Episode 9. Rooting Out the Fake (5)
“Get up. Move!”
The skull masks struck the walls and seats with loud bangs as they threatened us.
Under duress, the people reluctantly rose.
There were eight members of the teddy bear’s group.
Only five people remained inside the theater.
Their numerical advantage aside, people dragged here without warning were no match for an organized group.
In the end, the skull masks herded everyone toward the exit.
I mixed into the middle and moved with them.
Clang—!
But the moment we stepped outside, we were imprisoned inside an iron cage.
It was so narrow that only one person could stand across its width.
But the cage extended forward like a corridor.
The people who left the auditorium therefore stood inside it in a single line.
Like cattle entering a slaughterhouse.
As everyone looked around in confusion, the man beside me shouted angrily.
“What do you think you’re doing? Who are you people, and where in the world are we?”
The man, who looked around forty, wore a suit.
But there was almost nothing polished about him. He looked moderately neat and thoroughly worn down.
He appeared to be a white-collar employee well acquainted with…