The corridor finally had an end.
At the very end, there wasn't a door, nor an exit, but a blurred curtain. Behind it stood a shadow. Its features were impossible to see, but you could tell—it was smiling. And its "laughter" wasn't sound, but the drip-drip of water echoing inside one's skull, as if time itself were mocking them.
"Congratulations, travelers," the shadow said, its tone part narrator, part salesman. "You've successfully toured the Museum of Human Nightmares. Quite the experience, wasn't it? Absurd? Ridiculous? Nauseating?"
The survivors dared not breathe too loudly.
Ethan asked coldly, "What are you?"
"Who I am doesn't matter," the shadow spread its hands, like a cheap stage actor. "What matters is—you're about to see the truth. And truth, naturally, deserves a trailer, otherwise the audience walks out early."
The curtain lit up, like a cinema screen. Images flickered across the walls:
—The realm of Death, cold streets, masked investigators rushing about.—The human world, with its endless cycles of birth and death, screams and laughter intertwined.—And deeper still, an unseen hand stirring the two together, blending them into one pot of black sludge.
"See?" the shadow crooned theatrically. "The Death Realm and the human world are nothing but modules in the same experiment. Death, rebirth, nightmare, waking—they're just different trial runs. Your suffering is nothing more than lab rats running on a wheel."
Someone shouted, "That's impossible! We have free will!"
"Free will?" the shadow's laugh shook its shoulders. "In our reports, that's called 'random error.' Don't worry—your pitiful rebellions are logged as data points to improve the next test batch."
Faces turned pale.
Ethan gritted his teeth. "Then what's the meaning of our existence?"
The shadow paused, then bowed like a show host. "Your meaning? To prove how much failure is required to sustain the void."
The walls erupted with streams of data:
"Human Trial Batch #9981. Conclusion: High self-destruction rate.""Death Realm Trial Batch #314. Conclusion: Suitable as energy relay station.""Void Cycle Stability: 93.7%."
"As for you stragglers," the shadow pointed directly at them, "you're just statistical anomalies. You can either be cleaned up—or absorbed."
Its body swelled, like a projector gone out of focus, its blurry outline filling the entire corridor. The eyes of the void reappeared, applauding in eerie unison.
"So. Ready? The next act is the finale. You'll meet the Void itself, and learn whether you're actors, offerings—or punchlines."
It paused, then added cheerfully, "Of course, if you die along the way, that's fine too. The jokes are already funny enough."
The curtain slammed shut, and the corridor plunged into darkness, leaving only the ticking sound, like the world's heart beating its last rhythm.