The Starside
Seal Beach California is not Los Angeles. it's nearby and in the same metropolitan area but it's still it's own city. Seal Beach is like the weird large suburbia that doesn't really have much in it worth doing. Just houses... More houses... School... the beach... the board walk. Although there is one notable acceptation to this rule. The Arlington Theater. This theater is unlike any run of the mill I-max that's a buck a dozen. The Arlington shows exclusively black and white movies, and is quite the incredible hangout space for the local teen population. Although it's not really everybody's groove. Except for this Particular day in GCS, a charter school in Seal Beach. It was Friday so all of the kids were rowdy and didn't really want to be there, and were looking forward to thanksgiving break, an extra Monday off this weekend. Samantha Storms, Lydia Baldwin, and Damian Smith were all in their classes. Samantha, a 5'4 16 year old with pale skin, brown eyes, purple died short hair with shaved sides that revealed a dark brown was thinking about what to make her and her brother for dinner tonight. Lydia, a 17 year old 6'0 diva with brown hair, brown eyes, and a very well kept uniform, was focused on her work despite the atmosphere. and 16 year old Damian, although he liked to go by Aloice, the skinny pale Blonde boy who always dressed with a poets shirt, dress pants, and a tailcoat, was daydreaming about being a vampire prince. Suddenly over the intercom a voice crackled.
"Hello GCS! this is your principle speaking. this is an announcement about the three day weekend you are about to embark upon. Do not Go to the Arlington theater after school today or any other night until Tuesday, we will not be seeing our students engaging with the movie being shown for the long weekend. That is all, thank you." there were a few moments of silence across the school. then the speculation and gossip ensued. what movie were they showing? Why can't we go see it? it's usually boring black and white movies but maybe it's a racy black and white movie? Are you going? because I'm definitely going. I need to see what this movie is for myself! This was the general gossip happening around the school. Samantha was relatively disinterested in the theater, she'd certainly hear the rumors about the movie later. she had things to attend to. Lydia smirked, deciding then and there she HAD to go see this movie for herself. Aloice was originally off in his own little world as usual but the theater kids who adored his acting skills and wanted him among their ranks insisted he come to the Arlington with them. to which he obliged.
It was safe to say that absolutely nothing got done for the rest of the day. Nobody could shut up about the movie. And it was even discovered that other schools also got the exact same message. do not go to the Arlington theater. At this point it looked like hundreds and hundreds of teenagers from high schools all around were going to make their way to the theater for this forbidden movie. Lydia was furiously texting and coordinating with her high profile (at least high profile for the culture of a single high school) friends to meet up at the theater. This night was going to be absolutely massive for the Arlington, and Lydia as always wanted to make a little bit of trouble. just a light escape from her stifling studies.
By the time lunchtime came around WILD rumors had spread and continued to spread throughout the courtyard. At this point the movie was understood to heavily feature sex and violence despite nobody knowing or having a means to actually discover what the movie was about. Lydia engaged with these rumors in earnest, spreading them and waiting to see where they went. although Samantha and Aloice were somewhere different. Samantha was digging around in the trash behind the school looking for any hidden treasures she might find, and Aloice was avoiding the hubub, running into Samantha behind the school.
"Hello there traveler!" Aloice called out.
"Oh, hey there Dami- I mean Aloice. what are you doing back here?" Samantha replied, popping out of the dumpster to talk.
"have you not heard of the rumors going around about this motion picture? perhaps it's a way for me to find my way back to my dimension where I may live in my palace once more!" Aloice said dramatically
"could be," Samantha replied, understanding this was par for the course with Aloice, "I'm not going, I've gotta get a bunch of chores done back home, then I've gotta go make sure the pigeon at the Arlington are gonna be alright tonight. they get spooked off by big crowds."
"Samantha, Do you commune with animals the way that one might commune with another?" Aloice struck a ridiculous pose
"No, I just understand them. they need to be fed and they like the popcorn from the Arlington the best." Samatha shrugged, "you still haven't answered why you're back here."
"With the excitement over the motion picture everyone is shouting, hurting my delicate vampire hearing and causing me to seek refuge by this dumpster."
