SWNOVELXO Chapter 2: We are watching you
"Is it... a ghost?"
The furious rain hammered against the cold windowpane, and the couple's hearts flickered like the unsteady flame of a lamp.
"I... I don't know," the woman swallowed hard. "Should we call the Enforcers?"
"Are you insane?!"
At the mention of the Enforcers, the terrified man finally regained a sliver of reason. "If they get involved, what we did will surely come out... Absolutely not!"
"Then... what about him?" the woman paused. "Do you think... a 'Calamity' has possessed William's body?"
They both looked towards the tightly shut bedroom door, falling silent once more.
After a long while, the man seemed to make up his mind. He pulled a black raincoat from by the door and pushed it open.
"Where are you going?"
"To where we buried the body!"
"Now? Why?"
"To confirm," rain streamed down the man's pale face as he spoke hoarsely. "Whatever is in that room now... it's impossible for it to be William! I need to see his body with my own eyes."
"I'm coming with you!"
No one wanted to venture out in such a thunderstorm, but compared to being alone with whatever was sleeping in that bedroom, the woman preferred the former.
Into the heavy rain, two figures in raincoats hurried away.
The Stage Awakens
Meanwhile, in the bedroom.
William, deep in slumber, his eyelashes suddenly began to tremble, as if he were caught in a nightmare.
In his dream, his consciousness plummeted, falling as if into a bottomless chasm. After an unknown amount of time, he seemed to land on a hard surface, finally steadying himself.
Thump—Thump—Thump—Thump—
A dull mechanical whirring sound began, followed by beams of light piercing the darkness like swords, converging on a figure clad in red.
William instinctively shielded his eyes.
"Where... is this?"
William's foggy consciousness slowly cleared. As his eyes adjusted to the intense light, he looked around in confusion.
Within the illuminated circle, he could only see the vermilion opera robe on his body, the old wooden stage beneath his feet, and the black curtains behind him, also partially lit by the beams... Beyond the light was an endless expanse of the unknown and darkness.
Seeing this scene, William suddenly froze.
As if a thought struck him, he squinted, looking up. The light illuminating him came from spotlights fixed to a steel truss.
"A stage?"
As an active theater director, William was intimately familiar with stages. In his previous life, right up until the moment the light fixture crushed him, he had been meticulously planning blocking on a stage. His understanding of the stage surpassed even that of most actors.
So, his first reaction, in this moment, was that he had somehow transmigrated back.
The Spotlight's Grasp
No... this wasn't right.
The stage lighting at his old theater was far superior, the curtains weren't black, and the floor wasn't this decrepit wood.
Was he dreaming?
William tentatively took a step. The ancient floorboards groaned an ear-splitting protest. As he was about to move out of the spotlight's circle, another beam of light relentlessly tracked his every move, plunging into the surrounding darkness.
"A follow spot?" William's heart skipped a beat as he instinctively called out, "Who's there?!"
These lights could track him, meaning they were almost certainly manually controlled. The only other possibility was a fully automated tracking system, but given the stage's worn condition, that chance was virtually zero.
"Who's there..."
"Who's there..."
"There..."
William's voice echoed in the darkness, growing eerier, more chilling with each repetition.
At the same moment, an electronic screen suddenly lit up at the edge of the stage. In stage design, this spot typically housed a teleprompter, preventing actors or hosts from forgetting their lines mid-performance. But on this screen, a string of red characters glowed:
[AUDIENCE EXPECTATION: 29%]
In the bottom left corner of the screen, a few smaller words were visible:
"Please do not let audience expectation drop below 20%, or the theater cannot guarantee the safety of the performer."
Seeing this screen, William felt a surge of confusion...
Audience? Where were the audience?
Thump—Thump—Thump—
The familiar sound of lights turning on echoed again!
The darkness in front of the stage receded like a tide. Hundreds, thousands of wooden chairs stretched in tiered rows into the distance, densely packed around the stage.
The auditorium.
The words flashed in William's mind. An auditorium appearing in a place with a stage made perfect sense. What truly sent shivers down William's spine wasn't this, but the realization that, at some point...
These auditorium seats were already filled with "spectators."
They were humanoid figures shrouded in shadow. Even with the sufficient lighting, William couldn't make out their features; they seemed like manifestations of the abyss itself. The only exception was their eyes.
Countless scarlet pupils opened in the dimness. They sat in their wooden chairs, gazing at William on stage, like a pack of cats cornering a mouse—their stares mocking and ravenous.
The sheer intensity of their gaze sent a cold dread down William's neck. He didn't know what these "spectators" were, but they certainly weren't human!
William forced himself to tear his eyes away from those chilling gazes and turned, sprinting toward the other end of the stage.
Logically, stage exits were always on either side. If he could just get off the stage, he should be able to temporarily escape those monstrous things!
The follow spot locked onto his running, red-robed figure, tracking him as he dashed straight to the edge of the stage. But what greeted him there was only a bare wall.
No Escape
William was stunned.
He tried the other side of the stage, disbelieving, but found the same.
This stage... it had no exit.
In the dimly lit auditorium, countless scarlet pupils shifted, following his frantic escape, like an audience utterly engrossed in a captivating performance. The star of this show, of course, was William in his red robe.
At the same time, the characters on the central stage screen flickered... Audience Expectation surged from 29% to 30%.
Damn it, what kind of twisted nightmare is this?!
William pinched himself hard, desperate to force himself awake. But apart from a familiar pang of pain, there was no sign of consciousness returning.
[INTERMISSION OVER, PLEASE RESUME YOUR PERFORMANCE]
Another line of text flashed onto the screen, and then, a sharp, clear bell suddenly rang out from above the stage!
Ding-a-ling!—
Before William could even react, the scene before his eyes shattered into a thousand fragments, his consciousness rapidly blurring...
As he lost awareness, he vaguely glimpsed the vast, mysterious black curtain behind him, slowly beginning to draw open!
A Chilling Reality
THUMP!
William shot bolt upright in bed!
The sheets were soaked with cold sweat, his chest heaving violently, his eyes wide with terror.
He swallowed hard, his gaze slowly sweeping around the room. Only after confirming he was in his own bedroom and not that cursed stage did he finally relax.
"Was it a dream... That was one hell of a nightmare."
He composed himself, got out of bed, and walked into the living room.
Outside, the rain had mostly stopped, but the sky was still dark. William called out to his parents a few times, but there was no answer. The entire house was eerily silent.
"Did they leave for work so early?" William mumbled to himself.
William rubbed his empty stomach. Last night's nightmare seemed to have drained too much of his energy; he felt light-headed with every step. Resigned, he shuffled into the kitchen, hoping to find something to eat.
The moment he stepped inside, he tripped over something. Looking down, he saw it.
It was the shattered remains of a water cooler bottle, as if gnawed by a wild beast.
What's wrong with this bottle? Did it freeze and crack in the cold?
William couldn't recall anything from last night. Muttering to himself in confusion, he picked up the broken bottle and tossed it into a corner. Then, he grabbed a rag, preparing to wipe up the spilled water on the floor.
He had just knelt down when he froze.
The water on the floor was beginning to slide on its own, as if an invisible figure was squatting opposite him, dipping a fingertip into the water and writing something on the ground.
The next moment, the transparent water stains visibly turned blood red, forming a twisted and unsettling message directly in front of William.
—[WE ARE WATCHING YOU].