1 | Phantom Masked

A water drop falls on Sefiso's face. He's still asleep. It looks like he's been in a fight. He is 15 years old, well built. Another few drops fall on his face. A soft thunder rumbles through the skies. Sefiso opens his eyes and quickly jumps up in a slumber and runs to an electric box, mounted to the wall of his shack. The shack is small, a perfect square. He lives alone here. Sefiso hits the electric box with a bump from the side. It turns on. A blue-electric holographic image of a roof forms above Sefiso's shack. Then the blue electric fades away. At first the roof is textured with a glossy white finish and golden trimmings. Sefiso selects a rugged texture option on the touch screen and then the roof's texture changes to the old corrugated look that Sefiso's walls have. Sefiso searches through his bedside table and picks up a watch. His eyes grow! At a different location, a dance competition, we see a girl, Teletsi, the same age as Sefiso, sitting on a bench, waiting, stressed. She's dressed in a dancing outfit, but with no shoes. Many other dancers of the same age are getting dressed around her, they all have shoes. She looks at a big clock on the wall. Back in Sefiso's shack, he grabs a raincoat and his keys. He pulls out a big book under his bed and opens it. Hidden inside the fake book is a pair of bunched up ballet dancing shoes. He puts them inside a plastic grocery bag. He walks to the door and puts his head against the metal corrugated door, listening for something specific. He softly starts opening many locks on his door. He opens the door slowly and scans the area outside. A drone buzzes by, stopping to pick up a piece of trash lying on the ground. From another point of view, something is watching Sefiso. Sefiso quickly steps outside and locks the door behind him with a thick chain. Sefiso dashes off. The person who was watching Sefiso, sends a "He's out" message from his phone. At a different location, two boys, about the same age as Sefiso, pull tight a thin wire that spans across an open path. One big bully-looking boy looks down the path, smiling. At the hall, Teletsi still waits, even more stressed. The main lights go off. A crowd starts cheering. An announcer starts the show. Sefiso is running through the streets of the shacks. Narrow, muddy, rainy. Sefiso runs down the same path we saw earlier, not noticing the wire. It catches him right by the ankles and brings his body smashing down into the water and mud. The bag of shoes fly to the side. "Is it just me or did I tell you to get lost?" the big bully says as he picks up the bag. "That's not yours" Sefiso says as he catapults against the big bully, grabbing the bag from him and tucking it under his body like a football. The big bully smashes Sefiso to the ground. All the boys start kicking and hitting Sefiso as he lies in the mud and rain. He protects the bag like it is more important than his own life. The big bully lifts Sefiso's head by his hair: "If I see your queer face one more time around here, I'll rip it off your skull". He drops Sefiso's face back into the mud. The bullies walk off. At the competition, a crowd cheers, Teletsi gets up, disappointed, and walks towards the exit door. As she opens it, Sefiso's timing is just right from the other side, he stumbles in. Teletsi is shocked. Sefiso: "Where's my outfit?". Teletsi fetches it and passes it to Sefiso. He puts it on, takes the plastic shoes out of the bag and puts them on also. Teletsi puts on her own shoes, which were sitting ready at the bench she was waiting at. A backstage assistant drags them to their starting positions. Sefiso puts on his phantom mask, which covers his bleeding face. They are on! They walk onto the stage, blinded by the light. On the other side of them are two competing dancers, male and female. All four of them turn to the crowd. They bow. The other boy's phantom mask falls. His face is also smashed up. He recovers his mask. They start their dance.