“A horror movie…” Daniel Mercer hesitated after hearing Atlas Vance’s offer through the restroom wall.
Daniel had once graduated near the top of his acting class with an extremely promising future, and even Claire Bennett, one of the most admired women in their graduating class, had willingly married him.
Unfortunately, Daniel’s pride made him look down on mainstream commercial movies that seemed designed only to make money.
After graduation, he repeatedly rejected the projects his agency arranged for him and instead chose independent and art-house films that he believed would prove his acting ability.
Those movies occasionally earned good reviews, but compared with successful commercial productions, their audience reach and profits were almost insignificant.
One year became two, then three, and Daniel’s fame barely increased while his income remained unstable.
As he grew older, his agency gradually stopped treating him like a future star.
Claire’s career, meanwhile, continued climbing while his remained almost motionless, creating more and more tension between them.
Now even his marriage was close to collapsing.
“Hey, talking through a restroom wall isn’t exactly convenient,” Atlas finally said when Daniel remained silent.
“How about we find a coffee shop nearby and discuss it properly?” Daniel sighed because he knew most horror movies in this world were terrible, but if he refused every commercial opportunity forever, he might soon lose both his career and his home.
At this point, filming one bad movie for quick money didn’t sound nearly as unacceptable as it once had.
Daniel finished what he was doing, pulled up his pants, and reluctantly answered, “Fine.” He walked out of his stall and stopped in front of Atlas’s, expecting the young director to appear immediately.
One minute passed, then five, and eventually almost ten.
Daniel frowned at the closed door and asked, “Are you still not done in there?” Inside the cramped stall, Atlas and Sadako Yamamura were still standing together while Sadako’s face remained flushed from the extra-spicy hot pot.
Her tongue was still slightly out, and Atlas looked at her with increasing disbelief.
It had already been ten minutes, yet the spice was somehow still affecting a genuine vengeful spirit.
Atlas silently regretted allowing her to order the hottest broth on the menu.
“Sadako, try teleporting out first,” Atlas whispered.
Invisibility required continuous concentration, while teleportation happened instantly, so he hoped the chili wouldn’t interfere with it as badly.
Sadako closed her eyes and activated the ability.
She disappeared.
Atlas’s expression brightened for half a second.
Then Sadako reappeared directly on top of him.
“Whoa—!”
Thump!
Atlas fell backward onto the floor while Sadako landed across his stomach.
She immediately tried teleporting again, but this time nothing happened, leaving both of them trapped in an extremely awkward position.
Daniel heard the crash from outside and immediately became suspicious.
“What the hell are you doing in there?” He reached for the stall handle and discovered the lock was already damaged, so the door opened with almost no resistance.
Daniel froze.
Inside the stall, a beautiful young woman was straddling the director he had just been speaking with.
Sadako’s face was bright red, her clothes were slightly disordered from the fall, her eyes were watery from the lingering spice, and the tip of her tongue was still visible between her lips.
Daniel silently closed the door again.
Atlas stared at the partition for a moment before immediately deciding this situation could not be allowed to continue.
He pushed himself upright, opened the stall, and walked out, with Sadako following behind him while adjusting her slightly messy clothes.
Every man in the restroom turned toward them at the same time.
“Damn, brother, that’s impressive,” someone laughed, while another man shouted that people in the city really knew how to make life exciting.
A third person’s laughter immediately turned into angry swearing when the distracted man beside him accidentally aimed in the wrong direction.
Atlas ignored all of them, grabbed Sadako by the wrist, and hurried out of the restroom.
If people misunderstood, then so be it.
At least nobody had discovered that Sadako could turn invisible, teleport, and crawl through televisions.
Compared with exposing a real supernatural entity, a stupid restroom rumor was harmless.
Daniel quickly followed them out, but the disgust in his eyes had become obvious.
In his mind, Atlas had already transformed from an inexperienced young director into the kind of scumbag who used his position to pressure actresses.
The entertainment industry already had enough corrupt people, and Daniel had no intention of ignoring another one.
“Hey, aren’t you going too far?” Daniel called sharply.
Atlas stopped, while Sadako remained quietly beside him with her face still slightly flushed.
Daniel interpreted her silence and obedience in the worst possible way and immediately stepped forward.
He grabbed Sadako’s wrist and gently pulled her away from Atlas.
“Miss, don’t be afraid.
If this guy is forcing you into anything, tell me.
I still know enough people in the industry to help you.” Daniel assumed Atlas was nothing more than a new director with little real influence, so he had no reason to fear confronting him.
Then Daniel noticed Sadako’s temperature.
Her skin was smooth and delicate, but her wrist felt unnaturally cold, almost like touching a metal surface left outside in winter.
Daniel instinctively loosened his grip while Sadako slowly raised her eyes toward him.
A surge of murderous intent immediately appeared in Sadako’s mind.
