A Play in Two Acts
(Unauthorized. Found transcript.)
CHARACTERS:
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CAMILLA – A young woman in her early 20s. Pale, graceful, refined, but haunted.
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CASSILDA – Her older sister. Stern, elegant, and grounded in duty.
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THE STRANGER – A figure in black. No past. Wears a pale mask.
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THE KING – He never appears. Or does he?
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THE PHYSICIAN – Male, 40s–50s. Composed, but unnerved.
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THE CHAMBERLAIN – A civil servant, possibly real.
ACT I – The Chamber
SETTING:
The throne room of a palace in decay. Windows long boarded. The color palette is washed-out ivory, bronze, and mildew. Faint golden dust hangs in the air. There is a large bay window, shuttered and nailed. A hearth unlit. A dusty chaise longue, some broken chairs. Stage left: a door, always ajar. Stage right: a curtain that sways when no one moves.
LIGHTING:
Low golden haze, like dying sunlight refracted through polluted glass. The light should feel wrong, but not in a theatrical way—wrong like waking at the wrong hour, or a memory recollected sideways.
AT RISE:
Cassilda sits rigidly on the chaise longue. She is embroidering a black standard with golden thread, an ornate, curling design like antlers or tentacles. The silence is long, and heavy. Camilla stands at the shuttered window.
CASSILDA
(Without looking up)
The hour grows late.
CAMILLA
It was late when we awoke.
CASSILDA
Then perhaps we have overslept.
CAMILLA
(Quiet)
You dreamt again?
CASSILDA
Always. And so did you.
(Pause.)
CAMILLA
I saw the lake again. But it was wrong. It was dry. The towers had no roots in the water.
CASSILDA
Then it is nearing.
(She threads the needle carefully.)
We should not speak of Carcosa in daylight.
CAMILLA
There is no daylight.
(Pause. A wind howls outside. It is not a natural wind. It stops too quickly.)
CASSILDA
(Abruptly)
He was seen again.
At the curtain.
CAMILLA
(Slowly turns)
Who?
CASSILDA
You know.
CAMILLA
There is no King.
There is no mask.
CASSILDA
Then why do you tremble?
(The door stage left creaks. Enter THE STRANGER. Pale mask. Long black coat, not theatrical—something like military dress from a forgotten war. He carries nothing.)
STRANGER
Is this the house of Hastur?
CASSILDA
(Steadying herself)
This is the throne of Yhtill.
You are unbidden.
STRANGER
Yet expected.
STRANGER
Is this the house of Hastur?
CASSILDA
This is the throne of Yhtill.
You are unbidden.
STRANGER
Yet expected.
CAMILLA
(Whispers) I know you. From my dreams.
From before I was born.
STRANGER
We have always spoken, Camilla.
Only now have you chosen to listen.
CASSILDA
Leave this place. There is no crown here.
STRANGER
And yet you sew its sigil.
(He gestures calmly to the embroidery in Cassilda’s lap. She clutches it instinctively, then throws it aside as if burned.)
CAMILLA
Tell us the truth.
STRANGER
Truth? The truth is not a message. It is an unveiling.
(He approaches the window. A tremor in the floorboards. The light shifts slightly—a flicker of something sickly yellow, quickly gone.)
CASSILDA
(to Camilla, low) We should not have read it.
CAMILLA
It read us.
STRANGER
The curtain is thinner than you believe.
CAMILLA
What lies beyond it?
STRANGER
Nothing. And everything. He is there. The one who cannot die. The one whose name silences tongues.
CASSILDA
He is forbidden.
STRANGER
And yet the door opens.
(The curtain stage right stirs. Slowly. There is no breeze.)
CAMILLA
We are not ready.
STRANGER
He waits not on readiness.
(Silence. The three figures stand equidistant. The tension tightens. A knock at the door, firm. Once. Then again. The third time, louder. None move.)
CASSILDA
(hoarse) Who knocks at the chamber of the forgotten?
VOICE (offstage)
A physician. The summons came urgently.
CASSILDA
We sent no word.
STRANGER
I sent it.
You are ill, all of you. The Yellow Sign has been seen.
(Cassilda stares at the Stranger, trembling.)
CASSILDA
You do not speak plainly.
STRANGER
Plainness is for the sane.
(Enter THE PHYSICIAN. He carries a leather satchel. He is pale, harried, professional. He looks at the Stranger with faint recognition.)
PHYSICIAN
You. I saw you on the steps of the museum. Two nights ago.
STRANGER
No.
