A/N: This is a little late :( It's not Halloween anymore but I was finally able to squeeze some time. Here it is!

___________________

Iolani Tori found himself squeezed snug in the right-most corner of the couch, a cushion in his arms—the perfect size for a tiny human like himself—as he hugged all that and his knees, giving Vaughn who was supposedly seated in front of him on the carpet some space to lean backward comfortably. Right beside Io sat his zombie friend, who had his eyes fixed on said human rather than the screen of the television that was currently everyone's greatest fear. Or most of the room, strictly speaking.

"Oh fuckity fuck," cursed Dmitri the devil as the screen cut to its first jump scare of the night accompanied by the characteristic scream of violins and irrelevant percussions, sending the falcon into a lifeless state for a good second or two before he regained consciousness.

Jeremiah, who'd secured a seat beside the devil, did his best to maintain a calm and collected outlook but inside, he was frightened to bits. Munching on a mouthful of nachos on the carpet, Abigail slapped the pirate's thigh to stop its obvious shaking. To her left, Vijay who'd anticipated the scare was hiding behind his jar of tukdis.

"That scared me," declared Io to Luka, lowering his voice so as to not interrupt everyone else's experience of the movie. "I wonder why. I'm not the one in the movie. It's weird that my heart's beating so fast."

The zombie admitted—albeit inwardly—that Io wasn't the only one whose heart was beating at abnormal speeds. He, however, did not stop to consider that their reasons for such an occurrence were skies apart: Io had, unconsciously, scooted a little closer to Luka after the scare.

It wasn't long before the movie began to see some progression of conflict and plot after several other mini-scares that did not feature the primary subject of supernaturalism itself. Bags of chips emptied one after another, the group was beginning to run low on supplies.

They were only ten minutes into the movie.

"Hayhe we hould heah hlohlwer," managed Pipa with her mouth stuffed full of honey butter chips, the third bag on her lap which she handed to Vaughn soon after. Her wheelchair produced a startling creak as she leaned over, successfully causing Dmitri to jump in his seat and Aaqil to accidentally open his bag of curry popcorn by squeezing it in his arms. Popcorn flew into the air like a spitting volcano and showered its delights on various laps. Meryl scrambled to pick them up and pop them into her mouth.

"Shh!" Shushed Shri, whose eyes remained riveted to the screen. "Everyone's got to be quiet or this part wouldn't scare the shit outta you wimps."

Vaughn begged to differ. Unfortunately for his poor artistic soul, Dmitri had brought along the American version that was in the vulture's opinion fairly lackluster compared to the original. He'd been sitting in the same uncomfortable position for the past eleven minutes and had long realized that it was the wrong version of the 'Ring' movie. And to think he'd have to sit through for the rest of it! That, precisely, was the true horror of it all.

"This version wouldn't scare anyone!" Count Dracula muttered to himself but was unfortunately heard by everyone else who'd remained completely quiet under Shri's advisory warning.

No words were ever said too soon than those uttered by Count Dracula for the very next second featured a frightening scare that stole spirits and voices alike. Vaughn himself had let slip an accidental yelp.

"I—sometimes I wish we had cops on the island," breathed Dmitri, who'd watched the film three times already and had insisted on keeping his eyes closed all three times at this specific scare. He never knew what it was until today. "I'd call them every time I watch this."

"Why would you suggest a horror movie night when you're so obviously not good with such themes?" Abigail scoffed, to which Lucienne, Dmitri and Jeremiah all responded at the same time.

"Some people like being scared." "It's fun!" "It's not too bad."

All three were lying.

Meanwhile, Luka Sullivan who had, at the very least, been attempting to concentrate on the movie was unfortunately distracted by his Avian's constant inward gasps and screeches—not because Victoria was actually floored by human entertainment but that she was entertained by humans themselves.

Did you see that, Luka? No you missed it! He placed his hand on his heart like he was measuring how fast it was beating! How terribly adorable is that? She screeched about the human that was none other than Iolani Tori. Reasons why friendly zombie was having a hard time concentrating on human entertainment.

"You know, I thought I got over loud noises some time ago," whispered Io to Luka out of nowhere, leaning a little closer to do so. Victoria screeched in his head. "Turns out I never did. But that's always been the case with whatever I fear. I never really leave them behind, it's always there and will always be."

Luka could not fathom how his human friend had come up with the most apt description of his childhood in the middle of watching a fucking movie, sitting on a couch like everyone would be doing on ordinary days. Clearly, no day could be described as 'ordinary' for people like Io, and perhaps that was what Luka found so endearing about the moon.

He reached behind the couch to produce one of the five packets of roasted sunflower seeds he'd brought and handed it to Io. "I like that."

The moon phoenix blinked, accepting the seeds in a motion slower than usual, weighed with confusion. "O-oh."

