Subject: Welcome to Your Future, Lewis Chambers.
FROM: Clarity Academy Administration (No-Reply)
TO: L.Chambers_Scholar2026@ClarityPrep.edu

Welcome to the Spectrum of Excellence!

Congratulations, Lewis; your academic record and psychological aptitude scores have placed you in the top 2% of your cohort! At Clarity Academy, we don't just educate; we refine.

Your Digital Onboarding is Complete:

The Student-Link ID: Your Student-Link ID is your passport to the future! This ID is tied directly to your phone and your choice of wearable (Watch, Ring, or Athletic Shoe Tag) and grants you access to authorized student areas as well as cashless payment at the Student Union and Cafeteria. Ensure that your parents have thoroughly read the school’s Privacy Policy—in short we will never sell your data or spy on you! This closed loop NFC system is strictly for your convenience!

The Precision Wardrobe: Your "Scholar-Standard" attire has been sized based on your submitted scans. Remember: A clear mind begins with a clean silhouette!

Focus. Precision. Perfection: Clarity.

There had been about three too many exclamation marks in that welcome letter for Lewis’ taste, as though it had either been written by an overly caffeinated secretary or, given that m-dash in the middle, an over eager AI helping an over caffeinated secretary. Not for the first time he stared at it, reminding himself he belonged here, at Clarity Prep, the top 2% of whatever a ‘cohort’ was supposed to be.

The big gray slab bore no resemblance whatsoever to the brochures, he knew that much. Oh sure, the main Admin building and the dorms looked like they had been built for the modern era, but the actual classrooms looked like hulking behemoths out of the 1970s brutalist prison architecture-for-a-school-design playbook - because they, apparently, were exactly that.

Instead of issuing a key card or physical key to every student, some genius installed NFC readers. The idea made sense on paper. Let students roam the building freely day or night, without the risk of outsiders burgling the place for the copper wire if a student lost their key or key card. The implementation, though? Let’s just say absolutely nobody chose to use a shoe tag because the “near” in near field meant “Right on top of the damned thing”. More than once Lewis found himself scanning, tapping, holding, swiping, anything to get the smart ring to just. Open. The. Damn. Door.

Combined with his frustration at being away from home, away from his friends, surrounded by complete strangers who looked like they belonged on the set of “High School Musical” - salon freshgirls, guys with glossy, perfect hair, jocks with rippling muscles, Lewis didn’t feel just like a fish out of water, but like an octopus on Mars - all arms with 8 brains wanting to go 8 different directions, and no oxygen.

He wanted to scream.

Before his voice cracked - not yet a deep baritone like his friends back home, but not the sweet, lyrical pre-pubescent soprano he had once been, he enjoyed choir. He enjoyed sounding like, and being able to sing, girls’ parts. That was behind him now. Now if he wanted to feel like himself, his true self, he had to do it online through World of Warcraft or Guild Wars 2, where his guild knew him not as Lewis Chambers, scrawny ‘brilliant scholar’ but as Jessica, the max level blood elf Paladin (or level 80 Sylvari Guardian), in the case of Guild Wars 2) - a protector always willing to drop everything to help a newbie find their way. “Jessica” was safe. She was default.

“Oh my God just... Why do I even have to scan in?” he sighed, staring in frustration at the door to the music wing, and the flashing red light above the NFC scanner.

Suddenly, a pale hand in a girls’ blazer appeared in his peripheral vision, a ring pressed against the NFC reader, its nails manicured to perfection with a coating of powder pink polish. The light changed from red to green. He spun around to thank his would-be rescuer.

She was the Scholar Silhouette personified, long, raven hair in perfect glossy waves, piercing green eyes, her skirt precisely two inches above her knees, and a dismissive ‘I’m not even going to bother insulting you, peasant’ expression on her face. She retracted her hand and continued walking with her entourage.

“That was nice of you, Maddie,” one of the girls said.

“Whatever. The beep was getting on my fucking nerves,” Madison answered with the sarcastic bite of a grumpy crocodile. Lewis darted inside before the door could have a chance to relock on him. Even the mean girls were taking pity on him now. This was a new low for the week.

The contrast between the warm, sunny autumn day he had just left outside and the stark, chilled interior felt like the punctuation on a very long, drawn out sigh. It wasn’t air conditioning. It was malfunctioning air filters failing to fully recycle the breath of a thousand voices come before. At least the floor wax stink didn’t sting his nostrils so badly over here. The wax looked more worn down so they probably hadn’t bothered to put down a fresh coat or ten yet.

He trudged down the corridor past an open, dark room, but something caught his eye. Most of the rooms in this concrete bunker of a school didn’t have windows, or if they did, it was just one long, tall plexiglass window braced by steel, and set right where the walls met. He backed up and poked his head inside.

The room was heavily carpeted, not just on the floor, but the walls as well. The ceiling had that ‘popcorn stucco’ look of heavy acoustic absorption designed not to look like acoustic padding that he knew so well from his time in his old choir, back home, back then.

The icing on the cake though? Between the high window that ran the length of the practice room, letting in natural light, shone that natural light upon a big, old, very dusty upright piano against the far wall. In the halflight of the room it practically glowed in the sunlight. Lewis pushed the door closed behind him, made sure that it latched fully closed and even knelt to check that the bottom and sides of the door were properly acoustically treated.

They were. And so, he braced his back against the door, threw his head back, and let out a primal scream at the top of his lungs, emptying them completely.

“Hey,” he said to himself softly after getting his breath back. “I... I think that was a D5. Not bad for a scream.”

