The Eternal Recurrence of Sue Schuester

I- The Ghost

"This place is amazing! Look! Class of '72!" He replied giddily, holding up the banner. "This was from the last class to graduate before they shut down this place." Simon arrived at the bottom of the stage scrutinizing his spoils.

"Yeah, I think it was for a good reason. Why are we even here? Some demon or something?"

"Ghosts, my brother, a real ghost," Lucas replied, digging through his backpack for his tools. Simon came closer and inspected the various ghost-hunting gadgets that Lucas had jerryrigged over the years.

"Where the hell did you hear about this?" Simon asked.

"From Dave Scarborough. Before he graduated, he and a couple of the physics club guys would come here every year to see it."

"See what?"

Lucas then sat down on the stage and crossed his legs, splaying out his hands in true campfire-storytelling fashion.

"On November 25th, they say that every year, at 8:03pm, it appears. A dark shadow in the shape of a human being, rising up from the floor and disappearing into the ceiling. The exact same day, the exact same hour, the exact same minute," Lucas reported excitedly. "And these guys, they went crazy trying to figure it out! They brought all their equipment, tests, but no dice! He said it was my mission this year as club president to figure it out." Simon crossed his arms and looked up at him skeptically.

"November 25th is next month, Luke. Where's the beef?" He asked. Lucas stood up and waved his makeshift gadgetry around at the perimeter of the stage.

"We have to do diagnostics, thermal readings, magnetic signatures," He explained. "I always do a preliminary survey before any actual ghost-hunting. It's an annual haunting, Si, I want absolute certainty that this is prime ghost real-estate."

"An annual haunting? Dear god, shave off the corners of your head, square," Simon quipped as he slumped down in one of the seats. Lucas frowned at him, resting his hands on his hips.

"Well, the least you could do is take some pictures," He said. "You know how to work that camera better than I do. I need my references." Simon let out a sigh, standing back up.

"Fine, but you're paying for developing the film." He said, pointing his finger. Lucas handdwaved him and wandered off towards the back of the stage, his EMF reader letting out a series of weak beeps. Simon shook his head and rummaged through his backpack for his camera. His brothers never failed to exasperate him. Being latchkey kids, he was always the one tasked with keeping them in line when traipsing on little adventures like these. Micah was at least the easier of the two to deal with, being laser-focused on the latest technology. However, it was disconcerting that now at this age he was taking after Lucas, his irreverent, hyper-nerd brother who always got into trouble and sneaked into places he wasn't supposed to be.

Though on the other hand, Simon could at least appreciate some of the beauty in this place as he walked around the room and snapped photos. Big panneled windows near the left of the balcony bathed the room in natural light, with swarms of dust particles glittering in a strangely beautiful way. A hole in the roof let in a draft, which whistled as the wind blew outside. There were long frames of warped, large-format pictures on the walls from past performances at East Litchfield: Kiss Me Kate, Oklahoma, Carousel, and surprisingly a production of Company, which Simon didn't understand how they even got away with. He made his way towards the back of the theater to get a wideview shot of all the rusty orange seats in the room, but paused for a moment to let everything sink in. It was humbling to be in a place that so many found joy and laughter in, the warm and happy memories made here, now standing cold, abandoned, and desecrated.

Desecrated. Simon looked up from his camera, taking a better survey at his surroundings. It dawned on him that the place was much more thoroughly damaged than the other rooms in the building, most of which were left alone. This place looked like it had been the scene of a riot. He noticed the door that Lucas had so casually knocked to the ground had actually broken off its hinges, with a large crack down the middle and scratches that had already been there. Some of the seats near the exit had physically broken out of their stalls, and chillingly Simon noticed the hundreds of dirty footprints crowded near the door, with scratches and dents on the drywall around the frame. There was a stain that looked like blood on the carpet. His heart sank into his stomach.