"makes sense, well I'm looking to see if anything cool got thrown away. sometimes pack's of pencils, perfectly good food, or even cash from time to time get's tossed."
"have you found any of the treasures you desire?'
"nope."
"it is a shame, however I believe in your noble quest to find treasure among the refuse of society."
"thank you, we aught to go though. Theater is our next period, and the stupid classroom is on the other side of school from here. come on, I'll walk you." Samantha began walking away from the dumpster, with Aloice following close behind.
"Ah the theater! the only place where I can let my true nature out, just a little bit." Aloice said dramatically following behind Samantha.
with the excitement in the air the day went by quickly but not quick enough. and soon school was over. Spent the evening before the movie doing homework and practicing lines for the winter performance, While Lydia picked out the perfect outfit to attend this supposedly insane movie. Samatha bought groceries at the dollar store and made some food, carefully storing some of it in the fridge for Johnny and eating the other half. as the sun began to go down Samantha hopped in her Volkswagen beetle, beat to hell as it was, and drove it to the Arlington where she knew the pigeons would be. Lydia got picked up at her mansion by some friends, while Aloice's mom dropped him off. everyone at GCS was used to Aloices antics of being convinced he was from another world but hundreds of students from schools around the area were here, and they had never seen a more colorful character.
"what are you wearing?" some kid from another school asked.
"I'm wearing the traditional garb of a vampire prince." Aloice answered, covoring his face with his hand dramatically.
"ok?" the guy was certainly confused, "so you're like a vampire prince?"
"swept from my dimension I was thrust here to find my way through this world, escaping war and romance turned sour. I am Aloice, prince of all vampires." the entire time Aloice was telling this story he struck various poses. catching the attention of one Lydia Baldwin. as the high acheiving student she was and surrounded by the schools elite she never really interacted with Aloice, but now she was VERY curious to see what chaos and confusion was happening and Decided to join him.
"Hey Aloice, couldn't help but notice you were telling this kid a story." Lydia said, curious to hear what he was saying from the beginning. The energy behind the small blond kids eyes doubled and he launched into a long drawn out explanation of his history before he came to this world 16 years ago as a baby. Lydia was now regretting her decision to listen seeing as the movie was going to start soon and Aloice was still going, giving a frankly amazing performance as he did. at this point the kid who had originally talked to Aloice was gone and Lydia sidled a little bit away. Aloice followed her. deciding she wouldn't be able to shake him she just let the strange theater kid follow her into the Arlington theater.
the Building was old, with distinctive Spanish architecture and only one screen. the theater was absolutely packed, and the poor teenagers at the concessions counter looked highly overwhelmed. Lydia just shrugged and got in line, resolving that her friends would find her while Aloice continued to monologue behind her. Meanwhile Samantha was behind the Arlington feeding the pigeons. in truth she didn't need to watch after them. it was just calming for her to be surrounded by animals. when she wasn't here she was taking care of a household and a kid. but here she felt free, digging in the trash and feeding a bunch of pigeons popcorn.
"hey! what are you doing back here?" a voice called out from the back door. Samantha whipped around to see a worker, someone her age, about to throw some trash away.
"feeding the pigeons." Samantha answered blankly, hoping she wouldn't be told to leave.
"didn't you hear about the weird movie?" he asked.
"I don't have the money for a ticket." she answered. it was the truth but even if she did have the money she probably wouldn't want to go.
"wait here." he said, throwing the trash bag in the dumpster and returning into the building. a few minutes later he returned with what appeared to be a bucket of fresh popcorn and a red slip of paper. "I was gonna watch it but mom said she needs me home."
"oh... thanks." Samantha said, watching the kid scurry back inside without saying anything. Samantha just blinked, looked at the crowd of hungry pigeons around her and tossed most of the massive bowl of popcorn to them. they all loved it. but one Pigeon in particular wanted more. so that particular pigeon flapped up and landed inside of the popcorn bucket.
