There's a pocket dimension in the cinema lobby, not that they tell you this and not that it's even noticeably different at a glance. Most people end up walking straight through it, slipping in and out in-between blinks and not even paying attention to who vanishes and who remains because they have a film to catch.
Sometimes people go missing there, mostly customers who walk in alone and get up halfway through the film to use the loo. They get drawn towards the lobby only to disappear into a crowd who never see them and that's generally the last time they're seen at all.
It used to happen to staff all the time - they went through cashier after cashier after cashier until the police threatened to close the cinema down to fully investigate. That scared the folks that come from the other dimension, they'd gotten too greedy and it nearly killed them all.
Around that time they got new carpet, some weird pathway pattern that was meant to engage and direct customers (away from the dimensional rifts, of course, but nobody would ever say that out loud) and the number of missing people dropped drastically. It was enough to satisfy the police at least.
I remember the last time I ended up wandering off the path and into the other dimension. My date distracted me with some childhood story and led us both away from our world as we knew it. I'd been there before, little infrequent trips back when I was a kid and the safest part of the cinema was the street outside.
I only realised that we'd crossed over when everything got real quiet and most of the other people seemed to melt away into the darkness that swarmed around the windows and behind the counters. Only a few other people remained and they were all slowly turning towards us.
I knew you had to stand still and look at your feet, my date... panicked. They like it when people panic, love it when they break the unspoken rules and start getting aggressive. It means they can say they acted in self-defence when they flipped him.
Now when I say 'flipped' I don't mean that they tipped him over. I mean they turned him inside-out, not true inside-out but close enough to permanently disfigure while rendering their victim utterly helpless and much easier to slowly eat.
They start by warping the dimension around your body, deep into your bones until your features start receding until they're totally inverted and you're staring at your own pulsing brain, trying and failing to comprehend everything but the searingly sharp pain.
Then they twist you, a little more and a little more until you're spooling out skin like a bobbin of thread and that's when they start to cocoon you. I don't know how they do this and keep people so alive and breathing and so perfectly conscious when they look like a slab of pork, softly weeping pork.
I closed my eyes when their tongues started sliding over him, acidic saliva doing its job at a snail's pace. When the smell of burning meat faded to stale popcorn I opened my eyes and was greeted by several members of staff who all gave ma cover story for my date's disappearance.
As far as anyone knows, he got up to use the loo an I never saw him again.
Sometimes people go missing there, mostly customers who walk in alone and get up halfway through the film to use the loo. They get drawn towards the lobby only to disappear into a crowd who never see them and that's generally the last time they're seen at all.
It used to happen to staff all the time - they went through cashier after cashier after cashier until the police threatened to close the cinema down to fully investigate. That scared the folks that come from the other dimension, they'd gotten too greedy and it nearly killed them all.
Around that time they got new carpet, some weird pathway pattern that was meant to engage and direct customers (away from the dimensional rifts, of course, but nobody would ever say that out loud) and the number of missing people dropped drastically. It was enough to satisfy the police at least.
I remember the last time I ended up wandering off the path and into the other dimension. My date distracted me with some childhood story and led us both away from our world as we knew it. I'd been there before, little infrequent trips back when I was a kid and the safest part of the cinema was the street outside.
I only realised that we'd crossed over when everything got real quiet and most of the other people seemed to melt away into the darkness that swarmed around the windows and behind the counters. Only a few other people remained and they were all slowly turning towards us.
I knew you had to stand still and look at your feet, my date... panicked. They like it when people panic, love it when they break the unspoken rules and start getting aggressive. It means they can say they acted in self-defence when they flipped him.
Now when I say 'flipped' I don't mean that they tipped him over. I mean they turned him inside-out, not true inside-out but close enough to permanently disfigure while rendering their victim utterly helpless and much easier to slowly eat.
They start by warping the dimension around your body, deep into your bones until your features start receding until they're totally inverted and you're staring at your own pulsing brain, trying and failing to comprehend everything but the searingly sharp pain.
Then they twist you, a little more and a little more until you're spooling out skin like a bobbin of thread and that's when they start to cocoon you. I don't know how they do this and keep people so alive and breathing and so perfectly conscious when they look like a slab of pork, softly weeping pork.
I closed my eyes when their tongues started sliding over him, acidic saliva doing its job at a snail's pace. When the smell of burning meat faded to stale popcorn I opened my eyes and was greeted by several members of staff who all gave ma cover story for my date's disappearance.
As far as anyone knows, he got up to use the loo an I never saw him again.
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