Chapter 1 — Theater at the End of the Hallway

Do Lam knew he was in trouble as soon as the phone was placed face down on the teacher's desk by Mr. Quang.

“Do you want to explain why the whole school just saw the scene where the principal had his bread stolen by a pigeon?”

Lam looked at the screen. The livestream stopped at 1,204 views. The scene where the bird rushes across the yard, the principal misses turning around and Bao Tran screams "stop turning" still lying there. Lam was about to say she didn't know the livestream would turn on automatically, but she pressed the start button herself.

“I thought only the class group was watching.”

“Your class group has four hundred people?”

“Yes… I haven't checked yet.”

Teacher Quang rubbed his forehead. Outside the door, Quan stood against the wall, trying not to laugh until his face turned red. Bao Tran looked at Lam like she was looking at a case where the culprit was not found, even though the culprit was sitting in front of her.

Lam was sentenced to three weeks to clean out the old screening room at the end of the hallway in block B. That place had been locked for a long time, the wooden door was dark, the nameplate only had the words "THEATER" and a rusty nail. According to Mr. Quang, duties include sweeping dust, inventorying chairs, cleaning cloth curtains, and absolutely not turning on machines arbitrarily.

“Can you make a video report?” Lam asked.

"Do not turn anyone's face. Do not livestream. Do not turn punishment into entertainment content."

Quan coughed slightly. "Can you let her spin the broom? The broom probably won't object."

Teacher Quang pointed to the door. "Both of you go together. Quan is in charge of the chair."

The hallway in area B is more deserted than after school. Sunlight filtered through the dusty windows, falling in streaks on the tile floor. Lam pushed open the theater door, the smell of old fabric and damp wood poured out. Sixty folding chairs lined up in a row, many missing legs, some tied with shoelaces. The white projection screen has turned yellow, above it hangs a red light that is no longer lit.

A boy was squatting in front of the projector, holding a screwdriver. He wore a uniform but did not wear a name badge.

“Who are you?” Lam asked.

“The person who was forced by Mr. Quang to fix this.”

“Are you also punished?”

“No. I came by myself.”

Quan put down the stack of chairs. "This is Huy. He fixed everything except math test scores."

Gia Huy looked up and glanced at Lam. “And you're the one who became a famous principal in one afternoon.”

Lam crossed his arms. “The bird did it, I just recorded it.”

“So the projector fixes itself, I just hold a screwdriver.”

Bao Tran arrived later, carrying a notebook and three garbage bags. She divided the tasks with colored pencils: Lam cleaned the curtains, Quan checked the chairs, Huy looked for machine errors, Tran made a list of usable items. In less than ten minutes, Quan mistakenly sat on the broken chair and fell down like a test performance. Lam laughed so much that he almost dropped his towel.

“Smile,” Quan said, brushing the dust off. “I sacrifice for art.”

Huy did not smile. He leaned close to the machine and removed the cover on the side. “Someone used it recently.”

Tran raised her head. "Impossible. The theater has been locked for three years."

“The power cord is plugged back in, but the power outlet has the fuse removed.”

Lam stepped forward. On the surface of the machine there is a streak of dust wiped into a rectangular shape. She raised her hand to touch but Huy stopped her.

"Don't. If the teacher asks, you say it exactly as it is."

“You always talk like an investigator.”

“I just don't want to be blamed for something I haven't done.”

At the end of the day, they collected eight trash bags, seventeen used chairs, and a tin box of film behind the curtain. The box has no label and is locked with a blue fabric strap. Tran wrote it down on the list, and Lam secretly took a photo with his phone and immediately put it away.

When the whole group About to close the door, the red light on the ceiling turned on. The projector makes a dry sound even though the power outlet still has the fuse removed. A white dot appeared on the fabric screen, then a line of words trembled slightly:

**DO NOT LET THE FINAL SCENE CUT.**

Lam forgot what teacher Quang said. She held up the phone.

Huy grabbed her wrist and turned off the screen. “No filming.”

“But you saw it too.”

“Seeing does not mean you have the right to post.”

The text disappeared. Red light turns off. In the darkness, Quan's gulp was clearly heard.

In the hallway, there was the sound of keys hitting each other. Teacher Quang stood in front of the door, looking at the four students and the projector that was turned off.

“What did you just do?”

No one answered. Lam looked at the unopened movie box, Huy looked at the electrical outlet, and Bao Tran wrote in the book the first line that was not in the plan: **The theater still has people watching.**

Teacher Quang entered the room and closed the door behind him. The teacher didn't look at the words on the screen anymore, just looked at the dusty shoes and the towel lying on the floor.

“Since the beginning,” he said.

Lam tells about the cleaning, the dust stains on the machine, the red light and the text. She tried not to make the story more dramatic, even though her instinct was to add music and a scary pause. Tran added time, Huy pointed to the fuse, Quan admitted he had told the rumor to two other classes.

