Act 1 | Chapter 6

Bate's City mall was as busy as ever. With kids out of school for the weekend, many groups of friends fluttered here to hang out and spend time together. I'm not here much, only coming if I ever need to buy anything, such as art supplies. Our mall was a long stretch of a building, divided up into six different sections. Clothing, Outdoors, Food, Toys and Games, and so and so forth. The movie theater was in the malls center, just in front of the food court. Riley held the door for me as I walked in, shivering from the cold weather. I had brought along my string backpack, which could be easily stuffed into my own school one to act as a spare. There was something I wanted to get before the movie started, and didn't really have a place to put it. I never carry a purse, as I see it as nothing more than a target for thieves, so instead, I keep my belongings inside my bag, and never take it off.

"You needed art supplies, right?" Riley asked me, walking up from behind.

"Yeah, I'm short on colored pencils. They're also getting 'short' if you know what I mean."

"Mhm, alright, let's go." The two of us walked together side by side. We passed by the dozens of different stores as we made our way to the one we were looking for. This place was always somewhere I hoped I could work, but I need more work experience. They have deals on pretty much everything, and I'm surprised they are still in business with how cheap everything can be sometimes.

Riley simply followed me while I browsed the isles. The colored pencils I wanted where near the front, making them easy to find. The great majority of them were being sold in packs of twenty-four or thirty, but the specific colors I wanted weren't included in those. On a rack, there were several colored pencils organized by every color you could imagine. The downside of having such a large variety of them was that each pencil cost about two dollars. Trust me, those are the cheap ones.

"Why don't they sell these in packs?" Riley asked. I glanced over to her and saw my friend bent over and pulling a few out to look at them.

"Well, some of them are in packs, but not all of them," I explained.

"Why not just buy the full pack then?"

"I might. It's cheaper, but I'm looking for a certain shade of red, blue, and green. Like this one." I reached for a small cluster of green pencils. "I want to use a forest green, but also a hunter and sea green. They don't sell these colors in packs, so I have to buy them separately."

"Hmm." Riley frowned a bit and put the pencils back into their cases. I smiled at her, and eventually found everything I was looking for. Once that was done, and I had paid for everything, Riley and I walked out of the store and looked around.

"Alright, that's all I needed."

"Movies starting in an hour." Riley explained, "Should we start walking over there?"

I took a deep breath and nodded my head. It was still nerve-wracking, knowing that what I was about to watch could utterly traumatize me.

"Yeah. L- Let's."

The walk to the theater felt like it took forever. It filled me with this feeling like I was walking to my own doom. When we got to the front entrance, Riley purchased the tickets for us and led me inside. The all red carpet on the ground, with golden arches and bright, flashing lights almost helped me ignore for a moment what I was about to see.

"Do you want anything to eat?" She asked me, putting a hand onto my shoulder.

"Popcorn should be fine," I replied nervously. My voice shook a bit, and I tried to take a deep breath to calm my nerves.

"No butter?" Riley asked. Giving her a nod, I watched as she walked over and ordered a large popcorn for the two of us and two large drinks.

"You can still back out if you want," Riley said, handing me the empty cup to fill.

"N- No... I can do this. Besides, you already bought the tickets." There was a brief pause before she nodded, and led me to the screening room. It was still bright. People were walking up and down the stairs to find their seats. With several rows completely filled up, Riley led me to the very top, so our backs were completely against the wall. Nervously, I sat down, tensing up in my seat. Placing my hand to my heart, I could feel the rapid thumping of it already.

"One, two, three, four, five, six." I whispered quietly under my breath, "Seven, eight, nine, ten." I felt Riley's hand gently grab my shoulder. It was a comforting feeling. When I was with Riley, I always felt safe. She would always protect me, no matter what.

