TLC the Musical

The Point of No Return

WARNING!!! This chapter has lyrics from a song that may be considered "Mature". I will be marking the story later for this. Please, try to be mature about it and not freak out.

Cinder sat in the auditorium with her friends. It had been a few hours since their skirmish with the guys they would be sharing the spotlight with. All of the others were grateful for their parts. But Cinder was afraid. Only her friends knew about her medical condition. One that denied her the ability to feel the direct warmth of another. That took away her chances of a relationship that would permit physical contact.

Somehow, she had this illness, and it made it hurt to make physical contact with other people. Through clothing, she was fine. But human skin, it made her feel like she was burning, and it gave her rashes and bruises that lasted for weeks. It was like she was allergic to physical contact.

Her friends knew about this, and tried to help her whenever they could. But this play was obviously going to call for some level of intimacy. That would be hard to accommodate with her ... issue.

"Good afternoon, actors, actresses, and techies," Director Rikan blared. "I trust that you all saw the cast lists and know who you are going to be for the play. I have the scripts with me now. So if you could all come up here and get one, that would be great." He seemed much more invigorated than he did the day before.

Scarlet was kind enough to retrieve the four script that they would need to rehearse their lines. Once she came back, they all glanced at how many lines they would have. "The 'Little Red' part is more than twenty pages long. How am I going to remember that many lines?" Scarlet shook her head at how impossible this seemed.

"I have to sing something almost every three pages. And pretend that ..." Cress paused to read on. "I'm in love with this 'thief' and that .. I owe him my life? What kind if sexist idiot wrote this?!"

"Yay!" Winter smiled. "I get to talk to birds and animals. That's going to be so much fun!"

"Honey." Scarlet placed a parenting hand on her childish friend's shoulder. "You know that you can't really talk to animals, right? It's just going to be people in costumes."

"Oh," Winter sighed, obviously disappointed. "Well, I bet it will still be fun. Right?"

"Absolutely." Cress rolled her eyes with sarcasm.

"I can't believe I'm going to be playing Cinderella." Cinder still didn't think it was a good idea.

"You're going to be fine," Scarlet laughed. "It's not like they only picked you because there's a Cinder in every Cinder-ella."

"Ha ha. Very funny, Scar."

They continued to read over their lines, until a shout came from the doors. One that was all to familiar, and annoying. "The leads have arrived!" shouted Thorne. He strode down the aisle and his friends walked behind him, obviously embarrassed to be associated with him at the moment. They took their scripts from the table they were all neatly stacked on. But Cinder's attention was torn away when a flower jumped in front of her.

"Hi Cinder," Peony sang. "Congratulations on getting Cinderella. I'm sure you're going to be great."

"Thanks, Peony. What part did you get?"

"I got one of the evil step-sisters. Anastasia. Pearl got the other one."

"Lucky her."

"You're the one who's lucky, Cinder. Your prince is Kaito Huang. He's so nice and cute and dreamy ..." Peony went on and on about how amazing Kaito was. She practically worshiped him.