NEW YORK lights, a thousand dollars to her name && a red duffle bag of clothes --- these were the belongings of a once acapella champion as she stood in the calling room of a broadway musical. RUTHLESS was the word that Chloe would use; for many of the agent’s smiles seemed faux and half assed, and knowledge of name or TROPHY meant little to directors with pale clipboards && the prestige of SOLD OUT tickets.

                    YET, surprisingly, it’s not the pressure of performance that makes Chloe’s stomach knot --- but a FLASH of hair and a blue eyed stare that she caught in the corner of her own. For that FLEETING moment, the ginger swore she felt her heart leap into her mouth and she called out a name that was once so familiar to her.

                                                                                                    ❝BECA?❞

              ( --- ❛NO,❜ her brain cruelly reminded her, ❛this was NOT Beca.❜ Beca laid suspended from the seatbelt of an UPTURNED car; blood trickling from her nose && a head wound inflicted from the glass that once showered them both. Beca laid on the side of the road with bruises blooming from C R A C K E D ribs caused by the EMT’s struggles to keep her alive. Beca’s broken body laid in a dark mahogany COFFIN whilst her friends wove flowers around the picture frames && Emily struggled in a rendition of Flashlight. This was not Beca, because Beca was no longer ALIVE. )