PHYSICIAN
(to the sisters) What are your symptoms?
CAMILLA
Dreams.
CASSILDA
Silences that press the skull.
PHYSICIAN
(Examining Camilla) Pulse is high. Eyes dilated.
CASSILDA
We are being watched. Constantly.
PHYSICIAN
Paranoia. Delusion. Possibly contagious.
STRANGER
(Softly) Or awakening.
PHYSICIAN
(to Cassilda) What have you seen?
CASSILDA
A city. Reflected where there should be sky.
PHYSICIAN
(to Camilla) And you?
CAMILLA
A King. But no crown. Only tattered robes and light like decay.
PHYSICIAN
(steps back) Then it has begun.
(A deep sound, like a low brass bell struck underwater. It seems to echo from the curtain.)
STRANGER
The Act must continue.
(The curtain begins to slowly open, revealing only darkness. Cassilda begins to weep. Camilla takes a step forward.)
CAMILLA
I remember now. The lake. The twin suns. The masks. The silence. It was not a dream.
PHYSICIAN
(to the Stranger) What is your purpose?
STRANGER
I am memory. I am the herald of recursion. I am the guest who was never born.
CASSILDA
Stop him.
PHYSICIAN
(He raises a hand but hesitates. To Camilla.) Do not go near it.
CAMILLA
It is already in me. It always was.
(She walks toward the curtain. The stage trembles faintly. The lighting dims again, but the curtain remains open just enough to hint at movement within.)
STRANGER
Come, child of Hali.
CASSILDA
She is my sister!
STRANGER
She is his bride.
(The sound of distant water dripping. Wind like singing voices. Camilla vanishes through the curtain.)
CASSILDA
Camilla!
(Charges after her. The Stranger blocks her path effortlessly.)
STRANGER
The first act is always sorrow.
PHYSICIAN
And the second?
STRANGER
Revelation.
(Blackout. Distant echo of laughter—indistinct, metallic.)
(Long silence. Then the light returns. Dimmer. Everything is slightly shifted, but not obviously so.)
(Camilla stands downstage now, alone. Her posture is not quite her own.)
CAMILLA
(Orating to the audience)
There was once a tower, not built but revealed…
When the tide receded from the mind.
Its stones were named, each with a word we have forgotten how to speak.
But I remember how they felt.
(Long pause. She steps aside. The curtain at stage right sways once without wind.)
(A faint scent—described in stage notes only—“jasmine and rust”—should be implied.)
CASSILDA
(Entering slowly, as if stepping out of a dream)
You left the mirror uncovered.
CAMILLA
It was never covered.
CASSILDA
(Theatrical stillness. Then…)
The physician is dead.
CAMILLA
When?
CASSILDA
Perhaps before he arrived.
(They both turn, slowly, toward the audience. Beat. Silence. Then Camilla steps forward again.)
CAMILLA
There was a play.
(Beat)
We were not in it.
But we remembered our lines.
And we stood.
And we spoke.
And no one could leave.
(Lights shift—just slightly more golden. A faint music begins and dies in one breath. No instruments can be named.)
CASSILDA
Do you recall the mask?
CAMILLA
It is not a mask.
Not anymore.
(A side door creaks. A new set piece: a tall, wheeled mirror is slowly rolled onstage by unseen hands. It is cloaked in yellow velvet. It faces away from the audience.)
CASSILDA
Shall we?
CAMILLA
We should not.
CASSILDA
But we will.
(Long pause. Both women approach the mirror. They do not touch it.)
CASSILDA
(Softly, to the audience)
We believe it reflects us.
But I have watched it twist others.
I watched a child speak to someone standing behind her.
There was no one behind her.
CAMILLA
We are never alone in the mirror.
Not here.
(Beat. Beat. The curtain stage right sways again—more insistently. A wind begins, but only in sound. Papers flutter. But there are no papers.)
STRANGER
(Offstage, voice echoing)
Not all masks hide.
Some reveal.
(The mirror begins to hum—just faintly. Like pressure in the ears before thunder.)
CASSILDA
(Quiet, reverent)
He is near.
CAMILLA
He is always near.
(Both turn again toward the audience.)
CASSILDA
You have heard His name.
CAMILLA
And you will pretend not to remember.
(Blackout. One long metallic chime. Not musical. A shape—unseen but felt—crosses the stage silently.)
(Long silence. Then the light returns. Dimmer. Everything is slightly shifted, but not obviously so.) (Camilla stands downstage now, alone. Her posture is not quite her own.)
