Chapter 98: CUT. Walpurgis Forest
by fnovelpia
CUT.
A house in Mexico.
A boy sat in front of the TV. He inserted a DVD into the player and started the movie.
It was horror, his favorite genre.
The dark living room was bathed in the gloomy colors and sound effects of the horror film.
His mother, who had been doing housework, approached.
“Carlos, what are you watching?”
“I don’t know the title. It’s a movie with a huge ghost and werewolves. It’s really exciting.”
The TV screen showed a burning city.
A gigantic virgin ghost in white clothes with long hair was tearing up the road.
People caught in the chaos screamed and fled.
Werewolves lurked in the evil darkness. They attacked the fleeing people as prey.
Carlos couldn’t take his eyes off the TV screen.
A werewolf chased after a young woman.
It stretched out its menacing hands and suddenly cut off both her arms. After ripping off her head, it tore open her belly and pulled out her intestines.
The werewolf buried its muzzle in the woman’s ripped abdomen, enjoying its meal. It was a brutal scene drenched in blood.
Carlos was shocked. He hadn’t expected this level of violence.
He glanced at his mother standing behind the sofa.
His mother’s face looked as if a murder had just occurred in the living room.
“What a horrible movie, Carlos…!!”
“Mom, I… I didn’t know it would be this brutal…”
“What did I tell you would happen if you watched such trash?!”
His mother raised her voice.
Carlos quickly grabbed the remote and turned off the TV.
“An angry God will drag my soul to hell and burn me in fire forever.”
“That’s right! You know it well!!”
80% of Brazilians are Catholic. Carlos’s family also believed in God.
Monotheistic sentiment did not tolerate extreme creative works. His mother confiscated the DVD.
She ordered her son to go up to his room and repent through prayer to God.
Carlos silently went up to his second-floor room.
He sat in front of the bed and clasped his hands.
But he didn’t pray.
“Tch… Frying me in fire for watching horror movies? What kind of bullsh*t god is that?”
Carlos grumbled.
He was 11 years old but didn’t like God.
Dragging those who don’t believe to a place called hell for brutal torture…
No different from the psycho killers in horror movies who drag victims to basements and butcher them.
God must love horror movies.
He might even devise hell’s punishments while watching brutal horror films.
He enjoys horror movies himself, but threatens to drag people to hell if they watch them.
Carlos was convinced of this.
He looked out the window. A DVD and video truck was parked on the street.
It was a truck that traveled from town to town, renting out movie DVDs and videotapes.
The DVD his mother had just confiscated was rented from that truck.
Carlos opened the window. He snuck down to the yard without his mother noticing.
He ran towards the truck. Opening the door, he saw countless movie titles densely packed in the space.
For Carlos, this place was both school and library.
He headed straight for the counter, which was also the driver’s seat.
“Grandpa!”
“It’s been a while, cinephile.”
An elderly man was seated there.
He called Carlos ‘cinephile’.
Carlos felt good every time he was called cinephile, as if his love for movies was being recognized.
“Did you come to return the DVD?”
“You know, Grandpa… I forgot. I left it at home.”
He didn’t mention that his mother had confiscated it.
The old man quietly nodded. He just told Carlos not to forget to return it later.
“Grandpa. I have something I want to ask.”
“Something you want to ask?”
“Will I really go to hell if I watch brutal horror movies?”
Carlos asked.
“In horror movies, they kill people a lot. Does God not allow watching such scenes?”
“Listen, cinephile. You won’t go to hell even if you commit real murder. As long as you believe in God. At least that’s what’s written in the Bible.”
Carlos frowned.
If you believe in God, you go to heaven even if you commit actual murder.
But if you don’t believe in God, you fall to hell just for watching murder scenes in horror movies, let alone committing real murder.
It was an absurd and strange setup.
His perplexity called up a very old question.
“Does God really exist?”
The truck owner smiled gently.
“Cinephile.”
“Yes?”
“What if instead of God, there was a being called a Director, and this world was merely a film set? Reality is a movie, and we’re actors moving according to a script.”
It was an unexpected story.
Carlos pondered the old man’s words before speaking.
“It sounds more interesting than the world written in the Bible. At least we have roles as actors, right?”
It was a thought befitting Carlos, who loved movies.
The old man patted Carlos on the back.
“You’ll come to believe in God later.”
He said this with a meaningful smile.
