Eleven first pressed the rewind button on the tape recorder. Upon hearing a click, the tape had reached the end, so she pressed the play button.
As the tape turned, Mike Anselm's slightly panicked voice emanated from the recorder. Only then did everyone realize and visualize exactly what kind of mental state Mike was in when he was trapped in the Phantom Room that day.
"...How much have we been through together? My old partner."
"How many graveyards have we visited?"
"Hotel rooms themselves are... places that give you goosebumps... aren't they?"
"Before you... I don't know, how many people have slept in this bed? How many of them were ill? How many lost their minds? And... and how many died here?"
"...We came here for the stories."
"So... we can't panic, right?"
...Richard, Chief Hopper, and Eleven were all listening intently to every word. Even across time and space, they could feel that Mike, who was recording at the time, was still trying to persuade himself to stay in that dangerous room after experiencing a brief moment of weirdness.
Although they couldn't know exactly what horrors Mike had experienced, the tone he recorded through the tape recorder had already infected everyone present.
"Daddy? Where are you?"
Just then, a little girl's sweet voice came from the recorder, causing the expressions of all three people present to change instantly.
Mike was clearly staying in a single room, and he was the only one there that night. So where did this girl's voice, which sounded as if she were right next to him, come from?
Clearly, the exceptionally dangerous Room 1408 was far more than just a strange room that created hallucinations.
Following that, the recorder captured the sounds of Mike searching for the source of the girl's voice. Whether he still possessed some rationality or was just hoping for the best, he began a round of self-consolation. He convinced himself it was all a hotel conspiracy, claiming he'd found hidden cameras in the air conditioning vents and that there was something wrong with the wine Olin gave him—that it had been spiked with hallucinogens. He told himself everything was caused by the hallucinogens and that the series of strange events he was encountering were all just illusions.
But soon, Mike seemed to have a psychological breakdown. Everyone then heard the static noise of a television screen and Mike's murmurs of "My God," "How is this possible," and so on.
The recorder captured what seemed to be images of Mike's family life from the past, including his deceased daughter and his father from a time before he was seriously ill and sent to a nursing home. Mike's faint sobbing was also faintly recorded.
Zzz—Bloop—Zzz—
Suddenly, all the electrical appliances in the house began to flicker without warning. Everyone thought something was happening in The Upside Down, but realizing it was daytime and that the creatures of The Upside Down were in hiding, they figured it shouldn't be the influence of that realm. They quickly locked their gaze onto the tape recorder in Eleven's hands.
Eleven held her breath and concentrated, a trace of blood seeping from one of her nostrils. She said in a low voice, "There's a power inside emanating from the recorder. It seems to want to parasitize this house."
"Stop!" Richard immediately told Eleven to press the pause button on the recorder. It seemed everything was exactly as he had guessed: the mysterious power of the 1408 Phantom Room had now transferred into the recorder. As long as the recorder was turned on again, that mysterious power would slowly transfer out and select a new "host," or rather, a house or a room.
However, when Eleven pressed the pause button, the recorder continued to play, and sound kept flowing out.
The sound of a baby crying came from the recorder, but the sound gradually became terrifying and piercing, causing a sharp pain in their brains. Eleven and Hopper immediately covered their ears and leaned back to get away. Richard, with his keen sense of hearing, felt as if his ears were being pierced by twin peaks, the pain unbearable. His face flushed red as he forced himself to walk to Eleven's side, picked up the recorder, and frantically pressed the other buttons.
Everything was futile.
The piercing, demonic sound continued, and the baby's crying gradually turned into a sinister laugh like that of an evil ghost. Richard felt his blood surging. Suddenly, his brain jolted, he let out a muffled groan, and bright red blood flowed from his nostrils and ear canals. His limbs were difficult to move as a powerful spiritual force invaded his brain, causing dark images hidden deep within his heart to appear before his eyes.
"Ah... it's him, isn't it... which number couple is this that's adopting him?"
"Hee hee hee, guess how long it'll take him to come back to the Orphanage this time?"
"Hahaha, I bet within a day."
"A day? Don't let his good looks fool you. Maybe he's the one who killed his adoptive parents, and his biological parents too..."
"Tsk tsk tsk... what do you call that?"
"A Jinx of the Lone Star, hahaha..." Unrestrained laughter filled Richard's entire brain. Richard's face twisted in agony, his teeth clenched so hard they bled, and his eyes were covered in bright red blood.
"Chade!" Seeing this, Eleven grew anxious. With a sharp cry, she used her Telekinesis to crush the tape recorder in Richard's hand into pieces.
Whoosh!
In the split second the recorder was crushed, a wild wind erupted inside the house. Everything was blown askew, and paper and fabric flew everywhere. Richard seemed to be pulled by a mysterious force, slowly floating into the air.
"Chade!" Eleven tried to grab Richard, but his eyes were rolled back, and he had already fallen into a boundless, terrifying illusion.
Eleven's shouts echoed in Richard's ears. He silently looked back to see nothing but sand swirling around him. He stood unharmed in the eye of a sand tornado. The laughter, which sounded like a child's but carried the meaning of a hellish ghost, continued to churn from all sides, never-ending.
