After parking the car in the open space in front of the ranger’s cabin, Everly skillfully climbed in through the window, unlocked the tightly shut door from the inside, and entered the dust-covered cabin together with Misha.
In theory, since this location was part of a horror film that had already concluded, the cabin should have beco completely safe after the girls’ lingering spirits dissipated.
However, just to be cautious, Everly and Misha still inspected every room—including the basent—making sure there were no hidden dangers.
That search brought an unexpected surprise—there was a diesel generator in the storage room. The fuel tank was still more than half full, and it was fully functional!
After a bit of effort, they got the generator running and turned on the lights. The dim cabin imdiately brightened up, and even charging their phones and other electronic devices was no longer a problem.
Taking advantage of how remote the place was, they kept the lights on and thoroughly cleaned the living room and one bedroom. By dusk, having worked together to tidy up what would be their future residence, the two girls finally had so free ti and began preparing dinner in the kitchen with their newly purchased stove.
Worried that the water outside might be contaminated, they used bottled mineral water. Of course, considering that SSU had already spread into the United States for nearly half a year, even mineral water wasn’t guaranteed to be completely safe. So before cooking their instant noodles, they first poured the water into a pot and boiled it. Only after it had been bubbling vigorously for several minutes did they add the noodles, sausages, and other small ingredients.
Most parasites are afraid of high temperatures. Thoroughly cooking food and water at high heat before consuming it can greatly reduce the risk of infection.
After dinner and washing the dishes, the two of them turned on their phones and began catching up on the news online.
That afternoon, shortly after Gracie died in public on the field, police and dical personnel arrived at the scene and sent everyone—including Gracie’s body and all the injured who claid they had been attacked by white ribbons—to the hospital.
At present, the police are still investigating the cause of the incident and the true nature of the white ribbons, and are unable to disclose any details to the public. The hospital that admitted the patients has also gone into lockdown, refusing all interviews and visitations.
Although the police have revealed nothing, after an afternoon of rapid online spread, all kinds of speculation about Gracie’s death have already erged across the internet.
So suspect the video was made with special effects—a “fake news” stunt by a film company trying to attract attention. Others have proposed the old cliché of a cult sacrifice, believing that so evil force was backing Gracie with the goal of destroying the world. So are convinced that aliens had parasitized her body, intending to use her as a dium to invade Earth…
Of course, there are also more knowledgeable individuals who enlarged the white ribbon in the video countless tis, recognized that it resembled a tapeworm, and thus speculated that a tapeworm inside Gracie had mutated for so reason and crawled out to attack people.
From Everly’s perspective, this netizen’s guess was actually extrely close to the truth. Unfortunately, there are plenty of fools online—and even more who think they’re clever.
When people saw that “tapeworm theory,” most responded with “haha,” assuming the person was joking. So were more harsh—relying on a bit of biological knowledge, they pointed out differences between real-world tapeworms and the one in the video, and mocked the user relentlessly in the replies.
Everly had no intention of going online to reveal anything.
Based on experience, when sothing involves large corporations, it’s best not to get involved unless your own interests are directly affected. The power of capital is imnse—just a slight push, and the lever of fairness and justice tilts toward those in power. If a pharmaceutical company were to sue her for infringent or defamation over her online statents, wouldn’t she just be asking for trouble?
Besides, even if she revealed the truth, who would believe her? The last person who claid the white ribbons were mutated tapeworms had already been flad into silence—she had no desire to humiliate herself the sa way.
After looking for quite a while and finding nothing useful, Everly simply tossed her phone aside and sat down next to Misha. She watched as Misha patiently ssaged each of her close friends one by one, earnestly warning them to be careful about what they consud, to guard against parasites, and—if possible—to stock up on so black pills…
Out of concerns similar to Everly’s, Misha didn’t dare to be too explicit. As a result, most of her friends probably wouldn’t take her advice seriously. Still, there’s a difference between trying and doing nothing at all.
And not everyone dismissed her—after receiving Misha’s ssage, Orff imdiately replied with a “Got it,” and about ten minutes later ssaged again to say he had already ordered an electric kettle and a few black pills online, asking if Misha needed any.
This guy… he really gets it.
Thinking of Orff’s hidden identity, Everly’s eyes shifted as she suddenly ca up with a good idea.
She nudged Misha’s side with her elbow. “Hey, Misha—tell Orff to secretly look into the investigation progress on Gracie’s case, both from the police and from Rakucho Pharmaceuticals.”
“Got it.” Misha responded crisply, her fingers tapping rapidly on the screen.
Orff replied as quickly as ever: [Got it, I’ll get back to you in 20 minutes! (smiley face) (smiley face)]
In the end, it didn’t even take 20 minutes before Misha received confidential information Orff had obtained through illegal channels.
The police investigation was progressing rather slowly.
They had perford an autopsy on Gracie’s body and found that she was severely malnourished. Despite her young age, her body seed completely drained. In her intestines, the forensic team also discovered a dense mass of unhatched eggs.
