Chapter 504: Absolutely Terrifying!

The movie continued playing.

The first three minutes of the plot were somewhat uneventful.

Whispers could be heard in the theater.

Then, Adam pulled a cassette tape from his pocket—one that he had no idea who had placed there.

"What's that?" Dr. Lawrence Gordon asked.

Adam remained silent.

"I'm asking you!" Dr. Lawrence Gordon spread his hands.

Only then did Adam snap out of it and say, "It's a cassette tape."

"Where did you find it?"

"In my pocket."

Dr. Lawrence Gordon then reached into his own pocket as well.

He pulled out a piece of paper sealed in a plastic bag. The paper read: "Play it!"

Dr. Lawrence Gordon froze for a moment before tipping out the contents of the plastic bag—a cassette tape, a bullet, and a key.

He immediately tried using the key to unlock the chain on his foot, but it was futile.

Adam hurriedly called out, "Throw it over, let me try."

Reluctantly, Dr. Lawrence Gordon tossed the key to him.

However, Adam couldn't unlock his own chain either.

After struggling for a while, their attention finally shifted to the tape recorder in the hand of the corpse lying between them.

Because it was too far away, Adam tied the bathtub plug to his shirt to add weight and threw it toward the recorder, attempting to retrieve it. After several tries, he finally succeeded.

He inserted the tape and pressed play.

A hoarse, elderly voice emerged from the recorder:

"The sun is shining on your ass, time to wake up, Adam. Perhaps you're wondering where you are?"

"Let me tell you—you're in the place where you might spend eternity."

"You've spent your life hiding in the shadows, peeping into others' lives. How does a voyeur see himself?"

"You're a strange mix—angry yet indifferent. But mostly, you're just pathetic. So today, you will either watch yourself die or find a way to stop it."

By this point in the film, the audience's curiosity was fully piqued.

Dr. Lawrence Gordon then asked Adam to toss over the recorder, but Adam refused and instead told him to throw his own tape over first.

At this moment, the audience began to feel something strange—almost as if Adam was wary of Dr. Lawrence Gordon.

"Do they know each other?" Louis turned to whisper to his roommate, Harvey.

Harvey responded cryptically, "No spoilers—just keep watching."

Dr. Lawrence Gordon threw his tape to Adam.

"Dr. Gordon, let me wake you up. Every day, your job is to tell patients, 'I'm sorry, I've done all I can,' while you coldly watch them suffer, watch them die, and then watch their families grieve."

"But today, you will become the true bringer of death. We're going to play a game. The goal of this game is—you must kill Adam before six o'clock!"

Dr. Lawrence Gordon looked at the clock on the wall. It showed 10:00 PM.

The voice on the tape continued: "There is a third person in this room. His blood is filled with poison. The only escape for him is death. The key to survival is hidden around you. Remember—X marks the spot."

"You cannot refuse. You must play this game. If you don't, your wife, Allison, and your daughter, Diana, will die with you!"

By this point, the film's suspense had reached its peak.

Who was the owner of the voice on the tape?

Why had Adam and Dr. Lawrence Gordon been brought here?

And why was Dr. Lawrence Gordon being forced to kill Adam?

At the same time, many in the audience overlooked a small but chilling detail—the voice on the tape referred to the body on the floor as "the third person in the room," not as a corpse.

Adam and Dr. Lawrence Gordon began searching the room, eventually each finding a hacksaw.

They tried using them to cut through the chains on their feet, but it was useless.

Exhausted, Dr. Lawrence Gordon stopped, then spoke words that sent shivers down the audience's spines: "He doesn't want us to cut the chains. He wants us to cut off our feet!"

Gasps filled the theater.

In the darkness, Harvey smirked. This was just the beginning—the truly shocking part was yet to come!

Dr. Lawrence Gordon suddenly said, "I think I know who he is. I was actually a suspect…"

A montage of flashbacks followed.

The first scene: A middle-aged, overweight man crawling through a maze of barbed wire. Sharp, jagged wires tore into his flesh, slicing through skin and fat. Blood poured out, mingling with torn tissue.

The man's screams echoed through the theater, like a pig being slaughtered. His body, covered in deep wounds, left the audience shivering with unease.

But he had no choice—if he wanted to live, he had to keep crawling. Eventually, he could move no further, his body hanging limp on the barbed wire like a skinned lamb.

The second scene: A naked man, covered in a flammable substance, stood in a pitch-black room.

He had been poisoned, and the antidote was locked inside a safe at the center of the room.

The code to the safe was written on the walls.

The floor was covered in shattered glass. Each step he took drove shards deep into his flesh.

A single lit candle sat on a nearby table.

Its faint glow was not enough to illuminate the numbers on the wall.

To see them, he had to bring the candle closer—but if the flame touched his skin, he would ignite.

Desperate, the man called for help, but no one answered.

He had no choice.

He picked up the candle and stepped onto the glass, enduring searing pain as he searched for the code.

But as the poison spread through his body, his strength and will weakened.

Finally, his hand slipped.

The candle fell onto his body.

In an instant, he was engulfed in flames.

At the crime scene, police found Dr. Lawrence Gordon's laser pointer and brought him in for questioning as a suspect.

Then, a survivor appeared—a young woman.

As she recounted her story, the terror on screen escalated.

She awoke in darkness, a metal contraption locked onto her head, the taste of blood filling her mouth.

A nearby TV flickered on, displaying an eerie puppet.

The puppet told her that the metal device was hooked to her upper and lower jaws. When the timer ran out, it would tear her skull apart.

Her only chance of survival was to use the scalpel on the table to cut open the stomach of the man lying on the floor and retrieve the key inside.

But the puppet had lied.

The "corpse" wasn't dead—he had only been heavily sedated.

As the woman sliced into him, he woke up.

For a brief moment, she froze.

Then the ticking timer pushed her into a frenzy, and she continued slashing at his stomach, eventually pulling out the blood-soaked key and saving herself.

Blood splattered across the screen.

The woman's distorted screams echoed in the silent theater.

The only sounds were deep, ragged breaths.

Almost everyone in the audience could hear their own pounding heartbeat.

"Oh, shit, this is just sick…" a young woman in front of Louis whispered in horror.

Normally, this would be the perfect moment for a boyfriend to comfort his date with a reassuring hug.

But at this moment, the man beside her sat frozen, eyes glued to the screen—completely forgetting he wasn't alone.