Chapter 220

‘How was his immersion going to affect?’

That was the question in Aiden’s mind as he stood in one of the audition rooms in the Zetflix office. It was easy to say that he was curious and scared at the same time.

For the first time, Aiden was going to face something that would be a big challenge for him.

But he knew that he didn’t want to run away from it.

He at least needed to know how his immersion was going to affect him this time. Otherwise, he would just keep being skeptical about it without any proof.

“It seems like you have studied up on the character quite well.”

Phineas Flinch said, scanning Aiden’s clothes. He was wearing jeans, a black shirt and a baseball jacket on top of it. In the script, it was written that Finn Wheeler, the main character of [Sherlock of the Shadows], was an avid baseball fan.

Aiden had picked it up and gotten a jacket that he thought Finn would wear in the show.

“Okay, so it’s just going to be pretty much a one-man show this time. So, don’t worry, even if we have to do a few takes. It’s all fine until you can project the fear and distress of Finn when he first gets to see an example of his powers.”

Phineas explained, and Aiden nodded his head.

“I will do my best.”

After that, he took his position, and the staff members got the cameras ready, and a guy picked up the clapping slate that was going to be used to start the scene.

Aiden took a deep breath and wondered what was going to happen.

The curiosity and unease of his immersion were still there, but instead of focusing on that, he tried to get his mind into the character of Finn Wheeler.

After all, it was an audition, and he needed to do his best to bag the role.

‘Just think of Finn. His personality, relationship with other people, his doubting nature, and always feeling like he’s different and special from everyone else. In this scene, he would get a live proof of it.’

In the script, Finn Wheeler was a high schooler with a very sharp brain but a doubting nature that stopped him from getting too close to people, mainly coming due to reading a lot of detective novels since he was a kid.

He strived to become a detective and followed a simple mantra.

‘Nothing in this world is without any reason. Everything has it. If you can’t see it, then you just need to dig deeper.’

Aiden tried to chant the mantra in his mind to prepare himself.

He could see the old executive, Phineas and Ava, looking at him like they were examining him. His eyes stopped at Ava for a second, and he could see her smiling faintly.

Though, it was hard to say if it was a mocking smile or not.

At that moment, the staff member clapped the slate, and with that, cameras started rolling, and the scene began.

Taking a breath, Aiden closed his eyes.

‘Immersion.’

***

Aiden took a deep breath as a sense of unease flowed through his body. He was trying to focus on his surroundings cause if his immersion wasn’t powerful enough, the whole scene was just going to fall through.

Thankfully, it had worked well as Aiden found himself in the middle of what looked like a basement.

The scene he was doing was after Finn would get his powers. While trying to investigate a kidnapping case that had happened in his neighbourhood, he would break into his neighbour’s house as he would hear some sort of weird noises from there.

Strangely, it was only him who could hear these voices.

Unable to get it out of his head, he had come here to know exactly where the voice was coming from.

‘I need to be careful.’

He thought to himself, slowly losing his sense of identity and becoming Finn Wheeler.

He moved his legs, looking around, searching for the voice. In his mind, the whole basement looked messy, like no one had entered it for several decades. A weird stench was in the air, too, like there was a dead rat lying around.

Aiden tried to make as little noise as possible. Even his breathing was not noisy, and he was in a position where he could escape anyone attacking him out of nowhere. It was then that he heard the strange voice again.

A wave of unease swept him as he moved his head to look around.

The voice was like a hiss, almost in a whisper. The words were intangible, like it was speaking in a language that was out of this world. Aiden was feeling a bit scared because of it, but he didn’t stop and kept moving.

He needed to look for the voice.

In his mind, he was wondering what was going on in the basement. What was this voice? And why did it sound so weird, like it was not even humane?

Slowly, he reached the end of the basement room and saw that there was nothing. In a corner, a dead rat was lying, and the stench was coming from it. He guessed that a wild cat might have entered the basement and killed it before leaving.

Aiden took a sigh of relief, thinking that everything was fine.

It was at that moment that he felt something brush past him. Aiden immediately turned around and even nearly fell down. A chill went up his body as he struggled to understand what had happened.

Whatever had passed through him felt cold, like he was literally touching ice on his bare skin.

Gulping down his saliva, he called out.

“Is anyone there?”

Normally, he wouldn’t have said that but whoever was in the basement room other than him already knew about his existence. It was better to be direct in this case.

Currently, he was already making a few possibilities in his mind.

‘It could just be a wild animal, I don’t know or maybe a human who’s trying to prank me? I feel like whatever it is, it might be connected to the kidnapping.’

Thinking that he walked around the basement, trying to find out who was there other than him.

At that moment, he again heard the voice, and this time, he quickly looked to his left, and his eyes widened in disbelief.

A shock went through his body as he looked at whatever was in front of him. The first thing that came to Aiden’s mind was darkness.

The being in front of him was made entirely out of the darkness. It had two eyes and a mouth, but Aiden wasn’t able to see more of his features. Everything was covered in darkness, and it was almost floating in thin air.

Aiden froze, seeing the being, which he could only identify as a ghost. He tried to move his legs, but they were shaking. As if the ghost enjoyed it, he came close to Aiden and out of nowhere, a limb came out.

One of the fingers of that limb touched Aiden’s face, almost caressing it as the ghost opened his mouth to reveal its sharp and disgruntled teeth.

Fear, anxiousness and every type of uncomfortable feeling in the world ran through Aiden’s body as he screamed, and without wasting any time, he ran, not caring about anything, but at that moment, one of the limbs gripped his leg and made him fall.

A sharp pain went through his leg, but he quickly turned to get out of the grip of his hand. Just as he was about to touch it, sharp needle-like fangs grew out of his hand, one even hurting him as blood started coming out.

Aiden took a look at the ghost that was looking right back at him. Slowly, it walked towards him, and in a fit, Aiden just tried to crawl out of the basement somehow.

“Help! Someone, please!”

“Please save me!! There’s a ghost here!”

“Ahhhh!”

Screams repeatedly came out of his mouth as he struggled hard just to get out of this situation alive because he was sure that the ghost wasn’t going to let him stay alive.

A weird sense of thought was roaming in his head.

Aiden wanted to continue the act as Finn Wheeler, but at the same time, he just wanted to get out of the immersion. Break away from it just so he didn’t have to look at the atrocity that was crawling towards him, donning a wicked smile.

“Please. Just let me go.”

He pleaded to the ghost, but the ghost simply hissed in response. Aiden didn’t know if he could understand him, but he clearly had no intention of letting him go.

The ghost finally came close to Aiden and stopped. Another hand came out of nowhere and directly held Aiden by the collar and lifted him up to focus on the ghost.

For a second, both the ghost and Aiden just kept looking into each other’s eyes, different feelings reflected off their faces.

The ghost opened his mouth again at that time, and this time, Aiden was able to understand the language. It was much more than a hiss.

“Human… I’m going to…”

Immersion broke at that time as Aiden felt himself coming out of the basement. The scene turned into the audition room in the Zetflix office, and several notifications came in front of him.

[You have been forcefully taken out of your immersion because it was reaching dangerous levels where it could have easily affected you for a lifetime. Your skill level isn’t deemed high enough for you to control the scene and maintain your sanity.]

[The Safety protocol of the system has been activated to protect the user during scenes like this.]

[Warning: There are still going to be after-effects of portraying a role like this, but they won’t be as severe.]

…

//DreamNote//

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