“That’ll be… 11.90. Would you like to round up your total for charity?”

Ronnie made a light, neutral-sounding grumble as he reached into the front pocket of his hoodie for his wallet. He pulled out the worn, warm leather capsule and flipped through it, prying his debit card from between the flaps. “Sure, whatever…”

The concession attendant cheerily responded, “Alright then! That’ll be twelve dollars even!” She reached out a hand, and Ronnie handed her his card. As she typed, the attendant made small talk. “So what movie are you seein’?”

Ronnie jammed his hands into his pockets, finally looking up from the depressed angle of his gaze. He tried to make eye contact with the friendlily smiling counter attendant, but he had difficulty and then gazed toward the popcorn stand instead. Ronnie wondered briefly if he should lie, then decided that though lying wouldn’t hurt him, it would do literally nothing to help him in this case. Besides… this receptionist was cute. Perhaps answering honestly could be the beginning of a new and blossoming relationship.

“Ahh… it’s called Weathering With You.” Ronnie shifted uncomfortably as he watched the concession lady’s smile flash a bit, apparently unfamiliar. Attempting to cushion the blow, Ronnie continued, “I like the director a lot. He makes really pretty stuff.”

“Oh! Neat. Wait, I think I heard about that one.” She handed the card back to Ronnie before turning to scoop a serving of popcorn into a paper bag. “Issssss… it a Disney movie?”

Ronnie felt a bit more discomfort. “It’s Japanese. It’s an anime.”

“Oh! Right. Same difference, I guess.” The vendor ignored Ronnie’s deathly glare as she grabbed a box of Nerds from behind the glass stand counter. “Here’s your food, ma’am!”

Ronnie took the bag, warm in his hand. He grabbed the box of candy and then said demurely, “Um, it’s… sir. I’m a boy.” Ronnie pulled down his black face mask and hood. This revealed soft, boyish features and a helping of shoulder-length dark-brown hair terminating in jagged, unkempt spokes.

The vendor gazed at Ronnie, then mortification filled her. “Oh, goodness, I’m sorry!” She tried to fill the awkward air with laughter as she handed Ronnie his receipt. “My bad, I just thought, with the hair, and the nail polish, and I guess your voice was a little… ach, I’m slow today.”

Ronnie wanted to tell her that it wasn’t the first time he’d been confused for a girl. At a solid five foot three, the young man had been surpassed by almost all his male peers in stature these recent years, in addition to at least half of his female classmates. He’d been given all manner of derogatory monikers, such as pussy, sissy, and wimp, and after somehow surviving middle school he learned a whole new cavalcade of homophobic slurs so comprehensive and ubiquitous that he almost felt bad on behalf of his queer peers for not being gay. As a result of this verbal flogging, Ronnie only opened his mouth to speak when it was absolutely necessary, usually through a mask. This voice was still feathery and light, and though at its depths the baritone timbre of a growing boy could be heard, he was just as often confused for a lady’s alto. While Ronnie had difficulty accepting that this would be the best he got in terms of his development, the end of his junior year of high school was fast approaching, and the window of opportunity for blooming into a far larger specimen was quickly running out – facts that caused him no end of dysphoria and anxiety.

Ronnie hadn’t the time to explain all this to the female vendor. So, he simply said, “Don’t worry about it.” He tried to smile, and he took his receipt. Ronnie drew his mask back up over his face, thankful he was no longer under any pressure to emote. All he wanted was to return to the theater he’d darted out of only a few minutes before, this time with a snack to soothe his aching belly.

After a quick detour to wash his hands, tucking his snacks in the pocket of his sweatshirt, Ronnie returned to the hallway leading deeper into the theater. Heavy doors lined the walls, each one labeled in big flashy numbers from 1 to 20. But something different greeted Ronnie from the first time he arrived.

Standing at the podium, guarding the path into the theater hall, was a woman. She wore glasses with hair tied in a bun, and she was garbed in a grey skirt and red Polo: the theater chain’s employee uniform. Her locks were greying slightly at the roots, and she was glaring at a tablet, jotting stuff down on it with her stylus. Her nametag read “Hi, My Name is ‘Linda’”, though it was distinct from the concession vendor in that this one had stars adorning the label. Ronnie wondered if she were a supervisor or manager of some sort.

Well, whatever. The podium had been empty the first time he went in; Ronnie simply clutched his ticket and sidled around it. Now, he prepared to do the same thing, until…

“Excuse me… excuse me!”

