After Sadako disappeared, Atlas Vance turned toward Emily Brooks and found her still standing there with flushed cheeks while staring down at her shoes.
She was softly mumbling something under her breath, but the words were so embarrassing that Atlas decided he was better off pretending he hadn’t heard them.
He stepped closer, grabbed her shoulder, and gently shook her several times.
“Emily, wake up.”
The cloudiness in Emily’s eyes gradually disappeared.
She looked up at Atlas, then quickly glanced around the abandoned-hospital corridor with obvious confusion.
“What just happened to me?
Was all of that fake?” She instinctively stepped backward, looking flustered enough that Atlas immediately wondered what kind of ridiculous illusion Sadako had placed her under.
Before he could ask, a nearby door suddenly flew open.
A male scare actor dressed as a blood-covered doctor appeared with a fake scalpel in one hand, his face twisted into a murderous expression as he charged toward them.
Atlas jumped and immediately shouted, “Run!”
Emily hurried after him but accidentally twisted her ankle after only a few steps.
“Ow!” She lost her balance and dropped to the floor, forcing Atlas to immediately turn back and crouch beside her.
“Are you okay?
Can you move your foot?”
The fake doctor reached them a moment later, still holding the prop scalpel, but the instant he realized Emily might actually be injured, he dropped the frightening act.
He crouched down as well and asked in English, “Do you want me to call someone and escort you out?” Atlas looked at the grotesque makeup covering the man’s face and almost laughed at how quickly the murderous ghost doctor had transformed into a concerned employee.
Emily carefully moved her ankle and shook her head.
“I’m okay.
We came all this way, so I still want to finish the attraction.” Atlas helped her stand, and after confirming she could put some weight on the foot, he supported her as they continued toward the next section.
Once they disappeared around the corner, the doctor NPC returned to his assigned position.
He sighed and leaned against the wall, suddenly thinking about several former girlfriends and wondering what they were doing now.
Before he could continue reminiscing, someone lightly tapped his shoulder.
The doctor turned around.
A woman in a white dress stood directly behind him.
Her long black hair completely covered her face.
Then the strands slowly separated.
One terrifying eye appeared.
The man’s scream echoed through the corridor.
Farther ahead, Atlas supported Emily while they moved slowly through the attraction.
After several minutes of silence, he glanced at her and finally asked something that had bothered him since casting Ring.
“Emily, your acting is obviously much better than you claimed.
How did you end up near the bottom of your class?”
Emily hesitated for a long moment.
“You might not believe me.”
“Try me.”
She lowered her eyes before speaking.
“One of my instructors kept pressuring me to have a personal relationship with him.
I refused, and after that, he started giving me extremely low participation scores and deliberately marked down almost every final performance I did.”
Atlas’s expression gradually hardened.
Emily continued quietly, “He had enough control over the class that I couldn’t really prove anything.
I was scared that complaining would make things worse, so I never told anyone.
After several years of being told I was terrible, I eventually started believing it and became afraid of performing in front of people.”
Atlas fell silent.
So that was the real reason.
Emily hadn’t been a terrible actress at all.
She had simply spent years being deliberately undermined by someone who wanted something from her and punished her for refusing.
Atlas’s eyes narrowed slightly.
For one brief moment, he considered how educational a visit from Sadako might be for that instructor.
He quickly put the thought aside and looked toward Emily.
“Then forget those scores.
Stay with Vance Studios.”
Emily looked at him.
“When this company grows, I’ll make sure you get opportunities based on your actual ability,” Atlas continued.
“One day you’ll become a successful actress, and then you can stand in front of that bastard and let him see exactly how wrong he was.”
Emily’s eyes immediately reddened.
She had endured the situation throughout most of university without telling anyone, and this was the first time she had openly explained what happened.
Atlas’s words hit harder than she expected.
“Director Vance…” she said quietly.
“I’ll work hard.
If you’re willing to keep giving me opportunities, I’ll keep improving.”
Atlas smiled.
“And stop calling me Director Vance every five seconds.
We’re already friends.
Just call me Atlas when we’re not working.”
Emily hesitated before nodding.
“Okay…
Atlas.”
The interior of Senritsu Meikyu was so large and complicated that Atlas had completely lost track of where they were.
After wandering through several corridors, he eventually found a room marked as part of the radiology department and cautiously pushed the door open.
