Hollywood: The Greatest Showman

Chapter 165: Choking breath

The woman in the video is called Pamela Rutti, she is Paul's colleague, and the mother of two children, who were also in the convoy attacked today. Now, it appears she's being held hostage at another location by the kidnappers. The kidnappers demand that if Paul doesn't record a kidnapping video, they will immediately tear up the ticket.

Chanel was stunned, her muscles frozen, unable to move, even her soul seemed frozen as ice. The shock and fear bursting from deep within choked her throat, leaving her voiceless — this performance was reminiscent of Renly's audition at the youth hostel, filled with despair in panic, fear mixed with determination. That unwavering resolve pierced through the big screen like a sharp blade, descending from above, leaving Chanel completely stunned.

Compared to her performance at the youth hostel, the one on the big screen was even more shocking, more frantic, and more real. Amidst the interplay of light and shadow, those deep brown eyes firmly grasped all attention. Even the sound of breathing seemed to vanish completely, and Chanel could vividly taste the blood between her lips, bursting forth in torrents.

It was over, everything was over. Watching Paul's face pressed against the coffin floor, a mocking smile on his lips but the sparkle in his eyes already gone. Gavin knew, everything was over. The fear entwining around his ankles had now climbed up to his chest. The warmth of his heart and the rise and fall of his lungs seemed to slow down, yet he remained motionless, powerless to stop what was happening.

When the big screen plunged into darkness again, the entire auditorium fell silent. Twenty-five seconds of darkness, yet it didn't provoke any dissatisfaction or impatience. Everyone sat quietly, then widened their eyes, trying to find even the slightest hint of light in that unfathomable darkness, even if it was just the glimmer in Paul's eyes.

The pace of the movie seemed to suddenly stagnate, and the audience's brains began to turn again. But just then, a green fluorescent stick tore through the darkness, illuminating, and then Paul looked at his feet in horror, his breath trembling slightly, but his muscles tense to the extreme.

"Ah!" Looking down through the lens, many people in the auditorium exclaimed in shock, even those with strong nerves were startled. A snake! A snake had crawled into the coffin, although its species couldn't be discerned in the dim light, snakes in the desert were deadly, especially rattlesnakes. In such a narrow space, any slight movement would immediately end the movie.

The cries of alarm, involuntary, began to make the scalp tingle, goosebumps crawling all over the body.

In his panic, Paul held his breath, opened the small flask, and sprinkled the remaining alcohol towards the direction where the snake coiled, then carefully lit the lighter, locking eyes with the snake. At the critical moment, as the flame from the lighter burst, igniting the remaining alcohol on Paul's hand, he instinctively threw the lighter away and quickly leaned his legs backward, inadvertently kicking the phone away.

At that moment, the phone began to vibrate. The flickering light looked incredibly dim in the blaze, but the snake, undamaged, crossed the line of alcohol and crawled towards Paul.

Chanel bit her lip tightly, almost unable to cry out, holding her breath, watching the big screen as the snake changed direction at the last moment, crawled past the phone, and slipped into the sand outside through a gap.

But the crisis was far from over. The phone continued to vibrate incessantly, like a death knell, one after another. Paul's peripheral vision kept glancing at the phone, but his actions quickly covered the gap with his jacket. In a sudden brake, the flask spilled, and the alcohol flowed out without a stop. Meanwhile, the phone kept ringing; it seemed that the moment it stopped would be the moment Paul's life ended.

After finally blocking the gap, Chanel realized — on one side was the fire, on the other was the phone, and Paul was at the other end of the coffin, unable to reach! So, Paul curled up again, trying to replicate the turnaround just now. His head, neck, and spine were strained to the extreme, as if any more force would cause him to collapse. After a breathless moment of pause, Paul finally completed the turn again, but before his hand could reach out, the phone stopped vibrating. Meanwhile, the alcohol that had leaked out was getting closer to the fire, even the fluorescent stick was melting. It seemed that the coffin would ignite in the next second, burning Paul alive.

