Once Upon a Theatre was one of the last bastions of good taste on the World of Dreams, at least according to a certain Kuni. While other places were preoccupied with playing whatever was new and trendy, hip and safe, shiny and glossy...and she could on and on...Once Upon a Theatre wasn't concerned with what other people thought and just played movies for the sake of entertainment.

Sure, there were the occasional Kami-uuughful movies. Train to Kyuden Hida, really? The zombie hype is so overrated and lame. Nothing original about that movie that hadn't been done a thousand times already. The movie was about the hype train than zombies on a train. Ultra laaaame!

But! The Well was an original old-school classic, Sumie was on board for that. Sumie found her seat near the front of the tiny theatre as the ads were playing. She took a look around to see nobody was looking before unzipping her jumpsuit to pull out a squished sandwich and a canteen of some sort of liquid. Like she was going to buy from the front lobby. With the food out of the way, she began trying to prop up her holorecorder between the two seats in front of her...

Only to be interrupted by a small mountain of snacks from the front lobby, in all their commercialised goodness arriving to take the seat next to her. Once he'd settled his pop corn bucket, chicken strips, mochi, steamed buns and a dubious thing named a 'hot dog', Hinata greeted her happily.

"Hi Kuni-samaaaa!!! I'm Asahina Hinata. The guys at the Embassy said this was a really good movie to go watch!"

They'd obviously aimed at terrifying Hinata with the movie, but they were about to get the bonus reel of Sumie and Hinata . . .

Sumie had perhaps caught the mobile mountain of commercial food from the corner of her eyes and she certainly smelled it when it entered. She could already going uggh in her thoughts imagining that it was some poor sap who was trying to impress their day by buying everything the lobby was selling. There's no way someone like that could be making their way toward her, right? Oh no...

She quickly stowed her holorecorder away when Hinata approached and she winced slightly at the overuse of enthusiasm. "Eh, yeah, cool. Whatever. So, don't you like have those guys to hang out with then? I'm trying to do something pretty important here. Hello! See..." With a straight stare, she tried to gesture to the screen and her camera. Hopefully, the audacious disregard for decency will scare him away.

"Oh they've already seen it!"

He claimed the seat next to her and, thankfully, used the area the other side to arrange his 'acquisitions' while curiously looking at what she was doing.

"Oh, what are you doing?"

"Oh, cool. I've already seen it too a while ago." She told him with an annoyed tone before giving him a quick look over. Wait, was this the same Asahina from the happy-happy popstar team during the enigma room challenge? There was more than one Asahina Hinata in the galaxy and he didn't look like the founder of Realm Expo...

Sumie blew a loose strand of her hair from her face before speaking. "I'll be real helpful then, spoiler alert: they all die! Well, I guess that depends on what sequel you follow afterward. Everyone knows the Well 2 but nobody knew about the less popular sequel The Diary which is obviously the far superior sequel that nobody will accept because it was nothing like the first one. For some reason, they expected the same character to show up but were greeted with a thought-provoking movie with both science-fiction and horror elements. Best of all, it was a real feels-bad ending like the series should have but nooooo, it's not canon for some reason now..."

She stopped herself from doing a diatribe and returned to what she was going to do. "Anyway, I'm trying to record this movie on my holorecorder. You know, for later viewing, because I actually like movies."

His avid smile turned to a dazed look and eventually the strain of concentration as he tried to keep up with Sumie's stream of spoilers. Which he didn't and seriously spaced out at the end, reaching for a chicken strip to add to the kill list of food he'd finished off on the planet.

"Soooo there's more than one movie?"

He blinked at her saying she was recording it.

"Oh so you can show it to other people?"

Sumie blinked at the question, wondering if he caught anything she had said earlier. She supposed the question was some sign that attention was paid. "Yeah...there's probably around like ten of them. Only a few of them are good. Obviously, the first one was good and then one of the sequels was the best then it kind of goes into the garbage dump from there. I'd avoid the 3-D sequels. Ugggh, so much pandering to the mainstream audiences on that one. Real fear doesn't need some cheap gimmick to make it happen. It should be mastercrafted so that you can actually feel it with pacing. That's what I'm doing with my video project once I get around to it...

