Of Sheep and Monkeys and Magic Girls

Wei tilted his head, humming. The idea that simple intonations or sounds could impact a language wasn't exactly alien to him--after all, the whole deal with Chinese was that the word would change depending on the specific tone it was said with.

"I.... think I understand." His voice was tentative as he looked around the room. "It's like..." He thought. "Like how in.... Chinese, how you say a word... changes its meaning."

He would always remember when his brother told him "The Story of Mr. Shi Eating Lions", a silly story that consisted of only the sound "shi" intonated various ways to tell the story of a man who wanted to eat a bunch of lions.

"That sounds much easier then English." She sighed sadly. "English has a whole new word every meaning. It was impossible! Don't even start with tense. On tense? Gah! See?"

"Um... Zu means many, lots. Hi is trickier... It's like , mind or thinking, but also everything to do with those. Most La'Hi like this actually. Each one carries many meaning, depending on how it is used. And if you reverse, the meaning reverses also. Sort of. It's a bit tricky... Anyway, I thinking that Zu'Hi is like many thoughts.".

As excited to share her language as she was, she was far more interested in the prospect of the movie, and all the fun that would undoubtedly accompany it. With a quiet "Ro'Ih" she dissolved her shoes. She puffed out her cheeks.

"I can teach you La'Hi later, it's time for other stuff now!"

Of course there was the possibility that horror movies were meant to be preceded by idle chit chat, but she didn't think that was likely. Unless... it was for building up the tension? That would be clever!

Wei was so engrossed in the conversation, he almost didn't recognize that the girls were talking to him. He jumped in surprise and grabbed the DVD from his bed, showing it to him. It showed black and white woods and a man's face in monochrome on the bottom.

In white, it read. "Blair Witch Project".

"I have heard that it is very scary, and Sid bought it for me, but he wouldn't watch it with me, and I didn't want to watch it alone, so...."

He crawled over to his laptop and put it in a position where they could all see it, before inserting the DVD.

The screen went dark as he pushed play, and turned off the lights, for atmosphere.

La'Hi wedged herself next to Ai, and watched the film. She felt confused for the first fifteen minutes, and almost asked when the movie was going to start. It took her an embarrassing amount of time to figure out that the whole found footage thing was simply how the story was told. At least, she thought it was. Was it possible it was actually real? She knew this kind of situation was easily possible, but most humans didn't know that. Had they found these recordings, assuming it was some sort of film project, and turned them into a movie, never realising that they'd documented an actual spirit attack?

She unconsciously gripped onto Ai, digging white knuckled fingers into her arm. She occasionally murmured phrases in La'Hi, but they were too quite to hear properly. Though the sound "Uv" seemed to be regularly repeated.

Wei was not good at watching horror movies, that was why he wanted to watch them with someone else. As he sat, he tried to pretend that he was okay. He wasn't freaked out by this at all. Nope. Not in the least, despite the fact that he was white as a sheet by the end of it and desperately gripping onto a stuffed banana one of his friends had gotten him as joke, not realizing that he liked it unironically and often used it to keep himself from rolling off his bed at night.

"S....so.... that.... was great, right guys....?" he said, shaking like a terrified leaf.