CAMILLA
(Orating to the audience)
There was once a tower, not built but revealed…
When the tide receded from the mind.
Its stones were named, each with a word we have forgotten how to speak.
But I remember how they felt.
(Long pause. She steps aside. The curtain at stage right sways once without wind.)
(A faint scent—described in stage notes only—“jasmine and rust”—should be implied.)
CASSILDA
(Entering slowly, as if stepping out of a dream)
You left the mirror uncovered.
CAMILLA
It was never covered.
CASSILDA
(Theatrical stillness. Then…)
The physician is dead.
CAMILLA
When?
CASSILDA
Perhaps before he arrived.
(They both turn, slowly, toward the audience. Beat. Silence. Then Camilla steps forward again.)
CAMILLA
There was a play.
(Beat)
We were not in it.
But we remembered our lines.
And we stood.
And we spoke.
And no one could leave.
(Lights shift—just slightly more golden. A faint music begins and dies in one breath. No instruments can be named.)
CASSILDA
Do you recall the mask?
CAMILLA
It is not a mask.
Not anymore.
(A side door creaks. A new set piece: a tall, wheeled mirror is slowly rolled onstage by unseen hands. It is cloaked in yellow velvet. It faces away from the audience.)
CASSILDA
Shall we?
CAMILLA
We should not.
CASSILDA
But we will.
(Long pause. Both women approach the mirror. They do not touch it.)
CASSILDA
(Softly, to the audience)
We believe it reflects us.
But I have watched it twist others.
I watched a child speak to someone standing behind her.
There was no one behind her.
CAMILLA
We are never alone in the mirror.
Not here.
(Beat. Beat. The curtain stage right sways again—more insistently. A wind begins, but only in sound. Papers flutter. But there are no papers.)
STRANGER
(Offstage, voice echoing)
Not all masks hide.
Some reveal.
(The mirror begins to hum—just faintly. Like pressure in the ears before thunder.)
CASSILDA
(Quiet, reverent)
He is near.
CAMILLA
He is always near.
(Both turn again toward the audience.)
CASSILDA
You have heard His name.
CAMILLA
And you will pretend not to remember.
(Blackout. One long metallic chime. Not musical. A shape—unseen but felt—crosses the stage silently.)
(Lights rise again, lower and more golden. Two new figures enter from opposite sides. They wear asymmetrical garments stitched from different eras. Their faces are veiled in gauze. Their movements are precise. Their presence is undeniable.)
(They do not speak.)
(The first—THE BINDER—carries a tall iron staff entwined with animal bones and copper wire. She moves to the edge of the stage, eyes never lifting. She walks slowly in a square around the stage’s perimeter. Where she steps, the floor creaks in a deeper register.)
(The second—THE ARCHIVIST—carries a large, flat slate covered in ash. From time to time, he takes a feather and carefully brushes a pattern into the surface. Each pattern vanishes moments after it’s completed. He repeats this for the remainder of the scene.)
(The Binder stops. Turns toward the audience.)
(She stares. Long. Her presence is full of judgement. After a long moment, she produces a long, flat knife and calmly draws it across her open palm. There is no blood. She licks the blade clean.)
(Camilla and Cassilda do not respond.)
CASSILDA
(Almost inaudible)
Witnesses.
CAMILLA
Or scribes.
(The Archivist draws a perfect circle in the ash. It begins to spin.)
(The Binder removes something from her coat: a marionette that resembles Camilla. She holds it delicately, stroking its hair. Then she snaps its head back with a sharp twitch. She smiles—barely visible through the veil.)
CASSILDA
(Whispers)
We should have burned the script.
CAMILLA
We only copied what was already there.
(All four stand still. The mirror begins to glow faintly. The ash circle burns with cold light. The curtain begins to flutter—as if something large breathes just beyond.)
(Blackout.)
(The stage is lit again, but skewed—colors are slightly wrong, geometry distorted. All sounds now have faint reverb. A bell rings but seems to echo upward.)
(Camilla sits on the floor, muttering softly.)
CAMILLA
(Eyes distant) The worms in the prayer book… they fed on vowels. Not consonants. Always the soft sounds first.
(A dissonant chime. The Archivist violently strikes his ash-slate with his palm. The ash vanishes midair. He looks up, directly into the audience.)
ARCHIVIST
(Screaming suddenly, distorted voice) THERE IS NO BIRTH THAT DOES NOT BEGIN WITH ROT!
(Silence. Then a low moan, from under the stage.)
