Illusion Report

’What in the world is going on?’

’I haven’t even been out of the Nest for a full day. How did I end up back here?’

Mai Mingle cradled her head in her hands, completely at a loss for what to do next.

She had tumbled into the Nest about ten minutes ago.

Mai Mingle had originally thought she would fall back into Saint Louis Hospital. If that were the case, she’d have to watch out for "Jonah" and the slender residents, not to mention dodge the Morgan Family’s pursuers. She would have had to get out of Saint Louis Hospital immediately.

But she hadn’t expected the Nest to be so considerate, saving her the trip entirely. 𝒻𝑟𝘦𝘦𝘸ℯ𝒷𝑛𝘰𝓋ℯ𝘭.𝘤𝘰𝘮

The place she had landed in was a restroom stall. She didn’t know where this restroom was, but an ad for an alcoholic beverage was taped to the back of the door, so it definitely wasn’t a hospital. What’s more, she had landed right on the toilet.

’Are the drop points for entering the Nest random every time?’

’If so, how do people from the Hunter Family Factions ensure they can enter and operate together?’

’The Morgan Family’s Hunters must have followed me into the Nest as soon as they saw me run... Where did they land? Will they come after me first, or will they go rescue Jonah?’

It seemed they hadn’t, at the very least, landed in this quiet restroom. Otherwise, she would have heard them by now.

Mai Mingle plucked up her courage and pulled the door open a crack to peek through the gap.

...A woman was standing at the sink, touching up her makeup in the mirror.

’Is she a resident?’

’Why would a resident be touching up her makeup? Does she know there’s an extra person in one of the stalls right now?’

’Whatever. I’ll wait for her to leave before I go out,’ Mai Mingle thought.

The woman was standing at the far left of the sink, right next to the wall. From Mai Mingle’s angle, with the door only open a crack, she could only see the woman’s back, not the mirror.

From behind, the woman wore a form-fitting, pale dusty pink dress with a platinum-white belt. Her high heels were the same shade as her dress. She not only looked normal but quite elegant. But this was the Nest, after all. Who knew what kind of face she would reveal if she turned around?

’This is the Nest, right?’

She had experienced so many unexpected things that she couldn’t be sure that even this fact wouldn’t have its own "unexpected" twist.

Mai Mingle silently shrank back and, for good measure, put the toilet lid down and sat on it.

Through the gap under the door, she could see the tiled floor outside. If the woman left the restroom, she would be able to see her feet walking past.

The partitions on either side of the stall didn’t reach the floor or the ceiling.

Sitting on the toilet, Mai Mingle felt a prickly sense of unease. She kept glancing down at the floor of the next stall, then up at the space above the partition, terrified that something that shouldn’t be there would appear without her noticing.

But several minutes passed. The stalls on both sides remained quiet and empty. There was still not a single sound in the entire restroom, much less the sight of a pair of high-heeled feet walking out.

’Could it be that the woman has already discovered me and is waiting silently outside?’

Mai Mingle’s gaze swept over the empty floor outside the door again and again. The thought grew louder and louder in her mind, and she started to get antsy. She couldn’t just sit here forever.

However, one thing seemed certain for now: after all this time, even if the Morgan Family had followed her in, they hadn’t landed anywhere nearby.

Mai Mingle didn’t know how much longer she waited before she finally stood up and silently pulled the door open a crack again.

...The pair of giant, snow-white eyeballs rushing toward her through the gap in the door, as it turned out, existed only in her imagination.

’Hmph. The scariest thing is when you scare yourself.’

The woman was still standing at the sink touching up her makeup. She hadn’t even turned her head.

’Aren’t there harmless residents in the Nest, too? I think "Jonah" told me that when we were talking in the morgue. Although there probably aren’t many harmless ones, could I have stumbled upon one by chance?’

There was a hint of wishful thinking in that thought, so Mai Mingle didn’t just boldly swing the door open and walk out. She sat back down on the toilet.

She didn’t lock the door. First, she was afraid the sound of the lock would alert the resident outside. Second, she was worried the stall itself might not be safe, and if she needed to escape, she couldn’t afford to waste time unlocking the door. Third, if someone tried to come in, Mai Mingle, sitting on the toilet, could just stick her leg out to block the door. It would be quick enough to lock it then.

At that thought, she tried lifting her leg and resting her foot against the door to test the position, confirming that she could block it quickly. Confirming things she could control was a way to calm herself down.

She put her foot down, her gaze falling on the beverage ad on the back of the door, and felt a vein throb in her temple.