The autopsy image was particularly disturbing. Inside the opened intestines were clusters of tiny white granules, packed together like grains of rice. They clung to every fold of the intestinal lining, smooth and glossy—just a single glance was enough to make one’s skin crawl.
After examining the eggs under a microscope, the forensic examiner concluded that they belonged to tapeworms. The white ribbon-like creatures that had burrowed into the bodies of people at the scene were also confird to be a mutated form of tapeworm.
However, where exactly these tapeworms ca from, and why they had taken up residence inside Gracie, remained unclear to the police.
Compared to the slow progress of the police, Rakucho Pharmaceuticals—the very source of the chaos—was able to provide more useful information.
After successfully launching its product in the United States, Rakucho Pharmaceuticals had established a branch there. As soon as Gracie’s video began spreading online, the branch quickly sensed that sothing was wrong and quietly initiated an internal investigation.
According to their findings, Gracie first ca into contact with SSU capsules at the end of December last year. From December through May of this year, she strictly followed the instructions, regularly purchasing and taking the pink capsules.
However, in early May, due to financial difficulties, Gracie briefly stopped taking the pink capsules. Later, after feeling unwell, she resud regular use—and in one go ordered 12 pink capsules and 1 white capsule from the official website.
—Yes, that’s right. The $2000 Misha lent to Gracie was not used to purchase the 10 pink capsules and 1 black capsule needed to complete the treatnt cycle for the month. Instead, it was spent on 12 pink capsules and an additional white capsule!
No one knows why Gracie did this. Perhaps her fear of gaining weight ran too deep. Perhaps she thought it didn’t matter if she skipped the black capsule that was ant to eliminate the “nanobots.” Or perhaps there was so other reason—but instead of buying the black capsule, she used the money to purchase a second white capsule.
So, without taking the black capsule to eliminate the parasites, she consud a second capsule containing eggs? Could this be the reason why so many mutated tapeworms suddenly erged from her body? But even so, there were far too many tapeworms inside her. Could others who had taken the white capsule be experiencing the sa thing?
With a head full of questions, Everly kept reading.
Gracie’s abnormal condition was clearly sothing even the pharmaceutical company itself hadn’t anticipated. After the situation was reported to the R&D departnt, the researchers requested samples of the eggs or tapeworms from Gracie’s body for detailed study. At present, the company’s managent was trying to contact the police and hospitals in Dalami City, planning to use certain ans to obtain research samples.
The information available within Rakucho Pharmaceuticals ended there—for more of the truth, they would have to wait until they got their hands on those samples.
Orff: [No wonder you told to watch out for parasites and stock up on black pills, Misha—you’re so kind and thoughtful!]
Orff: [(Thanks) (Thanks) (Thanks)]
Scrolling further, the rest was just Orff showering her with all kinds of praise and gratitude. Everly couldn’t stand to look at it anymore and quickly stuffed the phone back into Misha’s hands—out of sight, out of mind.
…
After spending the night in the cabin, Everly woke up the next day to shocking news—more people had died in the sa grueso way as Gracie, their bodies hollowed out by parasites.
This ti, the victims were those who had been infected by the tapeworms from Gracie the previous day—not just one, but six people.
A total of 29 injured individuals had been admitted to Dalami Central Hospital the day before. Among them, 11 had been hospitalized due to trampling, falls, and similar incidents, suffering only minor external injuries—they were treated and discharged shortly after. The remaining 18, however, had been parasitized by the mutated tapeworms that erged from Gracie and were placed in special wards.
Because there were too few doctors and not enough understanding of the mutated tapeworms’ behavior, there were concerns that administering dication or performing surgery might provoke the parasites and cause irreversible consequences. As a result, the 18 infected patients received no treatnt after being admitted and remained under observation.
By evening, the 18 patients showed two completely different conditions: 12 of them had only minor scratches in the esophagus and felt unusually hungry, but otherwise showed no abnormalities for the ti being. The other 6, however, began experiencing abdominal bloating and pain, with so suffering from persistent nausea and dry heaving.
Doctors conducted examinations on those six patients and concluded that the parasites inside them might not yet have adapted to the new environnt, which was causing the symptoms. They believed the condition would resolve on its own once the parasites adapted. So they gave the six patients painkillers, and after the patients fell asleep, no further action was taken.
During the night, nurses made several rounds of checks, going from room to room, and found nothing unusual.
But in the early hours of the morning, a piercing scream suddenly ca from one of the wards.
When the on-duty nurses and police officers outside heard the cry and rushed into the room, it was like a replay of what had happened on the field the previous afternoon. On the hospital bed, a patient was convulsing, eyes wide open, mouth stretched wide as she vomited blood in large amounts.
A mutated tapeworm as thick as a wrist was forcing her mouth open, wriggling its way out from her throat.
The lower half of the patient’s body had already soaked the thin bedsheet with blood. Beneath the blanket, aside from the outline of her legs, sothing else could be seen writhing beneath the fabric.
Clearly, it wasn’t just from her mouth—tapeworms were erging from another part of her body as well.
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