The theater lights stayed dim as the credits faded. The last line of text dissolved into darkness—then, a flicker of static.
A metallic clank echoed through the speakers, and the faint hum of machinery filled the room.
A line of white text appeared on the screen:
"SCP Foundation – Containment Log #7853."
The audience leaned forward.
A voice began to speak—cold, professional, sterile.
"Case number SCP4-7853 is a human male subject. Outwardly, the subject appears normal. However, physiological analysis indicates that he neither consumes oxygen nor produces carbon dioxide during respiration."
The voice continued over the visuals—a dimly lit, metallic chamber.
The camera slowly panned across reinforced alloy walls lined with hexagonal glass panels.
Cold LED strips flickered above, casting the kind of white light that drains all color from life.
The place looked more like a surgical room than a research lab.
"The subject was equipped with a real-time air quality monitoring system. Inside a sealed experimental chamber of five cubic meters, after seventy-two hours of continuous respiration, the oxygen level remained at 20.8%, and the carbon dioxide level stayed at 0.04%, consistent with the composition of outside air."
The narration was calm, yet it carried a mechanical eeriness.
Inside the chamber sat Paul—the protagonist from Buried.
His once rugged, dirt-streaked face was now pale and clean.
Electrodes were attached to his temples, his chest gently rising and falling in rhythm.
His eyes were open, but blank.
"A precision mass sensor was installed inside the chamber. The subject's breathing caused no measurable change in mass, within a margin of ±0.001 grams."
"Infrared spectroscopy analysis revealed no gas exchange in the lungs of Subject 7853. Yet the subject reports a normal breathing sensation. Theoretically, the gas he inhales may originate from a non-local spatiotemporal source."
"Subject 7853's blood oxygen levels remain fully saturated. No carbonic anhydrase activity is detected in his metabolic byproducts. According to the phone recording the subject seem to have 'air automatically fills his lungs,' though aside from the recording we can't denies any other extraordinary sensations…"
The audience was silent.
The only sound was the hum of the projector and the low-frequency pulse of a monitoring machine on screen.
Three figures in bright orange protective suits stood behind a glass wall, observing Paul through surveillance monitors.
Their voices, muffled by respirators, drifted through the control room.
"Vital signs stable. Respiration unchanged," said one.
Another scribbled notes into a tablet. "It's remarkable. No oxygen exchange, yet no hypoxia symptoms. He's either defying biology—or physics itself."
The oldest of the three, his face visible behind a fogged visor, sighed. "Unfortunately, based on current data, he's not a containment object. Just an infected individual."
The term infected hung in the air like a bad omen.
In the SCP Foundation's classification, "infected" referred to individuals altered by exposure to anomalous entities.
They inherited fragments of impossible properties—echoes of reality distortion—but were still fundamentally human.
They could be studied, even terminated, unlike true containment objects.
The senior researcher continued, "Containment objects are absolute—they cannot be destroyed, only contained. They exist beyond natural law. This subject… he's still mortal."
Another researcher leaned toward the glass, staring at Paul. "But the infection source—where did it come from?"
The camera shifted to a close-up of Paul's face.
His eyes twitched, as if half-aware of the scientists watching him. His fingers moved slightly, restless.
"The Foundation exists for this," the narrator resumed. "Secure. Contain. Protect. The anomalous must be preserved from humanity—and humanity must be preserved from it."
The words echoed through the theater, sharp and clinical.
Through snippets of surveillance footage, the audience pieced together what had happened: a flashback montage played silently—armed men in black tactical gear digging through desert sand, the glow of floodlights, a coffin being lifted from the earth.
It turned out Paul had been rescued after all.
The Foundation had intercepted a military distress signal from the war zone, and an elite recovery team extracted him from beneath the sand.
The camera lingered on the moment they pried open the coffin lid: Paul's face pale, eyes open, chest still moving.
The theater gasped softly.
It was then that the audience realized the hidden brilliance behind Jihoon's filmmaking.
All the strange inconsistencies from Buried suddenly made sense—the oxygen that never seemed to run out, the lighter that burned endlessly without suffocating him, the way his voice never weakened even after hours underground.