The old man took a DVD from the display case and handed it to Carlos. He said it was an even more exciting horror movie than the one he’d lent last time.
Again today, he didn’t charge a rental fee. Carlos was so happy he could faint.
“Come again next week, cinephile. Don’t let your mom take this one away.”
“How did you……”
He hadn’t mentioned it was taken by his mom…?
“I’ll be going now.”
The old man turned his back.
“I have plans to meet some friends.”
A strange forest.
Instead of trees, tall lighting stands used in film production stood.
Thin, black film was tangled all over the stands.
The stands wrapped in film looked like trees.
They were truly film trees.
Great trees with stands stretching out instead of branches, bearing film instead of fruit.
Thick fog crawled between the film trees standing all around.
The atmosphere was both eerie and dreamlike.
The witches of W gathered in this uncanny forest.
Observers who disturb reality densely filled the forest.
Projectors floated in the air. They were antiques that should only be found in old theaters.
But their size was overwhelming. About 10,000 times larger than a normal projector, they were almost as big as two-story buildings.
Such massive structures were scattered throughout the forest.
It was the meeting place for Directors only.
Witches sat around a round table inside the projector.
The space was so dim and they wore robes, making it almost impossible to distinguish their faces.
A large box was placed on the round table. It rattled as if something alive was inside.
Jung Joo-Yi also participated in today’s Director meeting.
Joo-Yi peered at the box on the table, then looked at the witches seated around.
Then she spotted a familiar face through the robes.
She approached casually and spoke.
“Director, I’m a fan. I wanted to meet you!”
“So it’s you. The new Director.”
It was the Director in charge of 1980s America, where Han Yeoreum’s original was.
For some reason, she recognized Joo-Yi too.
“Director. I have three questions, can you answer them?”
“By all means.”
“How did Yeoreum and the axe killer’s bodies get switched?”
She had been curious for a long time.
“That was the previous Director’s mistake. He left the film at home when he went out, exposing the main plot to his young son.”
When Yeoreum’s original was about 7 years old, he watched a slasher movie video at home while his parents were out.
Of course, it wasn’t just a simple slasher film.
The robed Director explained in a gentle voice.
“That’s when the two souls accidentally switched.”
“The souls of Yeoreum and the axe killer switched? Like in <The Skeleton Key>?”
“Yes.”
“Did no one notice?”
“A kind of hypnosis was used. The two still don’t know about it. Besides, both sets of parents were out of their minds. One pair was a crazy Director couple, the other abusive parents.”
“So now that they’ve switched back… they’ve returned to their rightful places?”
The Director nodded. Joo-Yi moved on to her second question.
“Second question. W is a witch collective, so how are there men too?”
“They’re male witches recruited through a quota system. It’s a sensitive time for gender issues, you know?”
“I see.”
She understood well enough.
“Third question. Is it not possible for us to create a collaboration?”
“We’re already making a collaboration. Two men are bound by fate and interacting, aren’t they?”
“Is that so?”
“The ending I’ve prepared will please you too.”
The Director meeting began. It ended in the blink of an eye.
But the highlight was just beginning.
They had to dispose of a witch whose reality had been annihilated after losing all viewers in the higher reality.
They took the box placed on the round table outside.
They set the box down on the forest floor.
Opening the lid revealed the witch inside.
It was a young woman, gagged and bound.
“Let’s tie her up!”
They tied the witch tightly to a film tree.
They brought torches and lit them.
Old film was made of nitrocellulose, an explosive material, so it was highly flammable.
As the fire caught the film, the film tree was instantly engulfed in red flames.
Whoosh-
The witch was burned at the stake. She writhed in agony before finally being reduced to nothing but ashes.
Lose your audience and you lose the set of reality, meeting such an end.
The Director said with a smile.
“Be careful, Jung Joo-Yi.”
“Don’t worry about me. My world isn’t so fragile that it would lose its audience.”
“You’re very confident.”
“Of course. My audience will never leave.”
Deep night fell.
Carlos fell into a peaceful sleep.
Just before falling asleep, he prayed to God for forgiveness, just in case. He didn’t want to be tortured in hell for eternity.
Carlos’s mother kissed her sleeping son’s forehead.
She went down to the living room on the first floor and sat in front of the TV.
She inserted the DVD she had confiscated from her son into the player and started the movie.
A woman being devoured by werewolves… An exciting scene came on.
“……”
The mother was absorbed in the film.
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