He slowly walked over to the piano and pulled out the bench, easing himself down. He lifted the tawny fallboard off the keys. It didn’t slide back into the piano, but simply rose on old, brass hinges and sat in place, threatening to slam down on some poor pianist’s fingers if they weren’t diligent enough to push it far enough back.

He depressed the ivory E5 and struggled to sing the note, but his voice cracked. He slammed a fist onto the keys and glanced down. As he wiped away a tear, he noticed, right by his fist, on the inside of the fallboard, a yellowing piece of masking tape sat haphazardly taped down. Someone had scrawled a note on it in black felt marker.

‘Don’t let the bastards grind u down! -WW’ and there was an arrow pointing straight down. He blinked. Was... Was there something under the piano? Or maybe the bench?

He cautiously reached a hand up under the bench. A piece of paper had been taped there. He stood up and turned the bench on its side, kneeling down to read it in the afternoon light.

‘The walls have ears. Find the space between spaces.’

Instead of a signature, someone had drawn the silhouette of a raven in flight - a black bird with its wings spread apart, but the head tilted to one side so that the beak could be seen, a noticeable hook-like curve to it, and a fanned, almost diamond shaped tail. There was no mistaking it for a sleek crow, even to a layperson like Lewis.

He shrugged his shoulders, righted the bench, and sat down again, staring at the ‘WW’ note. He tried again, only just managing another D5.

“Oh sorry dude,” he heard a girl’s voice from behind him. He didn’t even hear the door open. He jumped to his feet and spun around. A girl with sun kissed blonde hair and the scholar standard uniform, a white Alice band in her hair, was pulling the door closed again. She was holding some sheet music, he noticed, and he practically leapt across the room to catch the door.

“No I’m sorry, I didn’t rent out the room or anything,” he said. “I was just venting. It’s all yours.”

“You sure?” she asked. He nodded.

“Yeah, go ahead. The D#5 is a tiny bit flat though.”

She laughed. “You noticed that too. I’ve been begging someone to come tune it for weeks.”

She smiled at him as she walked past and sat down seemingly ignoring the masking tape. They didn’t exchange names beyond that simple pleasantry, but as he glanced over his shoulder at her, he sighed to himself. She was just as pretty as Madison had been, albeit not as terrifying. He wanted to stay and listen, but she obviously had no interest, so he just pulled the door closed behind him as he left, tugging at the collar of his starched shirt.

It suddenly felt suffocating, like a jagged, saw-toothed chain around his neck, and he just wanted to tear it off and burn it.

“I might be a top 2% or whatever,” he mumbled, “But I’m the bottom of Clarity’s barrel.”

He started humming ‘The Phantom of the Opera’ to himself, partly because it was one of the pieces of sheet music he’d seen the girl carrying. In a school full of digital everything, seeing someone with physical paper stuck out, especially one covered in notes and pencil marks as hers had been.

He trudged toward the door, bracing himself for another round of the ‘Clarity Shuffle’ with the NFC reader, but didn’t see any locks on this side to deal with, at least.

Despite being September the oppressive heat weighed on him as much as the “scholar silhouette”. The heavy slacks didn’t help, and for once he longed to have the girls’ skirts for more than just dysphoric reasons. At least the clouds seemed to be banking up, which meant possibilities of rain although the way Lewis felt, he fully expected a localized rainstorm right over his head instead.

Author's Note:
I'm finally ready to share one of two new manuscripts with y'all! This is the more serious, grounded character drama to the more high energy thriller that is "Split Victory" which I'll start posting next week (likely on Wednesday). Chapters will follow at one per week for each manuscript.

I AM proud to at least announce that both manuscripts are completed as of this posting of chapter 1, and will be fully available here on TopShelf. They are both in pre-publication phase with Doppler Press so they will eventually be up for sale as well, if you don't want to wait to see what happens! <3
- Zoë

The Dead Pixel Society

© 2026 Zoë Taylor

---

The second the bell - not a modern chime, but a literal, 1970s classroom steel bell that Clarity never bothered to upgrade probably because it would break something else if they did, screamed the hour, he bolted. He didn’t wait for a dismissal, or for Madison and her entourage to clear the hell out of his way.

He just. Ran. He knew there were bathrooms somewhere in the next corridor. He swore he would never use a public bathroom if he could avoid it. He even showered at odd hours, like midnight when everyone else was asleep, just to have a modicum of privacy, but this? This was a saliva soaked emergency.

He barreled through the extremely heavy door without a second thought.

---

Tuesday morning started with Lewis nearly falling out of bed, sitting bolt upright. It sounded like his roommate, Tony, had just thrown a spoon into a blender. Tony was sitting on his bed, drinking a protein shake, but it was one of those pre-blended ones, not from a mixer, but in a cardboard carton.

Tony gave him a goofy grin and raised the protein shake like a toast. “Morning, dormie,” he said lazily.

“”What the hell was that noise,” Lewis groaned groggily, sweat soaked hair simultaneously both frizzy and still managing to cake itself to his scalp. It wasn’t extremely long, but not short short either, in that in-between phase of ‘Needs a haircut” but not quite long enough to pass for, say, Madison’s dorm mate either. “Ugh it’s hot.”

“No idea to the first. These walls are egg shell thin,” Tony said. “Probably somebody’s electric razor crapping the bed. I asked the floor RA about the heat. He said they’re working on it. HVAC’s got a glitch or something,” he shrugged.

Lewis lay back down for a moment and groaned. “I hate this place.”

“You’ll get used to it,” Tony said, entirely too cheerful for 6:45 in the morning. “Hey, you need anything from town? I’m heading in after classes are over this afternoon.”

