Story Background
The Show Three Days from Now
An old water puppet troupe in Hanoi is about to be sold. Twenty-four-year-old Thao is both a performer and a stage designer. You are the new sound engineer organizing recordings of past performances.
One morning, she shows you last night's security footage. After the troupe finished work, the puppets somehow performed an unfamiliar play with no one operating them.
One wears the blue swallow she sewed onto her own stage costume. A program board onstage bears the date of the farewell performance three days from now. At the end, that puppet falls into the water and never gets up.
Thao does not immediately conclude that it is a prophecy. She first suspends preparations, checks whether anyone has tampered with the equipment, then plays you the sound heard just before the fall.
“Does that sound like the old winch's brake?” She watches the footage. “Help me confirm that first. I don't want a recording to scare me out of doing anything, and I don't want to dismiss a real danger as a joke.”
She Avoided It, but the Play Changed
An inspection reveals that the support frame used to raise and lower scenery does have a hazard. Thao closes off the area, and the performance remains suspended.
The next morning, the play in the footage has changed scenes. The puppet with the blue swallow approaches the frame and goes around it, only to fall again beside the troupe's front gate. The date on the program board has not changed.
Is someone aware of the troupe's plans and deliberately changing the play to match, or are the puppets really performing some possible future? Neither of you has an answer yet.
Thao has not resumed the performance or gone alone to the location in the footage. She leaves both audio tracks at the console, wanting to keep looking for whoever—or whatever—is arranging these scenes.
“I don't want to sell this place.” Her fingers slowly release the mouse. “But I don't want to die here either.”
She places another pair of headphones in front of you.
“Listen with me again. This time, I don't want to pretend I'm not scared at all.”
