Their dinner was a delight and came without a hitch. After meeting Rico and a few minutes of arguing on where to eat, they finally agreed on eating at a shabu-shabu restaurant. They ate their fill and so much more. Having to pay almost a thousand pesos for each of them meant they have to eat their worth. Anna knew about this so much as Rico does.
After an hour of binging on different meats, soups, and desserts they finally threw the towel and finished their dinner. They went out of the restaurant struggling and huffing, especially Rico.
"Damn! I am about to puke." Rico complained.
"Well, it was your idea to eat here in the first place." Anna smiled in satisfaction.
"I missed eating there!" Rico sighed. "Admit it, babe, you missed those dumplings too." He smiled.
"Yes, I did." She answered with a smile. "Those dumplings were the best!"
Before going home, they also reserved a last full show of a local movie that they really wanted to watch since they saw its trailer at a streaming platform. It was a typical cheesy love story that both of them always enjoyed watching. No matter how overused the trope was, Anna deeply loved how it always ends, a happy ending.
There were a couple of couples inside the cinema as well. Though it wasn't full, there were still too many people mentally. They went ahead to their reserved seats at the balcony near stairs at the right corner of the movie house.
Regardless of how full they were, Rico still bought some popcorn for them to munch on. The movie was about to begin just as they sat on their seats. Anna watched the movie completely mesmerized at the same old story that she fell for.
If were to be honest, the trope was already getting into her nerves. However, there a lot of scenes that no matter how much it has been reused, she still loved it. The crying in the rain, the beach running, and the tearful confrontations inside restaurants. Those were just some of the scenes she loved. It seemed like her tastes on those kinds of movies came from her mother. It was also a nice way to honor and reminisce those moments she had with her mother when she was still alive.
"Babe, this is where the fun part is—" She glanced at Rico and saw her boyfriend slumped on his chair, asleep.
She smiled sweetly at him. Anna knew how busy Rico that day was early and instead of giving her a raincheck, he still went with her. It was a sweet gesture that she always found very attractive in Rico. The way he efforts regardless of his situation was the thing that made Anna fell in love with him.
She held Rico's hand tightly and kissed his cheek. Anna went back on watching the movie while letting Rico enjoy his few hours of peace. As the movie went on, Anna suddenly felt a tingling sensation down her spine. She looked around but all she saw were doe-eyed lovers, focused on the movie.
She shook the feeling off and went back to the movie. The scene was getting heavily dramatic. She could hear some of her seatmates sniffing and sobbing. The actors were really getting into it. It was the rain scene. The male actor chased the broken-hearted female actress, while explaining to her how much he loves her and to say sorry about the things he did in the past, that kind of schtick. She was heavily invested on the girl who was also chased by another man in the rain, a stranger that loved her and now to complicate things, both of them met.
Anna was about to see the confrontation of both men when suddenly, a foul-smelling scent filled the air. It smelled like urine and wet carpet at first but as time went on, the scent became more vomit inducing, like a rotting meat sweltering under the sun.
She looked around to see nobody was around except her and Rico. The cold air blew down her nape and as her skin crawled, a silhouette began to appear at the corner of her eye. She opted not to look and shook Rico to wake up instead. Unfortunately, it wasn't working.
Now she could hear a low growling sound at the background. The movie kept on going, unfortunately something wasn't right with the scenes. The male lead had an animalistic look on him. His eyes clearly had slits instead of the round irises that people have.
The dialogue was becoming weirder. The words became gibberish and then it turned into grunting, then a growl. The male character snarled and bared his fangs to the female protagonist. Without warning the man-beast bit the neck off the woman.
The female protagonist didn't have time to scream. As her blood spurted like a fountain, she dropped dead on the ground with a puddle of her blood pooling from her severed neck. As she gurgled blood from her mouth, the man-beast devoured her guts.
Anna frantically shook Rico and shouted him to wake up, but her boyfriend wouldn't wake up. On the corner of her eye, the silhouettes began to multiply. She wanted to ignore the shadows, but her eyes dictated her actions.
Her head slowly turned to the growling shadows and finally realized that the silhouettes have big, dogheads while half of its body was human-like but had longer arms. The beasts showed its grotesque smile to her. Its sharp fangs reflected the light from the projector and showed its sharpness.
The dog-like humanoids began to approach her, growling at her. Anna's heart was beating so fast, and beads of cold sweat dripped on her forehead. She tugged Rico's arm once again, hopefully to wake him up but unfortunately, it did nothing to her boyfriend.
The beasts halted just an arms-length away from them when the pack halted and eerily stared at them before letting out a cruel howl that shook the cinema to its pillars. Anna's knees weakened as the fear bubbled from within her.
Anna didn't notice that she slumped on the chair, petrified by fear. The pack began to disperse just as she thought she was about to be devoured. A tall monster walked towards her. The monster had the same features as the rest of its kin. However, it had a much bigger frame, and its head was grotesquely enormous with a dash of white fur on its forehead.
As it came closer to her, she heard its huffing breath like a low-key growl. The dog humanoid leaned over her at her before sniffing her.
"D-daaayaaannngggg…" The monster growled. "Dayang…" The monstrous growl suddenly turned into a human voice. "T-till we…met again." The monster turned around and walked away before the theatre was filled with darkness.
"Anna." Rico's voice echoed through the darkness. "Anna, wake up." She felt a gentle tug on her shoulders.
Anna opened her eyes gasping for air. "No! No!" She pushed Rico away.
"Babe… it's me." Her boyfriend said.
Anna looked around and saw the heavily lit theatre. She turned her eyes into the screen and saw the white, blank screen in front of her.
"W-what happened?" She asked while still being confused of her surroundings.
"You slept on half of the film!" Rico explained while trying to contain his laugh.
"W-what?! I thought it was you who did." She answered back.
"Well, I… did sleep on the first few minutes of the film." He scratched his head. "But I was able to see the ending!" He snickered.
"Huh?" Anna stood up and grabbed Rico's arm. "Let's go home." She stormed out of the theatre dragging Rico behind her.
"Whoa…babe!" Rico tried to stop her. "Are you alright? You seemed a little pale and cold." He added.
Anna stopped and took a deep breath. Should she tell her boyfriend about that dream? She thought for a moment before freaking him out with some weird dreams once again. She turned around and looked at him straight in the eyes.
"I need to poop." She lied. "And I am NOT pooping here in this cinema!"
Looking and sounding very desperate to answer her call of nature, Anna reminded Rico how she hates using mall toilets especially during last full shows. Rico understood it fully and booked a cab home. Her lie worked! Though she felt guilty about covering the entire thing up, she was determined to keep Rico in the dark from her insanity.
Just as they walked by a post, something caught Anna's eye. Her eyes involuntarily looked at the shadow at the corner. It was a man leaning nonchalantly on the post smiling right at her. She couldn't make a clear look at the face, but the figure was truly man dressed in a black leather jacket intently looking at her.
She shook the idea of that man in her head and went inside the cab as quickly as it arrived. She looked at the post once again saw the man had already gone away. Anna was relieved to get inside the cab, but there was still something that made her feel very uncomfortable and that was the feeling she couldn't shake off.