Chapter Two: Reality Has No Such Frame

A door had appeared in the center of the green screen. It was not solid, only a rectangle half a shade darker than its surroundings. Staring at it directly caused dizziness, but the camera display revealed a handle. Shen adjusted the aperture. Dense blackness seeped through the crack. At precisely ten, every light in the studio died. In the dark came the sound of a photograph being torn. A faceless figure peeled itself from the green screen. It resembled a human negative cut from a contact sheet: long limbs, a contracting white void where its face should be. It sprang at Lin. Shen fired the flash. For half a second, the creature froze. Many mouths surfaced in its blank face and spoke together. “Unauthorized imagery is subject to deletion.”