Ella had begun walking toward the edge of the pit before the unknown woman spoke to her, and now she could see (and recognize) Lotte. From this distance, her former friend looked small and scared, and when Ella saw how she reacted to the... man, was it? To the man on stage with her, she stopped walking.
From where she was, she could see the plaque on the stage wall, but she could not read it. And her instincts screamed at her not to get any closer to the raised platform.
She looked at the unknown woman, and she replied without taking her gaze from the man on the stage (she could only see the undamaged part of his face from where she stood). "Are you new in the building?" she asked, because she was fairly certain this was not a dream... not the kind they'd be waking from, anyway.
"Lotte?" she called out a moment later, still unmoving.