Under normal circumstances, a stranger grabbing her without permission might not have lived long enough to regret it, but Atlas had already ordered her not to casually harm or terrify people.
Unable to attack Daniel, Sadako simply pulled her wrist free and stared at him coldly.
“You misunderstood,” Atlas quickly said.
“She’s my sister.” Daniel’s expression immediately became even worse, and Atlas realized what his explanation sounded like only after the words had already left his mouth.
Daniel stared at him as though he had discovered something far more disturbing.
“Your sister?” Atlas almost shouted, “Not like that!” and then spent several minutes desperately explaining what had happened.
Sadako eventually confirmed that Atlas had not forced her into anything, although her limited cooperation made the explanation much more difficult than necessary.
After enough back-and-forth, Daniel finally accepted that the restroom scene might genuinely have been an accident.
The three then left the entertainment complex and entered a nearby coffee shop.
They found a quiet table, and Daniel immediately looked toward Atlas.
“You’re a new director?” Atlas nodded and answered, “Yes.”
Daniel frowned slightly.
Once, he had been considered one of the most promising actors in his graduating class, yet now he was discussing a horror movie with a twenty-two-year-old rookie he had met through a restroom wall.
Life had become almost absurdly humiliating.
Daniel was mixed Japanese-American, born and raised in the United States to a Japanese mother and an American father.
His surname came from his father, and his career had always been entirely American, but his features and heritage made him a natural fit for the character Atlas had been struggling to cast.
The moment Atlas saw him clearly, he had already noticed how closely Daniel matched the image of Ryuji Takayama in his mind.
Deep-set eyes sat above a prominent nose, while a thick beard covered Daniel’s strong, slightly weathered face.
He looked somewhat disheveled after years of frustration, yet that only added a rugged maturity that suited Reiko Asakawa’s ex-husband perfectly.
Atlas would consider it a terrible waste if he allowed such a suitable actor to walk away without at least reading the script.
“Tell me what the movie is about,” Daniel said.
This was still his final bottom line because if the screenplay was complete garbage, he didn’t want to waste months filming it.
Of course, Daniel privately admitted that if the salary were high enough, his principles had recently become much more flexible.
Atlas heard the condescending tone in his voice and felt slightly annoyed.
For a moment, he considered letting Sadako give Daniel the same supernatural audition Samantha Quinn had received, but he quickly abandoned the idea.
Finding another actor who looked this close to Ryuji would be unnecessarily difficult.
Instead of explaining the entire story verbally, Atlas took out his phone.
Carrying a full screenplay everywhere was inconvenient, so he had already photographed several important pages and plot summaries for situations like this.
He opened the folder and handed the phone across the table.
Daniel accepted it casually and began reading.
Because the screen was small, he had to enlarge the photographed pages section by section, and at first his expression remained completely unimpressed.
A group of people became connected to a cursed videotape, investigated its origin, and learned that anyone who watched it would die after seven days.
Daniel had seen plenty of mediocre supernatural movies built on similar ideas.
He almost assumed he already understood how the entire story would unfold, but as he continued reading, his expression gradually became more serious.
The mystery surrounding Sadako Yamamura, the strange imagery on the tape, and the unavoidable seven-day countdown were more carefully constructed than he expected.
Then he reached the final sequence.
A television turned on by itself.
An old well appeared on the screen.
Sadako climbed out.
Daniel stopped scrolling.
He went back and reread the description because the ghost didn’t merely appear beside the television or walk through a doorway.
She physically crawled through the screen and entered the room.
Daniel sat slightly straighter.
That was something he had never seen before.
Even if the rest of the movie were only decent, he could already imagine how audiences would react if a ghost slowly emerged from a working television and approached the person watching it.
If Atlas filmed the scene properly, that single image alone could become something viewers remembered for years.
Daniel continued reading until he reached Ryuji Takayama’s ending.
His eyebrows rose slightly before he looked across the table.
“So my character dies?”
Atlas nodded.
“Yes.”
Daniel glanced back at the phone.
“Sadako scares him to death?”
“Basically.”
Atlas expected some disappointment because many actors disliked dying before the end of a movie, especially when discussing a potential leading role.
Daniel, however, showed exactly the opposite reaction.
His eyes became noticeably brighter.
Being killed by a ghost wasn’t the problem.
The challenge was convincing the audience that Ryuji had experienced such overwhelming supernatural terror that his body simply failed.
That required real acting.
Daniel would need to move from disbelief to confusion, then recognition, helplessness, and finally absolute fear within only a short sequence.
He couldn’t simply scream and collapse; the audience had to believe every stage of the character’s terror.
Daniel slowly lowered Atlas’s phone.
The frustration and condescension he had carried into the coffee shop were gone.
“This script…” Daniel said, his voice filled with genuine excitement.
“It’s perfect for me.”
[Community Goals Ongoing]