Chapter 5 — Theater at the End of the Hallway

The locked chair was close to the wall, its back facing the projection screen. It was older than the others, the blue paint peeling off in patches. Blue fabric strap wrapped around the chair leg, double knotted.

Quan brought a set of hairpins from his sister to cut the string. Tran looked at him.

“A hairpin is not a lock opening tool.”

“But he has experience cutting tangles.”

Huy used pliers to cut the wire in a few seconds. Under the chair there is no film box, only a thin wooden compartment closed with nails. Lam took a small hammer and tapped each blow. Quan counted the beats like a football commentator, and on the seventh stroke, the compartment popped out.

Inside is a red-covered notebook and a film camera. The film roll in the camera has been removed, but the battery cover has a note stuck on it: **Only open when there are three people present.**

“Who are you three?” Tran asked.

“My mother, uncle Khai and Nhi?” Lam replied.

Huy flipped the notebook. The first page is a list of scenes, the last page has a line crossed out: **Scene 27 – dressing room behind the stage. Do not use.**

Lam saw her mother's words in the notes: "Nhi wants to tell the story but doesn't want her face to appear. Khai agrees to use shadow and sound. Need to reshoot the final scene in the dressing room."

The dressing room behind the stage was removed when the school renovated the hall. There are no more clear maps. Quan said it could be the props room next to the gym. Vy remembers there was an iron door that was always locked.

Mr. Quang allowed them to search, on the condition that they did not pry open the door. The iron door opens with the equipment room key. Inside there was a smell of chalk dust, old backdrops and a large mirror with vertical cracks. On the wall hung a string of stage lights, one light bulb was still intact.

Lam looked in the mirror. In the cracked glass, she saw the image of a camera in her mother's photo. Huy removed the backdrop, revealing a small window overlooking the backyard. Next to the window is a star-shaped pencil line.

“The place no one thinks of,” Vy said. “Maybe behind the mirror.”

Quan knocked on the wooden frame. The sound is at a more hollow point. Huy found the latch hidden under the paint. The mirror frame slides aside, revealing the alcove. In the alcove there is a mini box of tapes and a piece of paper folded into quarters.

The paper had no words, only a diagram of three locations: the green chair, the projection screen and the window. Connect three points to form a triangle. In the middle of the triangle is an eye symbol.

Lam put the tape into the tape recorder. The first sound is the sound of the door opening. Then Nhi's voice, very small: "If everyone watches, please don't call my name."

Khai's voice replied: "No one called. We just let them listen."

Hoai An spoke up: "But what if they realize?"

“Then they will know there is a real person behind the story, and I must take responsibility.”

The tape lasts longer than the previous one. Nhi talked about her family having to move house due to debt, about the teasing at school and the time she was secretly filmed in the locker room. She didn't cry; It was the calmness that made Lam feel pain.

At the end, Nhi said: "The last scene doesn't need your face. Turn around and open the door. Just know you can walk out."

The sound of rain rang out. The sound of pulling a chair. Then there was the sound of someone pulling a roll of film from the machine.

Huy turned off the tape. He stood with his back to the group.

“Are you okay?” Lam asked.

"Fine."

“You don't have to watch it again if you don't want to.”

“I want to. But not here.”

Teacher Quang walked in and heard the last part. He said the locker room used to be a place where students were allowed to leave their personal belongings. After Nhi's story spread, the school locked the room and canceled the screening. Are not Who knows where the original film went.

“Did your mother do something wrong?” Lam asked.

Teacher Quang did not answer immediately. "She filmed a story that needed to be protected. But the adults at that time did not have the courage to protect it together."

In the yard, the school's loudspeakers announced that the commercial park's construction start date would be decided after the council meeting. Lam looked at the red book, Huy looked at the tape box, and Tran opened the chat group "Keep the theater".

Her first message: **If we want to keep the room, we have to make a movie that doesn't repeat the mistakes of our ex.**

Quan responded with a chair icon. Vy sent the sound of rain. Huy didn't text anything, but that night he sent the group a revised projector diagram.

Lam named the project: **Uncut Final Scene**.

The project name makes Lam feel both courageous and dangerous. It sounded like a challenge to the person who cut the old scene, while she didn't want to turn her mother or Nhi into rivals. Tran suggested adding a subtitle: **A movie about asking before telling**. Quan said the name was so long that it couldn't fit on the ticket. In the end they kept the name short, explaining the meaning in the introduction.