"hello friend." Samantha said, shaking the bucket around trying to get the bird to leave. he did not. instead he just continued eating what popcorn was left in the bucket and getting his feathers covered in movie theater butter. "I guess you're coming with me." Samantha shrugged and rounded the corner, figuring she was here and had a ticket, so she might as well see the movie. by the time they were inside the pigeon had eaten all the popcorn and seemed rather pleased with himself. Samantha just so happened to pass by Lydia who was still half listening to Aloice monologue as they waited to get into the theater and dropped some of her own popcorn into the bucket the pigeon was in. The pigeon was delighted, and began to very animatedly go after the pieces of popcorn. the bucket was shaking and moving now and people began to take notice. seeing the pigeon inside all of the teenagers began to donate snacks to the bucket, causing the passenger in the bucket to go buck wild seeking every treat and getting fatter by the second. By the time the movie theater opened and people started flooding in the little guy was in a nest of buttery snacks, looking an iota more rotund than he had been previously.
seats filled up relatively quickly, meaning that Lydia couldn't sit next to her normal group, and Aloice was still following her so those two ended up sitting next to each other. and then Samantha sat down in the available aisle seat right next to them. So there was Aloice still monologuing before the movie started, Lydia half paying attention to the monologuing, and Samantha with a pigeon that had quickly fallen asleep in the pile of food he had been so greedily eating at just minutes before. The air was electric with excitement, wild rumors still flying around at what this movie could possibly be. but a hush fell over the crowd when the lights dimmed and music began to play. the screen lit up with a title card that read... the Starside. Never before had a massive group of teenagers in the same room been so silent watching the opening scene where the camera panned down over a city skyline while names nobody red showed the credits prior to the movie. the camera finally settled onto a coffee shop, moving forward to the protagonist. a woman named moxie, but a woman that everyone else knew as Maraline Monroe. Seeing as her father, a Disney executive, had his toes in the filming industry Lydia grew up around the culture of film and hollywood. she knew every movie that Marilina Monroe had ever been in, but she had never heard of the Starside.
the movie continues, explaining the story of the woman moxie who dreams of making it big in the starside, the film worlds hollywood. she moved all the way here from her small town in Missouri just so she could show off her beauty and acting talent. she quickly found a no name agent who was also starting out named Gabriel who was played by a young Cary grant. This fact was immediately confusing to Lydia. Cary Grant was an actor active in the 1930's and early 1940's and was getting later in years then. while Maralin Monroe was active in hollywood until the early 1950's meaning there was no way that a Cary grant this young could star in a movie with Maralin Monroe. it was literally impossible. Lydia kept on noticing this as the movie progressed, actors from completely different time periods were acting all together in one place when there was NO POSSIBLE WAY that they could have actually been acting together.
Aloice at this point had long since stopped monologuing and was very interested in the movie. Watching Gabriel try and protect Moxie from the cruel people in Starside who would take advantage of a young beautiful actress but Gabriel failed to consider protecting her from his own friends. The strange theater kid was quite enraptured. Samantha on the other hand was half paying attention to the movie and the other half paying attention to her new pet bird who she promptly named frank. he was still asleep. Although at that moment the doors into the theater were opened and just enough light spilled into it to draw Samantha's attention. and there was an employee wearing a black and white tuxedo walking down the aisle. Samantha quickly put an arm over the top of the bucket as he approached. but as she tried not to look at him she noticed something strange about the man. whenever she looked at him head on, he looked like a normal man. but when she looked at him out of the corner of her eye he appeared to be three feet shorter, as well as three feet wide. She didn't have time to process or ponder this knowledge because the man stopped right at her aisle and looked at her and the two others sitting next to her.
"Samantha, Lydia, Aloice, you have been upgraded to premium seating." he said. Samantha was bewildered, expecting to get kicked out for the pigeon. Lydia was just as confused, although she was half occupied trying to decipher exactly why the movie had all these actors, while Aloice took it all in stride. the strange trio of teenagers got to their feet and followed the man out of the theater. Samantha played with her field of vision, finding the exact spot away from the center where the man turned from this average guy into the frankly spherical being she witnessed on the edges of her vision.
"Look at him through the corner of your eye." Samantha whispered to Lydia. Lydia obliged and she saw it too. she found the exact moment in her vision where he changed and she played with it for a bit.
"what?" Lydia said confused.
