Night Plays, Trick Plays and Fate Plays

0:03. Chen Ye looked down at the time on the phone screen, then looked up at the subway car. The pale lights reflected double images on the tempered glass, like an overly deliberate pursuit of light on a stage. There were seventeen people in the carriage, and everyone's posture was frozen in a certain moment - the teenager wearing headphones hung his fingers three centimeters above the phone screen, the middle-aged man who was dozing with his mouth open, and the woman with lipstick on her teeth was looking up from the small mirror. All still. Chen Ye's heart tightened suddenly, and he forced himself to relax and breathe in the next second. This is not the first time. For three years, he had the same dream every night: the stage lights suddenly went out, the audience's applause twisted into a scream, and the curtain fell as heavy as a shroud. Then he would wake up in such "stillness" and lie on his bed, covered in cold sweat. But this time, he wasn't lying on the bed.