That freezing breath reeking of rotting dead flesh and the dust of the past still stung the skin of his nape, sending a shockwave that froze all the blood within Arya's body. Before he could even digest the lethal words just whispered right near his ear, before he could muster his remaining courage to turn around or simply run away, the world around him suddenly exploded in extraordinary visual terror.

CRACK... CLICK! FLASH!

Before Arya could spin around, the large antique camera standing in the corner of the room flashed repeatedly and wildly without stopping.

FLASH! FLASH! FLASH!

In a fraction of a second, the cramped underground lab was illuminated by explosions of brilliant white light that blinded his eyes completely. That illumination was so devastating, piercing straight through Arya's tightly squeezed eyelids, scorching his retinas, and creating a deeply disorienting strobe effect. Every flash occurred at a frantic, crazy rhythm, shattering reality into disjointed, fragmented frames of static photography.

Visual chaos instantly conquered the room. Beneath that blinding, repeatedly flashing white illumination, every object in the laboratory seemed to leap in jerky, stuttering motions. The chemical bottles on the shelf rattled violently, the workbench shadow stretched and shrank wildly, and the surrounding air felt boiled by the heat of ancient electrical energy radiating from the camera's body.

The sound of the old camera's mechanism ground loudly, deafening amidst the explosions of light.

HUMMM... CLICK... CRACK!

The internal gears of the camera spun brutally, pumping the shutter mechanism nonstop, capturing portrait after portrait of Arya’s face blanketed in absolute terror from multiple angles simultaneously. The camera was operating like an execution machine tearing apart its victim's physical reality.

"Argh! So blinding! My eyes... my eyes hurt!" Arya shrieked hysterically.

He collapsed onto the cold concrete floor, covering his face tightly with both palms to fend off the white glare stabbing into his head. His panic reached its peak level. His brain screamed in terror, throwing chaotic questions across his mind: What is it doing?! Why is this camera taking my picture over and over?! Is it tearing my eyes out?!

In a state of temporary blindness caused by the overwhelming glare, Arya groped the floor in panic. His legs kicked wildly at empty air, while his right hand crawled frantically, clawing against the concrete darkroom wall to find shelter, seeking any corner or gap to hide from the rampage of that lethal light.

"Please... stop it! Have mercy on me! I don't want to die inside that frame!" he wailed pathetically, his voice raspy, cracked, and drowned out amidst the ceaseless, harsh grinding of the camera's mechanical hum.

He felt like hunted game targeted by a glaring spotlight in the dead of pitch-black night, helpless, waiting for the moments a bullet would pierce his body. Every single time that white flash ignited, Arya felt his body growing weaker, as though each camera click were not merely recording his form, but rather sucking the very essence of his existence straight into that brass lens.

Yet amidst the dizzying sensory chaos and pure panic gripping his soul, a far more horrifying phenomenon caught the corner of Arya's eye between the pauses of the flashing light.

At every fraction-of-a-second pause when the white light extinguished, leaving behind darkness before the next flash ignited, Arya stared in horror toward the concrete wall before him—the spot where his body's shadow was cast.

And at that exact second, his breathing stopped completely.

At every pause of those white light flashes, Arya's shadow on the wall mysteriously vanished piece by piece.

On the first flash, the shadow of his two legs on the wall grew transparent and faded away. On the second flash, the shadow of his right hand and arm vanished without a trace from the concrete surface. And on the third flash, his torso and chest shadow began to erode, leaving behind a horrifying void.

His physical body in the real world remained intact as he crawled on the floor, yet his shadow on the wall was being "erased" slowly by the camera's blinding glare—signifying that his bodily existence was being swallowed whole, preparing to be transported completely into the monochrome celluloid dimension.