As vague as Luka had tended to be, Io had naturally assumed that 'that' had been referring to the sunflower seeds. What it really meant was that the eagle appreciated Io's ability to never leave things behind but of course, the author of this book is obsessed with ambiguity and the imperfectness of information when conveyed across any medium and hence will do nothing to fix misunderstandings like these.

*

As always, development of plot in horror movies tended to escalate in ways that were never quite within the range of realistic events or human reactions and hence resulted in things getting quite out of hand. Thankfully, Odile and Odette—dressed as the creepy twin girls from 'The Shining'—were never the kind to take movies like these too seriously. Gaping plot holes or not, they tended to giggle and laugh off the tension after screaming at jumpscares every single time.

"FUK THEM UP," yelled Odette at the screen that displayed a disheveled, decomposed banshee climbing out of the television and crawling towards the victim, dripping wet. "FUK UP THEIR CARPETS."

Everyone had turned to her and Odile who were laughing among themselves, completely appalled. Dmitri was disappointed.

"Just who are you rooting for?"

"Always root for the ghost," said the creepy-looking twins in their blue dresses, stuffed toy under their arms. Grinning. "Isn't that why everyone watches horror movies?"

It might have been Vaughn's imagination, but Shri and Vijay had unconsciously scooted further away from the swans while Nash had, very naturally, shifted closer.

Coupled with the animated and, admittedly, entertaining reactions of his fellow Winged, Io did not take very long to arrive at a decisive conclusion: that jumpscares were indeed universal in their fear factor. All humans—or perhaps most, at the very least—whether they liked it or not, would find themselves affected by jumpscares simply because of its unprecedented nature; unexpected and uncalled for.

It resembled the instinct one would have to blink or close their eyes when another pair of hands clap before their very eyes or a minimal distance away from their face. An act of reflex. Irrational and independent of reason.

Just as he arrived at a significant pause amidst the river that flowed against the current, inward and upwards, a pause in his daily routine or habitual rationalizing, to be specific, Io noticed that everyone else had gone quiet in anticipation of another fearful scare in the movie. A moment so tensed, one would be able to hear the drop of a pin.

Yet, in the case of the crew, all they seemed to be hearing was an odd, faint slurping coming from somewhere in the room.

"What's that sound??" Dmitri is scared. "I hear slurping??"

Frightened noises were the cue for Jing the banshee to turn around ever so slowly, noodles between her lips and a cup under her chin, chopsticks in mid-air. "Mhe?" She slurped up the remaining length as though it was to her, breathing, before bowing her head slightly. "Shwowy."

She turned back to the screen and continued to savour her cup of spicy Chinese noodles as quietly as she could. Vaughn could only observe with an envious eye, smelling the tempting scent of spice that was simply too acute for his senses.

Shri, the self-proclaimed expert of spice, could already feel her eyes tingle and tear once the smell hit her over the head. Dmitri is scared regardless.

Admittedly, his disposition remained unchanged throughout the entire movie up till the roll credits, where Lucienne the Malificent (aka Head of Welfare), confiscated the three pillows he'd managed to steal from those seated around him and distributed it back to the respective owners.

"Let's watch the next one!" Io piped as soon as the screen cut to black and tiny words in white rolled up and disappeared near the top of the frame. "The one Vaughn wanted to watch."

"On that note," Count Dracula rose elegantly despite having sat in the same position for the duration of the entire movie. One would think that he suited the role of vampire perfectly for blood did not seem to run in the veins and arteries of a human who experienced no sense of numbness (except for that which existed in his heart, says his author). "I would like to correct my former pick. Instead of Hitchcock's 'Psycho', could we, perhaps instead, watch the original Japanese version of 'The Ring'?"

This got Dmitri stammering and Odette laughing and Io curiously looking up from his packet of sunflower seeds while Luka curiously observed the curious light in the former's eyes which Pipa seemed to notice were brighter than usual that Nash needed some shades. Everyone else was appalled by Vaughn's sudden decision.

"What! Why?"

"W-what do you mean original," said Dmitri the amateur. "We've! We've seen all that we needed to see and now we're moving on to Transformers."

No one seemed to like that conclusion.

"It's Halloween, Dmitri," snapped Abigail. "We're here for the scares. Still, I don't get why'd we want to rewatch something that practically has the same story as what we just watched!"

"To carve Dmitri's fear of TVs into his head and make him have nightmares about it forever?" Aaqil whispered out of nowhere and everyone turned to him. He grinned sheepishly.

"Why's everyone up against me all the time?" Dmitri the devil hollered, throwing his head backward and flopping onto the couch.

"Because I like writing you this way!" Said his author from above, who'd assumed he was speaking to her from the way his head was tilted upwards.

Vaughn, the expert at ignoring insignificant beings like the falcon, decided to go with a vote. The majority would decide which of his collection to view next. Meanwhile, everyone in the living room had gotten up from their seats to stretch or fetch drinks from his kitchen.