Huy creates a storage folder and sets access rights according to role. Lam is not allowed to arbitrarily download the original; Vy is responsible for the sound, Mai is in charge of the editing, and Mr. Quang holds the backup drive. The process sounds dry, but after the livestream incident, people understand that a small button can break many things.

On the first day of filming, Lam interviewed a tenth grade girl named Ha. Ha wanted to tell the story of how she was called by the wrong name during a screening, but didn't want the narrator to be recognized. Lam suggested filming the shoes and the angle of the hand holding the ticket. Ha looked at the frame and asked to cover the shoe label because it was a gift from his father. The team fixed it immediately.

Another friend wanted to change his mind after listening to the recording. Mai initially seemed disappointed at losing the scene, but Lam reminded that the person who appeared had the right to withdraw. Mai manually deleted the segment from the build, then recorded the deletion time in the notebook.

Huy received the task of repairing six chairs. He showed new students how to check legs, screws, seats and buckles. Quan took a test, tried each car and held up a green or red card. The third chair collapsed, causing him to flip around; Duc Minh began to understand why the process needed to be written large.

On the theater board, Tran drew a diagram of the person in charge. Dat took a look and suggested adding a substitute section. Lam asked why he thought they would be absent. Dat said adults often make plans as if no one gets sick, no one is sad, and no one changes their mind. A good theater must have room for those things.

Hoai An recorded his sentences in the editing room. Her voice trembled slightly, but did not require cutting. Lam asked if he wanted to hear it again. Mom listened once and held her breath before answering.

Vy paired that sentence with the sound of a chair opening. The scene was not as beautiful as advertised, but it was so real that Lam had to look away.

A week later, the project received notice that the school would have a video contest. Lam wanted to submit, but Tran reminded them not to prioritize the competition over privacy. They decided to send a shortened version without a separate story, while the full movie was only shown in a controlled space.

Quan asked if the shortened version wins, will it be kept in theaters? Dat said the award cannot replace the operating plan. Huy added: “But it can help others know that theaters exist.”

Lam wrote two parallel goals: reaching the public and protect the narrator. No item is allowed to swallow up the other.

The night before filming the door scene, Mom gave Lam a star clip. She said Nhi once said to keep it until someone asks the right question.

“What is the correct sentence?” Lam asked.

"It's not what you want to tell. It's what you want others to do with what you've told."

Lam puts the clip on her camera bag, not her hair. She wanted to bring the question, not play the role of Nhi.

In the theater, Huy screened three frames of film. The door opened, light poured in, and a figure stepped out. No face. Lam stood next to him and asked if he could keep the scene.

“Ask the cameraman,” Huy replied.

“The one filming is me.”

“Then you have the right to answer.”

Lam nodded. She replied: "Hold. But only if everyone in the frame has agreed."

Huy smiled. The projector runs, the sound is as steady as the breathing of the room.

The next morning, the renovation drawings were posted in the hallway. The line "theater" was replaced with "service area". Lam took down the paper, did not tear it, and gave it to Mr. Quang as evidence.

Tran opened the group chat and sent a sentence: **Start filming. Don't let the final scene be cut from our decision.**

The message received thirteen symbols of agreement from the other classes. One person asked the group if they needed someone to check their lines. Lam answered yes, but before participating you must read the rules and choose the part you want to do.

Huy sent the new projector diagram, with the line "do not touch the blue wire without warning". Quan asked if blue was a secret color. Huy replied that it was the easiest color to see to avoid confusion. Lam prefers that practical answer to any prophecy.

Tran checked the diagram and discovered that Huy recorded a missing ground wire. He fixed it immediately and thanked her for seeing it. Lam turned to ask Quan if he wanted to appear in the error correction scene. Quan thought and said only if he had the right to delete his joke. Lam wrote both things down on paper.

Quan still has a way to make things less stressful. He stuck a piece of paper on the toolbox: "If you don't know, ask Huy. If you already know, still ask Huy." Huy finished reading and said the following sentence was a bit redundant. Quan replied that's why it's correct. Tran laughed but still made everyone wear gloves before touching the rope. Lam turned the hand, the screwdriver, and the meter, only after each person agreed. The video has no faces, but the coordination between the four people makes it more vivid than any introduction.

In the afternoon, Lam tried making a forty-second video. She removed all background music, just kept the sound of the switch turning on and Huy's statement about the ground wire. The video is a bit dry, Quan said it looks like an advertisement for an electrical store. Tran does not criticize; she asked what viewers need to know after watching. Lam revised the title to "A room that only lights up when everyone checks." Huy looked at the screen for a few seconds then spoke. It's a short word, but Lam knows it's true agreement.