Ch.151Theater Voyeurism (2)

“…I’ll keep playing the video.”

“Okay.”

Jung Haewon swallowed dryly as he gripped his phone tightly.

The black eyeballs were still staring directly at the screen.

Right toward where we are.

Crackle-crackle-crackle-

Static appears on the screen.

After a moment, the video shows a completely different place.

A dark shopping area with shutters pulled down everywhere.

The black creature has now transformed into something like liquid, flowing through the corridor.

The camera suddenly flips upward.

A very familiar sign appears on screen.

Jung Haewon flinches in surprise, his shoulders trembling.

“This… This is the sign we saw when we came in here.”

“That’s right.”

“Ugh.”

“By the way, why are you so scared?”

“It’s coming this way! And because of me! In the video earlier, it tore a person to pieces in an instant…!”

Jung Haewon seems to be suffering from guilt.

I pretended to be lost in thought for a moment.

“Hmm… Then maybe you could act as bait?”

“I’ll do it.”

“While you’re being eaten, we’ll escape. Still want to do it?”

“Yes. It’s all my responsibility… I have to.”

Jung Haewon’s face looks quite determined.

“I’ll sacrifice myself.”

Thanks to that, I couldn’t help but burst out laughing.

“Pfft!”

“Noona?”

“Forget it. What sacrifice?”

Jung Haewon looked at me stupidly.

I laughed and slapped his shoulder.

“Nobody needs to die. I was just joking.”

“Why would you joke about something like that?”

“Don’t be so serious. Listen.”

Though startled at first, Jung Haewon had accomplished something significant.

To think he would find this at such a perfect time.

“This is an opportunity. A chance to get information about the outside.”

“We could do that with the radio too, couldn’t we?”

“That’s not very accurate. It’s only understanding events within the boundaries of normality.”

“What does that mean?”

“Radio or news. The information from those sources is observed and interpreted from the perspective of ordinary people.”

[Hey! Are you crazy?]

[What~]

The normal movie screen suddenly distorts.

[Ugggghhhrrrggghhhuuuggghhhh]

[Aaaaauuuuggghhhnnnnuuuugggrrrmmmbbuuuu]

“The world right now isn’t operating normally at all.”

The movie stops, and the characters’ faces distort.

The movie’s setting is some motel.

The gazes of the male and female actors who were focused on their performance are now fixed directly at us.

They’re looking at us.

And then, like a composite video.

Only the mouths of the male and female actors begin to move.

[We bring you breaking news.]

The male actor’s dry, emotionless voice.

[Everyone currently at home, please stop what you’re doing and focus on this broadcast immediately.]

The female actor’s equally emotionless voice.

The voices of the two announce the anomaly.

“That’s why we need to get information here. Even if it means taking risks.”

Gulp.

Jung Haewon swallows dryly again.

“Should we wake the others?”

“…No. Let them sleep.”

“What?”

“The fewer people right now, the better. And.”

I nudged Jung Haewon’s arm with my elbow.

“Keep checking your phone.”

“Yes, Noona.”

“Oh, one more thing. Does the video remind you of anything?”

“Huh?”

Jung Haewon just stares at me blankly.

In the video on Jung Haewon’s phone, the front of the theater door where we are is now shown.

A black, smooth surface spreading its body inside.

Like a tent widely spread, the black body of the monster is filled with numerous red eyeballs.

Blink.

Blink.

Red eyeballs blinking at different intervals.

And…

The disaster alert broadcast playing in the theater.

“It’s that thing from before. Don’t you remember?”

“Wait, is this… the disaster alert broadcast? The one we rolled around for when we were together! Because of this!”

“Yes. The original incident must have happened at this point.”

I swept my hair back over my shoulder.

“Or maybe the timeline got twisted.”

Experiencing again what we went through in the apartment might be more common than expected.

That’s the kind of place it was from the beginning.

The apartment where we were trapped.

A small point where space and time fold and twist until they meet.

In other words.

Past. Present. Or future.

A place that reproduces outside events exactly as they are.

***

“…Stay still.”

I grabbed Jung Haewon as he was about to leave the table.

My intuition was telling me.

We shouldn’t go out from here.

A pressure so intense we could barely breathe properly.

Something was pressing heavily on the air.

[Please evacuate the building. There is a risk of collapse if aftershocks occur. You must evacuate the building.]

I raised my head to check the living room window.

The black form I saw on the broadcast is watching me.

Hundreds of eyeballs are looking at me.

They’re watching from inside the TV too. I repeat this is Minister of Public Administration and Security Son Hyun-cheol watching

The military has been dispatched to each shelter to assist with evacuation watching

watching watching watching watching watching watching

watching watching watching watching watching watching

[Anomalous Apartment Survival Log, EP 41, Disaster Alert Broadcast (2)]

***

The huge movie theater screen has turned into something like a news broadcast.

