Jack found himself sitting dab smacked in the middle of chattering children and their oblivious parents.

  He was wedged into the cold, plastic chair of the cheap and old movie theater, the air thick with the sugary scent of popcorn and the high-pitched squeals of excited kids.

  On the giant screen, Toothless, the animated black dragon, flitted across the sky, flying high and flying free, a stark contrast to Jack's suffocated situation.

  It was so clear... the image on screen was almost so painfully vivid; he was still reeling from the sudden, unnerving clarity of his vision.

  He shifted stiffly. The plastic creaking beneath him.

  The dragon's effortless flight on the colossal screen only amplifies the weight of his own anxiety, pressing down on him like the theater's low, grimy ceiling.

  Jack stuck out like a sore thumb. A lone figure in a sea of brightly colored jackets of all sizes, excited whispers and high pitched tantrums of spoiled brats.

  Parents cast him sidelong glances. Their brows furrowed with suspicions.

  A young man, alone, no child in tow, clutching a bucket of popcorn like a treasured possession.

  Watching an animated dragon dance across the screen? He could almost hear their unspoken accusations.

  He groaned quietly, a low rumble in his throat.

  "They probably think I'm some kind of… pervert." Jack mumbled to himself.

  I don't wanna go back to the police station being falsely accused of being... whatever they think I am...

  He yanked his hood further over his head, pulling the drawstrings tight, transforming himself into a shadowy, even more conspicuous figure.

  Jack decided, with a weary sigh, that he couldn't muster the energy to care about their perceptions.

  They'd already abandoned the seats surrounding him, treating him like a walking plague, a contagious stain on their family outing.

  Chill out. He wanted to snap, his voice trapped in the confines of his throat.

  "I just want to watch the damn movie quietly. The movie I paid for with my hard-earned, emergency-fund-draining money." Jack whispered to himself.

  He lacked the courage to voice his frustration aloud, to risk another confrontation. Or so he desperately convinced himself.

  I'm bad at conflicts.. Best to avoid it if I could, as early as possible.

  He can feel someone looking at him, an unseen gaze. He's sure of it. A prickling sensation, crawling across his skin, making him itchy. Jack whipped his head around.

  And came face to face with an old lady with smeared crimson lipstick drawn into her lips, seated directly behind him, with one empty seat setting them apart.

  The elderly woman has a ghostly white face, and a jarringly mismatched neck, maybe in her forty-ish? He judged mentally.

  She's openly glaring at him.

  His eyes darting beside her. She's with a kid, a boy no older than 10 maybe?

  "Jesus," he muttered, turning his head around, and forcing his attention back to the screen.

  Save it ghost lady. He said to himself. I ain't going anywhere.

  He needed to extract some semblance of enjoyment from this cinematic ordeal, to make the wasted money feel less like a cruel joke.

  "It better be worth my time," he grumbled, echoing the hollow promise he'd made to himself.

  "How to Train Your Dragon," he whispered, the title a bitter irony.

  A far cry from the raucous comedy he'd impulsively declared to Harris, a nervous blurt, a flimsy shield against the detective's piercing gaze, not a genuine desire.

  Well, I think it's still a comedy movie nonetheless.. albeit animation, and a kid's movie.

  A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  He shifted uncomfortably, the plastic seat squeaking in protest.

  "This is just my luck," he grumbled, tugging at the collar of his worn-out plaid hoodie.

  "Ever since Kai, that speed-freak neighbor, banged on my door, it's been a disaster." He winced, remembering the sharp sting of his stubbed pinkie toe.

  "Maybe that was a warning. A premonition of the day's impending doom."

  Jack glanced around the theater, a wave of self-pity washing over him.

  He should have used the money for new pants, not a children's movie.

  But he'd been so determined to stick to his "day off" plan, to prove to himself, and maybe even to Harris, that he was just a normal guy.

  Plus, he'd half-convinced himself that the detective might be tailing him, checking to see if he was actually going to watch a movie.

  He sighed, the sound lost in the cacophony of excited children. He slouched further into his seat, crossing his arms and fixing his gaze on the screen.

  Jack tried to focus on Toothless..

  Hours later, he found himself sniffing and crying. It was good.

  He wondered if it was really just a kids' movie; there were some parts that were a bit violent, but… as long as you had your parents with you, they could just shield their children's eyes...

  "Is this what movies are like now?" he murmured, a hint of confusion in his voice.

  He was thinking that, if it was a kid's movie, they would all sing and dance happily about anything and everything. This is unexpected.

  "So this is what it's like watching on a big screen?" he murmured, his voice laced with a newfound understanding with this new experience.

  "Now I get why those teenagers at the convenience store were always raving about going to see the movies in a big screen."

  This is my first time stepping inside a movie theater.

  He remembered, then, a flicker of a memory, a cramped living room in their rundown house, the flickering glow of their small television screen.

  Jack remembered watching movies with his adopted siblings, a rare moment of shared escape.

  The protagonist of the movie, a teenager, was watching a movie alone inside a cinema... When suddenly, he was thrown inside the movie that he was watching.

  He remembered it because it was very interesting.

  What was the movie again? The last standing hero?

  Oh, right.. it's The Last Action Hero. Arnold Schwarzenegger was it...? It was an old movie.

  A relic from a bygone era, filmed in 1993. Before the Superpowered Era.

  The only movie they owned, watched and re-watched in that house. They watched it at 2015... he was twelve years old then.

  And now it's 2025, thirty two years old for the movie... and ten years ago for him.

  Ten years since he'd last felt that shared, fleeting sense of connection.

  Still sniffling, he decided it was time to retreat, to escape the lingering emotions and forget all about it.

  But as he stood to leave from the sticky theater seats, his hands at the bucket with half a popcorn left, he was intercepted by the old lady from before.

  "You're Jack, right?" she asked, her voice raspy.

  He looked at the old woman, surprise flickering across his face, quickly replaced by a guarded defensiveness. Jack waited, more paralyzed than tense, for her next words.

  A hint of something unreadable swirling in her eyes.

  She spoke, the words hanging in the air, a silent, unseen weight.

  Jack's eyes went wide at what the woman said.

  Then a deafening 'Boom' ripped through the cinema, the sound vibrating through the seats and sending a jolt of panic through the audience.