What's going on? What the hell is happening?!
Everything had spiraled far beyond their expectations.
Each blow on the door was heavier than the last, accompanied by those flat, emotionless shouts of "open the door" and the violent quaking of the corridor—along with the dizziness spreading from the center of their brains. All of it collided in a chaotic symphony like a twisted, maddening piece of music.
Kai knew panicking in a crisis wouldn't help anything.
Flailing around wouldn't make the enemy slow down. It wouldn't delay a crisis. There was no pause button in real life. The faster he calmed down, the better his chances of figuring out a way through this.
But what now?
The most useful experience he had from his past was standing up for a bullied classmate in school—swinging a poop-smeared mop at five punks, which earned him the nickname "Poop Stick Sage." No one had ever taught him how to deal with something like this: a logic-defying paranormal encounter, with an expired rule sheet from two years ago, no way to verify if the rules still worked, and no cheat codes like x-ray vision or invincibility. Even having two beautiful girls as teammates didn't magically give him more information.
Seriously, the rule sheet said don't respond, but who the hell knew the ghosts could interact with inner thoughts too?! Did the guy who wrote these rules just decide to leave out that crucial detail on purpose, or do the rules in this place mutate every day like some kind of evolving nightmare?
"Why… why are they knocking on the living room door?"
Maki had lost it. She stared in disbelief at the door behind them—the one between the hallway and the living room—that now had visible cracks and looked ready to collapse.
She couldn't understand.
Just seconds ago, those things had been pounding on the front door from outside the hallway. How could they now be inside the apartment, banging on the other side of the living room door?
None of her knowledge or life experience could explain this. Nothing offered a clear course of action.
Only now did this girl begin to truly understand what a [rule-based horror] really was.
Crack!
The wooden door split open.
Blood began seeping from the crack.
The smell of rot and iron filled the air.
It was as if the living room—the same room they'd just searched top to bottom—had turned into a slaughterhouse full of blood-soaked limbs.
[Open the door!]
The three voices now rang directly in their ears.
It was like three invisible people were standing right next to them, screaming in their faces.
Their vision blurred with the unnatural distortion in the air.
They could vaguely see three mangled figures squashed together behind the door, howling in agony and letting out shrill, tortured screams.
Boom!
The wooden door was warping beyond recognition. It would give way at any moment.
The hallway itself twisted like a funhouse mirror—distorted and grotesque.
And the three of them, collapsed on the floor, began to feel their own bodies twist along with it. Every cell, every patch of skin, every muscle and bone started to warp into something inhuman.
"What… the hell…"
Kaguya struggled to push herself up, but her body wouldn't cooperate.
Ever since those things outside started to transform, the three of them in the hallway had lost control of their limbs.
The world was warping into a hallucination. Their strength faded away.
The roar in their heads grew louder, a whirlwind of noise as if countless figures surrounded them from all sides.
It felt like the entire hallway was packed with people—people they couldn't see, couldn't hear, couldn't sense—forever wandering here, never able to rest.
"Ugh…"
Kaguya, the most sensitive of the three, collapsed with a pained whimper.
She was only 17, still just a girl. She'd never seen anything remotely this terrifying. Worse, she had spent time alone in the hallway before Kai and Maki came out, hearing the knocking by herself. The psychological impact hit her the hardest. Her body had nearly no strength left.
Even so, she instinctively clutched the wall clock—taken from the end of the hallway, the only clock in Room 208—and refused to let go.
"K… Kaguya…"
A barely audible voice whispered beside her.
Amid the screeching and howling, it felt like someone was breathing directly against her ear.
Suddenly, a hand reached out and grabbed the clock from her fingers.
Kaguya turned her head sharply—what she saw was Kai's face splitting open down the middle.
It was something that should never be seen in the real world.
She could clearly see Kai's face cracking like a book, his cheeks peeling open to the sides. Beneath the skin, his blood vessels were still pumping. His white brain tissue writhed faintly. His bisected tongue twisted and twitched. The torn muscles at the seams trembled violently. She could even see saliva dripping from the exposed tissues.
Was this… a hallucination?
She looked down. The fingers clutching the wall clock—her own—were peeling. The skin had sloughed off. Bright red muscle gleamed beneath.
She didn't feel pain.
But then again… maybe the pain was slowly becoming more real.
Once she noticed it.
Once she realized it.
Once she became aware of it…
The pain began to spread—growing sharper, crawling across her entire body.
"..."
She couldn't make a sound.
The hallway was deadly silent.
Not a word came from the girl's mouth.
She thought she could see herself becoming translucent.
Saw her body begin to tear apart, piece by piece, fragment by fragment.
The pain became clearer.
Her thoughts slowed.
Her mouth wouldn't move. She could only watch, helpless, as it all happened.
As she was gradually consumed by death.
Was this… really happening… in this hallway…?
Click—
But then she heard something.
Close. Very close.
She forced her gaze downward.
And she saw a severed hand.
A mangled arm, barely attached by shreds of skin to a nearly destroyed torso.
Two fingers.
Two fingers were gently turning the hands of the clock.
Click—
A crisp sound echoed in her ears.
The clock's hand shifted backward—by just half a notch.
"Ah—!"
Kaguya's eyes snapped open.
She sat bolt upright on the filthy, broken bed.
She turned her head and saw Takashina Kai lying beside her, panting heavily, sweat beading on his forehead.
There was no eerie knocking or disembodied voices.
No shattered bodies or dulled senses.
Everything felt like a surreal nightmare, and yet waking up still left them in the same starting place.
"What did you just do..."
Kaguya, having figured something out, still couldn't believe it and asked quietly.
"Each room's clock is absolutely accurate, isn't it?"
Takashina Kai slowly pushed himself up and glanced at the rules sheet on the bedside table, then at the doorless kitchen entrance. He stood with some effort, using the wall for support until he was stable.
He had turned the time back to the beginning.
Back to the moment he and Kaguya had just woken up in this room, when they first heard that creepy voice.
They were still in Room 204.
Everything that had just happened hadn't occurred yet.