Koji Suzuki‘s Birthday is a collection of short stories based on the popular Japanese horror series, Ringu.
One of the stories, “Happy Birthday,” centers around a fictional plane of virtual existence called The Loop, formed by a group of supercomputers that have been programmed to mirror the exact conditions of the real world in order to better understand life on Earth. (Sort of like The Matrix, except Suzuki thought of the idea first.)
In the Loop, as seen in the movie Ringu/The Ring, a virus breaks out after antagonist Sadako defies the laws of science and projects her vengeful spirit onto a VHS tape which, when viewed, causes the viewer to die in 7 days after watching the tape–unless the viewer shows the videotape to someone else. After the media finds out about the cursed tape, the public launches into mass hysteria, frantically duplicating the tape and forcing friends and loved ones to watch it immediately to avoid death.
After a while, the tape’s power mutates and strengthens enough that, if an ovulating woman views the tape, she immediately becomes impregnated with the DNA of Sadako. Soon hundreds of Sadakos are born and run rampant, quickly turning the population into an overcrowded sea of hermaphroditic, self-replicating Sadakos. Society itself begins to break down, and humankind is brought to a hellish end.
Here now is the video for Nicole Scherzinger‘s “Boomerang.”
God help us all.