Before, she’d been so worried something would crawl out from the gaps above or below the partitions that she hadn’t looked at it closely, only registering that it was an ad for some kind of alcohol. But now, for some reason, she felt the ad was a little unsettling.

Gather Now, Share the Softness

Above these five large words, the left side featured a close-up of a wine bottle, taking up a third of the space. On the right, an exquisitely made-up female model was raising a half-full wine glass to her smiling, red lips.

Perhaps because the ad was placed in a women’s restroom, targeting a female demographic, the scene of the model drinking was clearly a gathering with her female friends. A young woman, visible only in profile, sat across from her. The two were clinking their wine glasses together, smiling happily.

...Wait a minute.

Mai Mingle narrowed her eyes.

The model whose face was visible was raising the glass to her own lips, but the woman visible only in profile was clinking glasses with her. Two stemmed glasses were gently touching over the table between them, the clear liquid sloshing slightly.

...Where did the third wine glass come from?

When she’d first glanced at it, she assumed there was a third person at the gathering. But now, looking closer, she saw there were only two models in the picture.

Mai Mingle’s eyes followed the middle glass to the hand holding it, then to the wrist and the arm, finally discovering a split at the elbow. The model with the full-face view actually had two forearms extending from her elbow; one was clinking glasses with her friend, the other was raising its own glass.

No, it wasn’t quite right to say they extended from her elbow.

Although at first glance it really did look like the model had two left arms, a closer inspection revealed that the left elbow was actually two overlapping images. The elbow of the arm raising the glass was slightly offset from the other.

Below the ad, where the product copy should have been, were several lines of text:

Multiple Images, Embrace the Possibilities

This is where the fun begins

At the moments in life worth cherishing, please make the right choice

Disclaimer: What you see has been PS’d. Please carefully assess the risks.

’...What does that mean? Not a single one of these sentences has anything to do with wine.’

Mai Mingle stared at the ad, dazed, for a while.

Other than the extra arm, she couldn’t see anything else strange about the ad. She even ran her hand over it; it was indeed just an ordinary piece of paper taped to the door. She could even peel it off if she wanted to.

’Could this be another one of those newfangled things young people are into that I don’t understand?’

For example, she’d heard a social worker mention "PS." She knew it was something for young people, related to photos, that could seemingly make people look prettier. She didn’t know any more than that.

But something felt off.

She quietly cracked the door open again. The woman was still standing in the same spot, touching up her makeup. It was as if she hadn’t moved at all.

’She really hasn’t left.’

She looked at the ad on the back of the door, then at the woman’s back through the crack, and her gaze returned to the ad.

’Could there be some connection between the two? Or maybe... this ad contains some kind of message about this place?’

’Why else would the ad copy be written as if it were speaking directly to me?’

The idea seemed too far-fetched, but wasn’t the Nest itself a very far-fetched place?

In Mai Mingle’s opinion, in a place like the Nest, common sense was the last thing you should use to dismiss something.

’I should take another close look at the ad.’

With the meticulousness of a detective examining a crime scene, Mai Mingle inspected the entire ad inch by inch. On her third pass, she finally noticed something else that was wrong.

The color of the model with the full-face view was slightly different from the model seen only in profile.

"Color" wasn’t referring to a difference in their skin tones, but... the color of the light. Yes, the light.

The full-face model was bathed in a yellowish, dim tone, as if she were sitting under the soft, low lighting of a bistro, which fit the ad’s scene perfectly.

However, the profile-view model on the other side of the photo, from her hair to her skin, was whiter and brighter than the woman opposite her. Although the difference was subtle, it gave the impression that the light illuminating her was definitely not soft, yellow, and dim, but a white light.

The side of the picture closer to Mai Mingle was the brightest part of both women’s bodies. In other words, if she were at the scene depicted in the image, the light source would be on her side.

But that couldn’t be right either. In the picture, several small spotlights were embedded in the ceiling behind the two models. One of them, perhaps because its bulb had been changed, was different from the other yellow lights; it shone with a patch of white light.

’The light source should be on my side, so how did it end up on the opposite side?’

’Or rather, if the light source is on the opposite side, how could it possibly be illuminating my side?’

’Could there be white lights on both sides, and the one on my side just wasn’t captured in the photo?’

Thinking of this, Mai Mingle glanced at the third arm. After a few seconds of thought, her gaze returned to the text below.

’Multiple Images... Images?’

’If you’re talking about images, there should be a mirror...’

The two models in the ad had no reflections.

’A mirror...’

Mai Mingle stood up from the toilet lid.

It suddenly occurred to her that she had only seen the back of the woman touching up her makeup outside. She had never actually seen what the woman was using to do it.

’Logically, there should be a mirror there, right?’