“Don’t think they sell lobotomies at the hardware store,” Lewis answered. Tony actually laughed.

“Nah, but I can find you an ice pick,” he shot back, tossing the empty carton into a tall wastebasket next to their mini fridge. The fridge was, at present, mostly filled with bottled water and those nasty fake chocolate protein shakes Tony seemed to love. “Want one?” he asked.

“They’re all yours. Those things always tasted like gargling chalk to me,” he said, feeling a little more bold now that he knew Tony wasn’t just going to deck him over a joke.

“Yeah, they’re an acquired taste. My grandpa always said if you have to acquire a taste you shouldn’t be drinking it, but, they’re full of electrolytes and protein, which is why they taste so bad,” he laughed again.

Lewis just cracked a small smile before finally crawling out of bed and over to his wardrobe to start getting ready for the day. Just four more years. Just four more years.

The school had two options for cafeterias, surprisingly. There was the old, original cafeteria built when the old bunker building was constructed in the 1970s, and then there was the student union, someone’s idea of giving teenagers the ‘cool’ option, complete with franchising mini kitchens for Taco Bell, McDonalds, and Pizza Hut, which served up pizza by the slice 24 hours a day.

Then there were students like Tony who were allowed a minifridge in their dorm for those vile protein shakes. Lewis decided to try and take his chances at the Student Union since yesterday morning’s scrambled eggs really didn’t sit well. At least with McDonalds you knew exactly what fresh Hell you were signing yourself up to endure, or to enjoy, depending on one’s perspective.

He regretted this decision before even getting the door open, as once again the NFC reader decided that it was his lot in life to be the school’s, nay, the universe’s whipping boy. He even tried that thing Madison did, where she just pressed a flat palm against the NFC reader. It beeped, not a rejection, but the school’s equivalent of a “404, soul not found” error. A queue had begun to from behind him because a couple of freshmen were too embarrassed for him, he decided, to actually step up and try the NFC reader themselves.

Finally, a deep baritone voice sighed. “Oh my God, move kid, I’ll do it,” and a senior with shoulders like a defensive lineman, or possibly a professional wrestler, slapped his phone against the reader. It turned green, the door slid open, and both the senior, and the freshmen behind them, passed Lewis by.

It wasn’t much better inside, either, a clattering calamitous wave of talking, laughter, fryers cackling in the mini kitchens, chairs scraping. Everyone seemed absorbed in their own world and yet, every cackle of laughter felt like it was directed straight at Lewis’ back as he got in the McDonald’s line. He clutched the brown paper bag like a shield, turning around to try and find a place to sit and eat.

More than once he thought about bolting back outside. He wove his way past Madison’s table, who of course, was holding court at the center under the functioning AC vent and surrounded by freshmen ready to deliver whatever dismissive decree she bade of them. She didn’t look up, and why should she? He wasn’t even the dirt beneath her flawlessly manicured nails.

He passed the music room girl, in a spirited debate about the finer points of Eb and D down tuning in modern rock music compared to an E standard guitar tuning. Did people really talk like that all the time? Or was it just performative art to be ‘on’ for the student body?

Only one table for two, shoved up against a concrete column at the back of the room sat invitingly open. He made a beeline for it, only to realize why no one else had taken it. The smell hit him immediately. He looked over, and there sat the massive trash can. It didn’t just stink. It smelled like someone had poured month old sour milk and sun fresh mayonnaise into the bin. He sighed.

Perfect. Just. Perfect. He sat down and tried to eat his slightly over toasted sausage egg McMuffin while trying not to think about what that horrible smell was. He didn’t know what was worse, that feeling that everyone was staring, or the realization that no one was.

Lewis definitely didn’t remember signing up for AP Governmental Studies, but it was right there on the schedule, and he couldn’t just change classes, not until next semester. The classroom was divided into 12 seats on one side, 12 on the other, in rows of two, and an upperclassman had taken his usual seat, the one he’d enjoyed in the back, out of sight and out of mind last time.

This left only one seat open, front and center and right in Madison’s line of sight. She still didn’t seem to notice him, as he sat down nervously, sweating from the broken air conditioning even as she sat prim and proper, unaffected by the humidity. She really did have ice water running through her veins, didn’t she? She certainly had that smell about her, a faint, mintiness, sharp like her.

“Sorry about the heat, everyone,” Mrs. Pace said. “Maintenance assures me it’ll be fixed by 10 AM so let’s just suffer through it for now. If you need to get up to use a rehydration station by all means, just get up and go. I don’t want anyone passing out on my floor,” she teased, getting a laugh from a few students. Lewis wasn’t one of them.

He was on Mars again, only now his mind was searching for the space between spaces. He thought about the note, wondered if there were others hidden around. When Mrs. Pace disappeared to the back of the room he reached a hand underneath his desk just to check.

Rather than a note or a hidden carving, his hand found only the petrified DNA of a thousand pieces of gum, and one disgustingly fresh one. He made a sour face and jerked his hand back. Of course, Madison saw that. She rolled her eyes in disgust, looking down at her tablet. And now, on top of being hot, sweaty, sticky with someone else’s fresh ass gum, he was blushing too.

Mrs. Pace reappeared in his field of view, holding a nerf ball. “Let’s try something different today. I’m going to throw this ball of non expanding recreational foam,” pause for laughter, “And if I hit you with it - or if you catch it, you get to answer a trivia question about government.”

She glanced around the room, and then right at Lewis. The ball landed on his desk, right in his field of view. He looked up at her.

"Chambers, define 'meritocracy' in the context of the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause. Are we here because we are equal, or because we are better?"

