Li Sansi was a director. He had loved films and filming since childhood, and had once been endlessly curious about how such a tiny device could preserve the world's light and shadows.
After looking through a wealth of material, he became deeply fascinated by one particular optical device.
The camera obscura, also known as a dark box, was a device that held photosensitive film in a camera. Its construction was completely lightproof, allowing images to be projected onto a screen.
The earliest cameras were simply sealed boxes with a small hole. The scenery outside passed through that hole, forming an image on the inner wall of the pitch-black box, upside down and reversed from left to right.
As a child, Li Sansi had wondered naively, Wasn't each of us a camera obscura? Our two eyes were the holes in a sealed box. Through them, we recorded phantom images of the world and saw an inverted, reversed truth.
Or was what we saw the very world the adults spoke of?
The camera obscura separated light from darkness. It was a form of observation bound by limitations.
Or, taking that thought a step further, this city shrouded in darkness was also a camera obscura. In absolute darkness, people perceived through those tiny holes.
Memories churned through Gao Ming's mind as two different scenes alternated in his vision.
He stepped on the concrete floor and reached for the handrail, but the moment his palm came down, he grasped an arm covered in livor mortis.
He drew his arm back. The apartment light overhead flickered faintly. The instant it lit up, an enormous eye slowly opened. Once it went dark, dust drifted down from the mottled ceiling.
Pharmaceutical Factory workers who had died horrific deaths surged toward him like a tide. He shook his