The ticket booth was a small office at the entrance of the cinema, with three individual windows. The front where patrons could buy tickets from was covered in glass, except for a circle at the top so that people could tell the ticketing clerk what they wanted and a small opening at the bottom where people could pass their money and get their tickets. The outside of the glass was also lined with a metal grill for protection.

They looked at the counter and tried to peer in but there was the additional roller shutters inside, preventing them from seeing anything.

“Looks like it’s shut tighter than a doomsday bunker.” Casey sighed.

Derek looked at her. “Where do you get all your analogies from?”

“My head?”         

“No wonder…”

“What was that?”

“Nothing.”

Casey gave him a dirty look but Derek had never been afraid of dirt. He went to the other side of the ticket booth, studying the door instead.

“It’s locked, as expected. How are we going to get a ticket?”

“Oh, we can try my new demon.”

“Huh?” Derek looked at Casey who came over. She ran her fingers through her hair and a very tiny demon appeared. The size of maybe from the tip of his index finger to the first knuckle, it looked like… a doorknob?

“This is the demon I caught earlier. It’s called demon keyhole.”

“Why a keyhole?”

“Maybe it can evolve… I’m guessing its final evolution would be demon door or portal…”

“You have a point. So, how did you catch it? With demon balls?”

“A wastepaper basket.”

“I have soooo many questions…”

“Then I’ll ask about your sword and shield.”

“Nope, I suddenly have no questions.”

“Anyway, this demon keyhole can unlock doors.”

She held out her palm and the demon keyhole floated to the locked door before it grew back to its original size. It laid itself over the original doorknob. There was a crunch and the wet sounds of chewing and finally something being swallowed. Finally there was a ‘click’ and the door swung open with a creak. The demon keyhole detached itself from the door and floated over to Casey. There was even a smug look on its face, as it waited for praise.

“Good job…” she said weakly. It gave a happy hop before it shrunk and hid back in her hair.

“I thought you knew that it could unlock doors. Why do you look so weak?”

“I knew it could unlock doors, I just didn’t know it would cannibalize them…”

“Anyway, the door’s unlocked. Let’s go in.”

Derek pushed open the door and was about to enter when he paused. He clenched his right fist and as was explained in the tutorial, the controller appeared. Better safe than sorry.

The tiny ticket office was dark with only the gloomy light from the door outlining the siblings’ silhouette. Derek looked around before he spotted a light switch. He flicked it and thankfully the fluorescent lights flickered and came on.

In the cramped room, he saw three chairs against the counters and a filing cabinet in the corner. There were drawers at the counter for the money and tickets but that was it.

Derek approached the counter first. He slowly pulled open the first drawer. It was empty, save for a few pieces of coloured and perforated paper, a pen, a stamp and an inkpad. The other two drawers were also filled with similar items. But there were no tickets.

Derek sighed and turned around. Casey was searching through the little filing cabinet at the back. The top drawer had some posters while the bottom one was filled with miscellaneous stationery, some paper but no tickets either. Casey looked at her brother and shook her head.

“Now what do we do?”

“First, what movie do you want to watch?”

“What?”

“We need to decide which movie we want to watch before we buy the ticket, right?”

“That makes sense… but there aren’t any tickets…”

“Do you remember any of the old tickets when we came here?”

“Not really...”

“Exactly… So I want to try something.”

“What?”

Casey pulled out the notebook that she had taken from the manager’s office. It was filled with white, unlined paper slightly smaller than her palm. Pulling out the glowing fountain pen she had found earlier, she hastily drew a few lines and added a few words. When she was done, she ripped it out of the notebook and showed it to her brother.

“Is that supposed to be a ticket?”

“Yes.”

“It’s as ugly as heck.”

“Do you have a better idea?”

“No.”

“Then shut up.”

But Casey frowned when she looked at the ticket that she had drawn.

“I remember they used to stamp something on it to make it official…”

“Wait.”

Derek went back to the drawer and pulled out a stamp and the inkpad.

“Do you mean this?”

Casey looked at the stamp in his hand. She tried stamping it on the underside of the mock ticket she had made. What appeared was the words:

Showe Cinema

Admits one adult/child

Movie:……………….

Date:……………….

“This is it! This is the ticket!”

She removed two clean sheet of note paper and stamped on both of them. Then she filled in the necessary blanks. She handed one of them to Derek.

“Hold on”

He went back to the drawer and pulled out the papers that was in the drawer. There were two colours. Blue and green.

“Do you remember which colour was for adults and which was for kids again?”

Casey stared at the two papers and blinked.