"It's going to be alright, Zoe." She whispered into my ear, as the lights dimmed around us. The trailers started for upcoming films set to release, which I always thought was almost as exciting as the movie itself. Not too long after, the movie started. For the first half-hour of the film, not a whole lot happened. A couple of fake-out jump scares, and scenes introducing new and returning characters. I could hear the audience laughing, and clapping at what was happening. It didn't seem so bad, until the first actual 'horror' scene, when tension began to build up. I was gripping the armrest of my seat as I watched some unknown kid step out of his car. A prison bus had crashed on the side of the road, and the kid was looking for his father. You couldn't see him, and with the loud and jarring sound of a jump scare, I flinched in my feet, blinking as a supposed dead man yelled at the kid to run. My heartbeat more and more, almost to the point where I could hear it. Not too long later, the kid fired the hunting rifle in his hands, and my heart skipped a beat. He had shot someone, and I let out a quiet gasp. I watch a lot of movies in my spare time, and I'm somewhat used to seeing guns and violence in action movies, but in this instance, I felt bad for the innocent man.

The kid ran back to his car, and climbed in out of fear, only for the killer to sit up from the back seat and grab the kid from behind. Internally panicking for the kid's life, I started gripping the armrests even more. At the time, I didn't notice just how much my hands were shaking, and once the killer snapped the child's neck, those shaking hands shot up to cup my mouth as I let out a loud gasp. It's not often I see a kiddie in a movie or TV show, and it's always shocking when it does. In the corner of my eye, I could see Riley's head turn to look over at me. She must see how terrified I looked. My hands shaking, and my body sweating. I could already feel the dampness in my armpits. Through all this though, I kept watching. I couldn't take my eyes off it. I wanted to, I really did, but I just couldn't bring myself too. I'm not sure what point in the film I had done it, but my hand was wrapped around Riley's, squeezing it tightly as I watched the film unfold on screen. A man with his jaw broken, A kid with a fence through his head. A man with his face ripped off. Every time someone died, I felt this sort of feeling. I can't describe it. It was like this feeling of adrenaline, I guess. Seeing such graphic violence on the big screen for the first time felt unnerving. "I never thought you could show these things in a movie." I needed to leave the theater, but my legs felt as if they were glued to the seat.

"Do you wanna go out for a bit." I heard Riley whisper. Staying silent for just a moment, I shook my head, and whispered back,

"N- No. I can do this." My voice was dry and raspy. I took a sip from my drink, and tired quench my thirst, but it did very little to help. In truth, I wanted to stay for one reason. It felt unfair to walk out of this movie. Riley has gone with me to see everything I want to, and never once left me. I can't just leave the theater and drag her along too. She wanted to see this movie, and I'm staying so she can watch it.

Taking a few deep breaths to calm down, I watched things in the film started to die down a bit till the very end. I continued to squeeze Riley's hand as the killer was eventually cornered, and trapped. The red and orange lights from the fire on-screen lit up the theater around me, blinding my eyes with the colors. The film ended, and the credit's started rolling. Slowly, the lights in the theater began brightening again, and people stood from their seat to leave. I took a few more deep breaths, and loosen my grip on Riley's hand. She had turned to look at me with a look of concern on her face.

"Are you alright?" She asked. I turned to look at her and gave her a very shaky smile.

"You sure?" Her eyes darted down for a moment, and I followed them. I didn't realize at the time, but at some point in the film, I had apparently pissed myself. A large wet stain covered most of my crotch. Now that I had taken notice of it, I could feel the wet clothes clinging to my skin. Shivering, and blushing with embarrassment, I looked to the empty drink cup at my side. "Did I really drink that much?" I thought to myself.

"How about we get going," Riley said, standing up, and taking her sweater off. She tied it around my waist to cover my accident and helped guide me out of the theater. My legs felt like jello in a sense, and it became increasingly hard to walk. There was a sinking feeling in my stomach, and as we walked by the trash can, I felt the urge to vomit; But I held it in. Riley was carrying my string backpack for me, as she held one hand on my back, and helped me walk back out to the parking lot. I felt on edge. Every small noise and the sound seemed to startle me on our long walk back. The running of footsteps, the laughter of children. I was able to take notice of a faulty, blinking light high up on the ceiling. Parts of the mall where closed, leaving some hallways completely dark. Refusing to let go of Riley's arm, the only time I release my grip, was when we made it to the car.

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