The cloying stench of decay flooded Liam's nostrils as he woke on the foyer tiles.
His cracked wristwatch pulsed with crimson digits: 71:58:32. The black veins beneath the dial had vanished, as if the serpent fangs were a death hallucination—until he opened his left hand.
Two puncture wounds oozed ink-black droplets.
"The sin is contamination..." He pushed himself up. The foyer had decayed further: crystal chandelier wreckage hung with cobwebs, the oak front door sealed under a membrane like raw meat, wall veins dried into fissures. Only the spiral stairs remained, pearl-heel scrapes scarring the steps.
Precognitive agony speared his skull!
Future Fragment:
A curly-haired boy in a baseball jersey sprints upstairs.
His fingers brush the railing's carved flowers.
His arm petrifies instantly!
As gray-white stone crawls up his neck, he rasps: "The...handle..."
The vision shattered as a thud echoed from the second floor.
Liam charged toward the sound. On the landing, he saw the boy from his vision—"TOM" emblazoned on his jersey, his left leg already tombstone-gray, clawing at the air. Petrification devoured his torso.
"Don't touch the carvings!" Liam shouted.
Tom's glazed eyes snapped into focus. "Hel—" Stone swallowed his jaw, freezing him in a silent scream. His index finger pointed rigidly toward the third floor.
Liam vaulted past the statue. Third-floor corridor doors were sealed, save for double doors ajar at the end. Candlelight and arguing spilled through the gap.
"—need a scout!" a gravel voice roared.
"Your death trigger is the scout's value?" a cool female voice countered.
As Liam pushed the door, pain stabbed his right hand!
Triple Fragments Detonated:
His right hand chars black upon touching the brass handle.
A carving knife flies from within, piercing his left eye.
A noose drops from the ceiling, snapping his neck.
Threefold death!
Fingers inches from the handle, Liam recoiled. Simultaneously—THUNK!—a serrated knife punched through the door, tip halting three centimeters from his eyeball.
The door flew open.
Five sets of eyes pinned him in the candlelit library. A barrel-chested man with blood-flecked beard stood foremost, one slot empty in his knife bandolier. Beside him, a freckled girl manipulated a phantom replica of the door handle—a bronze serpent whose coils pulsed with vascular light connected to her palm.
"Quick reflexes, rookie." The man licked blood from his knuckles. "'Bloodhammer' Buck, rule hunter of this floor."
Liam scanned the survivors:
Buck: Spider tattoo throbbing on his neck
Freckled Girl: Handle phantom spitting crimson light
Bespectacled Man: Shredding nails behind bookshelves, reeking vomit at his feet
Redhead: Carving dying runes into antique books with a hairpin
His gaze locked on the figure by the window—
Victorian high-collared black cloak, dagger spinning in fingers that ended in filed points. Amber eyes burned like molten gold in candlelight. The blade's gleam matched his last conscious memory.
"Maya Sharma." Her voice was ice on glass. "You wasted Buck's trap-testing knife."
"Testing?" Liam kicked the knife hole. "You knew the handle was cursed."
The freckled girl clenched her fist; the phantom handle hissed. "My Mark ability: [Trap Replication]. Touching this door imprinted three death rules." She turned her palm up, revealing a weeping Mark. "Cost: three days of necrosis per replicated trap."
Liam showed his ink-oozing punctures. "What happens if you touch the real handle?"
"Charring. Eye-bursting. Hanging." Maya's dagger pointed upward. Liam looked up and froze—nooses hung like a forest, noose knots clotted with gore. One now dangled where he'd stood!
"Why...help me?"
"Not help." Maya sheathed her dagger. "Precognitive talents show 17.3% survival rate increase statistically."
The bespectacled man screamed, clutching his head. "It's back! The ticking!"
Tick. Tock. Tick.
Mechanical seconds pulsed from the walls. Buck slammed a bookshelf. "Shut up! Rule trigger!"
Every leather-bound book snapped open. Identical bloody script glowed:
Corridor Rule: When clocks tick, you MUST move
("Move" glistened with corpse grease)
Ticking exploded into a downpour!
The redhead shrieked, collapsing. Her left foot petrified from the toe up. "Help! My Mark's not awakened—!" Stone swallowed her ankle.
"RUN!" Buck crashed through the doors. The freckled girl followed, blood-threads from her phantom handle lashing to a chandelier to swing forward. Maya's cloak brushed Liam's arm as she moved: "Follow. Or become statistical noise."
Ticking became physical waves! As Liam sprinted, the redhead solidified into a stone shriek. The bespectacled man stabbed a pen through his temple as stone reached his ribs, brains spattering a rulebook.
The corridor stretched infinitely. Door plates flickered: 207→207→207... Mold formed screaming faces on wallpaper. Buck kicked a door open—revealing the library they'd fled! Tom's petrified statue pleaded soundlessly in the corner.
"Looping hell!" The freckled girl's phantom handle flared. "[Trap Replication] needs fresh medium!"
Maya halted. Ahead, the floor yawned into a pit churning with rancid bones. Ticking coalesced into a colossal phantom clock overhead, its minute hand aimed at a bloody "STILLNESS=DEATH" rune.
"Medium?" Liam tore off his wristwatch. "This work?"
Black mist seeped from its cracks. The girl snatched it, pressing it to her Mark. Crimson light and mist fused—she howled! Her replication birthed not a handle, but a miniature manor!
"Seventh fissure left!" she screamed through bleeding orifices. "The model shows an exit!"
They lunged. A slit in a screaming-mouth mildew pattern gaped—barely shoulder-width. Buck shoved Maya aside, diving through first. The girl stumbled after.
As Liam moved to enter, agony speared his legs!
Apocalypse Fragment:
The fissure snaps shut like teeth.
Buck smirks as he pulls a lever beyond.
The girl's replicated manor model glows in his grip.
"Trap!" Liam yanked Maya back.
SNAP—! The fissure slammed shut! Gears ground within the wall. Buck's muffled roar echoed: "Sacrifice...complete!"
Ticking ceased.
The bone pit and clock vanished.
Maya rose, dagger scraping the wall. "You foresaw it?"
"It was a mantrap." Liam eyed the bloodstained fissure. "She replicated Buck's trap, not an exit."
Silence reclaimed the hall. Mildew faces smirked. Maya sliced the wallpaper—pulsing crimson flesh beneath. Within the closing fissure, half of the freckled girl's petrified face stared from the muscle fibers, lips mouthing:
"Run...Mistress...awake..."
The floor trembled. Every door flew open. Pearl-gloved skeletal hands reached from the darkness within.