"Uh, yeah, hello!?" She pointed out the obvious with an incredulous look. "Part of it is going to be used for my video project, the other part of it is going to be uploaded to the 'original films' dark network around here. They have the original cut here, none of this bullshit remastered junk that all movies have. Did you know that some movies have probably six to seven versions out there to the one you can buy on the shelves today? It's washing away what's original from the films to make them fancier, more catchy, and more friendly. Fury has all of the bone-cracking noises cut out from it now and they also toned down the blood, I bet you didn't know that."

(Editor's notes from Asakaze:

Fury
Several investigators attempt to piece together a surge of random and unexplained brutal murders around the city. It seemed that all murders have been vaguely linked to an abandoned house where there was a gory murder of a mother and her child. The father hastily committed suicide after the horrifying acts. Now the investigators find themselves each targeted by the mother and child, who have returned to Ningen-Do as yorei from Toshiguku.)

"Oh!"

The lengthy talks . . . tirades had given Hinata opportunity to reduce his snack food amounts considerably. He pondered Sumie's words while chewing on the final chicken strip.

"So it's like when local acts copy our songs even though they can't sing as well as us and dance terribly and then try to claim they made it first despite me watching Naz-kun write it and Yuta-kun create the dance?"

"Wha..." The Kuni gave Hinata a straight stare while keeping her resting face on the matter.

"Yea..." She frowned deeply as she quickly thought of a way around it. "I mean, no! Original films is a group and network where we're preserving the original versions of the film. It's part historical society and part film enthusiast but I'm sure you wouldn't get that. As for what I'm personally doing, I'm not doing things horribly, I'm still creating something of my own, just based on what I'm taking on my holorecorder. A collage of fines to paint an entirely different story with my vision. It's called sampling, hello?!"

With that, the lights began to dim and Sumie groaned as she quickly worked her holorecorder to start filming...the film.

The opening of the movie has a group of students in a dorm, like some of those pre-gempukku schools, giggling and chatting with each other. "Hey, hey, did you hear about this rumour?"

"Oh . . . "

Then the lights went down so Hinata stopped talking. Which did not mean he stopped making all noise as even in a cinema the hyperactive Asahina kept moving occasionally. He was fairly quiet about it though . . .

. . . it probably still annoyed the Kuni.

The beginning of the movie was great. These were characters Hinata could really associate with . . .

"Uggh." Sumie would murmur at the sounds of munching and crunching happening beside her. How could a small Crane eat that much food, especially a celebrity?! Weren't they supposed to go on a diet of reduced-sodium water, air crackers, and citrus pulp for desert? Probably sponsorships, again!

"Yeah! Word is that there's this creepy tape going around and it's really scary, there's all this weird footage. Nobody knows where it's from! Worst of all, they say after you watch it, you die in 7 days!" The dorm students would say to each other, evoking sudden gasps within the group.

"No way!"
"That's so scary!"

"They're so dead," murmured the Kuni as she put her feet up on the back of the seat in front of her.

Hinata blinked. He might have said something, but he had a mouth full of popcorn at the time and even a ditzy, air-headed derp of a Crane knows not to speak with your mouth full. He then looked at Sumie's feet . . . on the furniture.

So this was one of those Kuni. The rebellious ones. She probably even had a S.L.A.T.E. album on her music player, but only one of the first two albums before they sold out for the Yasuki koku Masters.

But before he could think of anything to say the film caught his attention again.

"Wait . . . they're actually going to watch it?"

"Uh, yeah!" Sumie thought it was pretty obvious how it was going to go. "Did you think that they were going to sit around and braid their hair and then they're going to roll credits? Someone has to die. In this case, several people and it's awesome. So awesome."

"Shhh!" Somebody to say near the back, which Sumie turned to look at the back for a moment before looking back to the movie, seemingly undeterred by the other guests or usher.

