CH 12

The horrifying disappearance of five students from the local university was no minor incident.

Thus, after the school authorities reported it to the police, it took less than ten minutes for two patrol cars to show up, sirens blaring.

A few smartly-dressed officers stepped out from the first car followed by three youths from the second, who were dressed very differently. The youths were in casual attire, and the one in the lead even sported a faint tattoo on their left arm.

"Are these officials specially designated to handle such incidents, I wonder...? Do they have superpowers or something?"

Bai Zhi was casually leaning on a railing some distance away, watching the events unfold. He chewed a piece of gum as he ruminated on his observations.

The mysterious disappearances had put everyone on edge. Since it happened so close to home, most students could not focus on school and had left the campus early. Bai Zhi was in the minority who stayed behind out of some morbid feeling.

People were wising up to the rumors now. The proliferation of urban legends—more like real sightings, considering the recent events—had been heavily restricted before, thanks to governmental intervention, but such news always found a way to sneak past the system. Now, they circulated with increasing vigor in major communities on social media.

Everyone behaved like mice talking about belling the cat. They were keen to follow the news and theorize all day, but not a single one of them wished to encounter such entities themselves.

"Far be it from me to meddle, I better leave this to the professionals..." Bai Zhi memorized the faces and notable features of the three youths, then stuffed his hands into his jacket pockets as he walked away.

But no sooner had he turned the corner than a small figure rushed out and bumped into him before he could react, falling backward from the force of the collision.

"!!"

As he identified the person who had bumped into him, Bai Zhi's pupils shrank and his face paled.

"Hoho, you escaped my clutches twice before, but I've got you now, haven't I?" The little boy raised his head, revealing a brilliant, yet creepy smile. In his left hand was a dark, squirming thing, and he raised it triumphantly.

"Hey, that's my sha—!"

Before he could finish the sentence, Bai Zhi's vision suddenly faded into darkness. When the darkness eventually lifted, he was startled to find that he had been teleported to a corridor lined by doors on either side. Before he could fully assess his situation, his ears were assaulted by the sound of a piercing shriek.

Bai Zhi turned to look behind him. "Well, that escalated quickly," he said with a wry smile.

He seemed to be in an abandoned school building. The ground was littered with shredded test papers and wood chips, and the doors on either side of the corridor seemed to open into classrooms.

A dim light above him flickered on and off, and the weak illumination left everything beyond an arms' length shrouded in pitch-black darkness for about ten meters, where there was another light. A little distance beyond that, the corridor seemed to turn, forming a corner.

The scream he had just heard had seemed to come from that very corner.

"Picked on by two supernatural entities in as many days... Damn, my luck's been shitty ever since I transmigrated," Bai Zhi lamented.

Making full use of what light came from the bulb above him, he hunted around for something to defend himself with, like the leg of a table, or a stool.

All fear stems from the fear of the unknown, but Bai Zhi was someone who reacted to the unknown with excitement instead. No matter what had made that shrieking noise behind him, he was sure that a solid whack with a club would take care of it.

Sadly, no matter where he looked, all he found were scraps of paper and splinters of wood. After a completely futile attempt to piece together the papers for some clues, Bai Zhi threw his hands up in resignation.

It had been two minutes since he was attacked by the supernatural entity—disguised as a little boy—and brought into this mysterious space. In that time, he had accomplished nothing except a thorough search of his immediate surroundings.

He did not hear that initial shriek a second time, and all around him was unbroken silence. However, the light above his head had begun to dim significantly, and it stayed on for less and less time.

That was his only immediate source of light, and he knew that once it went out, his surroundings would be plunged into darkness. It was not hard to imagine the terrible fate that lay in store for him once he lost the safety of the light.

"Looks like some kind of school building, but it looks neglected..."

Muttering to himself, Bai Zhi chose to venture into the darkness and check out the nearest classroom door. There was no lock on the rusty metal door, and at his touch, it swung open slowly with an unpleasant, drawn-out screech.

"Hmm... Can't see a thing, as expected," Bai Zhi commented unhappily as he peered inside.

Poking around abandoned classrooms in the dark under bizarre circumstances would give anyone the heebie-jeebies, even strong men with balls of steel.

After all, nothing is scarier than the unknown. There was no way of knowing what lay hidden in the room, and everything that could be seen in the surroundings only heightened the tension.

Not that it mattered to Bai Zhi.

"So far, this appears to be a sort of Battle Royale-type situation. Standing somewhere well-lit might seem safe… but I was sent here when that thing got hold of my shadow, so who knows—anything to do with shadows in this place could be deadly," Bai Zhi thought out loud. "There are rules to every game, even supernatural ones. Somewhere in one of the darkened classrooms has to be a clue, some key to getting out of this prison..."

He made his way from the back of the classroom to the front in the dark, running his hands blindly along each table as he went. He was keen to check the drawers, but did not neglect the tabletops.

"The five missing students must have been sent here when that thing caught them unawares and stepped on their shadows. If they're still alive, it could mean safety in numbers if I could rendezvous with them while we wait for someone to get us out..."

At the third table, his fingers brushed up against something decidedly icy.

"Hmm... it's about the size of my palm, feels cold... and it's got five fing—uhh..."