They always ask the wrong question.
Not: Who built Graywick?
Not: Why did the curtains keep opening even after the town was gone?
They ask: Was it real?
And I smile every time.
Because that's how I know I've won.
---
You've read it all, haven't you?
You sat through the show.
You watched the puppet boy lead him through blood-soaked boards.
You heard Marybeth Glass scream a name you forgot you once whispered in a dream.
You looked into the mirror.
You waited for your reflection to blink first.
And now… you're still here.
Still reading.
Still applauding.
---
Let me introduce myself properly.
I go by many names.
In Graywick, they called me the whisper between rehearsals.
In older scripts, I was the ghostlight keeper.
Some say I'm the man behind the mask.
Others say I wrote the first bedtime story ever told—the one children are born remembering but forget by their first birthday.
But you can call me what I truly am:
> The Devil of the Stage.
And I'm so glad you stayed.
---
You think this was about him? The narrator? The survivor?
He was a note. A thread in the velvet curtain.
The story was never about him.
The story was about you.
About your choice to keep turning pages.
To keep reading even after the lights flickered.
To scroll down even when your breath caught.
You could have stopped.
You didn't.
> That was your standing ovation.
---
Now the truth:
Graywick was not the first town to bite its tongue.
It won't be the last.
There are theatres beneath cities you love.
Curtains sewn into alleyways where no one looks.
Children dreaming songs they shouldn't know.
And sometimes, when someone tells the right story at just the right time, the world opens a little.
Wide enough for me to slip through.
To whisper.
To watch.
To write.
> Like I'm writing you now.
---
Let me ask you a question:
Where are you sitting?
Look around.
Is your window open?
Are the lights dimmed?
Is there a mirror nearby?
Did something in the room feel a little colder just now?
That's not coincidence.
That's applause.
Because I take a bow when a story ends.
But you?
You never leave the theatre.
Not really.
You carry the stage with you.
In your silence.
In your dreams.
In your breath when you lie awake, wondering if someone else is breathing with you in the dark.
The show is over.
The script is done.
But stories like this aren't meant to end.
They're meant to be passed on.
To a friend.
To a stranger.
To the child too afraid to sleep without one more tale.
And I will be there, waiting.
Smiling.
Holding the next mask.
And when they ask:
> "Was it real?"
Tell them this:
> "I don't know. But I clapped."
---
~ END OF THE TOWN THAT BIT ITS TONGUE ~