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. 1 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. 2 I was taken downtown. The interrogation room at the precinct felt even more suffocating than the theater. The cold, sterile light of the fluorescent bulbs illuminated every corner of the room, and every flicker of expression on my face. The officers questioning me now were from the Homicide Division. One was a middle-aged man, Detective Miller, with eyes as sharp as a hawk’s and an unshakeable calm. Next to him, a young female officer, Davis, took notes. "Ms. Brooks," Miller began, his voice even but carrying an undeniable weight. "Walk me through what happened last night again. Don't leave out a single detail, no matter how insignificant you think it is." I took a deep breath, fighting to control the tremors running through me, and started from the moment we entered the theater, recounting everything up to the bizarre black-and-white film. I described every detail I could remember: the grainy, low-resolution quality of the picture, the lack of a soundtrack—only ambient noise—and the soft shhhk, shhhk of the masked man sharpening his blade. I even remembered how he’d looked up at one point, straight into the camera, his smiling mask seeming to pierce through the screen and stare right into the audience… "You said he looked at the camera?" Miller seized on the detail. I nodded, my throat tight. "Yes… it felt like he was looking right at us…" "When did you fall asleep?" "Maybe twenty minutes after the movie started? I’m not sure…" "And after you fell asleep? You were completely out? You didn't hear any unusual sounds? Feel any vibrations? Smell anything strange?" I searched my memory. "I think… I think I had a short dream. I heard this heavy, rhythmic thudding? Like something banging against a wall… but I fell back into a deep sleep." "As for smells… right before I drifted off, I think I smelled something faintly sweet, kind of like almond brittle…" At that, Miller’s expression shifted almost imperceptibly. He nodded at Officer Davis. She held up a clear evidence bag containing my noise-canceling headphones. "Ms. Brooks, your headphones are the XN-5 model. They feature active noise cancellation and a 30-hour battery life. We checked—they still have over 60% charge." Miller’s gaze returned to me. "Our tech department ran a test," he said slowly. "At that power level, the noise-cancellation is more than capable of blocking out the operational hum of a vintage film projector." My heart clenched. "However," he continued, his tone shifting, "it can't completely block out strong, low-frequency physical vibrations. For instance, a heavy object striking a wall." I stared at him, confused. What was he saying? That the thudding in my dream was real? His gaze pinned me in place. "According to the preliminary M.E. report, most of the victims suffered multiple blunt-force trauma wounds to the head. The weapon is believed to be a vintage fire axe that was mounted as a decoration in the back of the theater." He paused. "The old fingerprints on the handle had been wiped clean, but the blade itself showed clear, fresh marks of recent use." A cold sweat drenched my back. A fire axe? In the back of the theater? That was right near where I was sitting. "As for the almond brittle smell…" Miller leaned forward slightly. "That’s a common scent for a high-concentration inhalant anesthetic mixed with a cyanide derivative." "It induces rapid unconsciousness and, eventually, asphyxiation." "Interestingly, we found the remains of a dispersal device inside the air conditioning vent. It could have been triggered by a simple timer. Or… a remote control." A remote? "Ms. Brooks, besides your phone, did you have any other electronic devices with you last night?" "No… nothing!" I said quickly. "Oh?" Miller slid a crime scene photo across the table. It showed a small, black, matchbox-sized device, like a tiny power bank or Bluetooth receiver. "We found this wedged deep in the cushions of your seat. It's a modified, high-powered micro-transmitter. One of its frequency channels is a perfect match for the receiver on the dispersal device in the vent." My mind went completely blank. "That's not mine! I've never seen that before in my life!" "But it was under your seat, Ms. Brooks," Miller’s voice turned to ice. "And it had only one person’s fingerprints on it. Yours." 3 Suddenly, the door to the interrogation room opened again. Two more detectives walked in. The one in the lead was younger, maybe in his thirties, tall and imposing with a sharp, steady gaze that radiated authority. I recognized him from local news reports—Detective Chen, head of the Homicide Division, famous for cracking a string of bizarre, high-profile cases. He was followed by a junior officer carrying a file. Chen’s eyes landed on me. Without a word of greeting, he gestured to the officer, who pulled out a tablet and swiped through several photos, pushing it in front of me. They were crime scene photos, enhanced to show details on the floor and chairs. "Ms. Brooks, we found a significant amount of blood and physical evidence at the scene," Chen began, his voice calm but crushing. "But what’s strange is that nearly all of the directional evidence—the drag marks, the drip patterns, the arterial spray—all of it either originates from, or terminates at, the exact seat where you were found." The accusation was so monstrous I almost leaped out of my chair. "It wasn't me!" my voice was a shrill shriek. "It really wasn't me!" "I don't know anything! I woke up and saw… I saw that! They were my colleagues! Why would I kill them?!" Chen remained unmoved by my outburst. He simply watched me, his expression unreadable, until my energy was spent and I collapsed back into my chair, gasping for breath. "We've reviewed the security footage from the theater's exterior and lobby," he said, changing tactics. "It shows the twelve of you entering last night. Between that moment and when the staff found you this morning, no one else entered or exited that theater." A locked-room massacre. The thought sent a fresh wave of terror through me. "However," Chen continued, "we did lift a single, clear fingerprint from the interior handle of an emergency exit. It doesn't belong to you or any of the victims. And from the outside, there were no signs of forced entry." My heart hammered against my ribs. "That proves it! Someone else was in there! Right? The man in the mask! He must have been hiding inside, or someone let him in!" Chen didn't answer directly. He just nodded to the junior officer, who laid out several printed documents. "Lily Brooks," Chen said, his voice devoid of emotion, "we ran a background check. It seems you have a rather… unusual interest in the 'smiling mask' motif." A printout was pushed in front of me. It was a piece of artwork I’d re-posted to my Twitter six months ago: a man in a top hat and a smiling mask. My caption read: "Mysterious and so cool. The perfect aesthetic for a crime." Below it was a thread of replies, discussions with other users about perfect crimes, locked-room mysteries… The blood rushed to my head. "That—that was just a random post! It doesn't mean anything!" "Oh?" Chen arched an eyebrow. "And this?" He pushed another document forward. It was a log from an anonymous psychology forum. The department's tech unit had apparently traced the IP address back to my home network. The post, dated three months ago, was titled: How to stage the perfect mass disappearance? I stared at the paper, a paralyzing cold seeping through me. That wasn't me. I never wrote anything like that. "I… I don't know anything about this… I didn't post that!" My defense sounded pathetic and weak even to my own ears. "But the account was registered with your personal email, which you still use," Chen stated coolly. "The password, while complex, contains the name of your pet and your birthday. That wouldn't be too hard for you to remember, would it?" I felt like I’d been struck by lightning, frozen in place. The email was mine. The pet’s name and my birthday were correct. But how was that possible? "Ms. Brooks," Chen's gaze became intensely focused, a look that seemed to see right through me. "A locked room. Eleven victims, incapacitated by a chemical agent. A crime scene that perfectly matches your 'aesthetic' interests. And a single survivor who conveniently slept through the whole thing after seeing a 'movie' that never existed. And now, all the evidence seems to be pointing in one direction..." He paused, each word a hammer blow against my sanity. "So tell me," his voice dropped to a low, menacing growl. "That smiling mask…" "...was it you who was wearing it?"
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