"Cynthia, I look forward to your next visit to Hoenn," Steven said with a smile as he shook hands with the woman in front of him.
"Steven, I'm also looking forward to your visit to Sinnoh," Cynthia replied with a soft smile as she glanced around at her surroundings.
Her visit to the Hoenn region this time was due to an invitation from the Pokémon League. She had come for a diplomatic visit to deepen ties and promote exchanges between the Hoenn and Sinnoh regions. Now that her official duties had been completed, she could finally relax.
But what Cynthia really wanted to do now wasn't related to work.
"Mr. Steven, is there a movie theater nearby?" she asked, turning to Steven. She wasn't particularly familiar with the Hoenn region; if this were Sinnoh, she wouldn't even need to ask—she would instantly know where the nearest theater was.
"There is. Are you planning to see a movie?" Steven looked a bit surprised, but he still maintained his polite smile as he asked.
"Yes, I'm a fan of your younger brother. I've been looking forward to his new film One Missed Call for a long time," Cynthia responded with a grin. She could have waited to return to Sinnoh and watched it there, but she simply couldn't wait any longer—today was the film's official premiere.
Steven paused for a moment. He honestly hadn't expected Cynthia to be a fan of his younger brother. Still, he smiled and escorted her to the theater, though he didn't go inside with her.
He knew his brother's film was a horror movie, and he wasn't really in the mood for that kind of experience at the moment. The last time he watched one of his brother's horror films, he had felt like the usually silent caves where he mined stones had become oddly noisy. He decided to skip this one—One Missed Call—entirely.
So, Cynthia bought her ticket and entered the theater on her own.
She'd bought the ticket a little late, so it wasn't for the premiere showing. Still, the entire theater was nearly full. Cynthia had opted for a VIP screening room, where the seats were spaced farther apart, so she didn't have to worry about being too close to other people.
Soon, the screen began showing trailers for other films. Cynthia sat comfortably in her seat, popcorn in hand, watching the previews while munching slowly.
There were a lot of upcoming movies being advertised, but most of them followed very formulaic and conventional plots. Cynthia felt a bit mentally exhausted—she could practically predict the entire plot just from watching the trailers.
There were, however, one or two previews for horror films involving puppets and dolls. Cynthia couldn't help but smirk—those were clearly trying to imitate Edward's earlier hit, Dead Silence.
She had to admit, these people were really quick to hop on a trend and ride the hype.
Then the lights dimmed, and the theater went completely dark. Accompanied by a powerful piece of music, the logo for Pokémon League Pictures appeared on the screen. Cynthia instinctively straightened her back.
Immediately after came the logo for Ghost Films Productions, followed by a long list of co-producing and investing companies. Only then did the actual movie begin.
The screen filled with the image of a spinning red ball, accompanied by the ominous ringing of a phone. The opening credits rolled as a series of people were shown making phone calls. Then the camera zoomed into a bustling city center, finally settling on a restaurant located on an upper floor.
Yumi was trying to light the stove. Each flick of the lighter produced only a clicking sound—no flame, just the dry rattle of the gas igniter.
At the same time, people at the party began discussing Yumi's psychological trauma. The screen suddenly flashed a sequence of fragmented and unsettling images. The strange noises that accompanied these flashes made people in the theater, Cynthia included, sit up straighter in their seats.
Then, as a man at the party described finding a woman's hand on his shoulder while he was showering, Yumi felt a hand on her own shoulder as well. Cynthia felt her excitement rising—this didn't feel like a mystery film at all. It was absolutely a horror movie.
The hand disappeared as it slid off her shoulder, and when Yumi turned, she saw her friend Yoko arriving at the party, dressed all in black. Upon asking, she learned that Yoko had just returned from attending a funeral.
Finding that inauspicious, Yumi and Yoko went to the restroom to change clothes. While changing, Yoko began describing the tragic condition in which her junior had died—drowned, the scene painfully gruesome. As she talked, the screen cut to flashbacks of the drowning scene.
Then, an eerie ringtone echoed through the bathroom. Cynthia shuddered—it was so realistic she could almost swear the sound came from right beside her. There was even some rustling among the audience members. She bit her lower lip—Edward's sound design had reached another level. It felt like the ringtone was truly playing right there in the theater.
Yumi looked up and saw it was Yoko's phone. The screen showed the time. When Yoko came out of the stall, she saw a missed call that had turned into a voicemail. Curious, she played her own voicemail to listen to the message.
"It's going to rain soon…"
The timestamp on the voicemail showed a time two days in the future—11 PM. And the number it had been dialed from? Her own. The voice in the message was hers.
Despite how strange it was, no one gave it much thought. After some laughter and conversation, the party ended, and the scene shifted to a classroom.
A professor was explaining how abused children tend to bully those weaker than themselves. Yoko, meanwhile, was texting her boyfriend. But from her messages, it was clear she didn't really like him. She was planning to move on to someone named Kenji.
Lost in her thoughts, Yoko was called on by the professor. With the help of her classmates, she managed to answer the question. Once class ended, she rushed off to her part-time job.
Soon after, Yumi received a phone call from Yoko while at home. By this time, it was already close to the timestamp from the voicemail earlier. Yumi noticed the time and warned Yoko, but the signal on Yoko's end was terrible.
At that moment, a raindrop landed on Yoko's hand. She looked up at the sky.
"It's going to rain soon…"
Just as she uttered that phrase—matching the eerie voicemail—an unsettling clicking sound came from behind her. Yoko turned around, screamed at the top of her lungs, and stumbled backward onto a chain-link fence that had already begun to give way from earlier damage. She broke through the fence and fell, slamming down onto the speeding train below.
On the screen, a severed hand was shown pressing the phone's call button. Cynthia clutched her chest, feeling her heartbeat pounding against her ribs, and took a deep breath.
Director Edward's film—this was definitely not a mystery movie. This was undeniably a horror film through and through.
Yumi then attended Yoko's funeral and encountered the man who had appeared earlier in the film. He was trying to pry open the mouth of a corpse to check something when he was stopped. Through a bystander's conversation, the terrifying rules behind One Missed Call were revealed.
If you receive a call from your own number and hear a message from the future… you will die.
And Yoko wasn't the first.
Cynthia instinctively touched the pocket where her phone was and hesitated. Then she decisively turned it off.
(End of Chapter)