After the Curtain Falls

<p>The tent arrived without warning no posters no music just the echo of forgotten applause on a windless night.</p><p>Inside the performance was waiting.</p><p>Marla Veil didn't mean to enter. She didn't mean to stay. But once the curtain rose the stage remembered her. Every scene felt rehearsed. Every puppet turned its head a moment too late. And behind the velvet something watched; a presence not born but dug up. A Collector.</p><p>Alongside her friend Quentin whose past runs deeper than denial Marla must unravel a ghost story stitched in wood thread and memory that was never hers. The puppets aren't performing. They're trapped. The graveyard isn't hidden. It's center stage. And the final act doesn't end with escape; it ends when the audience stops watching.</p><p>But some stories refuse to close the curtain.</p><p>And some puppets keep dancing long after the strings are gone.</p><p> </p>