"what are we looking at?" Aloice asked.
"look at him through the corner of your eye." Somantha answered.
"ok." Aloice did so and saw the very same thing, "that's strange, perhaps he is from my world here to take me home. perhaps you Samantha and my companion who's name I don't know will be able to come as well." Aloice seemed way too nonchalant about this whole thing.
"he doesn't seem like a vampire to me." Samantha said nervously as the man stopped in front of a door.
"our kind comes in all shapes and sizes." Aloice replied.
the man, not seeming to be eavesdropping at all, opened the door and stepped inside. the moment he crossed the threshold of the door the man was short and spherical no matter if you looked at him dead on or through the corner of your eye. the trio paused for a second, then followed him inside. whatever this was they were in too deep. as they walked through what appeared to be a private staircase up to some kind of VIP room it was Samantha who realized that this staircase shouldn't exist. that door should have led directly out of the building where there were no other structures. but here they were in a staircase that shouldn't exist. not only that but the conventional lightbulbs had been replaced in this room with actual lamps that lined the walls, containing real flames. at the top of the stairs the man stopped and opened a door. "this way please." he motioned into the room which was relatively dark and had a window into the theater. the trio found their seats and sat down. "someone will be with you shortly to take your orders." and with that the man closed the door.
"what is happening?" Lydia asked nervously, "that man, is spherical."
"and that staircase shouldn't exist." Samantha added.
"perhaps I will be home soon." Aloice smiled, seeming rather content.
"I need to video this." Lydia mumbled, taking out her phone and recording the room. everything seemed normal until she videoed the movie screen. everything changed. Maralin Monroe looked completely different through the phone. she had long pointed ears, and sharp features. while her costar Cary Grant literally turned into a frog man when she looked through the phone. outside of the phone it was normal humans, through the phone everyone looked different. "guys look at this!" the three of them huddled around Lydia's phone to watch, gasping in amazement at what they saw. Samatha took out her phone and tried. it was the same thing. the three of them watched the movie through there phones for a while before there was a knock at the door and someone came in wearing an Arlington theater uniform. Although this man was most certainly not human. his skin was light blue like the sky, and horns curved up out of his head.
"hello, I'll be your server today, what can I get you?" he asked nonchalantly. Lydia and Samantha were both jaw dropped staring at the man. while Aloice took the oddity in stride.
"could I trouble you for some sushi?" Aloice asked.
"Certainly, and what would you two like?'
"Salmon and fried ochra." Lydia answered, wanting to test the boundaries of this ordering.
"of course." he answered.
"I'll have... a burger, but with crab instead of a burger patty, and the bread to be that swirly rhy bread." Samantha answered, taking the ordering even further.
"excellent choice, and what would your pet like?"
"uh... a place to sleep better than a popcorn bucket." Samantha joked.
"that can be arranged." the man answered, "those orders should be here within 20 minutes, in the meantime have some popcorn and chocolates." he opened the door further and pulled a metal bowl of popcorn off of it, passing it into the room along with a tray of chocolates. then he left, leaving Samantha and Lydia Dumbfounded and Aloice quite pleased.
"I... I guess we have the chocolates." Lydia said bewildered, grabbing one off the small tray and eating it. although the moment she ate it, another identical chocolate appeared. she ate another, and in it's place the same thing. wordlessly Samantha took one as well, only to see it be miraculously replaced moments later.
"Lydia, take a video." Samantha insisted. Lydia brought up her phone and recorded Samantha reaching for a chocolate. although the actual surprising thing in the video was not the chocolate. but it was Samantha's hand. in the video a human hand did not appear. instead a purple scaled hand appeared. Lydia quickly flipped the camera up to point at Samantha, seeing instead of a human, a 3ft tall bipedal lizard creature wearing Samantha's clothes. Lydia quickly flipped the camera to herself, only to see that in the phone she had long pointed ears, beautiful high cheekbones, and long hair that shimmered purple and blue like a galaxy. Lydia quickly panned the camera over to Aloice. although he looked just about the same but with pointed ears.
"Samantha you're a lizard." Lydia said, looking back at her through the camera.