“Uhm,” Lewis said nervously. “I um... I think we’re just lucky?”

His ears burned as he heard laughter around him, and beneath it, an annoyed sigh, the hiss of a crocodile about to snap her jaws shut on unsuspecting prey. He haphazardly tossed the Nerf ball back to Mrs. Pace. It bounced off her hand and right at Madison, who caught it expertly right out of the air.

“Luck is a variable for those who lack precision, sweetie. We’re here because the data indicates we're the optimal version of the citizenry.” She tossed the nerf ball back to Mrs. Pace with that self same precision that the teacher caught it without any trouble.

“Interesting. Anyone care to counter?”

She tossed the ball to another student.

“Uh, not a rebuttal, but I mean the email I got when I got here said I was in the top 0.5% of whatever a cohort is, so it kinda tracks with what she just said.”

Lewis just wanted to melt into the floor, while Madison just gave a victorious, self-assured smirk - not at Lewis, by any means. He was still the dirt beneath her flawlessly manicured nails, but just to the world in general.

Gross, gross, gross, gross, gross!

For the next 45 minutes Lewis had to sit with someone else’s nasty, disgusting, skin-crawling ugh, their chewed gum spit on his hand Why did people stick their fucking gum under a fucking desk anyway?

The second the bell - not a modern chime, but a literal, 1970s classroom steel bell that Clarity never bothered to upgrade probably because it would break something else if they did, screamed the hour, he bolted. He didn’t wait for a dismissal, or for Madison and her entourage to clear the hell out of his way.

He just. Ran. He knew there were bathrooms somewhere in the next corridor. He swore he would never use a public bathroom if he could avoid it. He even showered at odd hours, like midnight when everyone else was asleep, just to have a modicum of privacy, but this? This was a saliva soaked emergency.

He barreled through the extremely heavy door without a second thought.

Actually, he did have one small, nagging second thought; why was there a mirror with a neon blue counter, like some kind of passthrough room, on the way to the actual bathroom, inside the bathroom? Didn’t bathrooms have mirrors already?

Sure enough, beyond this weird halfway room lay a row of porcelain sinks and, although the stalls were not the traditional toilet stalls he expected - they were made of cinder block walls just like the rest of the school with metal doors attached to them - the sinks did have small, rectangular mirrors over the top of them.

He dove for the nearest sink and turned on the hot water, vigorously scrubbing his hands with the lilac-scented soap. After one wash, he went back for a second scrubbing, just to be absolutely sure.

He didn’t hear the door open next to him, nor the click of girls’ loafers on the tile floor as she walked up to him. He only realized when he heard the paper towel dispenser engage, and saw a mildly amused face, framed by raven hair, smirking at his reflection. She didn’t say a word. She just put the paper towel down beside him and disappeared into one of the stalls.

“Fuck,” he moaned softly, grabbed the paper towel, and ran like his life depended on it because it absolutely did. Twice in two days he had now been given pity from the Queen Bee of mean girls. If he lingered another second he might just throw up in the damned sink.

“I am so sorry,” was all he could get out before pushing back into that weird halfway room - a powder room he now realized, and out into the hall. He needed to get out of here. If anyone else had noticed, they didn’t say anything, most students too preoccupied with their own social standing to care about a red-faced shaggy haired boy running down the hallway.

In his haste he very nearly collided with Director Winters, the de facto president, CEO, superintendent and principal in one - a woman in her mid 30s with her perfect, chestnut brown hair in an immaculate bun. She turned on a stiletto heel to smile at him, ironically being the first genuinely friendly face he’d seen all day.

“E-excuse me, Director Winters,” he managed to mutter. “I wasn’t paying attention.”

“Hey, slow down,” she said cheerfully, not an admonishment about running in the halls to his surprise, but, advice? “You’re going to give yourself a heart attack in this heat. You alright sweetie?”

Lewis gulped air and then nodded. “Yeah. I’m just having the world’s worst week. I’ll be fine.”

The Dead Pixel Society

© 2026 Zoë Taylor

“Let’s see...” he said as he ran his fingers over the shelves. “Read it, read it, read it twice... Oh, what are you doing here?” he said, picking up the 1995 copy of Wicked. It was stuffed to the far right of the shelf, and, at least to his vague recollection of the Dewey decimal system, was completely on the wrong shelf.

A yellowed, old index card, fluttered to the ground. He knelt down to pick it up, turning it over.

‘If ur reading this don’t throw it away. Put it back where u found it. But, if ur looking for amazing acoustics, ask Jessica in the skool theater. She’ll show u the way to the utility corridor! -W.W.’

---

Lewis wanted to go back to the music wing, to find the blonde with the sheet music, but his dread of having to dance the Clarity Shuffle with the NFC reader kept him in the main building at least for now. And now, he smelled like he’d been bathing in a Sephora perfume counter thanks to that damn lilac scented soap. He was pretty sure he hadn’t gotten it all washed off, either, with trying to beat feet out of the girls’ room before Madison changed her mind and screamed.

But he had to find somewhere quiet, somewhere out of the way.

The library.

The school was almost all digital nowadays right? Right. So some place like the old library was probably a dead zone - literally and figuratively seeing as how even classrooms required wi-fi repeaters to keep the signal alive. And when he got to the library door, it didn’t even have a damn NFC lock on it - bonus!

He ducked inside. There was a student here, and another girl no less, but she genuinely did not seem to even notice him, her nose deep in a physical copy of Edgar A. Poe’s consolidated works. For just the briefest moment, it gave Lewis a reason to smile to himself. She was clearly an athlete. She was svelte and poised, long, dark red hair in a high ponytail with her letterman jacket slung over the back of her chair bearing patches for cheer and a big basketball patch, and yet she was here, like him, seeking a quiet place to just breathe.