(Cassilda enters, barefoot, dress wet to the knees. Her hands are covered in black ink. She does not acknowledge the others.)
CASSILDA
They made me drink from the spoon carved of kneecaps.
(She stares forward, eyes twitching.)
I can taste the sermons now.
(The Binder carefully opens a small velvet pouch and tips out a living creature—too small to identify. It writhes unnaturally. She crushes it under her bare heel. A wet sound.)
CAMILLA
(Smiling faintly) The Pope screamed. Just once.
(A choir of invisible children begins humming—a warping, rising scale that never resolves.)
CASSILDA
(Whispers, rhythmically) The King sits where there are no chairs. The King sits where there are no chairs.
(Suddenly, the Archivist throws ash into the air and screams a word that cannot be transcribed. All lights flicker. The audience hears a crack like bones.)
(The mirror begins to pulse with dull light. The marionette now hangs from the ceiling by wire, head turned backward.)
CAMILLA
(Still sitting) Is it over?
(Silence. Then a wet cough from behind the curtain.)
CASSILDA
It’s only the middle.
[Scene resumes. The lights rise, flickering. The set has changed completely. The floor is now raw dirt, damp, uneven. A massive, crumbling altar dominates stage right, made of stacked office chairs and animal bones. Stage left, a single rusted urinal is mounted on a wall of velvet. Everything smells of copper and mold.]
(A new figure emerges from beneath the dirt. He is naked but painted head-to-toe in gold leaf, flaking. His movements are jerky, insect-like. This is THE DEACON.)
(He mutters in broken Finnish.)
THE DEACON
“Keltainen… katedraali… liha… sää… ei mikään…”
(Yellow… cathedral… flesh… weather… nothing…)
(He crawls across the stage, sniffing the dirt like an animal.)
(From stage right, another new character enters: THE MIDWIFE. She wears a bishop’s miter and a surgical gown spattered with ink. Her mouth is sewn shut, but she speaks clearly in mispronounced Czech.)
THE MIDWIFE
“Tohle není jazyk. Je to hmyz.”
(This is not language. It is insect.)
(The Deacon screams and convulses. Camilla and Cassilda are now seated in pews that were not there a moment ago. They do not seem surprised.)
CAMILLA
They dug out his tongue… and found another sermon beneath it.
CASSILDA
The King writes on flesh. It is his paper.
(The Deacon stands now. From his chest he pulls a length of rosary beads threaded with teeth. He offers it to the Midwife. She bows and places it in her mouth, chewing slowly.)
(The mirror now hangs upside down above the altar. It drips something thick and dark.)
(From beneath the stage, a moan. Then another.)
CAMILLA
They come to us backwards. They come remembering things we never lived.
(A third figure—THE ACOLYTE—enters. They are faceless, wrapped in lace and mud. They carry a dead piglet like a swaddled child.)
THE ACOLYTE
(Moaning in an unknown language, then clear English)
“Would you like to see the wedding?”
(They giggle. Then silence.)
(A sudden sharp chord. Light narrows to the altar. The Deacon climbs onto it. The Midwife follows.)
(With slow, ritualized gestures, she opens her gown and lays back. The Deacon begins a mock-sacrament, grotesque in rhythm, slowly becoming unmistakably sexual. It is liturgical, obscene, and reverent. The act is deliberate. Blasphemous. The mirror drips faster.)
CAMILLA
(Standing, voice clear)
This is the gospel of the body, written in perversion and blood.
CASSILDA
Every ecstasy is a page.
(The Acolyte claps slowly. The Binder reappears, eating pages from a hymnal.)
(The lights flicker violently. A deep vibrating sound begins—inhuman, industrial.)
THE MIDWIFE
(Mouth full of beads and broken language)
“In nomine regis flavi. Nihil est verum.”
(In the name of the yellow king. Nothing is true.)
(The stage shakes. Blackout.)
(Blackout.)
(A single amber spotlight.)
(The sound of shallow, wet breathing. Then, the bleating cry of an infant—high-pitched, rhythmic, and wrong. Not human. Not quite animal. Like a goat with lungs full of fluid.)
(From stage left, THE ACOLYTE re-enters. They carry a bundled baby, swaddled in sackcloth and rope. The cry grows louder with each step.)
(The Acolyte lays the infant gently in the dirt at downstage right, in a shadowy corner. No one looks at it. The crying continues.)
CAMILLA
(Still facing the audience)
They said it was born from silence. But it came screaming.
CASSILDA
It has no eyes.
