Stage Fright and Fake Blood

The backstage air smelled like hairspray and panic. It was opening night of our school's production of Zombie Prom — aka the night I'd been dreading since freshman year. I was playing a literal zombie, which honestly felt pretty meta considering I'd been running on three hours of sleep and an unholy amount of iced coffee all week.

"You good, Miles?" Sofia asked, adjusting her cat-eye glasses. She was playing the lead, because of course she was — Sofia was good at everything, while I was just the awkward sophomore who'd accidentally signed up for drama club because I thought there'd be snacks.

"I feel like I'm going to hurl," I admitted.

"That's just stage fright. You'll be fine once the zombie makeup goes on."

She was wrong. The makeup artist, a junior named Jade who spent way too much time on TikTok, slathered my face in green cream and "battle wounds" that looked suspiciously like grape jelly.

"You're gonna kill it, literally," Jade said, adding what looked like a fake bite mark to my neck.

I caught sight of myself in the mirror and nearly passed out. I looked like something that had been chewed up and spit out by a bear — not that I'd ever actually seen a bear attack victim, but this felt accurate.

"MILES! Five minutes!" Mr. Henderson bellowed from the wings.

My legs started moving before my brain could protest. I'd been running lines for weeks, but suddenly every word evaporated. What was my first line? Something about brains? No, that was too cliché. Was it supposed to be funny? Scary? I couldn't remember anything.

The crowd hushed as the lights dimmed. I stumbled onto stage, tripping over a prop and landing face-first in front of three hundred people. The audience went dead silent.

Then someone whispered, "Is that part of the act?"

I rolled with it. I groaned and dragged myself up, arms outstretched, zombie-style. The audience erupted.

That's when it clicked — sometimes you just have to embrace the disaster. I delivered my lines like my life depended on it, and by curtain call, I wasn't just playing a zombie anymore. I was a theater kid, and honestly? It was kinda sick.

"Told you," Sofia grinned, high-fiving me backstage. "You're a natural."

Maybe she was right. Or maybe I was just too delirious to care. Either way, I'd survived my first opening night. And I couldn't wait to do it again.