Chapter Text
The auditorium was chaos. Not the kind of chaos that made teachers sweat and principals pace, but the kind of chaos that made high school theatre magic. Power drills screeched from backstage, someone was singing I’m a Believer in the wrong key down the hall, and paint fumes hung so thick in the air you could taste them. It was beautiful.
Freshman year, and Skizz and Impulse were finally part of it.
“Dude. We’re in,” Impulse whispered, clutching the freshly posted cast list like it was sacred scripture. “It’s real. We’re villagers in Shrek the Musical. This is our Broadway debut.”
Skizz pumped a fist in the air, dramatically spinning in the middle of the hallway outside the black box. “And thus begins our meteoric rise to stardom! Today the swamp, tomorrow... Tony Awards!”
Impulse gave him a look. “You have four lines.”
“Four lines and a really expressive face,” Skizz replied proudly. “I’ve already started developing my character. I think he’s got a bad knee. Maybe some generational trauma.”
They wandered into the theater together, already weaving through the half-built set pieces strewn across the stage like an abandoned fairy tale. The giant papier-mâché dragon head leaned against the back wall, its tongue lolling out. A crude outline of Duloc had been sketched in chalk on the stage floor. Someone had started painting a tree on one of the flats but gave up halfway through and left a brush suspended mid-stroke.
Joel was up in the fly loft, swinging his legs over the side and casually dropping fake moss down onto unsuspecting cast members.
“Yo, Joel!” Impulse shouted. “Trying to take us out before tech even starts?”
“Gravity’s a law, not a choice,” Joel called back, dropping another clump on Skizz’s head.
“Dude, why,” Skizz deadpanned, picking leaves out of his hair. “Is this a hazing ritual?”
“You’re freshmen. Everything’s a hazing ritual,” Joel said, smirking and disappearing into the rafters again.
Up in the booth, Cleo stood surrounded by gel frames and lighting plans. Her hair was tied back in a messy bun, and she had a sharpie between her teeth as she adjusted a cue sheet with military precision. One of the juniors tried to ask her a question, but she just flipped a switch and flooded them with light until they staggered away in defeat.
Stage left, Etho crouched behind a flat, clipboard in one hand, a roll of spike tape in the other. He was muttering something about how no one could find the donkey ears and that if one more actor walked off with a prop, he was replacing all their costumes with trash bags. No one argued. Etho, though quiet, had a reputation. When things went wrong, he fixed them—and sometimes you didn’t want to know how.
“Okay, everyone, bring it in!” came the voice of calm amid the storm.
Xisuma stood at the front of the stage, wearing his signature purple hoodie and a lanyard so loaded with keys, ID cards, and mystery trinkets it jangled like armor. He didn’t yell—he didn’t need to. Something about his tone always made people listen.
“We’ve got a lot to get through before we even touch blocking today. Full cast meeting. Ensemble, too. That means you, Swamp Squad.”
Skizz and Impulse perked up. “That’s us!” they said in unison, scrambling to the center of the stage.
A few older students were already gathered in a loose circle: Tango stretching, Zedaph adjusting the nose on his Big Bad Wolf costume, and Jevin fiddling with his fairy wings. A few lead cast members filtered in—Grian, who was playing Lord Farquaad and already strutting like he owned the place, and Scar, who’d won the role of Donkey and was practically bouncing in his seat with excitement.
Skizz leaned close to Impulse as they sat.
“This is it. Our first rehearsal. First cast meeting. First time the dream becomes real.”
Impulse grinned, heart pounding. “Dude, we’re gonna rock this.”
Xisuma looked around the group, flipping open a binder thicker than some textbooks. “Alright, team. We’ve got six weeks to build a swamp, tame a dragon, and get everyone singing on key. Let’s make some magic.”
Skizz raised his hand. “Question.”
Xisuma arched an eyebrow. “Yes?”
“Do we get to build the outhouse set piece from scratch? Because I have blueprints.”
Impulse smacked a hand to his forehead. “We’re gonna get banned from tech before we even start.”
But Xisuma just chuckled, shaking his head. “We’ll talk. For now—warm-ups. Everyone on your feet!”
As the cast scrambled into place for vocal drills, Skizz and Impulse fell in step beside each other, laughing as they tried to match pitch and flailed through stretches like baby giraffes.
They didn’t know yet how things were going to go wrong. How pride and jealousy and silence would wedge themselves between them like a wall of plywood flats. For now, they were Swamp Squad—loud, ridiculous, and completely inseparable.