Night in District C's School Zone—The Silent Playground
The campus of X Academy's sci-tech park lay in deep silence. Ge Tianci, one of the newest students, had long heard rumors about a forbidden area within the research zone.
Midnight. All was still. Just as he was about to return to his dorm, the faint sound of dripping water reached his ears. He glanced toward the darkness. Just a trickle—nothing worth pausing for.
But then—
From the direction of the dripping, the laboratory's glass windows shimmered with a faint haze of amber gas. A sharp *crack* followed as glass shattered.
The sound pierced the night, jolting his nerves.
*Gas leak!*
*Danger!*
His mind snapped to high alert.
*Amber gas—was he seeing things?* It was nearly midnight. Why would anyone still be in the lab?
Impulse to help, curiosity, dread—all surged at once. As he hesitated, the sound coiled around him like a sinister melody, deliberate in its rhythm, taunting human instinct.
Little did he know, this moment would mark the beginning of his entanglement with something far more familiar—and far more cruel.
The lab door was shut tight. The gas had vanished. Just as he turned to leave, a gust of wind lifted the curtains—and in the reflection of his glasses, a shattered beaker glinted.
His breath hitched. Strangely, the breeze soothed his panic.
First, he assessed: Was there immediate danger? If it was just wind knocking over a vial, fine. Even if the gas was toxic, the open windows would dissipate it. If harmless, even better. Finally, he scanned the pitch-black hallway—no cameras in sight.
Then—
Music.
From inside the lab.
A violin's notes sliced through the silence, as if the wheel of fate had lurched back into motion.
His hair stood on end. His mind blanked.
*Toxic chemicals and sudden music—what was the connection?
The song was titled *Overcoming the Impossible*:
*"The starry river stretches afar,*
*You and I step into the game—*
*Participants,*
*The overture of a grand performance.*
*See the rhythm quickening,*
*A midnight waltz.*
*In this contest, who will prevail?*
*Limited, limited—blood thickens the air.*
*Blades, guns, fury, firelight—*
*Faster, faster, accelerate it all!*
*The night whirls, the night waits,*
*Under the stars, all grows cold.*
*Will you sleep now?*
*Look, it begins again.*
*Who pauses? Light and shadow entwine.*
*Who exits? Life is surrendered.*
*Rush, rush,*
*Footsteps hasten.*
*Variables like pages—turned, then burned.*
*Yet those hands remain unseen.*
*Condense, condense—time and space go mad!*
Bang!
*Cold silence—the embers of life's flame!*
*The song concludes.*
*Eyes open,*
*Awaiting the next cast of actors."*
The violin looped the melody again and again. Ge Tianci stood frozen, speechless. He could almost *feel* the musician's fingers trembling on the strings, the bow burning with each furious stroke. The music held him captive—its fire rooted him in place.
Deceptively simple at first listen, the composition soon unraveled into something vast and terrifying, gripping his heart. Moments of calm erupted into violent crescendos before collapsing into absolute silence. The notes were a companion—yet carried no trace of human warmth. The strings wept, scalded, then stilled. The night endured.
It was like waking from a dream. In an instant, his mind hurtled through galaxies—past and present, wars and whispers, all reduced to a single, desolate breath. Millennia flickered by in the span of a thought.
His consciousness was seized, crushed in an unseen fist, dragged toward the music's depths. Each note was a cipher, a bridge to the cosmos, teasing his mind into a dance. Step by step, he followed—until, abruptly, the violin ceased.
He halted. Only then did he realize—he was *inside* the lab.
Technically, the stairwell led to the second floor, but he'd somehow descended to the first. A sealed door stood before him. Another locked behind him.
A *thud* echoed—the upstairs lab door bolted shut.
Only one path remained: forward. Into the unknown.
The violin had been a siren's call, luring him to surrender his mind before vanishing.
Ge Tianci stood stunned. He'd never experienced anything like this. As he wavered, moonlight glinted through the door's cracks, catching on his gray sleeve—revealing a dusting of amber powder. Under the pale glow, it shimmered faintly yet unmistakably.
*Shit. Vanadium oxychloride!* (Moderate toxicity, precursor to SeO₂—Class 4 toxin. Volatilizes at room temperature within two hours, causing pulmonary damage.)
A cold sweat beaded on his forehead. His face, washed in moonlight, turned ghostly white.
This night would haunt him forever.
The only certainty was uncertainty itself—the door ahead.
His mind, no longer his own, had pushed him toward fate's turning point. Now, as a man, he had but one choice: *act.*
Like the song—its fury, its despair, its mockery of mortal struggle—he *moved.*
With a roar, he kicked.
The old wooden door shuddered. Moonlight bled through the widening gaps, flickering like a reward for his violence. Again. Again. Until his leg burned, skin splitting, blood smearing the frame. At last, the light bathed his upper body—a weary god's benediction.
His hair clung to his forehead, drenched in sweat. The moonlight unfurled like a crimson carpet.
In the aftermath, as safety settled over him, emotion surged. He nearly wept.
Before him stretched the empty field.
*If you were to vanish—if one day, all of this turned to dust—would you remember tonight's violin?*
*Would you remember this moonlight?*
There was no musician. Only a lone speaker at the field's center, endlessly looping *Overcoming the Impossible.*
And in the bleachers—a shadow. Featureless, swallowed by darkness, save for a white mask. A grinning face.
Blurred, indistinct—yet the smile was razor-sharp.
Ge Tianci swayed.
The smile seemed to turn toward him.