Have you ever heard of Everlaugh theater? Probably not. Many don’t even know it exists.
But I know. And I will tell my story.
I was a child at the time. My parents were separated but I was happy. A week at one’s house, another week at another’s, with both always wanting to please me, was a good life.
Until the day my mother decided to take me to a very peculiar place. “A happy theater for happy customers!” That’s what the sign said. I already found it strange. My mother drove to a place in the middle of the forest, desert. The theater, in the middle of the jungle, was, somehow, impeccable: parts of marble mixed with beautiful yellow in a building that looked like a mansion.
- You’ll see, daughter… this trip will be really cool! I heard the plays here are so good… - my mother said, excited as always.
- Okay mom, I hope it really is. - and I replied, always impatient.
All the reviews on the internet were positive. Everyone talked about how beautiful, charming and funny the play was. So that’s why my mother decided to take me.
We sat in one of the front rows, very close to the show. We wait for the curtain to rise and… we wait. We waited patiently and even, during this delay, we went to buy food and go to the bathroom. The food was for my mother, as I wasn’t hungry at all. We came back after all this and nothing had started. A voice echoed from the microphone:
- Respectful public! Calm down, the show will start very soon! For now, enjoy our popcorn and peanuts, we’ll be here in 10 minutes!
At that point in the championship, I was just bored. I just wanted… I just wanted to take a nap. And just as I was falling asleep, the first masked characters from the play entered, wearing classic theater laughing masks…
They sat and looked at a circle in the center of the piece. At that moment, they started to make a noise of… crying? Yes, they were crying, very loudly. The public didn’t understand anything. Then, the circle in the middle of the stage began to shake, and shake… until a giant tentacle came out of it, and another, and another. People in the audience started screaming, but not before the tentacles picked us off one by one.
I was astonished. I just wanted to run but I felt paralyzed. Then my mother pulled me out of the chair and said:
- RUN!
And I went quickly, holding my mother’s hand.
A tentacle approached quickly in the air and we were close to being crushed, but my mother ran much faster with me and we dodged. We went to the stairs quickly, trying to run out, as we watched each person caught being brought to the hole in the center of the stage, as if it were some kind of portal.
I turned my face away and kept running, and so did my mother, until she suddenly fell.
I saw that the tip of a tentacle had caught her ankle.
- MARY, please continue without me! - she said, while I looked at her, terrified. And then she was pulled onto the stage screaming. Now, I noticed, the masked people around the circle were not crying, but rather laughing and laughing, deafeningly.
-MOTHER! - I woke up with a scream, and saw that I was back in my seat at the beginning of the play. I sighed with relief, happy that it was all a dream. My happiness was very short-lived, however.
When I looked next to me I saw my mother, or rather, the body that was my mother’s, all gray and thin like an empty shell. Eyes black as night. And she smiled, in a macabre way.
I screamed and left my seat immediately, taking a look at the audience and seeing that everyone was like this. Until one of the masked men approached me:
- Well now, what do we have here? Looks like someone didn’t like the play. It happens a lot to sleepy children who don’t have an appetite! - the man with the smiling mask said.
He tried to grab me, but I quickly dodged it. I ran to the door with my life depending on it. Fortunately the rest of the masked people were still on stage and the exit was easy, unlike my strange dream.
I ran all alone to the city and managed to find my father. I told him and other people everything, but they didn’t believe me. Searching the Everlaugh Theater on the internet now turns up nothing, as if it never existed.
But, after so many years, I decided to post this story here, to see if anyone else had this experience. And to warn a possible future audience that this theater will do everything but make you laugh.