"Those for watching the origi—" Ring.

The shrill ring of the doorbell stole yet another round of souls and poor Dmitri was beginning to run out of souls to replenish his tangible being on earth. The crew had turned to Vaughn at once, as though to ask who else they could be expecting nearing the end of the movie.

"What if it's Samara herself?" Vijay is scared.

Everyone else, conditioned by the past hour of graphic images and frightful scares, was no different. It was up to the owner of the room to gather whatever was left of his courage and take up the task of receiving the unexpected guest.

Wearing his mask of confidence and striding towards the door as though he owned the place (he did, well, factually speaking), Count Dracula collected his thoughts that were running wild from the horrors of overthinking and opened the front door without a pause.

Did his author ever mention that he was likely the first to be eliminated in slasher movies?

"A-ah!"

Before him stood a Japanese boy with a fluffy birb in his arms. He'd jumped slightly, startled by the realistic make-up and handmade costume that Count Dracula had so prided himself upon.

"You... um,"marvelous! The first being to ever render the Count himself speechless! "Did Iolani invite you?"

Jiro nodded, turning to the tote bag over his shoulder to produce a lunchbox. Attached to it was a note.

I made some treats :)

Perhaps it was his own imagination—since Vaughn was so prone to the horrors of his mind either way—but for some reason, the smiley face seemed slightly... melancholic. As though it wasn't the way it used to be.

"Um, well," speechless Vaughn. Again. "Thank you. You didn't have to, really. I, well, you missed the first movie but," the vulture could not concentrate after realizing that the snowy owl in Jiro's arms was not, in actual fact, facing him, but simply doing the hundred-eighty-head-thing that owls tended to do. "We were about to watch a Japanese movie."

He observed the light in Jiro's eyes that were curiously endearing, stepping back to allow the latter entrance.

"Jiro!" Pipa was the first to wheel over as soon as she spotted the fluff of white. "You didn't miss much. Only Vijay's screaming. It was funny!"

Io was next. "You're just in time for a Japanese movie!" He helped the nightingale with his tote bag that was unexpectedly heavy, filled with lunchboxes. Food hunter Shri was the first to approach the loot. Dmitri accompanied the osprey in her venture.

"What are these?" She asked politely, pointing to the boxes of various shapes and sizes.

Although excited, Jiro was slightly overwhelmed by the attention and quickly handed over a box and gestured for them to open it. Inside were bite-sized wieners, cut open at the ends and grilled in a pan to look like friendly ghosts and pumpkin-shaped onigiri—rice balls—that were flavoured with miso and crunchy soy bits.

The additional treats were a cause for celebration. Watching a Japanese horror movie while munching on Japanese food made by Japanese boi! What a lifetime experience! And so everyone went with Vaughn's suggestion without further ado. Dmitri's opinions were suddenly irrelevant. Moreso, they were always irrelevant.

But alas, Japanese boi had not been informed that it was a horror movie they were about to watch. This resulted in a very puffy Papercrane, who'd ruffled her feathers indignantly upon realizing that Jiro was terribly frightened.

The ruffled feathers were a great comfort to the nightingale, who'd decided to take permanent refuge behind Papercrane by hugging her as though she was a fluffy cushion and ducking down as soon as the violins screamed.

Poor ol' Dmitri was frustrated by the fact that the movie had zero jumpscares but still managed to make him somehow feel more frightened than he was before. That, or he figured that his capacity for fear had somehow been distorted along the way. "Didn't need to sleep anyway."

Luka the zombie had not turned away from his human all evening; not that the latter seemed to realize either way. Io was too busy being fixated and fascinated by the contents of the curious screen one called a television.

"I know what's going to happen—but why am I still so afraid?" He whispered to no one other than himself, thinking. It seemed to him that the original seemed to understand fear at a level different from the previous pick by Dmitri. One that was beyond a level of instinctive fear, perhaps a psychological understanding of it. It made him marvel at the person who wrote or directed or came up with the masterpiece. Of their understanding of fear and how to project it to something called an audience who had no way of experiencing it directly and yet, were feeling the emotion right to their very core. Beauty could not be any more jealous of this masterpiece. Vaughn was right.

"Mmnn... Luka?" All this thinking was making the human rather fuzzy. His eyelids felt heavy in their struggle to keep his worldview wide and opened. "I think I'm..." Io stifled a yawn. "A little sleepy."

He'd turned to peer up at the zombie with the intention of asking for permission. Permission to borrow the latter's shoulder. "Mnhmnnhmhn?" It came out in a mess.

Yet, the zombie seemed to understand every little nuance of that all, shifting a little closer for Io to lean on the side of his arm, not even up to his shoulder, and allowing him to fall into the abyss of what was to be a nightmare.