[Scene: the Hen Tie Cinema. Zoi is about twenty minutes late to the movie and still basking in the afterglow of his evening with Kunzite. His night vision is much better than a human's so it's easy for him to spot his friends in the center of the theater. Strangely, Motoki is sitting between Usagi and Mamoru, Usagi looks like she is in a really bad mood, Naru is hiding her face against Umino's shoulder, and Rei has saved Zoi a seat.]
Rei: [whispers] You finally made it. You weren't kidding about being better off not waiting for you.
Zoi: [whispers back] What did I miss.
Rei: [grins like a Cheshire Cat] Usagi and Mamoru had a huge fight on the way over here.
Zoi: Oh? What about?
Rei: Mamoru invited another girl on their date to the animal shelter tomorrow afternoon.
[Zoi has to fake a coughing fit to hide his giggles. He knows he shouldn't laugh, but that's exactly the sort of thing he's come to expect from Mamoru.]
[On the screen bunch of kids standing on the beach looking dreamy and poetic.]
Zoi: I thought we picked the horror film.
Rei: This is the horror film.
Zoi: Then how come nobody's getting slaughtered?
Rei: [gleeful] Oh, that part is coming. [Points to Naru, who has her eyes twisted shut]
Umino: This movie is gross. It's a complete spatterfest.
Mamoru: [To Usagi] I'm going to get some popcorn. You want anything?
Usagi: [curt] No.
Zoi: [whispers to Rei] Usagi turning down junkfood? She MUST be upset.
Umino: Hey, Zoi. You missed everything. Most of the humans are already dead.
Zoi: Traffic.
Rei: Oh, here comes the gross stuff again.
[Naru covers her ears with her hands]
[Zoi looks at the screen and there is a guy chained to a chair in an abandoned warehouse. He is being tortured by some guy who looks like an ogre. The audience screams as the ogre cuts off some of the guys fingers with a pair of garden shears.]
Rei: Pretty sick stuff, huh?
[Zoi sits and watches the movie and find himself becoming increasingly horrified.]
[But not for the same reason as the others.]
[The movie is mostly about monsters, and a handful of humans being penned up like cattle, tortured, and then slaughtered like livestock. The movie keeps cutting back between the horrified faces of the humans and the horrifying faces of the ghouls.]
[Zoi finds he doesn't relate to the humans at all. Of course they are being hunted to extinction. Wasn't that all they were good for? Zoi lived, he died, he came back as a monster that feeds on humans. Doesn't that make him a ghoul, himself?]
[He looks about the theater at the sea of humans eating popcorn and watching the movie. They all look more appetizing than the treats they are stuffing their faces with between spatters of gore on the screen.]
[Zoi breaks into a cold sweat. He still thinks of himself as human. He loves his family. And his friends. But his parents won't live forever, and his friends will move away. Even if they don't, he can't remain a part of their lives for very long. Maybe they wouldn't find it so strange if Zoi (or Kunzite) still looks like a teenager well into his fifties. But both of them at the same time? Once his last ties to humanity were broken, his only emotional ties will be to Metalia and her brood of monsters. How long before he stops caring and starts gorging himself on the lifeforce of the innocent?]
[A sick feeling fills his stomach as he fights a madden urge to drain the life from every person in the theater.]
[Zoi stands up]
Rei: Where are you going?
Zoi: I need a drink.
[Zoi goes out and sit on a bench in the lobby and buries his face in his hands. A minute later Mamoru walks over with a tub of popcorn.]
Mamoru: Hey, buddy. Is the movie too scary for you?
Zoi: [sits up] Yeah, I guess I'm just a coward.
Mamoru: Do you want me to take you home? I can ask Motoki to lend me his keys and I'll be back before the movie is over.]
Zoi: No.
Mamoru: It's no trouble.
Zoi: I'm fine.
Mamoru: Want me to call your father and ask him to come get you?
Zoi: You go back in and enjoy the movie.
[Mamoru doesn't budge until Naru comes over a few minutes later]
Naru: [sits on the bench next to Zoi] It's ok. I'll stay with him. I don't want to see any more of that movie either.
[Mamoru returns to the movie.]
Naru: [To Zoi] Are you ok?
Zoi: [shrugs] Just scared.
Naru: That's funny. I didn't think you were scared. I was screaming the whole time and didn't hear you scream once. So we didn't know why you left.
[Zoi doesn't know what to say. They sit together in silence until the movie lets out. They join the others walking back to the van.]
Rei: That's the scariest movie I've ever seen. I think we're all going to have nightmares tonight.
Umino: No doubt about that.
[They notice Zoi , and they all stare right at him like he's grown a third eye in the middle of his forehead. Even Usagi has stopped glowering at Mamoru. Zoi's puzzled. Naru was even more freaked out by the movie, and yet nobody seems to be paying much attention to her. He's starting to get paranoid. Can they sense he's not quite human? Have they guessed what he is?]
[It doesn't seem possible, but one thing seems certain…]
[His father is probably right about him needing his own car.]