The pungent, suffocating reek of sulfur still lingered in the darkroom air, mingling with the stinging reek of chemical vapors drifting from the workbench trays. Across the cold concrete floor, the fresh roll of negative film just vomited out by the antique camera lay unrolled, casting a faint, silvery vapor beneath the crimson glow of the blood-red safelight.

Arya sat frozen on the floor, his breathing erratic and frantic, while his eyes stared unblinkingly in horror at the foreign object near his knee. That negative film strip looked alive, twitching slowly as though harboring residual heat from the lethal flash that had exploded just seconds ago.

"W-what kind of film roll is this again?" Arya whispered brokenly, his voice sounding terribly raspy, shaking heavily, and cracking within his dry throat.

An overwhelming terror shattered the remnants of his courage. He knew precisely what that film roll contained, yet his brain flatly refused to admit it. He didn't want to see it. He wanted to destroy that roll, burn it, or hurl it far away. Yet his body felt hypnotized, utterly unable to budge from the spot where he knelt.

With hands shaking so severely that his joints ached, Arya slowly crawled forward across the concrete floor. His bleeding palm touched the cold surface of the floor, dragging his body closer toward the film strip still venting a thin wisp of vapor.

The moment his fingers brushed against the strip, he instantly felt a burning sensation searing his skin—the negative strip was still scorching hot, as though it had just been baked by the fires of hell burning inside the antique camera's body.

"Ouch... it's hot!" Arya hissed softly, yet he refused to let go.

With his breath caught in his throat, Arya picked up the long strip of negative film with both trembling hands. He lifted it slowly, then raised it right toward the beam of the red safelight on the ceiling, forcing his eyes to gaze into the transparent frames.

Instantly, the blood across his entire body froze.

Blazoned with chilling clarity across the film strip was a chronological sequence of the exact scenes that had just unfolded in that room moment by moment.

On the first frame at the edge of the strip appeared an image of himself hammering frantically against the steel door with bloodied palms, displaying a tear-streaked, hysterical expression. On the second frame, the moment he slumped limply to the concrete floor with a blank stare was captured. And on the third frame, his form huddled in terror as the antique camera shifted autonomously to aim its lens right at him was clearly visible.

That undeniable proof glared right before his eyes, shattering the final fragments of doubt he possessed.

The antique camera—and every single film roll in this studio—was not recording the past. Those cursed objects were recording the present second by second in real-time, monitoring every movement, every sob, and every heartbeat to transform them into documents of eternity within their lethal catalog.

"No... impossible! This camera is recording me right now! It's alive! It's watching me directly!" Arya screamed hysterically, hurling the film strip to the floor while gripping his head tightly in his hands.

His tears poured in a flood, wetting his pale face. His mind screamed in chaos, realizing he had been completely caged inside a dimension where time no longer marched forward, but was endlessly looped and immortalized within the celluloid frames of death.

He was no longer a human with a future. He was an exhibition object being photographed straight toward his final moments.

Yet amidst his hysterical wailing and mounting despair, Arya's gaze inadvertently locked once more onto the scattered film strip littering the floor.

There was one horrifying detail he had missed a moment earlier.

With bated breath and a body still shaking violently, Arya picked up the negative strip once more. He shifted his gaze slowly, tracing frame by frame until he reached the very tail end of the roll.

And on the final frame of that still-damp film negative...

Arya's heartbeat suddenly stopped for good.

That final frame appeared completely empty—pitch black without a single shadow.

That frame stood empty, wide open, and waiting. Waiting to record the absolute event that would transpire right after the final page of this chapter ends—the exact second when his physical form vanishes entirely, leaving him eternal within the glass frame of the old photo studio.