Chapter 4 Enigma

Avery—no, Yeomra—had witnessed countless deaths. As the King of the Night in his former life, he had delivered swift, merciful endings to his targets. 

But what he saw in these videos was a different kind of horror altogether. 

The victims were tortured in brutal, inventive ways, their suffering prolonged until they begged for death.

He hesitated for a moment, his finger hovering over the screen. 

Then, curiosity pushed him to tap on one of the videos. 

The screen filled with the chilling image of a man wearing an oni mask. He held a toolbox filled with ominous-looking instruments. In the background, a girl was frantically running through a house, desperately searching for an escape.

The camera followed her as she stumbled from room to room, her breath coming in ragged gasps. Her face was a mask of fear, sweat, and tears mingling as she tried to open a window. It wouldn't budge. She pounded on it, her cries muffled by her growing desperation.

The camera then panned to the masked man. He moved slowly, almost casually, as if savoring the chase. His steps were eerily silent, a stark contrast to the girl's frantic movements. He took his time, letting the tension build. 

Then, as if to heighten the terror, he deliberately made a noise—a loud clatter that echoed through the house.

The girl froze, her eyes wide with panic. She slapped a hand over her mouth to stifle her scream. 

For a moment, it seemed like she might have been caught, but she quickly ducked into a cupboard, squeezing herself into the cramped space. It was so tight she had to pull her knees to her chest to fit.

Silence fell over the room. 

The man in the oni mask moved with calculated precision, his steps almost theatrical as he approached the room where the girl was hiding. His eyes, barely visible through the slits of the mask, glinted with cruel amusement. 

He paused, scanning the room, his gaze lingering on the cupboard.

A silent laugh shook his shoulders, his hand clamping over his mouth to stifle any sound that might break the tense silence. From the way he looked at the cupboard, it was clear he already knew the girl's hiding spot. 

Yet, he didn't go straight for it. Instead, he toyed with her, pretending to search the rest of the room. His movements were deliberate, giving the girl a fleeting, false hope that she might still be safe.

Avery watched intently. The oni-masked man's cruelty was evident in every slow, measured step he took away from the cupboard, prolonging the terror. The girl's frantic breathing was the only sound in the oppressive silence.

Time seemed to stretch, each second an eternity. The man finally turned back to the cupboard, his presence looming ominously over it. 

He stood there, motionless, as if savoring the fear radiating from within.

And then, with a speed that will take anyone by surprise, the man flung open the cupboard door. His hand shot out like a viper, grabbing the girl by her hair. 

She screamed, a sound so raw and primal that it cut through the air like a knife.

Her cries were unlike anything from a suspense movie—no rehearsed shrieks, no cinematic fear. 

It was the desperate, guttural sound of a life teetering on the edge of oblivion, like an animal caught in a trap.

She kicked and thrashed, her nails raking uselessly against the masked man's arms. But her efforts were futile; his grip was unyielding.

"Why are you doing this to us?" 

The woman's voice was a broken whisper, raw from screaming and crying. Her words trembled in the air, barely reaching the man in the oni mask.

"Hmm?" 

He cocked his head as if he hadn't heard her, though the gleam in his eyes suggested otherwise.

"Why are you killing us?" she repeated.

The man in the oni mask shrugged casually, as if the answer were too obvious to elaborate.

 "Just because."

He turned back to his toolbox, his fingers lingering over the array of instruments inside. He paused, glancing up at the ceiling as though deep in thought, before finally settling on a pair of pliers. 

The cold steel glinted ominously in the dim light. The sight of the pliers seemed to ignite a spark of desperate energy in the woman. 

She thrashed wildly, her renewed strength a last-ditch effort to escape her fate.

"LET GO OF ME, YOU DEVIL!" she screamed.

The man in the oni mask gripped her hands, trying to hold them steady, but her frantic struggle made it difficult. She fought with every ounce of her remaining strength, her nails clawing at the air.

After a moment that seemed to stretch into eternity, the man's patience snapped. With a swift, brutal motion, he grabbed a hammer from the toolbox and brought it down hard on her head.

The woman crumpled to the ground, her body limp, though faint murmurs of resistance still slipped from her lips. She wasn't unconscious, but the blow had left her dazed, teetering on the edge of awareness.

The man calmly set the hammer aside and picked up the pliers again. 

He took hold of her hand, her fingers twitching weakly in his grasp. Without a hint of hesitation, he began to pull at her fingers, one by one.

A muffled scream escaped her lips, filled with a pain that was both physical and existential. 

To the man in the oni mask, she was nothing more than a project, a piece of furniture to be dismantled and discarded. 

Each twist of the pliers was methodical, almost clinical, as if he were assembling a gruesome work of art.

To an ordinary person, this would seem like something out of a nightmare, a horror movie brought to life. 

But Avery knew better. The cruelty, the detached precision, and the sheer madness were all too real. This was the world he had stepped into, and it was far from the peaceful existence he had hoped to find.

The bloodlust emanating from the man in the oni mask was palpable, even through the screen. It seemed to saturate the room with a heavy, oppressive energy. This wasn't some staged horror flick. It was real, raw, and horrifying.

"Horrendous," Avery whispered.

He glanced below the video and froze. 

The view count read: 20,312.

Over twenty thousand people had watched this atrocity, and yet it hadn't been reported to the police? How could such a grotesque spectacle go unnoticed? 

What kind of world was this where such horrors were allowed to proliferate unchecked?

Driven by a need to understand his role in this nightmare, Avery tapped on the profile icon. 

The name "Enigma" appeared alongside a display photo of a blood-splattered bunny mask. It was disturbingly familiar, yet entirely foreign.

His fingers hovered over a video on the profile. Hesitation gripped him, but curiosity won out. 

He clicked play. The screen filled with the image of someone in a bunny costume. This wasn't another terrifying chase. It was a tutorial—a step-by-step guide on preparing human flesh. The video's description confirmed his worst fears.

"Did I really do this?" he muttered.

The figure in the bunny costume was unrecognizable. The costume obscured every identifying feature, leaving no clue as to the person's identity. 

But Avery knew how meticulous these kinds of organizations could be with their verification processes. The likelihood that the original Avery—the one whose life he had inherited—was involved seemed disturbingly high.

"This is madness," he whispered.

He navigated to the Earnings tab and nearly dropped his phone. The number staring back at him was staggering: $1,215,023.

How could someone with so few views and no subscribers on a seemingly new account amass such a fortune? It was surreal, like a twisted dream. The more he look into this world, the more his sense of normalcy crumbled away.

As he scrolled through the app, he saw all sorts of videos, most of them gruesome and horrifying. How was this organization funding such content? 

And more importantly, how were they paying creators like "Enigma"?

Then it hit him. The Whisperer's call—the reminder about a deadline.

"Oh no," Avery groaned, feeling a fresh wave of panic wash over him. "The Whisperer mentioned a deadline..."