novelraw Chapter 108: From 12:00 to 14:00
Chapter 108: From 12:00 to 14:00
Do not turn back!!!
Do not turn back!!!
Do not turn back!!!
Blood-red words appeared on every step of the staircase.
These sinister, repetitive words seemed to warn anyone who dared to enter.
From his vantage point on the way down, Lu Li couldn't see the warnings etched onto the steps, but they were perfectly clear from below.
Lu Li drew his Spirit Gun. An intensely unsettling, sinister presence emanated from above.
The pistol warned Lu Li that something was lurking up there.
His path back was cut off, and the sound of approaching children's laughter echoed from below. There seemed to be no escape.
Don't listen to them...Lu Li recalled the writing on the walls and became lost in thought.
Hee-hee-hee...
The laughter from below grew louder. Lu Li wasn't sure if the warnings were true, but feeling something approaching from the depths, he had no choice.
Lu Li took a deep breath, released his grip on the Spirit Gun, and pressed his hands tightly against his ears.
The sounds became muffled, reduced to an unintelligible murmur approaching from the darkness below.
A few seconds later, a strange, dense black cloud swirled into view at the base of the staircase, shot through with something resembling blood.
Ssshhh...
In the relative silence, the black cloud ascended the stairs, its shape constantly shifting, yet remaining ominously stable.
As it drew closer, some noise still managed to pierce the barrier of his hands. He began to rub his palms together, creating friction to drown out the sounds the cloud was making. While most of the laughter was muffled, he could still hear phantom screams, like hallucinations.
Lu Li pressed himself against the blood-red wall, which felt unnervingly warm, almost alive. He held his breath, forcing himself to remain perfectly still, lest he give himself away.
Right before his eyes, the strange, dense black cloud drifted past him without pause, continuing its ascent up the staircase.
The noise began to fade, the screams growing fainter until they vanished completely.
Upon reaching the 1230th step, the black cloud abruptly vanished around a bend in the stairs.
Lu Li began to breathe again.
The air on the blood-red staircase carried no scent of blood or decay, nor was it cold.
With the noise gone, the only sounds in the silence were the warm wind whispering up the stairs from below and a faint, rhythmic heartbeat.
The danger had passed, for the moment.
Frowning, Lu Li gripped his Spirit Gun once more and glanced back up the staircase he had just descended.
The sense of foreboding hadn't left him. He could still feel that strange presence.
He couldn't go back. The only way was down...
How many more flights were there? Where did this staircase lead? Or did it simply go on forever...
Lu Li steeled himself and continued down.
He didn't bother testing the warning by taking a step down and then back up. A check like that would be both meaningless and dangerous.
Tap... tap... tap...
His sharp footsteps echoed down the silent staircase. He reached the 1300th step and continued his descent without breaking stride.
He estimated he was now about twenty meters underground. Everything that was happening defied normal explanation. In other words, Lu Li had stumbled upon something supernatural.
Lu Li had no way back; retreat was not an option.
To him, it made little difference whether he was two, twenty, or two hundred meters underground.
At any of those depths, death could be instantaneous.
As he continued down the stairs, he saw, just as he'd expected, the number 1330 appear on the wall ahead.
Meaning, 13:30.
Just before the 1300th step, Lu Li had encountered what the warnings referred to as "laughter"—the black cloud.
Now, as he approached 13:30, was it time for the "children" from the warnings to make their appearance?
As for the warning about not sleeping, that probably applied to a later time, at an even greater depth.
The correlation between the step numbers and the time gave Lu Li a theory. If he followed that logic, the "children" from the warnings were due to appear soon—perhaps at 13:30...
Mulling this over, Lu Li reached the landing at step 1330.
Nothing happened.
...Or at 14:00.
No new writing appeared on the blood-red walls, and the three warnings Lu Li had painstakingly pieced together earlier were now fainter, almost illegible.
Even though Lu Li already had his answers, this was a bad omen.
It felt as though the rules of the game had just changed, the difficulty ratcheting up a notch.
It meant that from here on, the clues would be fewer and far more fragmented.
Lu Li continued downward, reaching the landing between steps 1330 and 1400.
He looked down and saw a vague silhouette.
It was unexpected, yet somehow not surprising: set into the corner of the wall at the 1400th step was an ordinary wooden door.
He was given no time to rest on this level. The moment he stopped, the door swung open.
Children in colorful clothes burst from the doorway, skipping and hopping as they ran up the stairs.
Towards Lu Li.
These were no ordinary children. The child-sized creatures had mangled features: one had eyes on its forehead, another a nose on its chin, but every one of them had four or five mouths.
The sight would have made any normal person sick with disgust and vertigo.
They swarmed Lu Li, and all four or five mouths on each of their faces began speaking at once.
"Come on, let's go play!"
"Let's go down the slide and play hide-and-seek!"
"My mom bought a new storybook."
"I'll give you some candy."
A cacophony of voices erupted around Lu Li. They grabbed his arms, tugged at his clothes, and pushed him from behind.
"Go on without me, I have things to do." Heeding the warnings, Lu Li tried to refuse. But as they began to drag him down the stairs, he realized he couldn't resist them, and his eyes narrowed.
They shoved Lu Li forward, their four or five mouths chattering incessantly. It was as if dozens of people were crowded around him, completely ignoring his struggles.
As they neared the bottom of the flight, Lu Li could see bright sunlight streaming through the open doorway. He heard cheerful laughter and felt a warm, grassy breeze on his skin.
Beyond the door, there was none of the unnerving, blood-red glow of the staircase. The contrast was enough to tempt anyone to step through.
"Come on, you haven't played with us for days."
"Yeah, yeah, I'll let you play with my puppy."
"Everyone's waiting for you!"
He looked for all the world like a reluctant little boy being coaxed outside by his friends, wanting to play but knowing he should be doing his homework.
The four or five "children" shoved Lu Li down the last few steps.
The doorway loomed closer, filled with a dazzling white light that made his head spin.
Lu Li was right at the door, almost on the threshold, when...
...his right hand suddenly shot out, grabbed the edge of the wooden door, and slammed it shut!
Slam!
A rush of air billowed out, and the noise vanished in an instant.
The figures of the children surrounding Lu Li dissolved into thin air, as if they had never been there.