(Beat)
It sees perfectly.
(The pews are now gone. The altar has grown somehow—twisting vertically like bone scaffolding. Something pulsates at its center, behind mesh.)
(The MIDWIFE begins crawling toward the mirror, now cracked. She drools a thick yellow fluid that steams on the dirt.)
(Stage left—THE BINDER rings a bell carved from ivory. The ring is choked, muffled, but persistent.)
(A new figure slips from the shadows behind the altar: THE BLACK DEVIL. He is painted slick with tar, wearing ram horns and a latex cassock, open at the back. He crawls on all fours at first. Then upright. He does not break eye contact with someone in the audience. He singles them out. Points.)
(The baby begins convulsing. Still crying. Its limbs move wrong—jerky, twitching.)
(THE BLACK DEVIL stands still. Then begins to smile—slow, wide, too many teeth.)
(Suddenly, a man from the audience begins to laugh. It is not ordinary laughter. It is shrill, gasping, unnatural. Like a choking crow. He cannot stop.)
(Cast members do not acknowledge the man. The Black Devil slowly walks to the edge of the stage, never looking away from him.)
CASSILDA
One always answers. One always sees him.
CAMILLA
He is part of it now.
(THE ARCHIVIST draws a sigil in the dirt with his foot. The dirt begins to smoke.)
(The mirror spins violently on its axis. Every few seconds it shows a distorted reflection of the stage—except the baby is never in it.)
THE BLACK DEVIL
(Whispering directly to the audience)
You wrote this. You wrote this. You signed it. Don’t you remember?
(The crying continues. Now it’s echoing. The altar begins to moan softly, almost with pleasure. The baby laughs. It bleats again. It mimics words.)
BABY
Maaaaa…saaah… king…
(The voice is wet, like lungs full of sap.)
CAMILLA
(Whispers)
He’s crawling up through the floorboards.
(The stage lights dim into jaundiced yellow. A long wooden cross at the back begins to bleed ink from its base.)
(The man in the audience is now openly sobbing while laughing. His hands grip the chair in front of him. No one helps him.)
CASSILDA
The play cannot stop. The play cannot stop.
(Beat)
Not while you are still watching.
(The mirror shatters—slowly, impossibly, soundlessly. The baby sighs.)
(Blackout.)
(Blackout. Then a sound like stone dragged across stone, endlessly.)
(Dim light reveals the stage now scattered with raw meat, spread like wet confetti. The dirt is black and sticky. The pews are upside down. The infant lies center stage, still bundled, still sobbing—but now its cries sound unmistakably like a human plea.)
BABY
Maah… mah… ammaa…
(The voice trembles with actual emotion now. Begging.)
(The MIDWIFE stands in the remains of the shattered mirror. Her sewn-shut mouth has torn open—bloodied, her lips ragged. She begins to hum a cradle song, tuneless, soft. Then she points upward.)
(A ladder descends slowly from the rafters. THE ARCHIVIST climbs it halfway, then turns and begins to address the audience directly, with grandeur and slow cadence.)
ARCHIVIST
ᠬᠤᠷᠢᠭ ᠪᠠᠶᠢᠯᠭᠠ ᠬᠠᠭᠠᠯᠲᠠ ᠬᠡᠷᠡ ᠮᠠᠭᠠᠨ ᠨᠠᠷᠠᠳᠤᠯᠤᠭᠠ ᠬᠠᠷᠠᠭᠠᠯ…
(Ancient Mongolian: “The river is dry, the wolf has fed, and in the folds of heaven the bones of the father shift uneasily…”)*
(He continues. It is beautiful. Alien. Untranslated. Each word is like a blade being drawn. His voice trembles with the weight of deep ancestry, as if reciting a real curse.)
(He stretches his hand out, slowly, palm down—over the audience. Not gesturing at them, but as if pronouncing doom. The voice rises. The rhythm accelerates. Mongolian syllables pour like wet stones.)
ARCHIVIST
ᠮᠠᠭᠠᠨ ᠬᠠᠭᠠᠯ ᠬᠠᠬᠢ ᠲᠤᠷᠢᠭᠤᠯ…
(*“And the child who sees the King must never speak the name of his mother…”)**
(The BABY screams—not as an animal now, but as a soul in agony. It pleads. The sound is unmistakable. It is speaking words now, in a crushed voice like glass in milk.)
BABY
Please. Please. Please stop. Please not again. Not again. Please—
(The voice is choking. High and sharp. Painfully human.)
