“Who are you?”

The voice spoke coldly, a rough edge that threatened to rip my skin into pieces like a paper shredder.

It was raining, the factory flumes from the underground refab manufactories spat up silver clouds as they bore deeper into the crust of the Earth. Searching and tunnelling ever further for more materials to consume and more space to expand into, like a game of neverending Snake.

The woman… no, girl, took a step closer, her form coming into view now that she stood beneath the white glow of the streetlight flickering above.

She was filthy, mud and water and blood covered her tattered clothes. She looked like she had crawled out of the outtake pipe of one of those manufactories, except it wasn’t just toxic sludge and the waste product of mined minerals in there, but razor-sharp barbed wire that held into her skin as she struggled to escape their needy grasp.

“Answer me dammit!” She screamed, desperate and confused, her hand tightening around the bleeding wound on her arm as she searched for a respite that did not exist.

Another step forward, and I staggered back, her glare like the headlights of a 4-ton truck barreling down the expressway without a driver. Unpredictable and deadly all wrapped up into one.

“I-”

I tried to speak, but I had no idea what to say as my words recoiled themselves back into my throat, stuck and trapped like the lost miners who dug those factories all those years ago.

I. Spoke.

Not Seina, not an actress, not anyone else, but me. But me. Why me?

I wasn’t supposed to do that, these weren’t my lines.

They were hers’.

“Cut!” a powerful voice announced, one that was long used to dealing with rowdy actors and high-strung egos.

It was Director Ttio, his eyes drilling into me with more strength than the ones that built the imaginary backstory of the play we were rehearsing.

There were no vast underground refab manufactories in this world, in our world. But if there were, then they would be nothing compared to the acting production centre I stand within.

However, this is no centre, but the outer edge of the circle that forms the creative world.

Yet still I am out of my depths.

Imported, foreign, stranger to these lands. A forever outsider.

The girl, my co-star, blinked, and her appearance suddenly changed. The blood faded to mist, the water evaporated into nothingness, and her ripped clothes repaired before my eyes.

“Hey, Seina~” She smiled softly, her eyes wide open and staring into mine for the first time, “If you can’t do it, then quit.” She finished, her words carefree without the barest hint of hostility, yet still tainted with a subtle warning that seemed to say…

Do not fuck this up for me.

Straight chestnut brown hair that sat on her shoulders, a simplistic and safe pick, yet one that paraded refinement, professionalism, and confidence. Her fuzzy hazel eyes stuck to theme well, maintaining her brand of absolute control that she emitted in droves. She buzzed with energy, like a battery with too much charge, but too tempered to explode as her every movement felt rehearsed, practised and performed with purpose, never a wasted action in them.

This was a true actress. She controlled the stage, the background, the illusion she painted with her acting, the pattering of rain, the blood on her clothes, the repeated rumbling of drills in the background. None of them existed in this world, but on that stage, in that world of acting, the world of Us and I, she created them all as if she were a goddess with a paintbrush.

And it was only the second day of creation.

Will she rest on the seventh?

I somehow doubt it.

Kaede Esumi. The veteran of Hanako Hall, and the only other lead for this play apart from myself.

We’re both acting as the same character in a way. I am playing a character known as Eighty-Three, and she is playing Jinko Akemi, the girl that my character was cloned from.

The story isn’t a tricky one to wrap your head around. Jinko Akemi goes missing at 14 years old, and her father, a renowned scientist specialising in cloning recreates his daughter 83 days after her body is discovered by the police and she is pronounced dead at the scene.

Obviously, she wasn’t dead, as after 4 years, she returned back into the fold.

Cue the current scene, when Eighty-Three, the clone, meets Jinko Akemi, the original, on a random night in the rain where they both happened to run into each other.

Stories are always filled with these little coincidences, it’s how they move along the plot in a more efficient manner. A little story method that runs counter to reality.

After all, in that reality, we’re equal, but here? In this current world, I am woefully outmatched.

Kaede Esumi, the woman Hatsuko has put me up against. The monster that I have no chance in hell of beating.

If our characters were more different, then that would be fine. I could offer subpar, and she could trade exemplary and all would be acceptable. But that isn’t the case, my performance runs directly antithesis to hers. Two lines opposite each other, a parallel that should never meet as the mirror stands firm between us.

She is on one side of the glass, I am on the other.

Our characters are a reflection of circumstance.

And as I am now, I will only drag her down to my level.