“You are not allowed to tell me more,” Mr. Quang told Quan.

“But if you ask?”

“I said I don't know.”

Quan nodded, his face rarely serious.

Teacher Quang opened the wooden box and took out a handover book. The front page lists the names of people who once held the keys to the theater. There are different handwritings, some lines are crossed out. The teacher quickly flipped to the end, stopping at the day the fuse was removed from the machine.

“Who wrote this line?” Lam asked.

“A teacher has quit.”

“Why is there no signature?”

“Because at that time people thought it was just a temporary thing.”

Huy suggested checking the system before touching the film tank. Teacher Quang agreed, but asked him to do it under the supervision of maintenance staff. He took tape and marked each wire, reading the name of each part. Lam filmed with his eyes, not with his phone.

Quan stood next to the electrical panel, both scared and curious. He asked if the projector could turn on by itself. Huy explains no, unless there is an additional source or someone connects the circuit from somewhere else. Tran wrote down all the hypotheses, including the "faulty red light" hypothesis.

After half an hour, they discovered a small battery behind the screen. The battery is enough to power the lights and image controller, but not enough to run the actual projector. The text can be projected from a separate transmitter hidden in the curtain.

“So who installed the transmitter?” Lam asked.

Teacher Quang looked at the cloth curtain. “Someone who knows the theater and knows the children will come.”

Quan swallowed his saliva. “Is it ever the teacher?”

“If it were me, I would have chosen a sentence that was easier to understand.”

Lam asked the teacher why the theater was locked for three years. He said that after some students posted videos from the theater without asking permission, the school temporarily suspended operations to protect privacy. There were no major disciplinary cases, but those who were filmed did not want to appear again.

“Like my livestream,” Lam said.

"Not exactly the same. But you can learn from the similarities."

The teacher allowed the group to continue cleaning, because if the theater was about to be renovated, they needed to inventory the items. The teacher gave the temporary key to Tran, the only person who didn't drop anything for an hour. Quan objected, but admitted that he would be in charge of things unrelated to the key.

It was dark when they came out leave the room. Lam looked back at the curtain. The text has disappeared, but a light streak shaped like a door remains in the lower corner. Huy said he would check the transmitter tomorrow.

“What if that person turns on the phone again?” Lam asked.

"I won't turn it off yet. I'll ask first."

“Ask for a line?”

“Ask the person behind it.”

Lam took the phone and deleted the photo she took in the room. She didn't delete it from the trash right away. One part wants to keep the evidence, the other part knows keeping it is not the same as being used.

When I got home, my mother asked me how my punishment was on the first day. Lam said the theater has a projector that turns itself on and a question that hasn't been answered yet. Mom was washing dishes, and after hearing that, she dropped the plate into the sink.

“What is the name of the theater?”

“Theatre at the End of the Hall.”

Mom didn't ask more. Mom just told Lam not to accept anyone's story unless you know where they want it to go.

Lam looked at her mother and saw that those words were not general instructions. It smells of a very old memory.

That night, she opened the project book. Under the line "The theater still has viewers", she added: **Maybe the viewers are waiting for us to ask if they want to be seen.**

Before going to bed, Lam opened the livestream application and then immediately turned it off. She drafted a message to apologize to the principal, but deleted it three times because every sentence sounded like she was looking for a reason. Finally, she wrote briefly that she posted the image without thinking about the person being filmed, and would not justify it with the number of views.

Mom read the message and told her to send it the next morning after she had had enough sleep. Lam asked why her mother didn't force her to delete the app. Mom said the tool isn't defective, it's just that the user needs to learn how to hold it.

Lam placed the phone outside the desk. She took a pen and rewrote the three-week schedule to clean the theater, adding breaks and study hours. From tomorrow, she will not arbitrarily film anyone in the room. She didn't know if the punishment would help her change, but at least it gave her a place to start.

That night, Lam opened the yellow notebook her mother had bought at the book fair. The first page still has a faded line: "A good frame must leave room for others to breathe." She read it again and again, then underlined the word "others". Previously, every time she saw something strange, she only thought about the posting speed and number of views. The old screening room forced her to see everything more slowly: a flickering light bulb, a layer of dust on the armrest, the sound of a ceiling fan spinning out of rhythm. Every detail belongs to someone, even if no one is in front of the camera.

She set her alarm ten minutes early, preparing three questions for tomorrow: who was allowed to appear, who was allowed to listen to the recording, and who had the right to request deletion. The third question made her hesitate. Deleting a wasted scene can make the story feel disjointed, but keeping it when the people in the scene are uncomfortable is worse. Lam added a sentence next to it: "There is no scene more valuable than a person." Then she closed the book and turned off the light, seeing for the first time that this punishment was more than just dusting.