He expected another ambush like the operating-room section, but the space contained only disturbing medical props and mannequins.
Atlas and Emily moved through without incident.
Then the next area was also empty.
So was the one after that.
Atlas gradually became confused.
They had previously been attacked by scare performers every few minutes, yet now they could walk through multiple sections without seeing a single employee.
Atlas initially assumed the attraction was deliberately changing its pacing, but in reality, something completely different was happening behind the scenes.
The staff communication channel had descended into chaos.
“Did anyone assign a female ghost in a white dress to this section?”
“No!
Who is that woman?”
“I swear I saw her floating!”
“She isn’t wearing a harness!”
“I’m done.
I’m seriously quitting!”
Several actors had already abandoned their positions after encountering Sadako in dark hallways, patient rooms, and blind corners.
Every time someone attempted to scare her, Sadako simply turned around and demonstrated what an actual supernatural entity looked like.
Compared with professional makeup and mechanical props, her presence made the employees feel like amateurs playing with Halloween decorations.
The control-room staff were equally panicked.
Several cameras had only recently recovered from Sadako’s electromagnetic interference, and now employees were desperately searching through the feeds trying to identify the mysterious woman.
None of them noticed the pale figure appearing silently in the corner behind them.
A few seconds later, screaming erupted inside the monitoring room too.
Meanwhile, Atlas continued supporting Emily as they walked through the hospital.
Every so often, distant screams echoed through the corridors, and Atlas couldn’t help admiring the dedication of the attraction’s employees.
“These people really commit to the atmosphere,” he said.
Emily nodded.
Neither of them realized the employees were no longer performing.
After what felt like an eternity, they entered a long and narrow corridor.
Dark red stains covered the walls, and metal plates beneath their feet amplified every step into a harsh echo that traveled through the hallway.
Atlas glanced toward the far end and sighed.
“We’ve been inside forever.
The exit has to be close by now.”
Before Emily could respond, thunderous footsteps suddenly erupted behind them.
Atlas turned.
“Help!”
“There’s a ghost!”
“Run!”
A huge group of haunted-house performers came sprinting down the corridor toward them.
There were doctors, nurses, patients, corpses, and various grotesque creatures, all running at full speed with genuine terror on their faces.
Atlas stared blankly for half a second before instinctively trying to move faster.
“What the hell is happening?”
Because Emily’s ankle was injured, they couldn’t run quickly enough to stay ahead.
Within seconds, the frightened performers caught up to them, but instead of stopping to scare Atlas and Emily, every single one rushed straight past without even looking in their direction.
Atlas stopped.
Emily stopped.
Both slowly turned around.
Sadako Yamamura was floating down the corridor after the fleeing employees.
Her white dress hung motionless around her body while her long black hair drifted around her face.
She wasn’t even moving particularly fast, yet the entire staff seemed determined to put as much distance between themselves and her as physically possible.
Atlas’s face twitched.
Of course.
Emily stared in amazement.
“Wait…
doesn’t that NPC look exactly like Sadako from our movie?”
Atlas began sweating.
Emily’s expression became even more confused.
“And she’s floating.
How are they doing that?
Is she attached to wires?”
Atlas forced a laugh.
“Yeah.
Probably wires.
Really good ones.”
He couldn’t exactly tell Emily that the woman chasing an entire haunted-house staff down the corridor wasn’t an employee at all.
She was the genuine Sadako Yamamura.
Sadako noticed Atlas supporting Emily by the arm.
For some reason, an unfamiliar feeling appeared inside her.
She didn’t completely understand it.
Sadako floated directly toward them and stopped in front of Atlas.
With a thought, the white dress vanished.
Her ordinary clothes returned, and her long hair shifted back into its normal style, revealing her delicate face.
Emily’s mouth slowly fell open.
She stared at Sadako.
Then at Atlas.
Then back at Sadako.
“How did she just change clothes instantly?”
Atlas rubbed his forehead.
“Sadako, could you please stop doing things like that in front of people?”
Sadako ignored him.
Her attention remained on Emily.
She slowly landed on the floor, looked directly into Emily’s eyes, and spoke calmly.
“Hello.”
Emily froze.
Sadako continued.
“My name is Sadako Yamamura.”
She paused for a moment.
“And I am a female ghost.”
[Goal Tracker]