Ronnie was halfway past her by the time he realized she was talking to him. Backtracking, Ronnie approached the front of the podium. He had to stand on his tippy-toes to create an illusion of them somewhat communicating on even footing.

“It’s past 8pm. Under sixteen-year-olds need to be dropped off by an adult.”

“Ah, I am sixteen.” Ronnie tried hard not to let resentment creep into his voice.

The manager was taken aback as Ronnie spoke. Perhaps, thought Ronnie, she hadn’t been expecting a voice quite that low. Then she returned to an expression of neutrality. “Very well, then. Do you have an ID?”

Ronnie lost his voice. He technically had a learner’s permit, but after a particularly harrowing near-miss on the highway several months back, Ronnie was in no rush to continue practicing his driving. He was prone to leaving his card on the side of his bed in an effort to deter either of his parents unexpectedly forcing him to drive to or from school while they were out and about.

“I… I don’t, sorry. But, here. I have the ticket,” Ronnie pulled it out, the stub already torn. He offered it meagerly to the manager, who looked down her nose at the stub. Then she looked at Ronnie, wrapped up in his black hoodie, wearing baggy sweatpants and dark blue nail polish, sneakers.

The manager felt a headache come on. “Look sweetie, it’s our policy that we can’t let in unaccompanied minors after 8pm without an ID. It’s written on the sign, right there? At the front?” She pointed past Ronnie toward the entrance.

Ronnie was getting annoyed. “Yes, I saw the sign. But, like, the movie started at 7:55. I was there, I just had to go get a snack. The lady at the counter, she can vouch for me.”

Ronnie turned back. The counter was barren. Nobody was there.

He turned back sheepishly to the manager. “She’s… I don’t see her. But… c’mon, can you just let me in? I’m 16, I just forgot my ID at home. Can’t you just… like… make an exception? Please. Please.”

The manager sighed. “Look. I get this must be ‘disappointing’,” the manager emphasized this with air quotations. “…that you can’t get into your…” The manager peered at the ticket. “What is that, some sort of cartoon? Well, we are an established business. We have rules we need to follow or else we risk litigation. If you left your ID at home, you could just call your mom to drop it off for you?”

Ronnie’s eye twitched. There were numerous problems with that idea, none of which the manager could possibly be privy to, but which irked him, nevertheless. “That would be difficult,” he intoned.

The manager was getting a bit peeved at this boy who was deep in thought after his disgruntled comment. She looked over his shoulder, where a group of high school guys were shooting the breeze as they walked leisurely toward the podium, tickets in hand. The manager looked back to Ronnie. “Look, rules are rules. I would appreciate it if you were to step away from the podium to, er, figure things out.” She swung her hands outward, the universal symbol to “get lost”.

Ronnie stared with deathly eyes at the manager. Then, he walked away.

Ronnie spied an empty table and slumped into it, spreading his legs. He opened his crumpled bag of popcorn and took a few bites, quickly getting some stuck in his teeth. As he attempted to pry a kernel from between his canine and molar, he pulled out his with his free hand and pondered just what he wanted to do…

“…Bitch…”

The theater was practically empty. Still though, Ronnie still looked over his shoulder to make sure nobody heard. But his corner was particularly barren, offering a distinct view of every other section of the lobby and the entrance to the theaters, but nothing behind him that could give way to snooping ears and prying eyes. Well, aside from a poster for a new horror movie coming out next month featuring quite a few sets of prying eyes that belonged to the film’s undead antagonists.

Ronnie ran the numbers. It was a seven-minute drive to the theater. Seven minutes there, seven minutes back… add on two or three minutes to unlock the house, clamber up the stairs, find his ID, another five or six minutes for the Uber to pick him up in the first place…

Wait. Did his phone even have Uber installed?

Ronnie groaned, and he opened the app store. His thumb slammed on the screen repeatedly, searching for the right app when he noticed too late that a misclick led to him downloading something completely different.

“Dammit…” Ronnie cursed. His phone didn’t have the most RAM or storage; this mistake would eat into his movie time more than most would realize. He backtracked and after an agonizing wait managed to locate and begin downloading the Uber app.

His mobile data meant that would take a while.

Ronnie returned to his phone home screen, deciding to delete that other app while he waited. It had already been downloaded and installed, apparently.

“Huh…” Ronnie long pressed on the app, but no delete button came up. He tried again, but nothing. He went to his system settings… but there was no option at all to remove this application from his phone.

