Troy had to eat his words whole. 'Doesn't sound like anything that can go wrong.` Damn, he could be stupid sometimes. Honestly, there could have been some better choices made. Was this how the young man looked to other people? If so, he could fully understand the reasons he had been shunned by so many. Because damn, how much more could one drop in intelligence?

Movie-nights were supposed to be a relaxing event, right? It was the where two or more people would bungle up in whatever comfortable wear they could find, strap themselves into the nearest couch, and proceed to watch the entirety of whatever show or movie they desired. The lengths of these nights could vary, with some only lasting one movie, while others came close to lasting entire movie-sagas.

The true length of them didn't usually matter much for the participants, however. Most of the time, as long as the movie wasn't something that made everybody uncomfortable to their core, nothing would ever be criticised about it. The truly important factor of movie-nights was the atmosphere was what it was intended to be. And what was that? Well, a good start would be an air of cosiness and warmth, as if everybody was in enough blankets that it could be called a literal cocoon.

One needed to be able to let go of all the worries and stress that came with day-to-day life, the safety of the blankets letting one enjoy whatever the hell happened in front of one’s eyes. In total, it just needed to be a good environment, a good friend or seven besides one another, and just a movie to play in the background as everybody just enjoyed not having to deal with anything else.

While Troy might not have ever been to a movie-night himself, that was the general theme that most of them apparently tried to go by. It had seemed like a dream come true when he was actually invited to one. Granted, there was perhaps a lack of an inviting atmosphere, what with the sterile environment needing to be upheld at all costs. But that was fine, the young man just being happy that he got to experience it for himself. Because who wouldn't? A get together with friends was always something to be happy about. Even if it was just the two of them, it would still be fun. Troy had only really been to two large get-togethers with the whole group twice. From how things were going, there wasn't the largest expectation of him getting to try it again, so trying something akin to it was pretty decent.

Again, this was only from the expectation that it would be like he had imagined. Troy had just thought that they would be getting themselves a sofa from god-knew-where, placed it down close to some TV that Charlie suspiciously had lying around, where they would then finally cover themselves up with an unimaginable amount of blankets, before beginning whatever marathon one would prefer. It was expected to be a cosy atmosphere, a cosy sofa, and a cosy film to seal things with.

As one would have it, two of the three expectations were upheld. Some would call that a success, as the rate had been over fifty per cent. Some people were also stupid and did not understand that one third being wrong made all the difference in the world.

Troy screamed aloud as yet another scare jumped up on the screen. Charlie was just straight out laughing, yet again not hiding his amusement at the expense of another human being. This time, it was a human being so frightened that the multiple pillows stacked as walls and roof for protection did nothing against the imaginary monsters around them.

The muscular man, who was also a right prick in the side, had a very concentrated liking towards movies. Said in more understandable wording, Charlie only had slasher movies, for whatever god-forsaken reason. The man had a whole shelf for the bastards, each casing showing off indie-films that were ready to scare the living daylights out of everybody watching. Except for the man himself, of course. He just laughed each time something scary came on.

“You are a demon!” Troy screeched, putting the blankets a little tighter, as the monster began to creep a little closer. It was still in the background of the shot, blurry so as to not be fully obvious to the audience, but he knew that it would strike again soon. The friends of the protagonist had already fallen, one by one, through the movie, and it was becoming clear just what kind of ending it was going to have. “A demon on the twelfth floor!”

“And don't you love it!” Charlie shouted while slapping Troy’s cobbled together pillow fortress. The young man did wonder why the man had so many of them, but thoughts such as those were far removed when the movement began anew on the screen. The lights had begun flickering, and the monster was slowly going in for the kill. The constant flickering made it hard to see where it was, making the young man turn his eyes constantly so as to know precisely where it was. He knew it was exactly what the movie intended to happen, but he just couldn't stop. He was in the palm of their hand, and he could do nothing about it.

Troy could do nothing but stare vividly, as it came down from above. It had been out of the frame the entire time, not able to be seen before the end. There had been so many things in motion, pushed along by the wind. Yet, they had all been red herrings so as to allude to the final truth. The true monster was never seen until the end.

A final scream came from the tired throat, as the movie ended. Troy was fully scarred for life, his mind not yet able to understand why anybody enjoyed the horror genre. He had never touched on it much himself, feeling disgusted by seeing some of the costumes for the monsters, the most popular trope in the last decade. The slime, the teeth, oh god, the abundance of eyes, and just how inhuman it all looked was more than enough to cause no small amount of wrong feelings in the stomach.

The one they had watched had been a twist of the general tropes. It was an alien ship hopping into a ruined city. The news would cover it as a meteor. A group of people would have seen it land, and decide to get rich by getting to it before anybody else, while not knowing just was waiting for them near it. It had been a surprisingly nice visual set since the movie was an indie-production. Troy would have wondered how they made it all so real, if not for his mind still being frightened by the monster when he thought about the thing.