(The audience is forced to listen. The sound fills the theatre with raw need and emotional exposure. The Archivist continues chanting, unmoved.)
(From stage right, a Catholic priest’s vestments slowly drift in, suspended by nothing. They hang in midair. A heartbeat begins, slow and loud. It is felt more than heard.)
CASSILDA
(Softly)
The blood remembers even when the tongue does not.
CAMILLA
(Weeping now)
This was never a stage. This was always the inside of a skull.
(THE BLACK DEVIL reappears at the edge of the stage, holding a torch. He lowers it toward the baby. The audience cannot tell if it’s fire or light or something else.)
(The crying stops. Not because the pain ended. Because the voice is gone.)
(A long moment.)
(The Archivist descends the ladder in total silence. His face is smeared with ash. The poem has ended.)
ARCHIVIST
(Finally, in plain English)
You are complicit now.
(Blackout.)
(A single candle lights center stage. The flame moves without wind. It bends unnaturally. The set is gone—there is no altar, no mirror, no dirt—only void, fog, and the pale candle flame. From this emptiness, CAMILLA walks forward, barefoot, soaked in something dark.)
CAMILLA
(Voice cracking)
I was told to wait. I waited until my skin peeled.
They did not come.
They sent symbols instead. And now the symbols want to breed.
(A low guttural chant begins beneath her words—untraceable, rhythmic, human-throated but not language. The fog parts as THE MIDWIFE appears, holding a lantern made of vertebrae and teeth. Its light is greenish, refracted.)
(The ground rumbles. Very faintly. The candle extinguishes by itself.)
CASSILDA
(Entering slowly, her mouth stitched with black thread)
We buried God in the orchard behind the orphanage.
We used the Eucharist as soil.
He did not decay.
(A sudden clang—a hanging iron gate descends from above, landing loudly between audience and stage. It does not obscure the view—it simply stands there, useless. Imposing.)
(From the rafters, The Binder descends slowly, upside down, in prayer position, hands clasped. She speaks in tongues, fluid and violent, spit flying.)
THE BINDER
Zaaa–raa–tok–na! Kali-uht-nah Hali! Hali! Hali!
(The syllables are wrong. Biblical and bacterial.)
(The altar returns, but it is now burning—black fire, no smoke, no heat. The flames move inward.)
(From beneath it, a hand slowly reaches up—pale, long-fingered, inhuman. It twitches, and withdraws.)
ARCHIVIST
(Offstage, echoing)
Do you see now?
The play does not want an ending.
It wants an offspring.
(The Black Devil scuttles back onstage, dragging a leather-bound grimoire. He opens it and vomits black feathers onto the pages.)
(From far upstage, a CHOIR OF MASKED CHILDREN enters, single file, faces blank, some backwards. They carry bones arranged in crosses, inverted and corrected at random. They begin to sing, not with voices but with recorded sobbing played backward.)
CAMILLA
(Shouting over it)
Stop it! This was never meant to happen!
This was a fable! A lie! A… reflection!
CASSILDA
(Quietly)
But the mirror never lies. Only the one who looks.
(The BABY, still curled in its rags, opens its eyes now. They are burning sigils. The crying does not return. Instead, it grins.)
BABY
(Whispers)
Daddy’s home.
(The iron gate swings open slowly by itself. The Archivist enters through the audience this time, barefoot, wearing a bishop’s mitre and nothing else. He sprinkles ashes from his hands, over the heads of those he passes.)
ARCHIVIST
In the name of the King,
The Yellow Father of All Things Broken,
You are now part of the Sacrament of Knowing.
(The lights flicker violently. The altar swells and cracks. It is breathing. A sound like teeth chattering inside bone begins.)
(Blackout.)
(Darkness.)
(A sustained theremin tone begins—low, rising, organic, like breath from a machine. It resonates deep in the chest.)
(Lights return very dimly. The stage is almost empty now.)
(At center: a single throne, old and brutalist in design—more monolith than chair. It appears to be carved from salt, rust, or bone. Draped across it is an ochre veil, thick, dusty. A motionless figure sits beneath it. Head slightly tilted. Hands not visible. The figure does not breathe, twitch, or acknowledge anything. It is not a prop. It is too still to be safe.)
(The Theremin moan continues. It is joined by sub-bass, rattling like distant thunder.)
(Blackout.)
(New scene. The light returns in deep red. The tone remains.)