“Okay… weird.” It was too much of a request for the official app store to have no predatory virus scam apps, it seemed. Even the icon looked creepy, some stick figure shrinking, minimizing into a smaller figure.

Ronnie glanced to the manager, a short distance away. And he groaned. She was letting those idiot high schoolers through. They were the same age as Ronnie, and somehow, they got the privilege of going into the movie practically with no fuss, when he had to get his ID?

Ronnie shook his head. The rideshare app had yet to even finish downloading, much less install. He looked back at this other, weirder application…

Maybe opening it would reveal more info about how to delete it. Having that app remain on his phone irked him.

Ronnie tapped on the icon, slowly, perhaps with needless caution. The app was loading. Ronnie snuggled and slouched further into his seat, trying to get comfortable while he waited. He was glancing askew, eyes aimed toward the lobby windows yet never truly seeing out of them. It was only when his phone blared “YOU HAVE CREDIT” that he jumped up, paying attention to it once again.

“Shit, Christ…” Ronnie slammed his thumb on the volume button; he must’ve left it up high at some point. The black loading screen was gone, replaced by a pure white background, nothing in the foreground. It was empty. The only UI that Ronnie could glean was text at the top stating “CREDIT: x1”.

“What the… is this some kind of game?” thought Ronnie, tapping on the screen. He lifted his phone in front of his face, moving it around. At first, this seemed to do nothing.

“C’mon, what are you, huh?” Dreams of an Uber, and even the movie itself had been long-since forgotten. All Ronnie wanted now was to figure out the purpose of this app. Whether it was a scam, a virus, a phishing attack, or just some poor computer science student’s failed thesis project, there had to be something here.

As Ronnie haphazardly waved his phone around in the air, he was struck by a thought – he didn’t want to come across as appearing to be filming any of the other patrons. He glanced back toward the manager, who was staring down at her tablet, practically doll-sized from Ronnie’s perspective.

“Huh…” Ronnie tried to remain cautious, and he lowered his arm when he noticed the phone’s UI had changed.

“Hm?” Ronnie looked at it. There, in the pure white screen, was a human-shaped red silhouette. It was static, immobile, but slid across the screen as Ronnie moved his phone in the air. “What the…”

Ronnie tested it out, holding his phone again. He slowly scanned it from side to side. The silhouette skimmed the locale, tracing across the screen, disappearing out the side. Ronnie moved his arm back, and the figure reappeared. He moved his arm all the way, and the figure was gone again out the other end. He returned it to the middle. His arm was getting tired.

“Hey, excuse me! Ma’am?”

Ronnie looked up, and he put his phone down.

He hadn’t even noticed that he was aiming his phone directly at the manager’s podium. She was looking at Ronnie sternly. “I would appreciate it if you put your phone down. I don’t know what you were doing but I do not want to be on video camera.”

Ronnie nodded silently and he put the phone on the table, flat.

The figure was gone.

“So, this is some sort of… AR thing?”

Ronnie picked up the phone again. He could turn the camera on himself… but that wouldn’t help anyone. There was, again, nobody running any stands, no janitors, no movie theater guests. Ronnie and the manager were alone. She had returned to jotting stuff down on the tablet.

Ronnie didn’t necessarily want to go against her wishes… again. But at the same time, considering her inflexibility, Ronnie wasn’t exactly the most charitable at the moment. Besides, there was nobody else around to test it on, and he was dying to know the actual real purpose of this game.

So Ronnie angled his phone upward, slightly. The red figurette poked its head above the lower bezel of the screen once more, intriguing Ronnie. He tried to do it so it wasn’t super-duper obvious that he was attempted to aim it at the manager, yet still he failed.

“Okay, sir, I’m going to have to ask you to leave.” The manager got out from behind the podium, straightening out her grey skirt before walking briskly in Ronnie’s direction.

“I-I wasn’t doing anything, I’m not doing anything,” Ronnie said nervously. He hated confrontation, and even hearing people raise their voices was enough to make him sweat. Still, he kept one eye on his phone screen, where the red silhouette was growing and growing. But nothing yet, no real change.

“I’ve asked you several times to obey the rules of this movie theater and you’ve ignored me at every turn,” the manager said, halfway to Ronnie’s table, already putting her hands on her hips. “You do understand this is a private business, correct? Therefore I could call the police and get you arrested for trespassing. If you really are ‘sixteen’, then you should know you are capable of being tried as an adult for trespassing in the state of –”

PROCEED? (This will use ONE (1) CREDIT)

The pop-up appeared randomly, just as the manager had come within ten feet of him. Without thinking, Ronnie slammed his thumb on the YES button.

