Chapter 32: Something Really Seems Off
Monkey hid alone on the second-floor landing, constantly alert to his surroundings. He stood in a corner where he could see both the third-floor and second-floor stairwells. No matter which direction the killer came from, he could escape as quickly as possible.
The lighting in the scene seemed dimmer. In the pitch-black corridor, the eerie background music made his heart race. Monkey pinched himself hard, then took a deep breath. As a medical student, he knew that mild pain and sufficient oxygen could help someone calm down quickly.
"The timing of the monster's appearance is off. Old Zhao had just discovered that there was an eighth person among us, and the monster charged right away. That can't be a coincidence," he replayed everything that had just happened in his mind. "After Old Zhao found the extra person, everyone panicked. If Brother Feng had pulled out his phone at that moment and looked at everyone's face, we would have found the eighth person. We missed the first chance. When the monster charged, if everyone had stayed put and not been scared into running, we wouldn't have been scattered. We missed the second chance."
Monkey sighed softly. "Even though everyone was terrified when the monster charged, they wouldn't have run away. It all started because of the first person who ran. He set it off, disrupting our thinking. If I'm not mistaken, the first person to run was the extra one. I heard Xiaohui scream earlier—she was the second to run, and she was closest to that person. That also indirectly proves my guess is right."
A bitter smile crossed his face. Figuring it out was one thing; not being scared was another. Hiding alone in such a sinister, terrifying environment made his back feel cold. "The monster and the extra eighth person are working together, using the psychology of deserters and herd mentality to spread fear, scatter us, and then pick us off one by one. Just to scare people, do they really have to resort to strategic tactics?"
Monkey was smart, but he was also a coward. At school, he never dared to enter the lab alone. "I need to tell Brother Feng and the others about this right away, then regroup with them."
He took out his phone. The faint glow of the screen lit up behind him, and he suddenly shuddered. "How did this doll end up on the stairs? Didn't I throw it on the third-floor hallway?"
Afraid of attracting the monster, Monkey didn't turn on the flashlight. He increased the screen brightness and aimed it at the wall, where a tattered doll lay flat on the ground.
"Did someone accidentally kick it down the stairs while running?" After thinking it over, that was the only explanation he could come up with. The doll had a note stuffed inside its body and no mechanical parts—there was no way it could be remotely controlled. "It's pretty creepy."
Aside from being worn out, the doll wasn't particularly terrifying, but looking at it too long gave him a strange feeling, as if it were alive.
Monkey himself found it absurd. Staring at the doll on the floor, he felt it wasn't a toy but a pitiful, slightly aggrieved little girl.
"It must be an illusion. I need to stay away from this thing. Playing in a haunted house is starting to mess with my head." Monkey dialed Brother Feng's number, and a phone rang on the third-floor hallway.
"Is he on the third floor? Or did he drop his phone like Old Zhao?"
The ringing in the haunted house made it even more terrifying.
Monkey didn't hang up. He put the phone in his pocket and quietly crept to the third floor. Hiding at the stairwell entrance, he looked inside and saw Brother Feng's phone lying on the hallway floor.
"Both Old Zhao and Brother Feng don't have their phones. I'll have to try someone else." Standing alone at the third-floor stairwell, Monkey stared at the empty corridor and the doors on both sides swinging open and shut in the wind, his legs trembling with fear.
He frantically scrolled through his phone, searching for others' numbers, but just then, his phone vibrated and suddenly rang.
"Damn! What the hell!" He looked down. Someone was calling him. "Shi Ling? What does she want? Is she alone too?"
In front of girls, Monkey always acted fearless—a common trait among most hot-blooded young men. "Shi Ling, did you get separated from everyone? Where are you? I'll come find you."
"I'm locked in a room on the third floor. I didn't see the room number clearly. Come quickly—this room isn't right!" Shi Ling was usually a quiet girl, but now her voice was urgent, on the verge of tears. He had no idea what she had encountered.
"Slow down. How did you get locked in? The single rooms on both sides of the hallway shouldn't be lockable, right?" Monkey said as he walked down the corridor, trying to pinpoint her location by sound.
"I don't know either. I hid in here and closed the door, but now I can't open it! And this room is different from the others—there are two dolls sitting side by side in the middle of it!"
"Sitting?!" The mention of dolls made Monkey's hair stand on end. He knew all too well how eerie the dolls in this haunted house were.
"Hurry up!" Shi Ling's voice grew sharper, as if she was on the verge of losing control.
"Right away! Stay away from those dolls first. Do what He Shan said earlier—don't touch anything in the room. I suspect the dolls..." Monkey stopped mid-sentence, staring blankly at the spot in front of him. Half a meter from his toes, a doll lay flat on the ground.
He barely resisted the urge to smash his phone as he moved closer to the doll.
"Long hair, a pained and guilty expression. It looks different from the one on the stairs—more mature, I think." After saying this, Monkey's eyes widened. "What the hell? Why can I analyze so much from a doll? Am I hallucinating from fear, or is this doll just too realistic? I feel like they're alive, with their own emotions."
"This isn't the time to think about that. As long as this doll is different from the one on the stairs, at least it means these dolls can't move on their own. Things haven't gotten to the worst point yet. My priority now is to save Shi Ling." Shaking his head, Monkey tried to psych himself up. "I'm just scaring myself. If the doll from the stairs had followed me, how could it be in front of me? It should be behind me. This is just the haunted house owner's trick—no need to be afraid."
After saying that, he nervously glanced behind him. "See? No need to..."
Monkey's gaze froze on a spot a meter behind him. The rest of his sentence died in his throat, because there, lying quietly, was another doll.