Scratch.0

Miso pressed her nails into the table while lying forward across it, and began to scrape at the surface. 0

The scraping sound echoed like something from a hundred years ago. Miso's face twisted in pain as she clawed at the table like Illyeong trapped in a narrow barrel, begging to live. I knew she was wearing artificial nails, yet the way she immersed herself in the role made my body tense without warning.0

I took a short, steadying breath to calm my racing heart and forced myself to keep watching her performance. Her nails kept raking across the wood. The sharp friction filled the reading room, and every actor and staff member grimaced as if sharing her suffering.0

Then Miso slowly lifted her head. Her eyes had rolled upward until only the whites showed. Her body curled in on itself, as if illustrating that cramped confinement. With her mouth half open, she wheezed shallow breaths and stared blankly into the air. Tears streamed down her face.0

『Help… me… please…』0

The faint sound, like something squeezed out at the edge of death, tightened around my heart. Even Yoo-Jin, who had told me to hold myself together, gripped my arm before she realized it. The sting barely registered because my chest hurt far more.0

『Is… no one… there…?』0

The weaker her cries grew, the more the actors' faces twisted with pain. The child actors who would appear in the island scenes covered their ears, terrified. A few adults even held the trembling children in their arms...0