Ronnie blinked.

What… what just happened?

“I…” Ronnie stood up, and he looked around. The manager was… gone?

Had that been, had… it… what?

It defied all logic. Ronnie couldn’t understand it. The manager had been only a few feet from him one moment, and then the next… she was gone. Completely. No sign of her. No smell, or sound, no flash of light, no indications of spontaneous human combustion. There was nothing. Where did she go?

He walked out from his chair, and found, against all odds… that he felt relieved.

Certainly, yes, the manager’s disappearance raised more questions than it did answers, but considering what she was saying about calling the cops only moments ago, Ronnie felt he may have dodged a bullet. Who knows if she would’ve called the cops even if she did leave?

Nevertheless, the manager disappearing did unsettle him quite deeply. People don’t just disappear like that, especially without leaving any trace. And she vanished right in front of his eyes. The only other thing around that could’ve been distracting him was…

Ronnie looked at the phone. The credit counter at the top banner now said “NO CREDIT”. But more importantly… there was still a red silhouette within that white void.

Ronnie was confused. His phone was flat on the table, facing down. There was nothing it could’ve been looking at. But sure as rain, when Ronnie picked the phone up, the figure on it shifted. It was small, far smaller than it had appeared earlier when he was aiming it at the manager, but it was there and apparent.

Ronnie’s confusion only deepened as he noticed that the silhouette was now moving steadily, rapidly, on its own. It was moving away, further out.

Slowly… Ronnie crouched down. The theater lobby was dimly-lit, and here underneath the table it was even darker. Ronnie at first cringed as his petite fingers dug into the sticky carpets, calcified from decades of crusted-over spilled soft drinks and popcorn with nary cleaning. But when his eyes landed on the manager, now reduced to an inch tall, crouching, shaking, shivering beside the central leg of the table… he knew exactly what he was looking at. He knew the fear in her eyes was real.

Ronnie had to get closer. He crawled forth a few inches, and his approach made the manager collapse out of sheer terror. She scampered backward on her hands and feet, still too terrified to turn away from Ronnie’s assuredly massive face. She prepared to say something, opening her mouth and closing it a few times until she finally tried to form words. Somewhere between her brain and her mouth, it transmogrified into a blistering shriek, and out of pure shock and befuddlement Ronnie swiped her up. He launched to his feet, then banged his head on the underside of the table.

“OUCH!!” Ronnie felt tears flood his eyes as he scooted from beneath the tabletop, finally able to stretch out his back. His fist was clenched, and already beginning to sweat. Ronnie was too scared and freaked out to open it up right here, right now, but he did slightly loosen his grip to hopefully get a bit of airflow going so she didn’t suffocate.

Out of the corner of his eye, movement. A girl, the same girl from the concession. She was wiping her hands on her pants when her eyes met Ronnie’s. They brightened, and she trotted over. “Oh, hey! Hasn’t your movie started? What’re you doing? Go on in!”

Ronnie said nothing, eyes wide. Fearful. He clenched his hand tight.

The vendor raised an eyebrow. “You’re… oh – oh, I see. You’re worried about the whole ‘No minors past 8pm’ thing?” She scoffed. “Don’t worry about that. Only the manager really cares, and she’s kind of a nazi about it. I mean technically she should be, uhhhh…” She turned to the empty podium. “She should be right over there. I guess she took a break? Anyway, you gonna stand here or did you need a re-up on that popcorn?”

***

When Ronnie got back into the theater, the movie had still only barely started. The main character hadn’t even met the deuteragonist yet. Anything Ronnie missed, he could easily glean from context, and by sneaking a glance at the Wikipedia page during one of the film’s slower moments. But right now, Ronnie lacked the ability to even pay attention to the film. He could look at it, certainly. It was undoubtedly a visual spectacle of style and light and photorealistic beauty. But stuffed in the front pocket of Ronnie’s hoodie was a springy symphony of squirms and twitches. Each itchy shake represented either another attempt to escape or a deathly, disturbed spasm of fear and incoherence. And despite their minuscule effect on his comfort, the fact they were even there was enough to make Ronnie vibrate from fear and from curiosity.