“Wasn’t it pink?”

“What?”

“The tickets for kids… wasn’t it pink?”

“But these are the only two colours here…”

“Yeah but…”

“But?”

“The lights here are white but inside the lobby, it’s yellow light. If we used those two colours, it’d be hard to differentiate.”

Derek stared at the two slips of paper. She had a point.

“So these should be for adults…”

“I think so. But one of them could be a trap.”

Derek opened the other two drawers and pulled out all the slips of paper inside. Now there were several colours. Blue, green, pink, red, orange and purple. All of them with a perforated line in the middle.

Casey and Derek stared at each other.

“Do we try all of them?”

“If there’s no penalty, I’d say go for it.”

“And if there is?”

“Risk it?”

Cassie shrugged and took the green paper from her brother. She stamped it and filled it in. She used ‘Shadows Behind’ as the movie they were planning to watch. Once she was done, she handed the ticket to her brother.

Derek took the ticket and walked back to the barrier separating them and the actual theatre halls. Ticket in hand, he took a deep breath and reached out his hand, trying to unhook the velvet rope again.

This time, there was a tingling and numb sensation, as if he had been zapped. He hurriedly pulled his hand back, shaking it.

“What happened?”

“It felt like I got zapped… you know, like when you touch the bug zapper.”

Casey looked at him with her eyebrows creased.

“Why would I touch a bug zapper?”

“… Never mind…”

“So we got it wrong?”

“Looks like it…”

The two of them stared at each other in dismay.

“So we’re going to have to try different combinations until we get it right?”

“No way, I felt like I lost some HP there…”

“There must be some additional clues…”

Derek looked around before he paused.

“Look.” He pointed to the other side of the entrance.

They had only seen the sign telling patrons that they needed a ticket to enter. On the opposite side, slightly hidden by the curtains, had been another sign.

 

Casey looked at the sign before she took the ticket that she had made from her brother’s hand. They looked at each other again.

“I think, I know where we went wrong.”

“What a coincidence. Me too.”

They hurriedly went back to the ticket booth.

Casey pulled out the all different coloured papers, blue, orange, red, green and purple.

“Which movie?”

Derek looked up at a clock that had already stopped at 7.45.

“The only available movie is ‘Another Hero’.”

“OK.”

Casey pulled out two pieces of green paper and stamped them. After filling in the details, she handed one to her brother and took the other.

“Ready?”

“As I’ll ever be… let’s go.”

They turned to return to the lobby. Before they could, the chairs started to rattle and a high pitched whine started. Casey and Derek immediately covered their ears, trying in vain to block out the noise.

“What’s happening?” Casey screamed over the noise.

“I don’t know!”

“Pay for your tickets!” a harsh voice suddenly sounded in the booth.

Casey and Derek looked at each other in dismay. They forgot to pay for their tickets!

The rattling chairs started to move, aiming straight for the two of them. Casey and Derek ducked out of the way but they were outnumbered with no place to hide.

“Garm! Go!” Casey immediately commanded her hellhound.

Derek meanwhile clutched his fists and his controllers / sword and shield appeared. He directly defended himself from the oncoming chairs with his shield but still staggered backwards from the impact.

“How do we pay for the tickets?!” Derek gasped, his breath knocked out from him.

“I don’t know! Did you get any money from beating the demon earlier?” Casey was frantically looking around, trying to find anything that could be treated as money. Garm was holding down two chairs, one in each paw but he was being pushed back steadily. He issued a whine in distress.

Casey immediately opened her phone, hoping to issue some commands. Instead, she saw a flashing icon on her banking app. Without thinking, she clicked on it.

‘Pay XXX to Showe Cinema?’

What?

Seeing how both Derek and Garm were being pushed back, Casey pressed the yes button. Almost as instantaneously, the sound subsided and the chairs returned to their original places. Casey and Derek looked at each other, a little dishevelled, a little tired and a lot of confusion.

“What happened?”

“I think… I just paid for the tickets by app…”

“Uh…”

“I’m not kidding!”

“But, didn’t the cinema close down before the advent of online payments?”

“The how do you explain what just happened?”

“It’s all a dream and it’s not supposed to be logical?”

“That works…”

“Well, let’s go then.”

They turned back to the door, again, when Casey paused. Derek who was behind her, looked at her in confusion.

“Sis?”

“Do you hear that?”

“Hear what?”

“That beeping.”

“What beeping?”

Before Casey could answer, she felt herself being dragged away. There was a jolt and she opened her eyes, finding herself on her bed, her phone beeping non-stop.

It was time to wake up.