Chapter 2: The Silent Star

Chapter 2: The Silent Star

He couldn't sleep. The image of Liam and Chloe’s vacant, happy faces was burned into his mind. Their words, delivered with such gentle, horrifying conviction, echoed in the silent house: You just need to see it for yourself, Percy.

It was a dare. A trap. A diagnosis. And Percy, driven by a desperate need to understand what had hollowed out his friends, knew he had to spring it. The fear was a living thing in his gut, coiling and uncoiling, but the alternative—living in a town of smiling zombies, completely alone with a truth no one else could see—was infinitely worse. He had to know.

He grabbed his worn-out jacket and slipped out into the moonless night. The walk to the Mountain Rim Theater felt like a pilgrimage to his own execution. The building loomed at the end of Main Street, a decaying monument to a time when people came here for genuine joy, not for whatever this was. The marquee, which usually flashed the name of some tired blockbuster, was starkly lit with just three words in plain, blocky letters: A GOOD FILM.

The lobby was almost silent, the air thick and musty with the smell of old popcorn and something else, something cloying and sweet like overripe fruit. A handful of other people were there for the 11:30 PM showing, a mix of bored teenagers and weary-looking adults. None of them spoke. They moved with a strange, listless purpose, their faces already smoothed over with a kind of blank anticipation.

The ticket-taker was a stooped old man who didn't meet Percy’s eyes. He simply took the crumpled ten-dollar bill, slid a plain white ticket under the glass, and gestured toward the darkened hallway with a single, skeletal finger. No "enjoy the show," no "theater on your right." Just the gesture.

Percy’s heart hammered a frantic rhythm against his ribs as he found a seat in the back row of the half-empty theater. The red velvet seats were patched with duct tape, and the screen before him was stained and ancient. He clutched the armrests, his knuckles white. He considered running, bolting back out into the night and leaving this whole nightmare behind, but a glance at the other patrons stopped him. They sat perfectly still, their gazes fixed on the dark screen, a congregation waiting for a sermon.

The lights didn't dim; they simply shut off, plunging the room into an absolute, suffocating blackness. The silence that followed was profound, deeper than the quiet in the commercial. It felt heavy, expectant. Then, with a soft whir and a crackle of static, the screen flickered to life.

There were no previews, no studio logos.

Just a grainy, black-and-white image of a mime.

He stood in a stark white void, his face painted dead white with black diamonds around his eyes and a grotesquely wide, painted-on smile. He wore the classic striped shirt, black trousers, and beret. For a moment, he did nothing, just stood there, smiling that unblinking, painted smile. A few nervous chuckles rippled through the audience.

The mime began to move. His first act was familiar, goofy. He pretended to be trapped in a box, his hands pressing against invisible walls, his face a mask of comical panic. The audience relaxed. Percy felt a sliver of his own tension ease. Maybe Chloe was right. Maybe it was just some weird, edgy art film.

But the tone began to shift. The mime’s movements grew sharper, more frantic. The invisible box seemed to shrink, and his comical panic curdled into something that looked horribly real. His silent screams were no longer funny; they were desperate. His body contorted as if under immense pressure, and the painted smile seemed to stretch, becoming a horrifying rictus of agony. The chuckles in the audience died, replaced by a tense, uneasy silence.

The box vanished. The mime straightened up, dusting himself off with a flourish. He then began a new routine. He mimed pulling a long, invisible rope, hand over hand, straining with the effort. It seemed he was pulling something heavy towards him. He grunted silently, his muscles bunching. Finally, he pulled one last time and held up his prize: a small, invisible bird, cupped in his hands. He stroked it gently, cooed at it, a look of tender affection on his painted face.

Then, without warning, he crushed it.

His hands clenched into tight fists. He brought the imaginary carcass to his mouth, and with a disturbingly carnal relish, began to mime tearing it apart and eating it, his jaw working, his eyes wide with predatory glee. A woman in the front row gasped.

The performance grew darker still. The mime produced an invisible knife and began to carve the air, not with the playful swish of a stage prop, but with vicious, stabbing motions. He turned his attention to his own body, miming the act of cutting open his stomach. He reached inside, his face a mask of ecstatic discovery, and pulled out a string of invisible sausages, which he proceeded to juggle with manic energy. The painted smile never faltered. It was the smile of a lunatic, a butcher, a god of some silent, monochrome hell.

Percy was no longer watching a performance. He was witnessing a ritual. This wasn't a pre-show; this was the main event. It was hypnotic, mesmerizing, and utterly vile. He wanted to look away, to shut his eyes, but he couldn't. The mime’s gaze seemed to bore through the screen, pinning him to his seat. He felt a strange lethargy creeping into his limbs, a sweet, hazy fog clouding his thoughts. The frantic terror in his chest was being smoothed over by a tide of calm.

The mime finished his juggling act, catching the last invisible sausage in his mouth and swallowing it with a gulp. He faced the audience, his chest heaving from the silent exertion. He spread his arms wide, as if to embrace them all. His face filled the entire screen, the painted smile a gaping chasm in the white expanse of his face. He held the pose for a long, silent moment.

Then he took a single, deep, theatrical bow.

The screen cut to absolute black. The whirring of the projector stopped. The silence returned, thick and total.

For a moment, nothing happened. Then, the stark white letters appeared, the same font from the commercial, burning against the black.

ENJOY.

The word was a command. A trigger. A key turning in a lock deep inside Percy's skull. A blinding white light flared from the screen, flooding the theater, and with it came a wave of pure, unadulterated bliss. It was warm and soothing, washing away the fear, the disgust, the memory of the grotesque mime. It washed away everything.

The next thing Percy knew, he was standing on the sidewalk outside the theater. The night air was cool on his cheeks. A serene, easy smile rested on his lips. He felt… wonderful. He felt light. The heavy wool blanket of Mountain Rim's oppressive atmosphere had been lifted. The anger, the frustration, the desperate need to escape—all of it was gone, replaced by a placid, humming contentment.

He looked up at the marquee. A GOOD FILM. What a perfect name. It had been a good film. The best, in fact.

What was it about?

He paused, his smile unwavering. He searched his mind. There was nothing. A perfect, clean, ninety-minute void. He couldn’t remember buying the ticket. He couldn’t remember the mime. He couldn’t remember the word on the screen. There was only a before, and this wonderful, peaceful after.

He chuckled softly to himself. Liam and Chloe were right. He had been overthinking things. Winding himself up over nothing. Now, he understood. The point wasn't to remember. The point was to forget.

He turned for home, his steps light and even. A terrifying, ninety-minute hole had been scooped out of his life, and he didn’t even know it was gone. All he knew was the sweet, empty peace that had been poured in to take its place. But somewhere, in the deepest, most stubborn recess of his mind, a single, silent scream was just beginning to echo.