For now, though, Ronnie had to force himself to relax. The theater wasn’t crowded by any means – on the contrary, its scant audience numbers meant that Ronnie had no refuge in anonymity. If his wheezes breeched a certain volume threshold they would be able to tell exactly where it came from. So, Ronnie bit his tongue and tried to conform to the contours of his seat with no fuss. No matter how much his pits, knees, neck, and ears were sweating. And for a few moments, he almost felt like he was comprehending what was happening onscreen.

Until a light, airy, feathery, ghostly facsimile of a horrid scream pierced from his hoodie pocket.

Ronnie jammed his hands into the pocket and curled his fingers around the stowaway as he looked around him. A scene girl at the easternmost rear corner of the theater was heavily invested. Near the front, a father was on his phone while his two children were looking every which way in their seats, distracted. The theater was loud, but Ronnie didn’t want to chance anyone glancing in his direction and taking note of any weird sounds.

But his squeezing didn’t make it stop. He could feel the vibrations the woman made by yelling as hard as she could into his clenched thumb, speckling a tiny spot on his hand with her spittle, just enough for him to notice. It was… sort of disgusting, and it made Ronnie want to remove his hand and wipe it on the leg of his sweatpants. But it wasn’t until he felt a stinging sensation as she chomped at the digit that Ronnie let loose a constrained, “ACH!”

He ground his teeth against the pain quickly enough, but this was a quiet moment. People were already glancing in his direction – something Ronnie usually hated on a good day. But now that very idea filled him with dread. Ronnie removed his hand and stomached through the manager’s renewed screams, burried under the thick fabric and layers of clothing just enough to not bat an eye. And sure, that’d be fine for the time being… but what about when he left? What about when he was on the bus, surrounded by other people with nothing to do but listen to her pleas?

While he waited for the heat to die down, Ronnie’s mind got to work. Clearly, the front pocket of the hoodie wasn’t going to cut it. But there just weren’t any places on his body that would provide enough insulation to limit even the chance of her sounds drifting out.

Or… or were there?

Ronnie’s gaze traced its way down the screen, drawing the outline of the seats before him. It continued to the floor, and finally… his shoes.

Ronnie wasn’t exactly a sneakerhead. His shoes hadn’t been replaced since middle school considering his size hadn’t changed dramatically enough to have outgrown them, and their black color tended to hide the more egregious blemishes and scuffs. It was frugal for both Ronnie and his mother, and his feet had come to appreciate the spacious and firm room they had molded into them after being stretched out over years of regular wear and use.

Ronnie reached down and undid the lace of his right shoe. He slipped it off his foot, and he shuddered as the cool air-conditioned breeze washed over its moist, sock-encrusted form. He lifted the shoe up and put it in his lap. Then, with his other hand, Ronnie reached into his pocket and plucked the manager out, ever fearful of watching eyes.

At the moment, the manager looked like nothing more than a dark silhouette despite her inflamed struggling. She looked down at the hole of the shoe above which she now hung, and her squirms turned downright hysterical. Ronnie couldn’t tell what her expression was… a mix of horror and utter disbelief, dread and nervousness and abject fear. Any number of psychotic feelings. Ronnie wasn’t exactly an empathetic individual, but he did try as reasonably as someone like him could to not cause excess pain in the world. But for someone like her… he couldn’t care less. Besides, she couldn’t behave. So, really, what was about to happen to her was nobody’s fault but hers. Whatever her name is. Linda, was it? Maybe when he got home, he could ask her in depth.

And Ronnie dropped her in his shoe. Her screams were suddenly focused directly through the aperture of the mouth of the sneaker, a mouth that was quickly plugged as Ronnie inserted his toes, followed by the rest of his foot. They squelched onto the insole, rubbing against the individual he knew was inside of there like she was a stress ball, squeezing the toes against her and showering her entire face with the ambient sweat that seeped through the sock. The sensation of her being against his foot was… unexpectedly pleasant. Almost euphorically so. For a few moments, Ronnie simply continued to toy with her, even lightly stomping and applying pressure to the ground – and by extension, to her – with some taps and presses. This went on for far longer than expected, almost ten minutes, before Ronnie at once remembered that something interesting was happening on screen. At the same time, he noticed unexpectedly the excess pressure that had formed in the crotch of his sweatpants over that period, which was definitely a no-no. So he took a break from tormenting the little chew toy and decided to munch a few handfuls of his popcorn.

One thing was for sure. Whether she finally decided to shut up or whether her shrieks simply were unable to pierce the monolithic flesh column of his lower extremity… Ronnie was now able to enjoy the film in peace.