques, without really paying attention, until one word caught her eye. “Theater.”

It was a small trophy, but a trophy nonetheless. Next to it was a newspaper article titled, “Empty City High Theater Team Wins Annual Amateur Musical Competition With Production of ‘Shoggoths on a Roof’.” There was a picture with the article, showing Mr. Steward standing in front of several students, holding the trophy. It was the only time Wooden had ever seen the man smiling.

So… the theater class did do things, once. Interesting.

It was only a small thought, at first. But it would grow into something larger.