"Richard, you've been a jinxed orphan since you were a child. All the adoptive parents who saw you as family, no matter how good they were to you, ultimately met a violent end. Perhaps just as your companions in the Orphanage said back then, you are a lone star of Misfortune, a natural-born bad seed..." A low, raspy voice came from in front of Richard. The swirling sand wind was suddenly sliced open like a wall, split in two. A green man covered in vine-like tubes stepped through the mud and black water. With every step he took, the background of the world evolved further toward the deep red, sinister look of The Upside Down.
By the time Henry reached Richard, the world had completely switched to the appearance of The Upside Down.
The wild sand that had surrounded Richard had dissipated, leaving only a few delicate white flakes that frantically escaped into the back of Richard's collar.
Richard couldn't help but touch his cold neck. He looked at the green vine-man before him with cold eyes and said, "You again. It seems you've been keeping a close eye on me every single day, huh?"
"Because I want to kill you with my own hands every second," Henry said very candidly. "Actually, you shouldn't have come back. If you had just left, today's scene might not have happened."
"Heh." Richard gave a light laugh and said, "Why are you so confident that I won't escape your grasp today?"
"Because your mental defenses have already been broken. Blame the fact that you absorbed the power from the recorder first. Thanks to its help, I only had to exert a tiny bit more force to breach your somewhat sturdy mental walls." Henry spoke with his hands behind his back, sounding somewhat curious. "Your mental barriers were so solid that I thought you must have had some incredibly powerful experiences to construct such a psyche. I expected it to be difficult to dig up your dark history, but I didn't expect that behind your mental barriers, there was nothing but darkness."
Henry was also seeing someone as strange as Richard for the first time. He couldn't help but wonder, "You... just what have you relied on to get this far? Are you really human?"
"I may not have lived much like a human, but as long as I'm more human than you, that's enough," Richard said expressionlessly, throwing a punch at Henry without warning.
Bang!
Richard felt his punch hit an air wall. His fist was only a fraction of a centimeter away from Henry's face.
Henry wasn't angry. He just spoke casually, like a high and mighty god, "Do you think the same trick will work again..."
Henry's brow furrowed, and his gaze shifted downward. A flash of pain and embarrassment crossed his cold eyes. He looked chillingly at the knee pressed against his crotch and said coldly, "Do you want to die that badly?"
Boom!
Richard was blasted away by a massive force. He smashed through several stone pillars and wall panels before finally being pinned to a large tree constructed of Upside Down vines. His hands and feet were bound, and half his body was buried in the mass of vines, looking like a person growing inside the tree.
"Fighting a god is futile." Henry floated in the air, drifting above Richard's head, looking down at him as if he were an insect.
Richard tried to struggle, but in the mental world, he wasn't as strong as he was in the real world and couldn't break free. Furthermore, Henry had learned his lesson from last time and no longer looked down on him, determined not to let Richard escape easily again.
"Become one with me." Henry slowly approached Richard, one hand open and hovering before Richard's face. Sharp spikes grew from the nails of his five fingers, ready to plunge into Richard's head.
As those five sharp claws drew closer, a strange chill emanated from behind Richard. The feeling was exceptionally peculiar. He didn't have time to think; he just suddenly felt his mental body filled with power. With a forceful surge, he instantly tore through the vines binding his hands and threw a punch, sending the caught-off-guard Henry flying.
This punch had a solid impact; Richard could even feel the sensation of hitting flesh and blood. He broke free from the vines on his lower body and jumped to the ground, Henry's green blood dripping from his fist.
The flying Henry skidded several meters across the ground until he hit a giant rock and stopped. He angrily used his Telekinesis to flick away the wood chips and grass covering him. He stood up with half his face shattered, filled with shock and rage: "How is this possible? How dare you!?"
"Really think you're a god? You brat." Richard sensed the icy power flowing through his body and had a rough idea of what was going on, but he didn't dwell on it. He simply mocked the other man, then kicked off the ground, shattering it, and lunged forward. He threw another punch in mid-air, striking Henry square in the face.
Henry's head snapped back and forth from the blow. For an esper who only knew how to fight with Telekinesis, one couldn't expect him to have much martial arts skill.
With left and right hooks, Richard pummeled him, repeatedly driving his knees into the man's abdomen, beating Henry until he was forced to his knees.
Richard stepped on Henry's back and grabbed one of his arms with both hands, his eyes showing a somewhat strange and twisted excitement: "You say my memories are dark, but actually... I don't feel anything at all. The reason I closed them off was just because I felt that experience had no substance!"
Screech—Snap!
After a tooth-aching sound of muscle and bone tearing, blood splattered as Henry's arm was ripped clean off by Richard.
"Argh!!" Henry screamed. The pain and rage caused Henry's Telekinesis to explode once more. Richard was pushed back by the spiritual force and sent flying.
His vision flickered between black and white, and after the flashing stopped, reality returned to Richard's eyes. He found himself back in the real world, but suspended in mid-air. Floating with him were the remains of the tape recorder. The recorder, sparking with electricity, let out a stuttering, low voice: "I... and you..."
Before it could finish the sentence, the recorder was completely destroyed. Richard fell from mid-air, but thanks to his good balance, he adjusted his posture and landed on the sofa, avoiding injury or an embarrassing fall.
"Chade, are you okay?" Eleven and Chief Hopper rushed forward to check on Richard, whose facial orifices were bleeding. Richard didn't know at that moment just how terrifying his blood-covered face looked.