Chanel wanted to close her eyes, almost unable to bear it. Beside her, Tessa was completely curled up in her arms, refusing to watch. But Chanel forced herself to keep her eyes wide open, unwilling to miss any detail. Just as the alcohol was about to touch the flame, Paul, in a moment of quick thinking, pushed sand over, not only blocking the alcohol but also extinguishing the flames.

Chanel could hardly catch her breath. Before she realized it, her dry throat began to vomit, her stomach tense with spasms. The suffocating sensation of drowning made her lungs burn fiercely.

After barely surviving the crisis, the atmosphere seemed to ease slightly. Paul absentmindedly picked up the phone and inadvertently found the option to change the language, successfully switching from Arabic to English. He then found the phone number for this device. He was overcome with joy, immediately calling Linda. However, it was still the voicemail. Nobody answered. To make matters worse, the cellphone had only one bar of battery left.

Just then, the kidnappers sent a second video of them executing Pamela on the spot because their demands were not answered by the government. With the image of her brain exploding before his eyes, Paul's panic raged and he began to vomit frantically, but there was nothing left in his stomach, only a large amount of stomach acid and spit. The fear of death had touched the skin.

Amidst his despair, Mark White was Paul's only hope—a man who had once been kidnapped and then rescued.

Paul dialed Dan's number. Dan immediately reprimanded Paul for making the kidnapping video. With over forty thousand views on YouTube, the kidnappers were cornered with no choice. But Paul no longer cared. "I found the number for this phone, but you didn't. Why?" Faced with Paul's question, Dan had no answer. "I don't know." That was his only response to Paul's questions.

At that moment, sounds of battle came from outside the coffin, and Paul realized that the team searching for him was likely nearby, reigniting a glimmer of hope. But before they could continue the conversation, an explosion rocked the coffin, as if the military and the kidnappers were engaged in direct conflict.

But Paul had no time to rejoice because the coffin lid broke, and sand poured down like a waterfall, seemingly ready to bury him completely in no time. Paul took out the jacket that had been blocking the gap and tried to cover the hole above his head, but this makeshift action seemed to have little effect. In this moment of crisis, the phone started vibrating again, and Paul, as if grasping a lifeline, answered the call.

The voice on the other end of the phone was calm and polite, Alan Davenport, the company's personnel manager.

Gavin felt the chill, bone-chilling cold, as if the warmth in his chest had begun to disappear. The tide of fear had risen to his neck, leaving only his brain able to function. At the critical moment, at the moment of life and death, at the moment of peril, Alan called, suspecting Paul and Pamela's affair and fired Paul, not only cutting off Paul's lifeline but also cutting off any inheritance Paul might have left — if Paul died here, his wife and family would not receive any compensation.

The coldness of large corporations, government entities—their sheer mechanical nature—instilled an unsettling dread. Confronted with a life hanging by a thread, their considerations revolved around minimizing economic losses. There was no trace of humanity left.

As Paul weakly hung up the phone, the entire auditorium fell silent. The drowning sensation made despair engulf them. Even the strength to resist seemed to be non-existent, replaced by a sense of utter helplessness and numbness.

Once again, the coffin lid couldn't hold, sand leaking through, and Dan called. He confirmed that the military had wiped out all the kidnappers using bombing. "Do they know I'm here? Do they care?" This was Paul's only question because with the kidnappers dead, no one would know where he was buried. In the vast desert, finding one person was impossible. "It's all over, right?"

"No," Dan had no words to refute, but subconsciously countered, only to say afterward, "Yes."

After hanging up the phone, Paul opened the phone again, recording a video as a testament, leaving everything to his wife Linda and son Sean. "I love you, Sean." This was his last trace in the world. Sand fell sparsely like a waterfall, slowly burying him. Paul's face began to blur, leaving only his jovial words echoing in the dim light.

Tessa bit her lower lip, sobbing, even as she tried, tears continued to fall. Watching Paul, who lit the lighter and placed it on his chest, quietly watching the flames being gradually buried under the gravel, calm and serene, as if the world had finally quieted down. The sound of sand falling continuously filled her ears, tranquil yet magnificent.

Tessa forcefully covered her mouth, over and over again, hope's extinguishment had cut off all of Paul's courage, and then, it ended like this, as if choking her throat, cutting off her breath.