School drones on as boring as ever, and Ash hates it. She's in her last year, thank God, but graduation is still several months away. It certainly can't come soon enough, that's for sure.

Sitting in her second period English class, she tries to pay attention to the discussion they're having about the field trip they'd taken yesterday to see a production of Dracula. One of her classmates, Zach— who sits right behind her and is rather obnoxious sometimes, but popular— is talking about how there was a second actor to play the Wolf Man form of the title character, and he'd walk around through the seating in the unconventionally-shaped theatre. The Wolf Man had even jump-scared one of the audience members from behind.

Ash had already known that it would happen, having seen the show with her grandparents just a couple weeks prior, during Fall Break.

"I was on the edge of my seat during that part of the show," she admits, surprising herself and her classmates since she doesn't normally contribute in class discussions.

"Have you seen it before?" their teacher, Mrs. McKinnley, asks knowingly, and Ash nods sheepishly.

"My grandparents take me to go see it every year," she says softly. "And, um… I actually played the little girl for two seasons back in elementary school."

"Wait, how long have they been doing this show?" Someone asks, and Ash shrugs.

"Twenty years, at least," she says. "Most of the cast rotates, but it's been the same Renfield since their first season. He's phenomenal."

"I liked when he humped that chair," another student pipes up, making the whole class laugh.

"Wait, so—" Zach cuts in again. "If you know the show so well, why were you scared of the Wolf Man?"

"I was sitting in the back row," Ash clarifies. "I was nervous I'd be the one he'd scare. I don't really take well to jump scarers touching me…"

"So if I were to try to jump scare you…?" Zach trails off, inching his hands up like he's going to grab her shoulders suddenly.

"I'd punch you in the face," Ash says flatly, without any hesitation. "My fight or flight reflex is heavily weighted toward fight."

The whole class starts laughing again as Zach just splutters in response.

The class ends a few minutes later, and Ash heads toward her third period, where they're watching a movie today. Before the teacher turns off the lights, Ash quickly lowers her phone's screen brightness all the way down. The movie— Gone With the Wind— starts playing, but Ash doesn't pay much attention.

She scrolls through her phone instead, reading fanfiction.

The rest of the day, with exceptions to band and drama, is much the same. Her fourth period physics class is boring, sixth period study hall is nothing but phone time. Fifth period, her drama class, is a little unusual. They're having a pizza party to celebrate the in-school Halloween show they'd just put together the previous week, and watching A Very Potter Musical, which was suggested by one of Ash's classmates (actually the one who had introduced her to it back in the seventh grade, although the two are no longer exactly friends).

Band is seventh period, where they're putting together music for the Christmas concert.

The moment the final bell rang, Ash packs up her trumpet and bolts toward the parking lot to her car. She has to sit there for a couple minutes to let the car warm up in the early November air, but soon enough she's driving home. She plays the soundtrack of last year's Starkid show, The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals, and sings along at the top of her lungs.

When she gets home, Ash rushes through her homework and grabs a snack before heading to her room and booting up her laptop. She opens the link for her digital ticket of this year's Starkid show, one that is currently going. She's already watched the digital ticket three times, but she only has four hours left with it before it expires, so she decides to get one more viewing in while she still can.

Her phone buzzes constantly with notifications from the group chat, but she doesn't want to be distracted so she silences it for now.

?~~?

Her parents practically have to drag her out of her room for dinner, where they try to get her to talk to them.

Except Ash hasn't had much desire to talk to them since she came out as bisexual and her mother cried, and her father punched a hole in the wall.

Since that day— nearly three months ago, now— they'd acted like nothing had happened. Ash went along with it for the most part, never mentioning her crushes on female classmates and actresses. She doesn't talk about politics, doesn't talk about her friends online, doesn't talk about so many other things that Ash would love to talk to her parents about, if only they were a little more accepting of who she was. She hasn't bothered to tell them about her gender identity crisis and subsequent name-change.

If only they didn't try to sweep her under the rug like a dirty secret they didn't want to get out.

?~~?

It's nearly midnight, and she knows she should be asleep, but she isn't. She can't. The bright screen of her phone, less than a foot away from her face, is too distracting. She hasn't been this invested in something in a long time. Her friends, other teens she's never actually met before, are all awake, too.

Lucy and Cara are in the UK, so it's even worse for them. It's five AM for them. Megs and Theo are in Ash's own timezone, though. At least it's a Saturday and none of them have to worry about school in a few hours.

She can hear her cat breathing from the chair next to the foot of her bed, and one of the dogs is curled into the back of Ash's knees, snoring hard.

Ash's eyes track the group conversation as new messages come rolling in.

/Did you guys catch the part where Ethan mentioned a cousin named Oliver? Theo asks them, using the slashes to indicate they're speaking out of character—

Oh yeah, their group chat is a role-playing group chat. Ash's playing Lex and Hannah, two sisters from a musical called Black Friday. Theo is playing a boy named Tim, as well as his dad, Tom. Cara's playing the aforementioned Ethan (who is Lex's boyfriend) as well as a guy named Paul. Lucy plays Emma, Paul's kinda-girlfriend, and Tom's kinda-girlfriend, Becky. Megs is playing a kooky professor who doesn't actually appear in this show, but was in the previous one alongside Paul and Emma.

Each of them except Ash is also playing a self-insert character. Ash isn't, only because she hasn't decided on how to incorporate her into the story yet. She has, however, recently picked up a third canon character, also from the previous show, named Ted. The group had decided that Ted was Lex and Hannah's dad, and now they're running with it.

Anyways.

Cara replies to Theo's question. /The leash line? Yeah, what about it?

Ash snickers to herself. /Isn't a popular name for Hot Chocolate Kid "Oliver"? OMG what if it's him?

/Nick said somewhere that Hot Choco's name is Peter, I'm pretty sure. Megs adds in, and Ash frowns.

/Damn, I'll have to fix it in that fanfic I've been writing. I've been calling him Oliver this whole time.

Oops, she hadn't meant to tell them about her fic. She's very self-conscious about her writing, and has rarely ever posted any of it. Never finished what she did post, and eventually she'd delete it.

The chat explodes into questions about her fic, and Ash— despite priding herself on being a quick reader— can hardly keep up.

/NO YOU CAN'T READ IT! She eventually tells them, and adds why in a second message.

Ash's eyes start to grow heavy as midnight approaches, and she gently smacks herself to stay awake.

/Guys. Roleplay.

That snaps everyone back into character, and they continue on with the scene. They quickly finish the wedding and move on to a time-skip to the next day, where Ted gets a phone call from his former landlord about a squatter in his apartment. He takes Hannah with him to deal with it, because she begs him to not leave her behind.

Ash's eyes start to cross, and she has to set the phone down for a second as a wave of nausea hits her out of nowhere. She sends a quick out of character "brb", not noticing when the others are all doing the exact same.

Rushing to the bathroom, Ash heaves into the toilet. Next comes a wave of dizziness, static filling her vision as she stumbles backward.

The last thing she hears as she passes out is the grandfather clock chiming midnight.