Chapter 1Valentine's Nightmare at the Cinema

For Valentine's Day, the company booked out a small private theater. The official story? A reward for us single employees: an all-night slasher movie marathon.

As a fan of thrillers and, conveniently, unattached, I signed up immediately.

But when the twelve of us settled into our seats, the projector flickered to life with a black-and-white film none of us had ever seen.

Onscreen, a man in a top hat and a smiling mask was methodically laying out an array of knives and a chainsaw.

"What is this garbage? Who watches this old-timey crap anymore?" someone muttered.

Bored, I retreated to the back row, slipped on my noise-canceling headphones, and drifted off to the sound of my own playlist.

The next morning, the smell is what dragged me from my sleep—a thick, metallic stench that seemed to coat the inside of my throat.

When I finally forced my eyes open, I saw police officers stringing up yellow tape, piecing together the eleven bodies scattered across the scene.

A pale-faced theater employee told me, his voice trembling, that they hadn't played any movie in this theater last night.

The man with the smiling mask…

He wasn't on the screen. He was right here, in front of us.

* * *

I didn’t wake up naturally. I was ripped from my sleep by the smell.

It was a foul mix, like rust and the cloying sweetness of an old butcher shop, so thick it felt solid, choking the air from my lungs. A wave of nausea churned in my stomach.

Clamping a hand over my mouth and nose, I blinked, my vision taking a moment to focus.

The theater was dark, save for the ghostly green glow of the emergency exit signs. But it was enough. It was enough to see the hellscape before me.

Dark red splashes coated the backs of the seats in front of me. The floor was smeared with dark, sticky trails, already blackening as they dried.

Figures in police uniforms moved with quiet precision, carefully assembling the dismembered remains scattered across the aisles and chairs.

Black body bags lay open nearby, disturbingly lumpy and misshapen.

My stomach seized, and I nearly threw up. I bit down hard, my teeth chattering uncontrollably.

A young officer canvassing the area noticed me. In the eerie green light, his face was unnaturally pale, his eyes wide with a mixture of shock and suspicion. He quickly motioned to his partner.

Soon, two officers were standing over me. Their expressions were professionally stoic, but I could see the disbelief churning behind their eyes. One of them gestured for me to remove my headphones.

"Ma'am, are you alright? Can you speak?" the older officer asked, his voice low, as if afraid of disturbing the dead.

I managed a weak nod, my throat as raw as sandpaper.

"What's your name? What company are you with? We were told you were here for a corporate event?"

Again, I nodded, forcing out the words. "Lily… Nova Media…"

"What happened last night? Do you remember anything?"

I nodded, the memory replaying in slow, horrifying motion.

"I remember… it was Valentine's Day. The company arranged this 'perk' for us singles. The twelve of us were supposed to have an all-nighter, but the theater started with this weird black-and-white movie…" My voice was a ragged whisper.

"It looked really old… vintage. There was a man on screen in a top hat and a smiling mask. He was sharpening knives, getting a saw ready…"

The two officers exchanged a loaded glance. The younger one instinctively looked toward the massive, dark screen.

The older cop pressed on. "And then?"

"And then… I got bored, so I put on my headphones to listen to music… and I must have fallen asleep." I hugged myself, a deep, penetrating cold seeping into my bones, a chill that had nothing to do with the theater’s air conditioning.

Just then, a man in a theater manager’s uniform was escorted over. He stayed at a distance, clearly terrified of getting any closer to the scene.

"Officers, we—we checked!" he stammered, his voice shaking. "There was no film scheduled for this theater last night! No playback record in the server! And… and our old film projector has been broken for years. It’s impossible for it to have run!"

His words were like daggers of ice piercing my heart.

No movie? A broken projector?

Then what did I see?

The manager's next words sent me spiraling into an abyss. "And… that man with the smiling mask… we checked our old promotional materials. That was a scrapped mascot from a horror-themed event we ran ten years ago. Nobody's thought about him in years! How could he possibly be in a movie?!"

A wave of goosebumps erupted across my skin.

What did he mean, not in a movie?

Could it be…

Last night, he wasn’t on the screen. He was standing right in front of it, putting on a live performance for all of us.