(Stage left: THE BLACK DEVIL now hangs by the neck from a cord descending from the fly system. His body jerks subtly as if newly dead. Beneath him, the bundled BABY lies on its back. Fluids—thick, oily, and dark—drip from the Devil’s mouth, fingers, groin. They fall directly onto the BABY’S face and lips.)
(The BABY giggles. It opens its mouth and suckles the dripping juice, gurgling happily. The noise is obscene and joyful.)
CASSILDA
(Offstage, amplified)
Behold your heir.
CAMILLA
(Whispers)
He drinks lies. They taste like milk.
(The BINDER reappears, naked now, smeared in ink. She walks into the audience with a small book, torn at the spine. She reads aloud into the faces of random attendees.)
BINDER
(Each line delivered with quiet, furious intensity)
You invented cruelty and hid it behind coins.
You called it justice and sold it to the poor.
You built spires to shout at a god who no longer listens.
You gave the name of “reason” to the disease in your mouth.
You carved borders on the skin of the earth.
You erased the face of the child and replaced it with price.
(Pause. She spits ink on the floor.)
ARCHIVIST
(From the stage, chanting in rising madness)
You tore stars from the womb of the sky and named it conquest.
You built towers from the bones of dreamers and called it progress.
You trapped time in circuits and called it knowledge.
You forgot how to weep.
You taught your children not to dream.
(Pause. The BABY begins to speak.)
BABY
I forgive you.
(Beat)
No I don’t.
(A vibration begins in the audience’s seats. Very subtle. Then grows. An ultrasonic pitch plays briefly—enough to induce nausea. Some lights burst and pop overhead.)
(The figure on the throne does not move. But the ochre cloth begins to breathe in and out—slowly, rhythmically. Dust rises from it with each exhale.)
(Suddenly, the ARCHIVIST screams in a new, alien tongue—a torrent of words, gurgled and spit—he points violently into the audience.)
ARCHIVIST
You! You! You left the altar empty! You put nails in the sun! You wept over mirrors while your hands built slaughterhouses!
(The BABY laughs hysterically, flailing its limbs. It rolls in the dirt soaked with the Black Devil’s fluids.)
CAMILLA
(Quietly)
They wanted a savior.
We gave them a feeder.
(The THEREMIN shrieks suddenly, a single horrible tone. Then cuts to silence.)
(Blackout.)
(Blackout.)
(Silence. No breathing, no Theremin. A full minute passes.)
(Lights return. Pale grey. Like the color of an infected wound under water.)
(The ochre-covered throne is now elevated on a dais of human limbs—stone carvings writhing beneath it. The ochre cloth still breathes. The figure beneath has not moved. The throne now hums, like a dying generator.)
(Stage right: the BABY is gone. In its place, a small wooden cage sits open. Blood drips from the top bars. Inside: a book bound in living skin, twitching.)
CASSILDA
(Downstage, expression unreadable)
They say we chose this.
But I remember being chosen.
And I remember not being asked.
(THE ARCHIVIST stands center stage, arms raised, cruciform. His eyes are gone. Black sockets weep golden ichor down his cheeks.)
ARCHIVIST
(Softly)
We offered you salvation.
You asked for spectacle.
(He turns, slowly, deliberately, to face the throne.)
ARCHIVIST
Show them.
(The ochre cloth twitches, once. Then settles.)
(Silence.)
(A new character enters from the audience aisle: THE CENSOR. Wearing a business suit made of thin, translucent skin. The face is smooth—no eyes, no mouth, only a lipless orifice where the forehead should be. It walks with a cane made of bone and fiber optics.)
(THE CENSOR moves to the center of the stage and begins to pull words out of its forehead—long banners of glyphs that drip ink. One by one, it hands these banners to members of the audience. If they do not accept, it lays them gently at their feet.)
(Each banner reads phrases in indecipherable script. One banner simply reads, in English: “YOU WATCHED.”)
CAMILLA
They won’t remember what they saw.
They’ll say it was symbolic.
CASSILDA
They’ll say we didn’t mean it.
(The BINDER now kneels at the foot of the throne and begins licking the filthy dais with reverent care. Her tongue leaves a glowing trail. It spells nothing comprehensible.)
(THE ARCHIVIST holds up a severed arm—grey, desiccated—and recites from it like a scroll.)
ARCHIVIST
You wore the bones of prophets as costume.
You shat in the holy fonts.
You crowned your trauma and called it virtue.
You swallowed history and vomited branding.
You said love, but meant leverage.
You took and took and took—
(He breaks off. Drops the arm.)
(The throne cloth flutters. The hum grows slightly louder.)
