Author's Note: Here's the next update. Thanks to those who reviewed the previous chapter. Weirder… Weirder… It gets weirder with every chapter, ne? You only have to put up with a few more chapters, so please bear with me ^______^ Arigatou!

CHAPTER FIVE: THE THEATER

When I woke up the very next day, I saw all the members of the troupe putting all the things that they would be needing for the play onto a truck. I looked for my friend Sadako and found her standing next to her twin in a corner.

Upon catching sight of me, the Little Sadako immediately asked, "Where have you been?"

"I slept," I replied as I approached them. Of course, you shouldn't forget that we were both cloaked in invisibility, as was always the case. "Where are they going?" I asked, jerking my thumb over my shoulder to point at the propsmen busily stuffing the large truck with various things compromised of home appliance, lighting and the like…

"They're going to the theater to arrange the place," she said just as the taller Sadako slowly walked away.

"Board the truck," the Little Sadako told me in the authoritative voice that had always made the littlest of my cells vibrate with unspoken apprehension. I nodded like an obedient kid as I watched her follow her twin to a sleek car parked nearby. Of course, they wouldn't let their main actress board the truck along with the props, would they?

When they were both out of sight, I did what I was told to do. I had to anyway, for how else could I go to the theater if I didn't do that? And upon reaching the theater where the troupe was set to perform, the very first thing I noted about it was that, it was big. Bigger than the one I saw in the movie. Though a lot of things around this era sure resembled much of the movie, there were still stuffs that looked different… Deviant from its representations in the silver screen.

Then again, how could I expect a movie to resemble reality to the dot anyway?

I caught a glimpse of my friend watching from the backstage. I looked around a little bit more before settling myself in the front seat and eyeing the bustle of activity in front of me. While the propsmen were running around the stage, putting things in their respective places, the taller Sadako walked cautiously in and began shuffling slowly through while mumbling to herself and experimenting with gestures to accentuate her lines.

She was engrossed in this activity when a couple of reporters walked into the theater, looking for the genius director behind this highly anticipated and very much advertised play. The guy with the camera took pictures of the troupe while the woman had a little chat with the director who had been watching the rehearsing Sadako from a few tiers higher than where I was. I snapped my attention up to them for while, until the woman suddenly asked about the troupe's apprentice who was to play the major role. The director pointed right at the oblivious Sadako and subsequently, I found my eyes following the two busybodies from who-knows-where as they made their way to the stage.

The taller Sadako stopped practicing and looked curiously at the couple as they approached her with nothing but friendliness and good intentions printed all over their faces. The woman was even smiling at her and I was so sure that Sadako herself was about to hurl a hesitant smile her way when the guy suddenly raised his camera and took a picture.

Startled by the sudden flash of blinding light, Sadako immediately raised her arms to shield her face. Another flash and Sadako was forced to take a step backward… And, lo, who was that beside her? The little Sadako! Perhaps, she had intended to help her twin, but as it turned out, she was also getting distracted by the camera. Her arms were also raised over her face, in a manner identical to her twin.

The woman reporter was asking her questions, but I doubt if the taller Sadako was even able to make out a single word she was saying. The reporter and her cameraman advanced forward with each backward step that the two Sadakos took.

Flash… Flash… Another flash, and then… This utter insolence on the part of these meddlers was soon paid their opportune reward. A stifled shriek escaped the woman's throat as the camera's light bulb suddenly burst. The startled man simply gazed with wide eyes at the utterly agitated Sadako, who wasted no time in turning on her heels and running away into the backstage, her equally agitated twin in tow.

A few seconds more of trying to calm their ballistic senses and the two nosey snoops were on their way out, still looking a bit dazed by what had just happened.

I was rushing to the backstage to offer my help when my friend suddenly burst out from it and cried, "Coltopi, follow them!"

And how could I possibly oppose my highly manipulative friend's demand?

Without thinking twice, I followed them and soon found out that they knew about the virus all along--well, at least the woman reporter did and was even plotting out a revenge against my friend's twin. As was in the movie, the woman's fiancé had a brush with the virus himself and did look that her spirits would not be pacified until she avenged the yet unjustified crime done on her beloved.

I quickly returned to the theater, but when I did there was not a single soul around. Or at least, that's what I thought so at first, until I decided to scour the place and saw the director's lifeless body lying in a bloody heap behind some props in the backstage [well, since he was dead… there was not a single soul in there after all =P]. I was stumped, but there was no one to ask around so I just went outside and waited for my friend until morning came.

Early the next day, she came trailing behind her twin and the soundman. The two taller people went straight into the theater in a rush while my friend stopped before me. And though her drapery of hair shrouded any kind of visible emotion on her face, I knew she wanted to know what I found out yesterday…

"Sadako, the woman from yesterday wants to kill your twin," I replied to her unstated question.

"I thought so," she said in a quiet, cryptic voice. "That's why I'm fusing with her again… little by little."

tbc