Project: Socialize (Chapters 198-Continued) [Hiatus]

253. "Random" Selection

Irina went on stage, leaving me standing in the roadway leading to the stage on my own. In all honesty, I do not know where I am supposed to be and where I'm required to go. Lost in the confusing frenzy of the backstage environment, I turned around and looked at the opened door leading to the dressing room. Maybe in there, someone can tell me what I'm supposed to do.

I began walking towards the dressing room, with my steps slow as they were weighed down by my own confusion. In my chest, there was a heavy feeling of uncertainty as I roamed through the dressing room and approached the person with the most authoritative aura.

"Um..." I spoke up, attracting the man's attention. "Where do I go?"

This man was the person that had rushed in and notified the director of the disappearance of the two extra's for Irina's panel from earlier. Therefore, I assume that he must know the flow of things, and he must at least know where I must go for the task that I'm given by the director.

"You're the boy the director wanted right?" he looked over at me and then immediately back to his tablet as he quickly scanned through whatever was displayed on the monitor. It was probably status reports by the different departments or the schedule for the event.

"Yeah," I nodded.

"Go through the front and to the stage," the man said as he started walking towards the door opposite to the one I came in through. 

I followed after him towards the other door. Since the walkable space in the dressing room is limited, we had to turn our bodies to make room for other employees to make their way past us as they rushed about in a frantic manner.

"Just wait in the crowd and you'll know when to go on stage. We've notified the host already. He's got it," the man continued saying as he opened the door and stepped out beneath the blue, summer sky. "Hurry and get to the stage. Show a staff nearby the stage this before you do anything else." 

He handed me a lanyard with a plastic card contained safely inside. The card was blank, but on it was a special marking that made no real sense to me.

"The staff will know once you show them the card," the man explained to me as I followed him away from the dressing room. "Don't ask any questions and get on standby."

With that, the man quickly walked away at a rapid pace, speaking into the radio he had in his other hand. Watching him walk off, I couldn't help it but feel a hurried and frantic emotion on my end as well. It's like the atmosphere of the backstage has rubbed into me, permeating my skin and synchronizing my own pace to match the workers.

Now that I know where I have to go, I decided to quickly head there. I left through the guarded roadway entrance that led to the dressing room, and after acquiring directions to the stage from the security guard, I quickly went on my way.

I walked at a faster pace than usual, weaving through the crowd and avoided running into people. It was surprisingly taxing on the body doing this, making me feel rather fatigued after a while. My heart palpitated and my breathing became deeper and deeper. However, I continued without stopping, making my way towards the stage while following the flow of the crowd.

I was curious about what Alvelyn and Muria are doing at the moment, but I didn't dare ask Alvelyn. I feel like if I allow my concentration to slip right now and try to communicate with Alvelyn through my mind, I would run into people. Besides, they're probably tasked to do something different, as it would appear that the two of them were no longer present in the dressing room when I returned to it after walking Irina to the stage. Presumably, the two of them probably went with the woman for other preparations.

There was a crowd of people standing around the outer edges of the stage, standing behind the rows of seats as these were all people who were unable to find a seat but still wanted to watch. One other thing that I noticed was that among the crowd, there were males than females, which is the exact opposite as the situation with Henvle. But whatever. The population of the audience doesn't matter. What mattered is that there's plenty of people.