What If You Got Stuck in a Movie Theater for a Year

Zzzzzz.... Hey, what’s that noise? How long have you been sleeping? You try to move your neck. It’s a little bit stiff. You’ve had a good nap but fell asleep in an uncomfortable position... In the movie theater!

Oh, now you remember! The movie was really boring, you were tired after a long day at work, so you couldn’t help it. You look around — everyone’s out. You’re alone. Everything is clean, with no popcorn or soda cans on the floor. Weird.

The credits are rolling down the screen, so it’s time to go. It might be pretty late, and you don’t want to miss your bus. You get up, stretch, and slowly go to the door. You enter the hallway. No one is there. You’re confused. Usually, when you stay at the movie theater so late, someone walks you out and reminds you they’re closing.

And there’s always a mess left by people who have been walking around all day, eating snacks, and dropping popcorn to the floor... But now, everything is clean and peaceful — as if the movie theater isn’t open at all. You check the bathrooms. No one is there. The lights are dimmed, but you can see where you’re going. And still — gulp — everything looks kinda creepy with no one around.

“Hello?’’ You try calling people a couple of times. No answer. You follow the ’exit’ sign and get to the closed door. “Temporarily closed because of renovation.” Huh? How long is that “temporarily”?! You start panicking and then suddenly get angry. How could the staff forget to wake you up? You start yelling, trying to open the door. But nothing works. You check your phone — of course, it’s off, you forgot to charge it.

Then you suddenly hear some noise coming from one of the halls. You start shivering. Is it possible that someone else is trapped here too? You slowly move toward the hall and cautiously open the door.

But it’s just the beginning of another movie. This hall is empty too. Trying to distract yourself, you get popcorn, candies, soda, and even some ice. Finally, you’re on time to get the best seat!

Oh boy, that was epic! You were still sitting and laughing at some of those jokes you’ve heard when suddenly a new movie starts. Great, why not see this one too? Workers will probably get here in the morning anyway.

Your friends are gonna be so jealous when they find out you’ve spent a night at the movie theater for free! Two more movies later, you realize you have no idea what time it is. But you feel very tired. Tomorrow’s a new day; it’ll get better...

Grrrrrr... Still no news, nobody’s come. The noise coming from your stomach is getting louder, so you go and grab new snacks. Time for more movies — the marathon you’ve always wanted to take part in! You hit the first hall — a comedy is on. You realize each hall shows its own movie genre.

And when a movie finishes, a new one immediately starts. At one point, the screen always goes white. It’s your cue that it’s time to go to sleep. Days pass by with you waiting for workers every morning and watching new movies every day. There are some old movies too, in different languages and from different countries.

Your daily routine is always the same. You get up and have breakfast — you found a large stock of sandwiches in the fridge. After watching several movies, you walk around and explore the place. Then lunch, some more movies, dinner, and it’s already bedtime. You feel completely hypnotized by all the movies you watch.

Some make you laugh so hard that you can’t fall asleep afterward because you keep thinking about their plots. Others bring tears to your eyes. Some make you think. And there are movies that scare you so much that instead of falling asleep, you get up every 5 minutes to check every suspicious noise you hear.

Your life doesn’t change. No one comes; every day is the same. At first, you still try to count how many days you’re trapped at the movie theater. But after a while, you lose track of time.

Your eyes have become red from staring at the screen for hours on end. You sometimes feel terrified while looking at yourself in the bathroom mirror. Your skin has gone pale. You’ve gained some extra weight. And your shoulders have become rounded from sitting and sleeping in an uncomfortable position.

From time to time, you try to work out and add some healthy habits to your life. But most of the time, you feel as if you’re the main character of some weird movie. The one where you can’t figure out what’s real and what’s not. You keep seeing things out of the corner of your eye. But when you turn around, there’s nothing.

You decide not to watch scary movies anymore. And then you accidentally find yourself in a seat, waiting for the next movie to start. And before you know it, the movie has you hooked. And you can’t stop watching even though you know you won’t be able to sleep at night.

You start feeling increasingly lonely. Movie characters become your only friends; you constantly talk to them in your head or even out loud. The silence after you stop is horrible. And the dark corners of the movie theater seem even scarier at such moments.

Your stomach hurts. You’re sick and tired of snacks, candies, sandwiches, and popcorn. Unbelievable, but the only thing you’re craving is a bowl of warm soup. You don’t enjoy movies anymore. Nothing seems funny, sad, or even scary. You often watch a movie, not knowing what it’s about.

It feels as if you’re stuck on a deserted island, but... kinda worse. There, you’d at least have beaches, sunsets, palm trees, and maybe even a chance to escape after a while. You miss the fresh air, sunlight, and the feeling of rain on your skin. You close the doors of the movie theater halls and stand next to the ticket office. You’re done with opening credits, movie music, and your favorite actors. You don’t want anything to do with MOVIES!

You start exploring the place, paying even more attention to details than you did before. You enter all the halls one by one, and try to find new exit options. You start to lose hope. But then you remember something from the movie you saw a couple of days before and run to the bathroom.

Here’s the vent — it’s now or never! It’s pretty high... Two garbage cans... great, maybe you’ll reach it now. Your construction keeps swinging. But you somehow manage to crawl into the hole before the garbage can tower crashes down.

You have to get through an entire maze up there before you — finally! — get out. Aaah, a warm, nice night. It feels as if this is the first time you’ve taken a deep breath in over a year! The movie theater isn’t in the city center, so you start walking home. When you arrive, your roommate can barely believe his eyes.

"Have you got back from Aruba?’’ he sounds surprised. You have no idea what he’s talking about. He says, "You were disappointed with your job and didn’t know what to do. So you told everyone you needed something different, maybe a couple of months on Aruba or something like that. So we all thought you wanted to disappear for a while and then get in touch with people again. Your phone was off for a year, and you didn’t reply on social media.’’

No, it wasn’t Aruba! The movie theater, all kinds of movies from all over the world, lots of popcorn, the renovation, no one ever came... You try to tell your roommate the story. You’re hurrying, missing words, and skipping parts of the story... But he’s just looking at you, confused. You decide to just show him the place. But when you get there, he doesn’t want to come closer.

“That place has been closed for years! I can’t remember ever seeing it open. There’s a story about a guy who owned it. He was a great movie fan and wanted to collect movies from all over the world. He was going to renovate this movie theater. But then he suddenly disappeared. No one knew what had happened. The theater was closed down and has been ‘under renovation’ since then. People have heard noises coming from that building, but no one wanted to come any closer to investigate.”

Gulp. How did you end up in such a place? You suddenly notice someone move near the theater. They start walking toward you. You try to run away — but you can’t move! What’s going on?! You jolt awake in your seat. Was it all just a dream?

Credits on the screen mean the movie you’ve been watching is over. The hall is empty, and you quickly leave it. No one is there. Oh no, not again! “Hello?” you yell in panic. Silence, and then... “Yes?”