There was a point where the monster had enough eyes. Troy knew that. Everybody knew that. Somehow though, the designers of the movie did not know that. The legs, the arms, the body, the head, and whatever other parts were used to describe human body parts had at least a dozen eyes on them each. The sheer horror the young man first felt, when he had gotten a POV of all the viewable eyes honing in on him was still giving him shaking.

And, and, he was pretty sure the number of eyes grew with time. One of the side-charters had a trait where they had one of their eyes tattooed. After her death scene, Troy was almost certain he saw a similar-looking tattoo on one of those eyes. He hadn't made Charlie pause the movie back then, as the man had refused to do so at any point through the viewing experience, so the theory had yet to be confirmed. Though, that did not mean Troy had any inkling towards wanting to rewatch any of it ever again. He had tried it fully, and there was no way to describe it with positive words.

“That was a good one,” Charlie happily said, as the man got up from his spot to remove the film from the TV. Troy did not understand why he had the physical copies in the first place, as they could have easily been stored online. Yet, he did not care enough to question it, his body still ready to be ambushed by a mass of headless eyes. That movie had given him a newfound fear of heterochromia. He might just have been the first. “A personal favourite, actually. Though, nothing can come close to the classics.”

“Is that what you call good?” Troy stutteringly said, still hiding fervently inside his fortress of fluffiness. It was nice and cosy inside there at least, not cold and decrepit like the outside. “It was not something anybody should call enjoyable.”

Another laugh came out of the sadistic man, as he put the movie back in place. An obscure tune came out of the man’s throat while he was at it. Troy recognized it, yet he was unable to actually put his finger on what it was called. It was one of the older tunes, attributed to a masked killer. Yet he could not remember the name. Not too much of a shame, never having heard anything but the music itself.

“Horror movies are not meant to be directly enjoyable. That's for the feel-good movies,” Charlie said, the muscled man browsing through his own collection. The younger one didn't understand why. He should have known what there was to see since he had bought them himself. Had it just been too long? That was a thought for the future. Were movie-nights even that popular? Must have been a rare thing to have, since Troy didn't really expect everybody in the group to be fully okay with only watching horror movies. “These beauties right here have a unique aspect to them. They get your heart racing in just the right way, bubbling out all the fears you could possibly have. In time, they even get funny, as you just get to be able to call out everything that happens before it is shown. The genre is predictable in that way. It makes the unpredictable ones all the better.”

“You can enjoy what you want. I do not like them,” Troy said, leaning a little back out of pure enjoyment. The young man had been worried about surviving through the whole movie. It was not an experience he had imagined to have, yet it had come onto like nothing ever before.

“Oh, don't say that now,” Charlie rebutted. In his hand, Troy could see a disk with a cover suspiciously close to the one they had seen just minutes before. “I am sure that-”

“What's that in your hand?” Troy cut in, not wanting to hear anything but an answer. Even now, his hands were making expeditions to grab some more of Charlie’s pillows, his fort needing to be reinforced further. Another blanket-layer would have been preferable, yet that did not seem possible. Charlie had the only one left that wasn't in Troy’s possession already. What were the chances he would let go of it peacefully perhaps? The young man did not want to start a war over it, yet it would happen if his hand was forced. He was poor as it was already.

“A movie.”

“What movie?”

“A sequel.”

“A sequel to what?”

“The movie we just saw.”

Emergency procedures were in place. The entrance and exit were sealed off with the emergency rations. Troy barricaded himself further by using his seat as additional wall construction, sealing himself in further than ever before. While air might have become a problem given enough time, he was assured of his temporary protection. Absolutely nothing could-

“Hiding is not going to do much, you know,” Charlie eerily reminded Troy, the muscular man lifting the entirety of the roof and walls up in the air. The inner sections fell from the sky, as the young man was left to cower in the colder air. He had lost his warmth! How was he to ever survive?

Grabbing desperately for the pillows and blankets, the muscular man only sighed as he dumped it all back on the younger one. To this, Troy made what sounded like content noises, the warmth going back into his core. Another opening was made to see as Troy got comfortable again. Charlie spent that time putting in the movie, turning off the lights again and then moving over to the regular seating. The young man had in the meantime conquered that space, but it was quickly retaken once any amount of effort was put. There was an allowance for the legs to come over his thighs though, as Troy repositioned himself into lying instead of sitting. If the man was going to get scared, he would at least be comfortable.

As the intro began up, recapping the tragic events of the last movie, the youngest of the two fell into a temporary hole in his mind. One where there were thoughts about just what was going on around him.

“Charlie?” Troy said.

“Yes?” Charlie said back.

“Do you normally do this for others?”

“In the last ten years, you, Troy, are the second person to have ever said yes to the invitation. So… no, not really.”

“... Charlie?”

“Yes?”

“Thanks for this.”

“It's no problem at all. Just enjoy the movie, please. It's starting up now.”

As instructed, Troy did his best to watch the movie. It was scary at one point, but he did his best to get through it all without looking away. Yet… he couldn't remember the actual end of it. He might just have fallen asleep before it ended. Charlie did not wake him up, though. Troy would have to thank him for that at some point.

He really was one of the best friends anybody could have.