CH 23

Having gained everyone’s attention, Dr Lu cleared his throat before continuing. “Let’s first ignore the surprise element of the murderer,” he said. “Without him, we would be in a puzzle-solving game with relatively low requirements for combat ability; the ghosts were pretty easy to deal with after we figured out their weakness-”

QiLeren narrowed his eyes sceptically. Dr Lu had been carried through practically every combat situation thus far.

“-which brings us to the topic of surviving till dawn. Sounds straightforward on paper but it actually required us to find out what exactly was going to occur and how to avoid it. Again, logical analysis – if we overlooked the earthquake in any capacity, we would’ve died for sure once the time was up anyway.

“Basically, what you needed to survive in this game was never strength but intellect. Even without someone like me with home advantage, it shouldn’t be too hard for fifteen normal players who don’t know about the earthquake to figure it out. The murderer was an anomaly, no? Everyone could’ve worked together to solve riddles, look for clues…”

“It’s such a shame…” QiLeren mumbled.

“Yeah,” Dr Lu agreed softly. “The earthquake should be easy enough for most players since every local would’ve at least heard of the one twenty years ago. Figuring that out would only be a matter of time, especially with the two foreshocks, which is why I’m not very surprised at the little trap they placed. Speaking from my years of experience from playing horror games, the real puzzle here was the time of the earthquake, not the earthquake itself.”

There was a very real possibility that, had they not worked out the time difference, they would be wandering around outside and looking for survivors only to be killed by the earthquake themselves. To lose their lives from such a small yet fatal detail would be nothing but utter despair.

XueYingying raised her question timidly. “So are we going to…you know, look for survivors…?”

“I’m not taking a single step outside of this shelter,” Dr Lu refuted immediately. He shook his head. “We’ve already done our part by notifying them of the danger.”

“But isn’t there still two more hours?”

“It’s not just the earthquake, the number of ghosts outside is increasing as well. Plus, what if we went outside and wasted a few hours on another goldfish incident? We’d be dead meat.”

“Oh…alright…” XueYingying conceded with a face full of guilt.

QiLeren frowned at the door. XueYingying was right; there was a lot of time left, and if there really were survivors waiting in the foyer who didn’t know about the time difference…

“I’ll go,” SuHe said as he stood up, cutting through the silence. “I’ll just leave a note – it’ll take no time at all.”

Dr Lu wanted to scream. “Did you really have to jinx yourself like that before leaving?! Why can’t you just go like a normal person?!”

SuHe couldn’t hold back his smile. “My bad,” he apologised insincerely. “Don’t worry though, the foyer is just a few minutes’ walk from here. I’m sure nothing bad will happen.”

His utter lack of self-awareness rendered Dr Lu speechless.

“It’s alright, I’ll go with you,” QiLeren decided. “It’ll be safer with two people.”

SuHe considered him for a moment before smiling. “In that case, I’d be glad to have you.”

Dr Lu and XueYingying bid them farewell with the air of parents watching their children leave to war. QiLeren glanced at the time – one fourteen.

Good. There was still time.

The hospital felt deader with the silence. Bright crimson splatters of blood left behind cut through the thick fog obscuring their vision, painting a scene of horror onto the pristine canvas it lay upon. The only sounds QiLeren could hear were of their footsteps and faint breathing, but each time he opened his mouth to speak he found himself at a loss of words. What could he say?

As they passed by a window, QiLeren glanced at SuHe’s reflection out of the corner of his eye; SuHe met his gaze and sent him a gentle smile.

Shivers danced down QiLeren’s spine. Unbidden memories of holding “SuHe’s” hand surfaced to the forefront of his mind, bringing with it the terror of discovering the true owner of the hand in his own. He wrenched his eyes away from the glass and trained it on the path ahead.

“Did I scare you?” SuHe’s soft, soothing voice washed softly over his companion.

“Erm…no…” QiLeren denied. He didn’t particularly want to admit his frightening train of thought.

A light chuckle. “I’m actually quite surprised when you said you wanted to come earlier,” SuHe mused.