Before this post-credit scene, everyone had dismissed those details as artistic exaggeration.
But now, in hindsight, it was all intentional.
Jihoon had planted the clues early on—tiny breadcrumbs that pointed toward a deeper mystery.
Paul wasn't surviving by luck.
He was surviving because he was no longer… entirely human.
An infection had changed him, granting him an impossible physiology. He breathed—but not air.
He lived—but not as life understands it.
The audience sat frozen, caught between awe and dread.
One of the researchers on screen muttered, "It's unnatural. Oxygen sustains combustion, yet his lighter still burns perfectly without consuming any."
"Maybe his presence creates a self-sustaining field," another suggested. "A recursive loop of molecular regeneration."
The older scientist shook his head. "That's not science. That's something else entirely."
A pause lingered—heavy, uncertain.
Then one voice cut through. "He's not dangerous, right?"
The old man didn't respond immediately. He glanced at the monitoring screen where Paul sat motionless, his breathing steady and silent.
"No," he said at last. "But the containment object that infected him… might still be out there."
The tension in the theater deepened.
Jihoon's cinematic language had always favored suggestion over revelation, and this scene was no exception.
He made the audience fill the gaps themselves—using science as poetry and silence as fear.
Then, a faint vibration trembled through the lab.
A low rumble.
The three scientists exchanged glances.
"What was that?"
"Seismic activity?"
"No registered tremors in this sector."
The older man's brow furrowed. "Something's wrong."
A red alarm light flashed above the control panel, bathing the sterile room in crimson pulses.
A distorted voice blared through the intercom:
"Containment breach detected. Sector C-14. Unknown entity approaching."
The theater speakers exploded with static and deep bass vibrations.
The screen shook. The audience instinctively held their breath.
Inside the film, the ground of the facility began to quake violently.
Dust rained from the ceiling. The metal walls groaned.
Jihoon's use of sound design was masterful—the low subsonic tremors, the distant metal shrieks, the pulsing alarm. Even without CGI explosions, the scene felt real.
"Evacuate now!" one of the researchers shouted.
Armed security forces stormed into the corridor, their helmets reflecting the red warning lights.
They carried containment rifles—sleek, black devices that looked somewhere between tasers and railguns.
But the shaking only intensified.
"Seal the lab!"
"Negative! We have personnel inside!"
Suddenly, all the lights went out. The entire room plunged into darkness.
Only the glow from the observation glass illuminated the scene—Paul's chamber, still faintly lit from within.
And inside, Paul was standing.
His eyes were open now, fully awake, pupils glowing faintly like dying embers.
The researchers froze.
"Subject movement detected," one whispered.
Paul lifted his head slowly.
His lips parted—but when he spoke, the voice that came out wasn't his own.
"Finally found you all."
The words reverberated through the speakers, distorted, layered—as if multiple voices spoke in unison.
"Finally… I can make you feel my pain."
The old scientist's face went pale. "No… that voice… It can't be—"
He slammed his hand on the console. "Subject 9527?! How could you still be alive?"
The camera zoomed in on Paul's expression—half human, half something else.
His veins pulsed faintly with light, spreading from his chest outward like cracks in glass.
"Containment object detected in proximity!" shouted a guard. "It's breaching through Sector D!"
"Impossible!"
An earsplitting metallic shriek echoed through the facility, followed by a flash of white light that filled the screen.
The image distorted, flickered, and then stabilized—revealing the control room in chaos. Papers scattered.
Equipment toppled.
A wall of reinforced glass splintered like sugar.
The audience barely had time to process it before the camera swung toward the shattered containment chamber—empty.
Paul was gone.
One of the surviving researchers stumbled backward, gasping. "He's—he's merged with it. The containment field's collapsing!"
"Evacuate!"
The video feed turned grainy, filled with static. A final voice transmission broke through the noise.
"All personnel, fall back! SCP4-7853 has—"
The feed cut abruptly.
The sound died.
The screen went black.
Silence.
For a few seconds, no one in the theater moved.
It was as if everyone collectively forgot to breathe—ironically mirroring Paul's own condition.