At 3:00 AM, Miwa Higurashi (Nana) was hard at work with her assistant, Kariya (Toshiya Miyata). Miwa worked as a video editing studio employee, specializing in adding special effects (CGI) to footage. Synthesizing futuristic buildings into empty landscapes, or making a single actor appear as two... As she worked, Miwa let out a surprised voice. Between the eaves of traditional houses in a cut where the lead actress walked through an old-fashioned townscape. In a dark, narrow gap that couldn't even be called an alley, a woman was standing. A staff member or extra must have accidentally wandered into the shot. That was what she initially thought. But something was wrong. Miwa zoomed in on the woman's face. The woman was screaming with her eyes and mouth wide open. In the gap between the buildings, a long-haired woman in a red dress was looking this way, opening her mouth as if shouting...
That wasn't all. When she went back a single frame, or advanced to the next, the woman was nowhere to be seen. The woman appeared for a mere 0.03 frames (which Kariya's dialogue noted was one-thousandth of a second). While Kariya the assistant found it eerie, Miwa took a great liking to this "0.03-frame woman." Struck by a mischievous idea, Miwa clacked away at the keyboard, increasing the number of frames the woman appeared in and emphasizing her screaming appearance. Now, even someone who wasn't a specialized technician could spot the woman. Kariya the assistant was appalled, asking, "Why are you making something we're supposed to erase easier to see?!", but Miwa just laughed. "Nobody cares. It's payback for always shoving unreasonable deadlines down our throats!"
The next morning, the video tape was delivered, but Miwa panicked when she was told to attend a screening session where the lead actress would also be present. "W-Why does a rookie like me have to go?" "It's a strong request from the top. That actress even meddles in the CGI." Feeling cold sweat on the inside, Miwa attended the screening sitting in the front row, right beside the lead actress. She panicked even more upon realizing that the video she had tampered with was turning into a much bigger hot topic than anticipated. Sure enough, the lead actress frowned with a "?" during the scene in question. After the screening ended, Miwa was handed the tape by the producer and told to "erase that woman in the red dress."
Fortunately, her intentional prank hadn't been exposed. Feeling somewhat relieved, Miwa returned to work, muttering, "You shouldn't do bad things," as she attempted to delete the woman. At that moment, the computer froze. As she tried to fix it, a news broadcast played from the TV nearby. The lead actress was talking with a newscaster about the movie. Lead Actress: "This work will be the culmination of my acting career..." While smiling and talking about her deep attachment to the drama, the actress suddenly clamped her mouth shut mid-interview. Then, casting her gaze blankly into space, she stood up abruptly and walked out of the studio, paying no mind to the bewildered host. What on earth? Miwa and Kariya stared at the TV. Later, when Miwa went out into the city, she received an unbelievable notice from her ringing cell phone. "Listen to me and stay calm... Your boss at work jumped in front of a train and died..."
It was her boss at the workplace, the very person who had first checked that tape. Until just a little while ago, he hadn't shown any signs of worrying about anything... The boss was shown walking as if drawn into a railroad crossing where the bells were clanging away. Left stunned with her phone in hand, Miwa shifted her gaze to the TV on the other side of a shopping district storefront, and grew even more horrified.
"Actress XX was rushed to the hospital, and her death has been confirmed..." The lead actress who had walked out of the studio during recording had apparently attempted suicide at home. She, too, had shown no strange behavior up until partway through the recording. In a panic, Miwa called her assistant Kariya to tell him, "The people who watched that video are dying one after another," but right in front of Kariya—who was at a gathering of drama staff—was a noose hanging from the ceiling... "Miwa-san, the drama director..." In front of Kariya, the staff members were lowering a hanged director down to the floor. A black bruise had formed around the director's neck, and it looked like it was already too late. That video. The people who saw the "0.03-frame woman" that Miwa had found, edited, and made into a long version, were dying one after another.
Returning to her workplace, Miwa shuddered at the sight of her female boss lingering in the dark room. "That video, it was really well made, you know." "Hh!?... You watched it?" Creepily smiling, the female boss said to the terrified Miwa, "Of course I watched it, it was before delivery," and walked over to the window before turning back. "That woman... what was she screaming?" The moment her eerie smile instantly turned deadpan, the female boss leaned out of the window and fell headfirst. It happened in an instant, before Miwa even had time to scream.
She didn't know the reason. Even so, the people who had watched that tape were dying one after another. Intuitively realizing this, Miwa rushed to the TV station where she had delivered the tape. Heading to the station with Kariya, Miwa learned that the tape was scheduled to be broadcast nationwide tomorrow as a memorial program for the deceased lead actress. That thing couldn't be broadcast nationwide! But the producer wouldn't listen. Producer: "A curse from the tape? If the people who saw it die, then why are you and I still alive?" They had put a fair amount of money and effort into the video; they couldn't just throw it away simply because the lead actress and director had died suddenly. They had to air it, even as a memorial broadcast, to recoup their losses...
Not giving up, Miwa and Kariya snuck into the tape storage room on their own, told the female attendant, "There's some noise, we need to process it," and forcibly checked out the tape. However, suspicious, the storage attendant inquired with the producer, and an enraged producer immediately gave chase. "...We're going to be completely erased from the industry for this." "This is no time to be saying that!" As the two ran down the TV station hallway, the producer came barreling after them, roaring, "WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING TO TOMORROW'S ON-AIR TAPE, YOU BASTARDS!!" When the producer blocked their path on the fire escape landing, Kariya tackled him to let Miwa escape. "Miwa-san, hurry!!" Miwa tried to escape in the opening. However, she heard a thud behind her. Miwa grabbed the railing of the fire escape, looked down below, and was struck with horror. Kariya and the producer had fallen and crashed onto the ground, dead...
The people who watched that video had died again. Miwa ran blindly back to her workplace, shook off the boss who tried to reprimand her after receiving a call from the TV station, rushed into the editing room, and locked the door. "Hey!! What do you think you're doing?!" Ignoring the boss banging furiously on the door, Miwa inserted the tape into the editing deck. With mounting anxiety, she fast-forwarded through the played footage until that woman finally appeared. "...Why!?" Clacking away at the computer keyboard, Miwa let out a voice of panic. "Why... why won't she disappear?!" Image processing wouldn't work. No matter how much she moved the cursor and tried to operate it, she couldn't erase that woman from the master tape. She wouldn't disappear. No matter what she did, she wouldn't vanish. Eventually, the woman's face zoomed in, her eyes and mouth like dark holes, surging straight toward this side.
"DON'T ERASE HER." *(Woman's image)*
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