“What do you mean?”

SuHe turned so their gazes intertwined, delicate features graced with the gentleness of a faint smile. “Did it ever occur to you that I might have ulterior motives before naively following me like this?”

It was as if someone dumped a bucket of cold water over him. QiLeren flinched violently backwards, face full of open horror, but before he could do anything SuHe let out a suppressed chuckle. “I’m joking,” he amended mirthfully.

“!!!!!!!!”

At the sight of QiLeren’s clear unease, SuHe rushed to placate. “I apologise, I shouldn’t have done that. It’s just that, with the way you were looking at me, I couldn’t help but…”

…But to tease this little guy a bit.

“I can walk in front of you if you’d be more comfortable with that,” SuHe offered when QiLeren only bristled at his attempts at placation. Receiving no reply, he quickened his steps.

QiLeren hesitated but decided to follow anyway.

SuHe’s back formed a tall silhouette in his field of vision. “You don’t trust me, do you?” His melodic voice weaved itself into the air around them, bringing with it the ever-present calm and serenity despite the situation.

QiLeren opened his mouth to refute but found himself unable to do so upon recalling his doubt at the fishbowl.

“I’m the same,” SuHe continued, unfettered. “Everyone here has the potential to be a dangerous enemy. Some are rather unsubtle about it, like the murderer, but others…”

Who was he referring to?

“Number Four, for example. I think she would’ve been quite a clever and ambitious girl when she was still alive. It’s a shame she met her death so early.”

At SuHe’s mention of the girl, QiLeren felt a heavy weight settle in his heart.

“Do your best to escape from here safely, okay?” SuHe stopped at the end of the corridor and turned back to QiLeren with a smile. “I’ll…tell you a little secret of mine when we leave this place. I believe we can become very good friends.”

Somewhere during QiLeren’s shaken daze, they had arrived at the foyer.

QiLeren could feel his mind resettle itself after leaving the note and embarking on their journey back to the shelter. SuHe’s honest words had soothed his nerves; the admission of paranoia made him feel closer to the companion he walked along.

QiLeren steered his thoughts away from SuHe’s so-called “little secret”. He seriously doubted it was a little secret in any capacity.

Having met not a single other human and leaving just a note, the pair quickly arrived back at the shelter. Dr Lu and XueYingying’s face of relief was welcoming but also somewhat insulting to QiLeren – was their survival really so surprising?

Despite the relief, Dr Lu was determined to verify their identities. A few minutes later saw QiLeren silently wiping blood plasma off his hand with a cold glare in Dr Lu’s direction, which Dr Lu openly ignored in favour of caving under SuHe’s smile instead. Under the pretence of napping, he slinked away and wrapped himself into a blanket from his inventory. XueYingying likewise nestled herself into a corner to rest.

QiLeren’s nap from earlier was nowhere near enough to compensate for dying twice, but where his body felt fatigue his mind was abnormally alert. Giving up on the idea of rest, he sat down next to Dr Lu and began writing a rough recount of the events thus far.

“No offence dude, but I don’t think writing in your diary is the best idea,” Dr Lu advised, peeking out of his cocoon.

“What do you mean?”

“You know how most horror games and movies have a diary as a key item? This means that the writers would’ve had to have died in order for their diaries to give the protagonist the help they need, which means that writing in diaries equals death,” Dr Lu concluded sagely.

QiLeren decided to ignore him.

Time passed in slow, torturous seconds. The closer they were, the more alert everyone became – Dr Lu’s eyes were practically glued to his phone.

Tick.

Three thirteen.

Suddenly, it was as if the room itself came to life. Upheavals wracked the walls around them, buckling like a creature unable to withstand the powerful blows of a god. Through the cacophony that threatened to overtake his senses, QiLeren had several moments in which he expected to die – but the shelter held. Deep fissures may have scarred its previously planed surfaces, but it held.

The earthquake lasted no more than a short minute, but to them, it had been an eternity.

QiLeren let out a long breath of relief. After so many close brushes with death, it was them who came out victorious.

There were three hours left until dawn.