Rachel Berry ★

[Rachel is on stage, pacing in agitation. She looks positively exhausted -- there are circles underneath her eyes and her hair is pulled back instead of hanging loose around her shoulders, like it normally is. The music following her is quiet, at least -- but soon, drums are heard -- a guitar, and Rachel stops in her tracks, in the dead center of the stage, before she closes her eyes.

And finally decides to give into the event and sing.

She does the choreography perfectly -- the voices heard alongside hers are exactly as Rachel remembers them -- the music is perfect -- and the event purposefully leaves out Rachel's voice, in the 'recording', so that she can sing along. When she gets to the end, she's grinning, and she stops on the edge of the stage, a hand outstretched to the audience, before she begins to speak:]

If we sing that every single week before Nationals, it would help our morale enormously -- because the most important thing, fellow Glee club-bers, is that we remember precisely where we came from. That is our true strength --

[She clasps her hands together.]

I really think we have a shot at beating Vocal Adrenaline, but Finn, you need to project mo --

[But as Rachel looks up, to her right, she stops speaking abruptly. Because there isn't anyone there.

Her shoulders slump slightly as she presses a hand to her forehead, sighing to herself shakily as she turns back towards the curtains.

Someone hates this event way more than she thought she would.]