“Come here.” Director Ttio ordered, his voice inflexible in his command as he marched down between the rows of red seats to a small back room at the end of the hall where his little office waited at attention.

This was the main stage of Hanako Hall, the same area where we would perform this play at the end of these 8 weeks, in other words, 7 weeks from now. The audience seats may be empty, but it would be folly to assume that means an audience is absent.

No, they’re still here, watching and judging. They may not be the spectators we’re expecting, but they’re here all the same. Wearing the faces of my co-workers, the support staff and technical experts, and my fellow actors.

All observing me, new opinions and ideas forming in their heads with every action I make.

Every mistake.

I wonder, do I appear as a blundering fool to them, a rookie actress with no clue about what she is doing? Or are they kinder than that, more used to a beginners’ acting thanks to the many high schoolers and newbies that attend here?

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No, that would not be kindness. It would be moronic.

To hold one of their leads to the same standards as an amateur actor.

“Seina, are you ok? You looked lost up there, did you forget your lines?” Emiko leapt up to me as I traced the Director’s steps to his office, “Right, so your line was-”

“I didn’t forget.” I cut her off, and she almost jumped, rapidly looking from the script in her hand up to me.

“I- right, yeah. You didn’t forget… is it Kaede? I know she can be a little… overbearing with her acting, and you have a… ermm… a tough challenge? Trying to match her? I think?” She continued, attempting to rationalise my failure.

I stopped and turned around, causing Emiko to do the same, only a tad confused by my actions.

Kaede remained on the stage, now reading her lines aloud for the whole hall to hear. She was wearing her normal clothes, her make-up the same you’d find on any young girl outside, and her eyes lazily scanning the script in her hand.

She wasn’t reading it, she’d already memorised everything in there.

This was the girl I had to match. An actress able to perfectly embody a character without a trace of background work. There was no make-up artist to shape her face, nor a costume to clad her body in the image of her role, and the background of each scene hadn’t even been finished.

Yet, she still transformed that stage into a movie.

“How can I match that?”

How can Seina match that?

Even perfection has its limits.

Emiko was shorter than me by a fair amount, and so she had to twist her head to look at me, “Huh? Well, I suppose- maybe more practice?” She said, offering the most worthless of answers.

It didn’t even warrant a response.

I turned on my heel and continued up the hall towards the Director’s office, Emiko quickly catching up to me, nerves racing throughout her body like electricity.

“Wait sorry, I can help. I want to help, please. I’ve been doing this for a long time- Ah, not to say I’ve been doing it longer than you! No, no, no, don’t do this, act all scary with me. We’re co-workers, kinda? Please let's work together?” She spoke and spoke, tripping up over her words like a stumbling toddler failing at basic maths.

My hand reached the door handle to the office. Well, it was more like a side room that had been converted into an office, but the meaning still stood.

“I know the script! I helped write it, so I know the meaning behind it. The motivations of the characters, what makes them tick, even why they act as they do. Oh, I also helped plan out the stage actions behind the scene, y’know, emm, the lighting, music, even gave my input on some of the backdrops…”

I’d paused, my hand only halfway towards opening the door, not enough to unlock it, but enough to put some accidental pressure on Emiko.

“So- so… can we… work together?” She asked, stuck awkwardly between chasing after me and fidgeting with her hair.

I opened the door and entered, “Huh? W-wait, stop-” She begged before the door closing cut her off as it slammed in her face.

Director Ttio was behind a metal desk that would have been more suited in the storage room of an office complex. There were old posters scattered all around the room, some of them advertising 70s, 80s, or 90s movies; others books, and the majority of them were plays, a good few of them with his name stamped on them.

His face was illuminated by a single white light, once again seeming like it was pulled out from an office building. It was far too bright for this small and packed room, clearly designed for a long hallway or larger area, not to be jacked into a socket in a room barely 2 by 3 metres in diameter.

His eyes were trailing me from the moment I had entered the room. It was like this was a game of cat and mouse to him, letting the tension sit as the water boiled more and more.

Of course, it didn’t boil, nor was I the mouse or he the cat. He was testing whether I could withstand the pressure, as if the pressure of a man staring at me creepily was anything I wasn’t already numb to.

It made him look pathetic.

People always did when they tried to push me, to test me. Such a pointless waste of time, but fortunately most people learn quickly that this type of thing has no effect on me after the first failed attempt.

How could it?