"what?!" Samantha looked down at herself, only to see her normal self.
"through the camera." Lydia sighed exasperated. Samantha opened her phone and flipped the camera around. sure enough, a purple lizard person stared back at her. Samantha shrieked and dropped her phone. but quickly picked it up to continue looking at the strange lizard face. it was not a filter, not a filter at all.
"WHAT IS GOING ON!" Samantha cried out, "why do I look like a lizard?"
"I don't know, you're a tiny lizard though." Lydia shrugged.
"I don't suppose you're any better." Samantha said indignantly, pointing her phone's camera at Lydia. "I retract my previous statement."
"we must be in-between worlds!" Aloice chirped, "only our digital devices can see what we look like in our true forms.
"if my true form is a lizard then I'll... actually do nothing because that makes a lot of sense." Samantha looked up and pondered it for a bit.
"I just want to know what's going on." Lydia mumbled, suddenly she noticed there was another box, hanging over the theater. she peered around and saw four guys from a different school sitting in there and freaking out over the chocolates just like the trio had been. Lydia waved to them, grabbing a napkin and a pencil and writing down her phone number in big letters. quickly the guys all texted her and a groupchat was formed.
"these chocolates are magic!" was the first message.
"look at each other through your phones." Lydia replied. she watched from a distance at the guys all took their phones out and pointed them at each other. each of them freaking out as they did. two of the guys appeared to be normal human, but the pictures of the other two that got sent were much stranger. one of them straight up looked like shrek. while the other one had midnight black skin, white hair, and pointed ears. Lydia quickly sent pictures of herself, Samantha, and Aloice to the group of guys. they were all losing their minds. But their communication was cut short when their server knocked and came in with his cart. everything was made exactly to order. and there was even a birdcage with a little red cushion inside of it provided to Samantha. wordlessly Samantha scooped up frank and placed him inside the birdcage on a the little pillow without waking him, and the three of them received their food. the movie was already half over and none of them were paying attention to it. well maybe except for Aloice. the next hour left of the moive was spent speculating about what could be happening and eating the food that they had ordered. the movie ended and almost immediately as the credits were rolling did the door open once more. this time it was the rotund man once again.
"did you enjoy the movie?" he asked.
"yes." Aloice replied cheerily
"what's going on, appearing chocolates, things looking different through our phones, a staircase that shouldn't feasibly exist?" Lydia was standing now, demanding answers.
"all will be explained, Lydia, Samantha, Aloice, please follow me once more." he said, stepping aside and motioning for us to follow him down the staircase. the trio once again followed after him. this time they were silent. following him back into the lobby. he turned back to a normal human in the lobby, leading them through the crowd to another door that should have lead to an alleyway outside the building, but instead an entire restaurant was revealed, with fancy tables and Chairs neatly stacked upsidown on the tables. it was completely empty, looked as if it were after hours. through the glass front doors however you could see the dark outside, and a street that by all means shouldn't have existed there. when the man crossed the threshold into the room he once again became his rotund self.
"once the others get here, we will show you." the man said, "if you were curious, my name is Theodore."
"nice to meet you." Lydia said with a shrug, deciding to shrug off the oddness of the situation. soon the four guys entered into the restaurant just as awestruck and excited. Theodore waved us to follow him and we did. the seven teenagers were quietly murmuring to each other, wondering what in the world was happening. Theodore stepped through the front doors of the restaurant and held the door open for the teens to exit. the guys went first. the first of the guys to step through, suddenly transformed into a six and a half ft tall shrek, quickly followed by two normal guys who seemed mildly dissapointed, and then my the last of the guys walked out and he transformed to have midnight black skin, white hair, and pointed ears. Aloice was next, stepping through and changing only minorly, his ears becoming pointed and his features just a little more defined. When Lydia stepped through, she shot up to be seven feet tall, her hair got ridiculously long and shimmered purple and blue with flecks of white in it like a galaxy. then finally samantha, she stepped through still holding her birdcage. in an instant she was three feet tall, purple, scaley, and could hardly hold on to the large cage. oh and Samantha's pigeon turned into a mini golden dragon, still asleep at the bottom of the cage.