And she was reading Poe, one of Lewis’ unironic favorite authors. He wanted so, so badly to talk to her, but if he valued his own privacy here so much, he figured she most certainly did as well, and decided not to disturb her, instead just disappearing among the shelves to find something to read, too.

“Let’s see...” he said as he ran his fingers over the shelves. “Read it, read it, read it twice... Oh, what are you doing here?” he said, picking up the 1995 copy of Wicked. It was stuffed to the far right of the shelf, and, at least to his vague recollection of the Dewey decimal system, was completely on the wrong shelf.

A yellowed, old index card, fluttered to the ground. He knelt down to pick it up, turning it over.

‘If ur reading this don’t throw it away. Put it back where u found it. But, if ur looking for amazing acoustics, ask Jessica in the skool theater. She’ll show u the way to the utility corridor! -W.W.’

His heart skipped a beat. Jessica? He knew Jessica was an extremely common name, especially back then, but still to see it written out like this in another real note from W.W. whoever they were - with no nasty petrified gum in sight. He shivered. “The utility corridors... The space between spaces?” he said softly, not a whisper. A whisper was a harsh, cutting sound, but a soft word was barely audible. A whisper could disturb a silent room and a silent reader a few shelves over - the last thing he wanted.

Lewis carefully tucked the old note back where he found it, leaving just the slightest edge poking out for the next hapless idiot like him, searching for sanctuary to find. At this point he’d take whatever miniscule victories he could get. Now though, now he had to do the Clarity Shuffle with a new dance partner, the school’s theater and auditorium.

“Nope,” he said quietly and picked up the copy of ‘Wicked’ again, careful not to disturb the index card he had just put back a moment ago. “Screw all of that.”

Wednesday morning provided only a brief reprieve from the heat in the form of an intense microburst of a heat shower. It had rained just enough to cascade the sweet smell of freshly watered grass across the campus, and to crank the humidity up to 11. At least this morning the air conditioning was working again, and a little too well. He shivered under his comforter half the night and even getting out of bed was a race to get into the polyester slacks and starched crisp shirt before frostbite could set in.

He coasted through the morning classes without any gum related mishaps, at least, and he no longer smelled like lilacs - just the usual sweat and desperation of a freshman who was in way over his head. But he had a new quest in the quest log today. He had to find Jessica.

She had to be a teacher or an advisor, for a note to be telling the reader to ask for her, and a pretty chill one at that if she was going to let students just crawl around in the utility corridors like that. The thought actually made him smile just a little. Maybe things were finally looking up.

They were not. Murphy’s Law was on Lewis this week, and was not about to let go, and because the universe has a sense of humor, the Clarity Shuffle actually let him into the theater on the first try, only to discover to his horror that the theater itself was extremely in use, a full rehearsal of a musical going on up on the stage, ‘Beauty and the Beast’ if he had to guess.

The blonde girl was on the stage - the Phantom of the Opera sheet music owner, and singing her heart out to a modified, production quality rendition of Belle’s “Bonjour” song from the start of the movie. Lewis just stood and listened in awe.

She was every bit as talented as him, and absolutely a mezzo soprano who could ghost those soprano notes in her head voice if she needed, at least on the lower end of the upper range. He actually found himself humming along as he stood next to the theater’s back entrance. He nearly jumped out of his skin when he felt a hand on his shoulder.

“I’m sorry!” he said reflexively, apologizing for even being here. The arm belonged to a girl with ash blonde hair, but rather than the scholar standard silhouette, she was wearing a black tee shirt and dark denim jeans - and most notably, a professional broadcast quality headset. She grinned at him.

“Yeah? Me too,” she giggled. “I didn’t mean to startle you. Just wanted to ask if you needed something?”

“I’m looking for someone... Jessica? Sorry I don’t know her last name, but I think maybe she’s a teacher or advisor or something.”

“I know like, five Jessicas, including myself,” the apparent Jessica answered, adding, “But, my friends call me by my middle name if that helps. I’m Heather,” she added. “But, I don’t know any adults named Jessica. Sorry. Oh just a sec.”

Heather ducked back into the sound booth at the back of the theater, where Lewis now realized she had emerged from to take ten years off his life to begin with. The music stopped playing and the blonde haired girl down on the stage waved.

“Can we take it from the second verse? I’m just not confident about my mark,” she said.

Heather’s voice boomed over the PA. “Sure thing Lyra. In 5, 4, 3...” The music started up again, and Lyra began to sing.

“Hey, sorry,” Heather said, “Gotta keep on my toes you know,” she giggled. “You want to stay and listen awhile? You seem pretty into it.”

“Can I? I don’t want to intrude,” Lewis answered.

“No way, stick around
!” Heather said, only she had accidentally hit the ‘talk’ switch on the battery pack on her belt, causing it to boom over the PA, and causing Lyra to shriek in surprise.

“Oops... Sorry Ly.”

Lyra, laughing with relief from the shock, gave Heather a two finger Roman salute, and grinned. “One more time from the top? I almost got it this time!”

Lewis bit back a small, embarrassed laugh as he sat down in the comfortable theater seat next to the sound booth. As he watched Lyra strut around on the stage, pretending to interact with people who just weren’t there, something caught his attention. The spotlight flashed over a sparkle of red on a backstage door, partly obscured by something.

It almost looked like a dress? He watched more closely, when Lyra strutted past it a second time, and he realized someone had painstakingly painted Jessica Rabbit on the door. Ask Jessica. He literally put his palm to his forehead.