"Yeah! Actually...I have a copy of it right here!" There was some laughter that ensued. "Is everyone with me or are they going to chicken out now?"
"Uhm...I've seen that tape already..."
"Ehhh?! No way, how long ago did you see it?"
"7 days..."
"And you're still standing here, so it's probably not true!"
There were some whispers amount the students with some giggling and laughter. "It's still scary, I'm not sure about this..."
The 'leader' of the dorm seemed to roll her eyes and slip the tape into one of those media tape player relics that might have belonged to someone's ancestor sometime ago. They dim the lights and watch a rather ominous video.

The Kuni grinned broadly at this part and double-check on her holo-recorder to see if it was still filming and to see if it had...a mostly upright angle. "This is where the fun begins."

The tape plays...

Hinata is as still as he ever gets hand half way to mouth with popcorn suspended between his fingers.


"Oh, I think the guys at the Embassy have played a trick on me . . . "

"If they totally did that to you, do you think they would be around to film you?" She brought up curiously as she looked around the theatre for any signs of that. What would be scarier than watching the Well is...realizing that you were part of a celebrity reality show and not even know it...Ugh, she would wish for the ghost to kill her instead as quick mercy.

After the tape finishes, all of the students are aghast and look at each other for their responses. However, they soon decide to laugh it off as a fun thing they did and the movie transition over to a time later in the night when everyone has gone asleep. One of the students woke up to use the washroom and glanced to see the screen to their rather large and boxy informator screen had turned on. It is nothing but static and that is dismissed at first until it seems to reply to the same tape that they were watching earlier but holds it at the part where they well are last seen, holding it definitely. It seems to only stay there until a hand emerges from the well and a corpse-like woman begins to emerge from it...

O_O

Despite all the foreshadowing and outright spoiling by Sumie . . . Hinata was not ready.

There was a slightly high pitched squeak cut off as quickly as it started.

However, before anything else could be shown, they quickly cut to a scene of a funeral. It seemed that the student shown earlier had died and everyone else who had watched the same movie later had died in seven days at the same time after. A mother and her son arrive at the village where the dojo is situated to collect the things of her late niece...

Sumie groaned at this. "Ugh, lame! I thought this was supposed to be the original cut. They missed the part where they had this massive close-up of the student's face as she looked like a walking corpse because she got scared to death! A later version had this trimmed down that part to a black and white screen for public viewing. Now I don't know if this version is the suspense version where they backload all the scary stuff near the end for drama reasons or the super lame, super unnecessary, squeaky clean version. I guess they did show the actual ghost this early...Uggh! I guess I'll have to sit in for a little longer..."

"Shhh!" The Kuni would be given another reminder of the theatre rules.

Hinata had retreated as far into his seat as he could. Which is pretty far when you're only five foot tall and incredibly supple and agile due to a dancing career. A small wall of empty food cartons had also been formed in front of him.

He was still watching though . . .

Sumie frowned as she took her feet off the chair and sat properly once more. Carefully, she reached over and took a container of snacks away from Hinata's wall of defenses. "...Hey, you're totally blocking my shot here."

It was probably bad enough that they were talking over her recording of the movie but she supposed she was going to say that her bootleg copy was superior because it featured much-needed audience commentary for the average lamemen.

Curious about what happened to her niece and her classmates, the mother goes to the magistrate's office and collects testimony recording of what they thought happened, some of them eventually make mention of a mysterious tape with disturbing images. The mother searches among her late niece's things to find that particular tape among them. She is rather intimidated by the idea of watching it and puts it aside, ultimately forgetting it

However, when she decides on returning to it the next day, the mother notices that her son is watching said tape...

"They totally die in the sequel, by the way. The REAL sequel." Sumie pointed out again, because it wasn't enough the first time.

With part of his 'Wall' removed, Hinata had resorted to blocking out half the screen with one hand.

"This is horrible . . . . oh . . . . OH . . . . "

He looked at Sumie, eyes wide open.

"We've watched the tape on the screen now . . . does that count?"