“Who was that outside?” Director Ttio asked in his sandpaper-like voice, finally deciding this silence was worth no more than my appalling acting skills. “You know what, tell me later.” He suddenly raised his hand as if it were a stop sign to halt my answer.

He placed his elbows on the desk and put his hands together, “You’re shit at showing emotion.” He stated leaving no room for debate, not that I would have regardless, “Has Hatsuko sent another dud to me? Aren’t you supposed to be a semi-experienced actress? Why can’t you show emotions?”

I had no response, not that it mattered, as I had no chance to speak before he cut me off again, “No, let me clarify myself before you make excuses. Off stage means nothing to me, be an emo little teen for all I care, but on that stage, when you’re acting. You need to show emotion. How you do it is up to you, but this role lives and dies depending on how your character articulates her feelings to the crowd. Do you get that?”

I nodded, simple, quick, easy. And all he did was sigh as if he’d witnessed the stupidest thing in the world.

“Seina.” He stated as if he were a teacher taking attendance. “I understand Miss Esumi is very talented, and that perhaps Hatsuko might have oversold your… experience…” He really wanted to say ability, there, but didn’t want to hurt my feelings, “But you have to work with her. I’m not telling you to beat our star actress, but I need you to at least try to measure up to her. The role of the clone was never meant to be as emotional as the original, mainly because I knew we’d struggle to find someone on a similar level to Miss Esumi. But that doesn’t mean you’re allowed to give up.”

“I hadn’t given up.” I retorted, cutting off his long-winded explanation that I knew had a few more sentences left to go through.

He broke eye contact with me, dropping his head down to look at his hands, “Good.” He announced as if he were grading my replies like a test paper, “I expect improvements next week, for now just watch Miss Esumi, try to take notes, or ask the other actors for advice, or do whatever you do to get into a role.” He said that last bit with a trace of uncertainty, the beginning seeds of doubt starting to grow about my non-existent experience.

Director Ttio dismissed me with a wave of his hand and returned to looking at a notebook on his desk, but just as my hand touched the door handle, he spoke, “Oh, one more thing. Who is that outside?”

“Emiko.” I answered, my back still turned to him and my hand hovering over the handle outside.

“Stay, and let her in.” He ordered, his head drifting up from his notebook to stare at me once again.

I did as asked, and Emiko slowly entered the room as if she were a death row prisoner walking to the electric chair, her eyes darting nervously around the room.

“Hi, Director, do you need something?” She asked with none of the nervousness she had displayed with me.

I was wrong, she wasn’t the death row prisoner, she thought I was. An actress who had made a flaw so fatal that she was being fired on day two. Jumping straight to conclusions without thinking them through.

The mistake fit her well.

“Seina is having trouble acting.” He said it modestly, trying to save me face, “I want you two to spend tomorrow’s rehearsal practising together. You know my vision for this play, Emiko. So I’m trusting you to help her find her footing, use your intuition and do what you think is best. You guys are a similar age, so I’m certain you can lean on each other well.”

Similar age, another lie printed on the page. So familiar, yet it is not Seina here lying, but me. Though it is her lie originally, how fitting that I am once again dealing with the consequences of her actions, yet none of the boons.

Director Ttio was not just trying to kick me out of this acting hole he believes I’ve fallen into, but he also wanted Emiko and I to bond over this. He’s playing matchmaker to what he hopes will blossom into a beautiful friendship.

How meddling, of course, a director would be like this. So used to controlling actors, that he’s forgotten they become people once off the stage.

Oh, where have I said that before?

It’s nearly poetry, now all it needs is a few rhymes and an overzealous fool to sing it and it’ll be perfect to go.

“Yeah, that sounds fun. We can set something up tomorrow, I already have a few ideas. I went through a similar thing when I was younger, so I know where to start, trust me.” Emiko replied with a smile, totally at ease in the Director’s presence, yet a frightened cat in mine.

“-Is that fine with you, Seina?” It was Emiko, asking me with a curious and concerned glance, her head tilted to the side like a confused kitten, so worried that I might refuse her.

As if I ever had the ability to say no.

To make a choice for myself.

After all, if I could do that, I might never have come here-

“That’s fine.” I replied, earning a blooming smile from her, as she hurriedly exchanged her contact details with me before I had the chance to change my mind.

Or maybe I’d have come here sooner?

It is quite fitting for me, a liar learning how to lie.

Except, I won’t be the one on stage. No, I leave that honour to Seina, the woman unable to lie, and unable to tell the truth.

Perfection indeed.

How I wish to be her.