There’s a small caption at the top of the screen.

[Live Broadcast]

And in one corner of that wide screen, the video we saw earlier on the internet keeps playing on repeat.

The video of the black monster slaughtering people.

People’s necks being pulled out, bodies bursting like balloons.

I held my breath and looked around the theater.

The others are asleep.

Only Jung Haewon and I are awake.

I lowered my voice and whispered.

“We know that thing’s purpose.”

The screams continue.

The news anchor fuels the anxiety.

[Currently, numerous casualties are occurring due to an unidentified creature.]

[Please leave your current location immediately and move to the regional shelters shown on screen.]

The news broadcast shows the painful final moments of victims without filtering.

Yet it speaks calmly.

[In narrow buildings or crowded places like theaters and public facilities, there is a risk of burial or crushing.]

[Please evacuate the building as quickly as possible and move to open areas.]

“It’s trying to make us anxious so we’ll believe them somehow.”

Screams ring out.

I raise my voice slightly.

“And if you believe it and go outside,”

The theater door begins to thump.

I speak even louder.

“You become its prey.”

When dealing with this type of enemy, fewer people is better.

It’s obvious.

With more people, it’s easier to be deceived.

Collective intelligence doesn’t work properly in extreme situations.

Instead, the group tends to be led by a few individuals.

If even one person falls for it, the entire group faces destruction.

“Dabin, what’s going on?”

I turn to look beside me.

Choi Serim was awake.

I was planning to wake her up anyway.

Maybe she recovered some energy while unconscious.

Unlike the others who were sound asleep, she woke up just in time.

“Noona, I’ll explain later, but please let the others keep sleeping.”

“Alright.”

Serim gets up and walks around the theater.

Making sleeping people fall into deeper sleep.

It was an easy task for her.

Just placing her palm on their foreheads was enough.

Everyone in the theater except me, Jung Haewon, and Serim falls into deep sleep.

Even Ichinose Riko who was twitching as if having a nightmare.

Even Robin who was restless as if about to wake up.

Everyone went back to sleeping peacefully.

“All done.”

“Isn’t it difficult for you?”

“No. This much is easy for me.”

“If it gets hard, don’t hide it and tell me. If you faint again, I’ll be so worried about you that I won’t be able to do anything.”

“I’m really not tired this time…”

“…”

“Okay, Dabin.”

Now only three people are awake.

I explain to both of them.

“This black monster in the phone screen. This is its main body.”

In Jung Haewon’s phone screen, the black monster is writhing.

The Foundation calls it the ‘Confirmation Bias Tent.’

Simply called ‘The Tent.’

“Right now it’s waiting outside the theater door.”

As if it had been listening to me.

Just then, thumping sounds come from outside the theater.

I quickly reassured the others.

“But it still can’t come in here yet.”

It envelops its prey and absorbs them, filling its stomach.

It’s not just physical envelopment.

For it to succeed in hunting, it must completely envelop and suffocate the prey’s consciousness.

That method is this broadcast.

Wherever ‘The Tent’ appears, this ‘fake broadcast’ always follows.

This time I pointed at the movie theater screen.

“You see that disaster alert broadcast? That’s actually a trap set by the monster. The moment you fall for it and leave the theater, you become its food.”

“Then, Dabin, shouldn’t we turn off the broadcast right now?”

Serim asks with a slightly anxious voice.

“Isn’t it dangerous to keep watching?”

“Of course it’s dangerous. But right now we’re watching it on purpose because there’s something we need.”

“Is that the information you mentioned earlier?”

This time it’s Jung Haewon.

He looks anxious too.

“Yes.”

For both of them, I answered in a calm voice.

“We already know the news is fake, right? But lies contain some degree of truth. We’re tracking that in reverse to figure things out.”

Right now we’re absolutely lacking information.

We escaped the apartment, but all we did was avoid ‘the sound’ and enter the theater.

How the Foundation is trying to break the world.

We still don’t know.

“What exactly is happening outside. What the Foundation is plotting. Whether there are any groups friendly to us. And where we should go to get help. We need to find out at least a little.”

The answer to the question is directed at Jung Haewon.

And this time to everyone.

I speak calmly.

“And that’s also the only way to escape our current situation.”

The Confirmation Bias Tent.

One of many anomalous entities existing in this world.

Among anomalous entities, it’s one of the persistent ones.

Even if we turn off the broadcast right now, we won’t escape its gaze.

There’s only one way to survive.

It’s the same as when we encountered it last time.

Find the flaws in the fake broadcast and break free from confirmation bias ourselves.

First, we start by not falling for it.

I took cards from my pocket and spread them out.

I flipped through several in succession to form sentences.

[Act as naturally as possible.]

[Like you’re not anxious at all.]