"ASPEN MCKAY, THIS IS A PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT! IT IS TIME FOR YOU TO GET OFF YOUR LAZY BUM, AND GET BACK TO WORK!"

The announcement was followed by the squawk of a megaphone echoing throughout the ancient halls of the theater. Aspen sighed as she moved to remove her earbuds from her ears. She still technically had five more minutes of her break before she went back to work. She looked down at the song she had, had to pause on her playlist before lifting her eyes to look at the mirrors that surrounded her on all sides.

"ASPEN MCKAY! YOU CAN'T IGNORE..."

"JEON JUNGKOOK, SHUT IT!" Aspen screamed back.

The megaphone seemed to suddenly die then which caused Aspen to smirk. Jungkook was having far too much fun continuing to clean out the prop closet while she was gone. She had just stepped away for a fifteen minute break, but that was apparently enough time for him to get into trouble. Wrapping her earbuds and cord around her phone, she stood up from where she sat to walk back into the main lobby of the theater.

The domed ceiling above her seemed to reach up to the heavens. If it wasn't for the cheap red carpet that had replaced the tiles that had once been there, Aspen knew her footsteps would echo throughout the place. She wondered briefly what it had sounded like back in the day to hear such a thunderous sound around you as you entered the theater. It would have been like the applause of feet before the applause of hands.

"Where is he?" asked Aspen as she peeked into the prop closet to see that Jungkook was no where in sight.

When she heard no answer, she turned to look at Park Jimin behind the counter. He was currently cleaning out the popcorn machine, turning to look at Aspen with a shrug of his shoulders. Aspen walked over to the snack counter, placing both of her palms face down on the surface.

"He bribed you, didn't he?"

"Why would you say that?" asked Jimin as he turned away from his cleaning.

"Stop avoiding my questions," said Aspen.

These boys never seemed to change. Not so long as Aspen had known them.

Aspen had grown up as an only child with parents that were more concerned with work than they were with raising her. Aspen spent her younger, formative years being raised by different nannies, or being sent off to boarding schools. The only reason she ended up at the dramatic arts school was because - when she was thirteen - she had guilt tripped her parents into paying the tuition to let her attend. Luckily they realized that they owed their daughter they paid no attention to, and paid to enroll her. Aspen had ended up attending the same dramatic arts school as Jimin and Jungkook. The three of them became fast friends, even renting an apartment together after graduating so they could help support each other towards their dreams. Both of them had become the family that Aspen never had.

Jimin, Jungkook, and Aspen had all taken a job at the historic theater downtown two years ago. The theater had changed with the times, but had still kept some of its original characteristics intact. When it first opened, the theater was home to a plethora of stage productions. When stage productions became less popular, they started to hang screens on the stages to allow for movies to be shown. It started with silent black and white films in the 1930s, and then lead up to the colorful and action packed films of today. However, it didn't seem to matter that the theater was adjusting to the times. No one seemed to visit the theater now. No one seemed to care about it.

"Tell me where the Kookie monster is hiding, or you will regret it later," said Aspen as she stared at Jimin.

"Aspen, I honestly have no clue where he ran off to," said Jimin. "I was cleaning out the popcorn machine, so I had my back turned. I could just hear him running off."

"I left for a break for fifteen minutes, and I feel like everything has dissolved into madness," said Aspen as she sighed, stalking towards the theater rooms.

"Don't hurt him!" called out Jimin after Aspen as he watched her storm off. "There are people around."

Yeah. Okay. Sure there were people around. The theater was barely holding on. People seemed to be choosing to stream movies more and more. There were less and less visitors by the week. If this kept up, Aspen knew the theater would close. She loved this place. She loved its history and what it meant to her as an artist. It would be a shame for it to just disappear as if it had never existed.

In an attempt to save the theater, the owners had decided to put on 'decade' weekends. This weekend everything was dedicated to the 1930s and the era of the black and white silent films. With everyone interested in all the actions movies nowadays, Jungkook, Jimin, and Aspen had all seen very few people trickle in. There were five theater rooms in total, and the number of patrons combined in all three was barely scratching into the double digit territory.

Which - as sad as it was - meant that Aspen wouldn't disturb anyone more than likely when she stormed into the theater rooms. Obviously Jungkook had run off and taken shelter in one of them.

She approached the first theater room. There were two ways that one could get into each of the five rooms. You could either go through the main door which would lead you into the main part of the auditorium, or take the staircase off to the left that led to the second floor of the theater and all the balcony entrances that went with each of the five rooms.

Not sure what path Jungkook had chosen, she started with the ground level first. He wasn't in the first theater room. Nor was he in the second, third, or fourth.

"Jeon Jungkook, you're a dead man," whispered Aspen as she grabbed the handle to the door of the fifth theater room.

Though the movie was still playing, this room was completely empty. No one wanted to see the silent film Black Swan apparently. No wonder it was in the last lonely and forgotten theater room. As she began to walk down the aisle with the movie playing in the background, she heard a loud squawk from the megaphone that caused her to jump.

"JUNGKOOK!" she screeched.

His laughter filled the auditorium. As Aspen's eyes adjusted to the light, she finally noticed him on the balcony as she turned around. She could make out the outline of the megaphone in his hand, and knew that - even though she couldn't see it at the moment - he more than likely had a wide grin on his face.

"You're so much fun to tease, Aspen," said Jungkook. He brought the megaphone to his mouth and said into it, "LADIES AND GENTLEMAN! WELCOME TO BLACK SWAN FEATURING ONE VERY JUMPY ASPEN MCKAY!!!!"

"You're lucky you're up in the balcony right now, or I'd kick your butt."

"Ha! I'd like to see you try!"

"You're going to get us fired."

"There's no one in this room, Aspen," said Jungkook. "It's just the movie playing to a non-existent audience. Who exactly would we be bothering?"

Aspen sighed and was trying to think of what to say next as she turned to look at the movie playing. The scene was in a monochromatic bedroom where a man stood looking at a flower painting.

No wonder people didn't choose to relive watching this movie. Who would want to sit there and watch something so boring? Why was the theater even wasting time showing it?

"Jungkook, I..."

Aspen had started to talk as she turned back around to see that Jungkook was no longer in the balcony. She sighed. Of course he was off trying to escape while he still could. She began to move to walk back up the aisle when she thought she heard something behind her. She felt the hair stand up on the back of her neck. Jungkook had even said they were alone. Had they both been mistaken and missed someone in the dark?

Turning back around, Aspen dug her phone out of her pocket, unplugging her earbuds to leave them in it. She unlocked her phone before clicking on the flashlight app to illuminate what was in front of her. She knew she should have laid off those true crime docuseries she had been watching before bed. It was filling her head with awful fantasies.

'Come on, Aspen.' She thought. 'You're twenty-five years old. You're in an empty theater room. There's no...'

Her thoughts paused as her flashlight beam landed on a man collapsed on the stage. The screen behind him was beginning to fade to black as the credits neared. He would have been unnoticed in the darkness if not for Aspen's light.

Quickly she made her way down towards the stage. Maybe she was seeing things, but the closer she got the more sure she was that she wasn't. She climbed the steps and walked across the stage until she was right beside him. He was dressed in an all black suit; his hair raven black. He looked almost as if he were asleep. Aspen slowly reached out a hand to touch the stranger on the shoulder.

"Hello? Can you hear me?" she asked.

Aspen was just about to call the emergency number when the man's eyes opened. He stared at the screen that was now playing the credits before looking over at Aspen; his eyes seeming to widen in fright when he saw her.