March moved to sit in a seat in the front row, his chocolate bar all but forgotten. The girl followed his movements, sitting cross-legged across the screen from March.
"Now it's your turn. Ask me a question." The girl in the screen said, her tone coy. Her eyes aglow with curiosity.
The sudden voice from loud speakers still made March jump in his seat, but only a little.
"What are you?" March asked.
"A friend, I hope."
"And where did you come from?"
She grinned. "No no, It's my turn now. Let's see, what to ask..." The projected girl rose and began pacing across the blank screen, tapping a finger against her chin. The girl's coat trailed a bit behind her, and the fall of her footsteps made no sound. "Where do you think I come from?"
"I think you're some sort of spirit, a ghost, so to speak."
"Interesting" replied the misty projection, her smile growing wider. "But ghosts don't exist."
"Well, what are you then?" March protested.
"Aww boo, you already asked that. ask me another." The auditorium became very quiet again as the projected girl returned and once again sat across from March, tossing her coat behind her.
The boy thought for a moment, then asked "Why are you here, in the theatre, I mean?"
"I haven't decided yet." Her playful voice gave a hint of color to her white form and black coat.
"Well that's hardly and answer!" March complained, folding his arms and laying back in his seat in protest.
"You really want to know that much?"
"Of course I do. Your a ghost for god's sake-"
"I never said I was a ghost" She raised a brow at March, but her grin never left her face.
"Well what else could you be? And besides, whatever you are, I have to know more."
"Very interesting" was the girl's only reply, her voice pouring through the auditorium. March stared at the girl, curious beyond imagination, waiting for her to say something else, when the doors of the theatre swung open.
The light of late afternoon flooded into the rear of the theatre. The owner, Doug, had opened the front doors. He reached for the light switch and flipped it once, twice before he realized his switch didn't work, and that his ancient projector was running.
"March, is that you?" The old, white haired man called into the auditorium. From where he stood at the lightswitch, the old man could not see around the end of that short hallway. He could not see the projected girl. Not yet.
The projected girl looked away from the voice of the new visitor and back at March. "Well, you want to know more, don't you?"
The girl reached out a hand, resting it against the inside of the screen. March mimicked the movement, laying his own palm against hers, and he stepped into the great black void, hand in hand with the black and white girl. It was like stepping through water. The faint light of the projector mixing with the perfect blackness of the screen to create a river of darkness, frigid as it flowed around March's body. But when he appeared on the other side, the waters of the screen flowed back in place. No trace was left of March on the other side.
Hand in hand, they splashed deeper into that screen, the projected girl's black trench coat flowing behind her.
The ancient projector ceased it's electronic whir, and the long silver shadows it had cast vanished.
