Ashes of Arrogance
Cassandra always wanted the spotlight, and landing the lead role in the school play felt like her destiny. She was cast as the queen in The Enchanted Kingdom, the most ambitious production the school had ever staged. But Cassandra wasn’t interested in teamwork. Her rehearsals were filled with condescension—mocking the knight, Ethan, for his stumbles and berating the stage crew for minor delays. The other students endured her sharp words in silence, but resentment simmered beneath their polite smiles.
The only one who ever pushed back was Mr. Willard, the play’s director. When Cassandra complained that Ethan should be replaced, Mr. Willard finally snapped. “Don’t ever say someone doesn’t belong here, Cassandra,” he warned. His usual calm tone turned sharp. “This stage has seen enough cruelty.”
At her scoff, Mr. Willard told the students the story of The Whispering Flames. Decades ago, during another production of The Enchanted Kingdom, a lead actress—brilliant but arrogant—was enraged by her castmates' refusal to follow her every whim. During the final rehearsal, she lit a small fire backstage to scare the crew. The flames spread rapidly, consuming the entire theater. The audience escaped, but the cast and crew were trapped. Rumor had it their ghosts still lingered, whispering from the charred remains of the original auditorium, which had been rebuilt over the ashes.
“And,” Mr. Willard added gravely, “they say if someone acts selfishly enough to harm the cast, the ghosts will come for them. They’ll remind you what it means to truly burn.”
The students exchanged nervous glances, but Cassandra rolled her eyes. Ghost stories were for children.
Opening night arrived, and Cassandra was seething. During the pre-show pep talk, Mr. Willard praised the cast for their dedication—calling out each student by name except Cassandra. She could feel the others suppressing smirks, and her anger bubbled over. How dare they disrespect her? She was the queen! They needed to understand their place.
As the curtains rose, Cassandra stood center stage, preparing for her dramatic opening monologue. But first, she turned to the cast with a wicked grin and bellowed, “Fire!” The word echoed off the walls, and for a moment, the cast froze in terror.
Then, the theater went pitch black.
Cassandra groaned. Someone must have botched the lighting. “Amateurs,” she muttered, ready to continue her scene. But then she noticed a glow—a faint, flickering light from the wings. She squinted as a figure emerged, holding an old-fashioned lantern.
The figure was a young girl, her face disfigured by burns, her tattered dress smoldering at the edges.
The girl stepped onto the stage, her blackened eyes locking with Cassandra’s. “You called for fire,” she rasped.
Cassandra’s breath caught. The air around her grew stifling, heavy with the smell of smoke. She turned to the cast for help, but they were gone.
The audience, too, had vanished, replaced by rows of ashen, hollow-eyed figures. They stared at her silently, their burnt faces flickering in the lantern’s eerie glow.
“No… this isn’t real,” Cassandra stammered, backing away from the girl. “This isn’t real!”
“Oh, it’s real,” whispered the girl, her voice echoing like crackling embers. She raised the lantern, its flames licking hungrily at the edges of the stage. “You wanted to be the star. Let’s see how brightly you burn.”
Cassandra screamed as the flames surged toward her.
She could feel the heat, but before the fire consumed her, the stage snapped back to reality. The lights were on. The cast was in their positions, and Ethan was whispering her opening line, urging her to speak.
But Cassandra couldn’t. Her voice was gone, her confidence reduced to ash.
The audience murmured in confusion as she stumbled offstage, shaking.
As she reached the wings, a faint voice whispered in her ear, dry and brittle like crumbling paper: “Some people are meant to share the stage. Others are fuel for the flames.”
Cassandra never returned to the theater, and the next morning, the cast found a single blackened handprint scorched into the stage where she had stood.