(Suddenly, the BINDER rises and begins to strip Camilla of her dress, slowly, meticulously, with surgical reverence. Camilla does not resist. She stands naked. Covered in scripture. Her skin has been tattooed with words written in reverse, some scratched in blood.)
CAMILLA
(To the audience)
You wanted a body.
So here it is.
(She walks into the aisle. Offers herself to the audience with outstretched arms. No one touches her. But the lights flicker violently when she reaches the third row.)
CASSILDA
The play is no longer fiction.
It is documentation.
(Blackout.)
(Total darkness.)
(Not stage darkness. The entire theatre. Exit lights off. No glow. The void is whole.)
(Silence. Long.)
(Then… the faint sound of a chair scraping. One person stands.)
(Dim, sickly spotlight fades up. It reveals: a single audience member now standing on stage, center. They wear a mundane civilian suit—tie askew, pants rumpled. Their body is covered entirely in grey ash—head to toe. His face is soaked in tears. He trembles.)
(He looks out into the audience. He looks directly at us. It is unclear if this person was planted—or if they were chosen mid-performance.)
THE WITNESS
(Voice cracking, whispering at first)
You’re still here.
(A pause. Deep breath. Then he erupts into a flood of words—fast, crumbling, unfiltered, half-poetic hysteria. He begins to cry.)
THE WITNESS
I saw the Act before.
I saw the second veil opened.
I heard the child in the bone cradle whisper my name backwards.
I saw the King.
Not masked. Not crowned.
I saw what sits behind cause and memory—
You must LEAVE.
(He sobs.)
It doesn’t care if you understand.
It’s not theatre anymore.
It’s not safe anymore.
You should not have stayed for this—
(He falls to his knees, gasping, clawing at his own chest, sobbing.)
THE WITNESS
It’s in the second act! The real act! The one behind the curtain of time—
Please leave, please… get up. Move. Move now. Run. RUN. It comes when you doubt it.
(Suddenly, a droplet of blood lands on his forehead. He stops. Looks up. Another drop. And another. A slow rain of thick, warm blood begins to fall onto him from the darkness above. The spotlight shrinks tighter.)
(His sobs become weaker. He continues, but now between wheezing gasps.)
THE WITNESS
They wrote the second act in bone. In childhood nightmares. In the cracks of hospice walls—
They buried the script in a dead dog’s mouth—
You still have time.
Please. Don’t applaud. Don’t stay. Don’t finish the wine. Just go.
I’m begging you…
(He tries to crawl toward the edge of the stage, dragging himself across the floor like an injured dog.)
(More blood falls. The ash on his body becomes sludge.)
THE WITNESS
(Last gasp)
He watches through the eyes you do not close…
THE WITNESS
(Choking on ash)
No no no no no no—
You’re not meant to see this—
You’re not meant to KNOW this—
We were told! We were WARNED in signs made of teeth! The walls bled! The moon folded in half like parchment! You didn’t LISTEN—
(He claws at the edge of the stage, smearing black fluid across the boards.)
I tried to leave.
I bit my tongue off in the lobby.
I tore the ticket in half and swallowed both sides—
But they still called my name from the curtain! They still found my seat! They wrote me in!
(Screaming now)
I AM NOT IN THE SCRIPT! I AM NOT SUPPOSED TO BE IN THE SCRIPT!
(He turns back toward the center of the stage, eyes wide and unfocused, as if seeing someone… or something… standing where the throne was.)
THE WITNESS
(Whispers)
Oh. Oh. Oh, I see you now.
You wear all of us as a coat.
You are stitched from the backs of the faithful…
You’re dressed in regrets. You reek of weddings and failed suicides. You are everything we buried with our childhoods—
(He coughs violently. Blood. Then laughter. Then he screams again.)
THE WITNESS
It’s in the laughter. That’s where He lives now. Behind irony. Behind emojis. Behind every ‘I’m fine’ that’s a lie—
He’s in the giggle of a dying thing! He’s in the scroll! He’s in the CLICK!
GET OUT!
Please… just get out. Please leave. I’ll do anything. I’ll eat the script. I’ll eat the mirror. I’ll marry the baby! Just—
(A blinding white strobe flashes once. The Witness is silenced mid-sentence. He stiffens. Goes still.)
(The blood stops falling. Silence again.)
(He vomits a mouthful of ashes. Collapses, twitching.)
(The spotlight cuts out.)
(Total darkness. Sound of a door slowly creaking open somewhere—enormous. Echoing.)
SECOND ACT.
(will follow soon)