The Unwilling Protagonist

I, on a Friday night, decided to go watch a movie at 9:30 pm. It was in a theater that was once 

home to an older, grander theater that got torn down and replaced with a new one where 

everything is automated from tickets to drinks. It was usually pretty empty on the weekends, so that 

was the best time to go there. The look of the theater was like any place remaking an older 

building; A clean, bland corporate look that is as lifeless as a morgue. Its smell always seems to 

be sterile despite how much popcorn and soda gets spilled on a daily basis. Oh well, At 

least the seats were made of fine leather where my back can finally have something to rest on. 

While everyone was either staying at home or drinking somewhere, me, whose roommate was 

off with his friends, completely without warning went to see a movie alone. I came to the theater 

feeling relieved to be doing something that wasn’t work or shopping. I pay my ticket at the 

machine that always looked like an atm to me. Once in the theater, I grabbed a soda and picked 

the best spot since I was the only person that showed up that night. 

 

The movie I chose to watch was a rerun of a movie that came out a while ago. It was about a 

child trying to find his parents while being haunted by a ghost. It got great ratings back then, and 

I was planning on seeing it when it first came out, but I had to take my cat to the vet which made me 

broke for the rest of the month. Damn cat! Anyway, when it was re-released, I took my chance 

to see it. 

 

The movie started well as they introduced the protagonist “Timmy”, a short 10-year-old boy 

wrapped around layers of clothing, and his predicament of finding his parents, and how it 

perfectly introduces the villainous spirit haunting poor little Timmy. I liked the character of Timmy 

and the look of the spirit as well. It’s just that the tension was not there when it needed it the 

most. Whenever there was a chance for a heart pounding chase scene, the ghost merely stalks 

and when the movie does do the first chase scene, the ghost is too far away and too slow to feel 

like Timmy was in any sort of real danger of being caught. 

 

By the halfway mark of the movie, Timmy had found a transcript from a person who tried, but 

failed to enact the ritual to defeat the evil spirit along with the location to enact it. Just as the 

movie transitioned to the next scene, something strange happened. I felt a tinge of coldness on 

my cheeks. I knew it was late, but the weather was still warm outside, and the theater had air 

conditioning. That coldness stuck to my face like frozen greasy slime. As uncomfortable as I 

was, I’ve been subjected to much colder temperatures, so I was willing to ignore it for the sake 

of finishing the movie. I then caught a glimpse of some black anomaly. At first, I didn’t pay much 

Mind, but then I caught another one from the corner of the eye. I looked at the theater but found 

no one was there. I chalked it up to my paranoia; something I thought was a weakness. 

 

I return to the movie as Timmy finds himself in a dilapidated hotel where he must enact the 

ritual. As the movie shows Timmy walking into the reception, I heard faint, incoherent whispers. I 

looked behind me once again and there was nothing. Then, my phone rang at the same time as 

a cell phone rang in the movie. I looked to silence my phone when I noticed the name of the 

person who was calling me. “Timmy.” 

 

There was no one named Timmy in my contacts and anyone else would either be labeled as 

“scam likely” or would just be the phone number. I decided, out of curiosity, to answer the call. 

“Hello there.” I spoke. “Hel..hello. Can you help me?” Not only did the voice sound like a child, but 

I heard the voice in the theater. When I looked at the screen, Timmy was on the phone too. I was 

extremely weirded out and confused with what was happening. “What’s your name.” 

“Ti…ti…Timmy ”. The voice on the phone matched the dialogue in the movie. 

I was shocked, I did not take any substances tonight and I had never been mentally ill in my life. 

I couldn’t have been making this up in my head. Yet I was directly talking to Timmy, a fictional 

movie character. I did not know what to say. In fact, it felt like I couldn’t move. It felt like I was tied 

underneath with invisible chains. Heavy, I felt heavy. My body felt that it was being crushed. 

The camera showed the outside of the hotel where the evil spirit represented by blackish red 

mist and an accumulation of moans of people cursed long ago. When I saw it, I yelled “RUN!” to 

Timmy and he dashed into the hotel with the phone in hand. 

 

Timmy ran into the halls of the hotel as the whispers from before came back with low, dark 

voices calling for my violent, painful death. The movie’s camera cut the end of the hall where the 

spirit was waiting for Timmy. “STOP!” I yelled on the phone. Timmy stopped at his tracks when I 

said those words. I then told Timmy, “Go take the next door on the left.” I told him, not knowing if I was 

sending him to his doom. Luckily, the room Timmy entered had a hole in the wall where it led to 

the staircase that Timmy needed to go to complete the ritual. The poor child ran to the staircase 

as the camera panned to the spirit sensing Timmy’s movement and went to stop the kid. 

 

In the theater, I saw the shape of dark, indescribable figures in the rows ahead of me. The forms 

started to take up more rows as the whispers grew louder, more threatening than before. I felt 

like I was suffocating under the insidious invisible force that held my body. Timmy had gotten to 

the room where he could perform the ritual. I remembered in an early exposition that blood minerals 

can temporarily ward off the spirit. 

 

I panic as the camera shows the shadow of the spirit’s misty form coming down the hall as it 

unleashes a hideous screech that brought unimaginable pain to my ears. It was only by the 

grace of the camera that revealed the crushed stones near Timmy. “See the stones to the right? 

Grab it and spread it across the doorway.” I told Timmy in a strained voice. Timmy saw the rocks 

and quickly grabbed them. As the Spirit charged towards Timmy with a vengeance, Timmy 

spread the minerals across as much as possible to create a greater barrier between him and the 

spirit. 

 

With the barrier now in place, the spirit was stopped at the doorway. The faces of the people to 

who the mist has consumed repeating long forgotten cries for help. Timmy was taken aback 

and fell behind watching the horrors right in front of me. Needing to snap Timmy out of it to save 

him and myself, I yelled at him on the phone that took most of my remaining energy from me. 

“Focus on the fucking ritual!” Right after my yelling, Timmy got to work getting the ritual done. 

 

As he was working on the ritual, the whispers from behind me became shouting of my 

damnation as more and more figures appeared in all the seats of the theater. I begged Timmy to 

go faster as my voice became weaker with each passing second. Meanwhile, the red mist 

representing the spirit was slowly but surely breaking the barrier. By the time Timmy got to 

performing the ritual, the spirit was more than half way from breaking the barrier. 

My remaining strength grew weaker, and my ears bled from the screaming. I pray for Timmy to 

be successful as my eyes grow weaker. I saw that the spirit coming close to the barrier as my 

consciousness slowly slipped. Using whatever strength I had left in me I kept my eyes from 

shutting for good. 

 

Just as my eyes started to close for the final time as the spirit broke through the barrier, a 

shining light blinded me as Timmy finished the ritual. When I opened my eyes, I felt like the weight 

of 20 red bricks were lifted from my chest. The theater’s lights were on as the credits rolled from 

the screen. If I could have run far away, I would have, but my body had yet to recover from the 

experience. Which meant I had to move slowly towards the exit. Looking back at the screen 

before I walked through the door, the credits showed my name, alongside Timmy’s.