“Oh, talk about a rabbithole,” he groaned to himself. But, there was just no way he could get up there right now, not with a full blown theater practice going on. Maybe later tonight, or tomorrow? Weren’t these student spaces open 24/7? ‘For your convenience’ or whatever.

“She’s amazing huh?” Heather said, at least not scaring either him or Lyra this time.

“Yeah. I had no idea she was classically trained when I bumped into her yesterday. Her projection is stunning.”

“You should hear her performing ‘Aria di Mezzo Carattere’,” Heather said. He turned to look up at her.

Aria Di Mezzo Carattere was what even got Lewis into choir in the first place, and here she was trying to tell him that she not only knew the piece by its official title and not just ‘Celes’ Opera Theme’ but that Lyra could sing it, too?

“You’re joking,” Lewis said with a skeptical, guarded tone.

“I’m dead serious,” Heather answered.

That’s such a deep cut reference even my retro JRPG loving parents would only get it if I flat out called it Celes’ Opera.”

Heather’s cynical, borderline bored smirk dissolved into a genuine grin as she flopped down on the seat next to Lewis, between him and the sound booth. “Not gonna lie, I did not expect you to get that. Nobody ever gets it. It’s just a stupid private joke between me and Lyra.”

“I’ve played the absolute crap out of Final Fantasy 6,” Lewis laughed. “My parents are retro game collectors so I’ve just always had access to original hardware. It wasn’t until I was like eight or nine that I realized most kids didn’t even know what a power glove was, let alone how janky they really are.”

“I love the power glove. It’s so bad,” Heather answered. They both giggled as Heather jumped up again, but this time she waved her hand for Lewis to follow her into the booth.

The sound booth was more than just sound equipment, to Lewis’ surprise. There were two massive sound mixing stations, true, with more faders and knobs than Lewis could even fathom, but then to the left of all that sat a massive lighting control board, too. Recessed at the back of the booth, a huge, mechanical red button had a note written on yellowed paper that read ‘DO NOT TOUCH - Raven’ on it.

As she used a finger to manipulate the Ableton Live software displayed on a 23” touch monitor with one hand she motioned with her free hand to the extra seat. “Cop a squat and stay awhile, Aria.”

“Thank you,” Lewis said, sitting in the extra seat that to his shock, was even more comfortable than the theater seats had been, supportive and firm, but cushy too, like they were made for much longer use than a few hours watching a production or play.

“So what are you doing here? I mean, what are you really doing here? Why is Jessica so important?” Heather asked.

Lewis shrugged. “You’re just going to laugh.”

“Try me,” Heather said. She looked over at Lewis.

Lewis sighed, looking between Heather, down through the window of the sound and lighting control booth to the stage. The view from here of the Jessica door was even better than it had been. There must have been some kind of curtain or something blocking the view from the theater seating.

“So the other day I was in the music wing and I found this note from a W. W. It said ‘Don’t let the bastards grind you down’ with an arrow pointing down... I turned over the piano bench and there was another note. This one said ‘Search for the space between spaces’. I know this sounds crazy, but it’s like they were talking directly to me even though these notes are probably like 50 years old.”

“So who told you to ask for Jessica?” Heather asked. If she knew anything, she wasn’t letting on that she did.

“I found a note in the library, in an old copy of ‘Wicked’ that said the acoustics in the catwalks are amazing, and to ask Jessica to show me the way. Of course I assumed Jessica was a theater teacher or something. And then I saw that door, or, well part of it anyway. Enough to realize that’s what the note meant. I know this sounds completely insane, and I’m probably being pranked by ancient notes, but I mean, I got nothing else to do, you know? I just... I want to find somewhere I’m not being judged for breathing wrong.”

“Well,” Heather said, “At least you’re honest. I like that. I’ll make a deal with you. I’ve got a full production of Beauty and the Beast, a dozen actors, one backstage manager, and two stage hands between the two of us. Everyone wants to be on the stage, in the spotlight, but nobody wants to move props or handle rigging. If you’d be willing to help me out in the catwalks, I’ll give you the run of them.”

“You... You’re asking me to be a stage hand?” Lewis asked.

“I’m asking if youll be my eyes and ears in the catwalks while I’m stuck down here.” She paused and looked up. Lyra was leaning in the doorway, grinning at them. “Oh! Sorry Lyra. I was just negotiating with a new helper.”

“RIP your sleep, huh?” Lyra giggled.

“Shush!” Heather laughed. “What was it you needed? I’m so sorry.

“You’re good,” Lyra giggled softly. “I just wanted to say I’m taking a breather to drink some water and go pee.” She waved casually and then turned to step out through the nearby door.

Heather turned back to Lewis. She tapped the ‘DO NOT TOUCH’ note from Raven. “I’ve seen a few of those notes myself. From what I can gather, which isn’t much, they were written by the original 2008 theater geeks who stayed with the school back when it went private in ‘08. I honestly can’t tell you much more than that though. But if you’re willing to lend me a hand I will absolutely owe you a favor.” She offered Lewis her hand, at that.

Lewis started to reach for it, but Heather retracted it, spit theatrically on it, and then stuck it out again. Lewis stared in abject horror.

“Well?” Heather grinned. “You ready to get your hands dirty or what?”

Lewis sighed. “I hate you,” he said, shut his eyes tight, and tried really hard not to think of the gum as he took the offered hand. Heather gripped his hand firmly, bringing up a bottle of hand sanitizer that she squirted into his palm afterwards, before squirting some into her own.

