The sudden, blinding flash of the antique camera vanished instantly, leaving behind a faint, whirring echo ringing in Arya's ears. The underground darkroom was now plunged into a dense, absolute darkness, swallowing the remnants of the red safelight that had briefly illuminated his agony. Not a single speck of light remained. The gloom of the night crept inward, wrapping his body in a suffocating black blanket.

Arya still stood frozen in front of the workbench, his trembling fingers clutching tightly to the fifth roll's photographic print. Through the feel of his hands in the dark, he could sense the contours of the photo paper's emulsion—the photograph that had just displayed his own form being gripped from behind by demonic hands.

"So... this is the end," Arya whispered softly, his voice sounding utterly hollow, fragile, and drained of all strength.

No more hysterical screams. No more pleading wails. A cold, heavy, artificial resignation now slowly crept into his mind, replacing the panic that had shattered his soul. He felt as though all his emotions had been entirely drained away, leaving a blank vacancy submissively accepting whatever fate came to claim him. Grandfather Haris had failed to escape, the victims of previous years had long since entered the frame, and now, his own turn had arrived at the finish line of this curse.

Suddenly, the temperature inside the darkroom dropped drastically to an extreme freezing point.

Arya's ragged breathing instantly transformed into plumes of thin white vapor that were swallowed whole by the darkness. The skin across his entire body felt stiff, freezing instantly as though every pore were forced shut by an eternal glacial draft surging inward from behind the concrete walls.

In the dead, suffocating silence—a hush so thick that the sound of his own heartbeat hammered loudly against his eardrums—Arya felt a massive shift in air pressure directly behind his back.

A physical presence—immensely massive, towering, and radiating a thick aura of death—now stood right behind him.

That presence was so real that Arya could feel that massive black shadow enveloping his back, blocking away the last remnants of warmth left in the room. The hairs on the back of his neck stood on end, no longer out of terror, but from biological shock as his body came into direct contact with the entity from another dimension.

The climax of terror for Act II reached its peak in the gripping silence.

Arya swallowed hard with great difficulty, his throat feeling as though he were swallowing shards of ice. He dared not move; even breathing was done as carefully as possible so as not to provoke the wrath of the creature standing behind him.

And then, that first physical touch occurred.

A hand—so freezing cold it burned the skin—with long, emaciated fingers crept slowly from behind, looping across Arya's shoulder to plant firmly and grip his right shoulder tightly. Sharp, blackened claws pressed gently through the fabric of his green jacket, ensuring that its prey could no longer go anywhere.

Arya squeezed his eyes shut. Every muscle in his body stiffened rigidly, surrendering entirely to that deadly grip.

Right against the lobe of his ear, a heavy, raspy, and cold voice whispered softly, piercing the thickness of the night with a vibration that shook his skull:

"Focus... almost your turn."

Instantly, right after that lethal whisper echoed inside his mind...

FLASH!

The antique camera in the corner of the room fired automatically for the very last time, emitting an intensely blinding flash of light that scorched the entire room in a searing white glare, tearing Arya's consciousness away forever.