The blood-stained old note belonging to Grandfather Haris, which revealed the cross-generational circle of the curse, remained gripped tightly inside Arya's bleeding fist. His breathing came in erratic hitches, pumping fear and despair that slammed ever harder against his ribcage. The cramped underground laboratory felt increasingly suffocating, as though the concrete walls were preparing to crush his body into pieces.

Yet amidst the gloom of terror shattering his soul, an event suddenly broke the silence.

CLICK... CREEEAK!

The small wooden door beneath the stairs, which had previously hardened as solid as pure steel and remained deadbolted shut without a single crack, suddenly swung wide open on its own without resistance. The door panel shifted slowly, groaning with the creak of old hinges that pierced the silence, revealing a dark stairwell leading upward to the studio's upper floor.

Arya started violently, stumbling backward until his spine struck the chemical bottle rack. He stared at the open door with eyes dilated wide in utter confusion.

The door is open? Is this a new trap? Or my final chance to run? his mind screamed chaotically.

Driven by the last remnants of hope flickering at the edge of a blade—a primitive survival instinct refusing to die inside this underground room—Arya decided not to overthink it. He no longer cared whether it was a trap or not. All he knew was that he had to get out of this cursed laboratory right now.

With his remaining strength, Arya rushed out of the room. He plunged into the stairwell, scrambling and climbing the wooden steps one by one in a frantic rush, leaving the chemical trays and rusted mirror behind.

"I have to get out of here... I have to run as far away as possible from this damned studio!" Arya muttered deliriously amidst his gasping breaths.

Reaching the top of the stairs, he pushed open the connecting door and stepped out into the main upper-floor room of his grandfather's photo studio.

Yet the sight greeting him upstairs successfully dropped his heart down to the floor.

Every corner of the upper-floor photo studio had frozen entirely into black-and-white.

There were no more wood-brown tones, no warm yellow safelight glows, and no vibrant hues of reality. The entire room—the old sofa, the reception desk, the photo frame display racks, and even the dust floating in the air—had lost its entire spectrum of color, transforming completely into a rigid, cold, and dead static monochrome.

The journey out that he hoped would bring freedom instead turned into a chest-crushing nightmare. The atmosphere upstairs felt utterly alien, desolate, and hollow. No vehicle sounds drifted from outside, no wind blew, and no ticking of time moved forward.

A horrifying realization struck Arya's head like a sledgehammer: the world outside the studio had died for him. He had been isolated inside a dead pictorial dimension possessing no tomorrow.

With panic conquering his entire body, Arya dragged his shaking feet across the monochrome room, stepping toward the front of the studio—the direction of the main exit door facing directly out onto the city street.

"Please... let me go home. Open the door!" Arya wailed hysterically, breaking into a frantic dash toward the studio's glass front door.

He grabbed the door handle and pulled with all his might. The door swung open, revealing a view of the city streets outside beneath a gray sky.

Yet instead of encountering bustling traffic and pedestrians walking by, the sight outside made Arya's blood freeze instantly.

All the city buildings, the highways, the trees, and the sky out there appeared stiff, flat, and motionless. There was no life.

With severely trembling hands, Arya stepped forward slowly, then pressed his palm against the surface of the studio's front window glass to peer closer toward the highway.

And the moment his fingers pressed against the windowpane, the glass reflection mirrored a reality completely shattering the remainder of his sanity:

The entire city, the streets, and the horizon out there were not the real world—they were nothing more than a two-dimensional background painting drawn across a sheet of weathered canvas cloth inside the photo studio.