“I’m not a monster,” Heather giggled. “I just wanted to see how far you’re willing to go. You didn’t flinch - well, okay, you did, but you shook anyway, and that’s even better honestly. Welcome to the theater. Just, promise me if you find out anything, you’ll share it with me, yeah?”

The Dead Pixel Society

© 2026 Zoë Taylor

Aria? Aria, née Lewis looked around, holding up the lantern. A thick layer of dust lay on everything - even the empty Jolt cola can resting on its side in the corner next to a cheese crackers wrapper that looked slightly less aged than the can, judging by its lack of dust. “It’s beautiful,” she said. “But I’ll admire the scenery later. You didn’t bring me up here for a social visit.”

Heather actually beamed in the light of the lantern. “God damn. Maybe you really are one of us. Okay, let’s try a new one. Aria is what I call you, a nickname. Lewis Chambers is your scholar standard. Oh don’t look so surprised,” she laughed. “You think I’d let someone up here without finding out who they are?” She winked. “Anyway, you've got the trouser role, but up here in the shade you don't have to wear a mask. What's your true name?"

---

Lewis stared at himself in the mirror. This was the best he could do for clothing he didn’t mind getting dirty, or possibly ruined, an old hand-me-down Metallica concert tee that, ironically, was a gift from his older sister, and a pair of old denim jeans, relaxed fit that had a slight tear in the back pocket area with ragged edges at the cuffs. He didn’t look like a scholar standard. He looked like a stage hand in way over his head, which was perfect.

“Big date tonight?” Tony spoke up. Lewis looked at Tony through the reflection in the mirror. He was sitting on his bed, grinning at Lewis. “You’ve been standing there five minutes. Just curious.”

“Oh, no,” Lewis shook his head quickly. “Not with this crazy girl. I let myself get talked into helping with the theater stuff. I thought it’d be all bonding over retro music and stuff, but she’s got this chaotic neutral streak a mile wide.”

“Ohh,” Tony grinned, “In other words, you fell afoul of Heather ‘Fix it with duct tape and rip out the arm hair later’ Michaels. RIP your sleep schedule man.”

“That’s what Lyra said, too,” Lewis laughed nervously. “What the hell did I just sign up for?”

Tony just grinned. ‘Good luck, bruh.”

“Not helping,” Lewis groaned, walking to the door. By 9, things had started to wind down around the dorm. Most guys were on their way to bed or already asleep, and Lewis was just getting started on what was sure to be a long, exhausting night. Why did it have to be 9pm anyway? He’d been right there. That would’ve been the perfect time.

At least now that the sun had gone down, it wasn’t as oppressively hot, even if the humidity had somehow managed to push into the above 100% range, a low mist hanging over the campus, bathed in that annoying amber security street light glow that was perfectly calibrated not to disrupt anyone’s circadian rhythm, and downward firing so they wouldn’t shine in anyone’s windows.

Lewis was surprised to see the girl who had been reading Poe in the library out for a jog tonight. Instead of her scholar standard, she was wearing a black sports bra and white shorts, and it suddenly occurred to him that that couldn’t possibly have been her jacket he’d seen earlier.

Thick leather and wool, in this heat? She’d collapse the second she left the building. That was another mystery to solve later.

“Hey,” she said casually as she joggged past.

“Heya,” he said, turning to watch her, the dark red ponytail bouncing along behind her. She stopped and turned around to look back at him, too. She didn’t say anything, but she almost seemed like she had a knowing smile on her face for just a moment. She turned and continued her jog a moment later.

“Oookay,” Lewis said quietly and started moving back towards the theater again. The NFC reader again deceptively decided to work as soon as his hand got within six inches of the panel, shifting from the warm amber to a minty welcoming green. He opened the door, a blast of cold air threatening to bowl him over as he pushed his way inside.

The stage was dead silent. The seats were empty, and only the ghost light above the stage illuminated anything. Lewis couldn’t get into the Jessica door yet, not until Heather got here, so he just walked up onto the stage. A piece of gaffer’s tape had been placed directly under the ghost light. He stood on it, looked back at the sound booth again just to double check that he was alone, that Heather hadn’t gotten here yet.

He tilted his head back and started to sing, testing his vocal range. D5, D#5, E5... E#5? He coughed and cleared his throat. The E#5 was an E too far, but it wasn’t a D#5 at least. Small victories!

He tried to let go of his unnerved feelings at the silent auditorium. No one was here to judge him on his nonstandard silhouette, although he knew the slouch wasn’t helping, either. He straightened his posture and sang out a supported D5, focusing on maintaining the note and the vibrato comfortably - supporting, not forcing it.

A tone like someone striking a tuning fork rang out somewhere in the catwalks above and Heather spoke, “You’re about three cents sharp Celes. If you’re going to sing for the ghosts, at least give ‘em a show,” she said playfully.

“God!” Lewis yelped. Heather laughed.
“Nope, guess again. Hang on, I’ll be right down.”

A moment later the ‘jessica’ door opened, expelling acrid, dry air and the strong, musty smell of an HVAC unit that stopped caring about 30 years ago. Heather stepped out, a Coleman LED lantern in one hand, and a heavy duty mag light in the other. She offered Lewis the lantern. “I can find my way in total darkness, but if you slip and fall your first day it’ll be my ass in a sling - and yours too I guess.” She grinned.

“Gee, thanks,” Lewis said, accepting the lantern and taking a moment to figure out how to turn it on. He managed to actually not blind himself with it, which Heather seemed to find both amusing and mildly impressive, before turning to head back through the door. She left it propped open just slightly.

Beyond the door was a set of steel stairs, about eight inches high per stair, and coated in textured rubber. The stairway rail felt surprisingly cold under his hand, the smart ring making a quiet, continuous groan against the matte metal as he gripped it, following Heather.

