The soft voice sliding out from the photographic paper’s surface—"You cannot get out; we have been dead since the first roll"—echoed over and over inside Arya's skull, shattering the fragments of mental defense he had struggled so laboriously to build. That sentence was no mere whisper; it was an absolute death sentence, a horrifying truth stripping away all his agony and despair.

"No! No! You're a liar! I'm still alive! I AM STILL ALIVE!" Arya shrieked hysterically in a piercing scream, shattering the silence of the subterranean laboratory.

Instantly, the photographic print in his hands slipped away, spinning through the air before dropping down to kiss the concrete floor. The panic that had long been buried, restrained by common sense and curiosity, suddenly erupted violently into an uncontrollable emotional rampage. The relentless psychological torture—the reflection in the mirror, the featureless faces, the voice inside the film rolls—had pushed his motor nerves past the limits of human sanity.

Arya scrambled up with a violent jerk, kicking his wooden chair away so hard it crashed against the chemical bottle rack. Without a single thought left aside from escaping this hell, he bolted wildly across the room, lunging straight toward the small exit door tucked beneath the stairs.

That door was his only hope. That door was the boundary between the real world and this nightmare.

Reaching the front of that small wooden door, Arya slammed his body against it with all his might. He beat blindly at the door panels with both fists, assaulting it using his entire body weight, even clawing at the wood surface with broken fingernails dripping with fresh blood.

"Open! Open the door! Please, have mercy on me! Let me out!" Arya screamed hysterically, his sobs breaking out in a flood to drench his pale face. He hammered the door repeatedly while whimpering for mercy from whoever—or whatever—was caging him in this place. His wailing echoed hollowly, shattering into pieces against the narrow walls that seemed to mock his despair.

Yet the wooden door refused to budge in the slightest.

Even more horrifyingly, as Arya's bleeding fists slammed into the door's surface, he felt a reality far beyond reason. The door panels, which had previously felt brittle and creaky, had completely transformed—no longer feeling like aged wood, they had hardened as solid as pure steel, dense, sturdy, and as freezing cold as polar ice. No cracks remained whatsoever, no vibrations, and no traces of organic softness. The door had fused perfectly, melting into a permanent structural part of the subterranean lab's concrete walls.

An intense, concentrated despair instantly crushed his ribcage.

Arya slumped downward slowly, his knees striking the hard concrete floor. He knelt before that faux-steel door, his shoulders shaking violently past the limits of physical control. His breath came in gasps between weakening, fading sobs, leaving behind a raspy, hollow, and pathetic wail.

I am truly trapped. There's no way out. This door is dead, and I... I am dead too, his mind wept pitifully, surrendering entirely to the grim fate creeping closer to devour his flesh.

He was entirely out of strength. He had nothing left to fight with.

With limp hands trembling severely and smeared with fresh blood from his torn nails, Arya slowly raised his palm. He pressed his bleeding hand submissively against the surface of the wooden door, which had now turned as cold as glacial steel. He wanted to feel the chill of death sinking deep into his skin.

Yet the very next moment, an absolute anomaly defying the laws of nature unfolded right before his eyes.

The moment blood from his palm touched the wood's surface, the old wooden door suddenly turned transparent like clear crystal glass.

Arya startled, drawing in a sharp, choked breath. His eyes dilated wide, staring in horror at the now see-through other side of the door.

Behind that transparent glass, outside in the pitch-black darkness, stood an immensely massive and towering pitch-black shadow. And what made Arya's blood freeze solid instantly to the point where his heart stopped beating: that featureless entity slowly pressed its flat, pitch-black, eyeless face right against the other side of the glass, staring straight ahead, locking eyes directly with Arya's face, which was blanketed in absolute terror.