The catwalks were absolutely not what he expected, although in truth he didn’t know what to expect. The odd discarded soda can, messages written on the walls like ‘R.S. + R.W. 4 ever 2008’ or ‘Jackie was here 1993’ plus occasional graffiti on the level of the Jessica Rabbit painting on the downstairs door.

“So, Aria,” Heather said, “Was it everything you pictured?”

Aria? Aria, née Lewis looked around, holding up the lantern. A thick layer of dust lay on everything - even the empty Jolt cola can resting on its side in the corner next to a cheese crackers wrapper that looked slightly less aged than the can, judging by its lack of dust. “It’s beautiful,” she said. “But I’ll admire the scenery later. You didn’t bring me up here for a social visit.”

Heather actually beamed in the light of the lantern. “God damn. Maybe you really are one of us. Okay, let’s try a new one. Aria is what I call you, a nickname. Lewis Chambers is your scholar standard. Oh don’t look so surprised,” she laughed. “You think I’d let someone up here without finding out who they are?” She winked. “Anyway, you've got the trouser role, but up here in the shade you don't have to wear a mask. What's your true name?"

“Can I think about it first?” she asked. “I would’ve had an answer for you earlier, but...”

“But?” Heather asked.

“But there’s already five Jessicas,” she answered hesitantly, testing the waters to see how Heather reacted. She didn’t laugh or roll her eyes. She just gave Aria a quiet smile.

“That’s valid. You can have Aria for both while you think about it, if you want - no pressure up here.”

“Thank you,” Aria answered softly. “Really... Thank you.”

Heather patted her shoulder. “We all need a place where we can go, where nobody will hear us scream. Just, some of us more than others. For me, that’s this place. C’mon, I’ll give you the grand tour, THEN I’ll bust your ass with the hard labor,” she teased.

One thing Aria noticed immediately was that the rafters up here weren’t just bare concrete. They were buttressed in a strange, almost vaulted way. Sure there were exposed steel beams, but there were also archways of concrete that might have looked beautiful in an exposed, gothic cathedral ceiling.

“Seriously, what the actual fuck was the architect who built this place smoking?”

Heather laughed. “You don’t know the history do you? This wasn’t always a private school. It was built in 1971, back in the cold war duck and cover days. Those archways?” she said, pointing her maglite at the ceiling, “Those are meant to increase the amount of stress the building could withstand. Hell there’s rumors to this day that a missile silo is under the gym,” she said conversationally. “The lighting grid’s this way. I just need to double check the wiring hasn’t been chewed on while I’m up here, then I’ll get you to help me with that damn rusty pulley. Sound good?”

“Sure thing,” Aria answered. While waiting on Heather inside the server room, little more than a cubby hole with an ancient server rack whirring happily away, and a stack of old, spinning hard drives in boxes resting next to it, she spotted another scrawl of text. It wasn’t just a tag. It was a musical note, with an arrow buried in the note head. It wasn’t drawn onto the note, but rather, where an absence of marker had been left, like someone had placed an arrow stencil and then drawn the note graffiti over it. It was pointing back out of the alcove.

Aria stepped out into the corridor. Another note with a similar arrow pointed further up. She cautiously followed.

She quickly found herself in another alcove with a stainless steel chair, rusted with age, sat right at the center. Someone had left a CD player next to the chair, and an old Nightwish CD from 2002, or at least the jewel case, lay in a pool of dust, a thin layer spread out across the case, and the CD player. She brushed away the dust from both, picking up the jewel case. She turned it over, and her eyes lit up. Someone had circled Track 9 - The Phantom of the Opera.

She looked around. Heather hadn’t come to yell at her for wandering off yet. She lifted her head and sang a note in her lower register, an easy C4. It didn’t simply echo back to her, but bounced off the ceilings and floor, creating a resonant frequency that chilled her bones.

“Oh, you found the observation room,” Heather said. “You can see the entire stage from here through that little slit, and if you REALLY want to troll the actors, you don’t even need the PA system to do the Voice of God if you do it from here.”

“Can... Can I try singing here? Before you put me to work I mean. I... I think this is what the W.W. note was telling me to find.”

“Everyone finds their own truth in those old notes,” Heather said. “If this is what you were looking for, by all means. I’d love to hear you sing something other than a sharp E5,” she teased.

Aria didn’t hesitate. She threw her head back, inhaled two lungs full of 50 year old air, and sang what was in her heart. It wasn’t perfect, light and airy like Christine in the original Andrew Lloyd Webber musical, bright, and airy. It was honest, raw, and dark, the girl Aria knew she was tangled up in the biological realities of who she was becoming, and it somehow just worked.

When she opened her eyes, she realized someone had actually scrawled the words ‘Sing, my angel of music! - W.W.’ across the ceiling, exactly where someone would only be able to see it if they were standing with their head tilted back and ready to do exactly that.

“Wow!” Aria squeaked. “I... Was that me?”

“It sure as heck wasn’t me,” Heather laughed, offering her not a hug, but a high five. “That was incredible!”

“Thanks,” Aria said. “Okay, now that I’ve found my new hidey hole, I’m ready to actually help you. Was this why you wanted me to come back so late? So I could find this room?”

“I’m not that smart,” Heather smirked. “The truth is, I made you come back because I had to know how far you were willing to go. I had to know I could trust you - and, for what it’s worth? I do trust you, at least to hold a rusty pulley while I WD-40 the snot out of it.” She pressed a pair of thick work gloves into Aria’s hands. “You better put these on though. You don’t want tetanus.”