Chapter 14: The Storyline Finally Begins to Unlock
After leaving Room 205, Kaito had found an opportunity to inform Kaguya and Maki about the second corpse under the bed in 205.
So at this moment, when she heard the stick fall and the door slowly creak open, Kaguya knew all too well that what now stood in the hallway was likely a grotesque male corpse—half its body twisted and distorted, as if disassembled and haphazardly reassembled.
Back in 205, had that thing been hiding under the bed the whole time, watching them search the room?
Now, the critical question was: which way would it go?
Before leaving the room, Kaito had deliberately mentioned Room 210 to mislead it. But this deception only worked if the thing had some level of cognitive ability and no special tracking methods.
Thud—
Heavy footsteps echoed down the hallway.
The direction it was moving… was toward 210.
Kaguya silently exhaled in relief.
For someone like Kaguya, who was accustomed to rational analysis, the most terrifying things were those that defied all prediction and logic—entities that followed no discernible rules. And until now, everything she had faced had fit that description.
But now, an inexplicable, grotesque corpse had been successfully misled by Kaito's words and was heading toward Room 210.
This meant that not all threats within this apartment were incomprehensible entities. At the very least, they could be deceived and tricked, which allowed her to strategize further and devise more potentially effective plans.
Creak—
She heard the sound of Room 210's door opening.
The thing that had emerged from Room 205 had now entered Room 210.
Kaguya turned her head to look at Kaito, who was standing guard at the junction between the hallway and the living room.
She raised one finger, then three, followed by two, alternating in a series of gestures. Kaito mirrored her movements, responding with his own silent signals.
This was a method of communication Kaguya and Kaito had agreed upon to stay alert. Every few minutes, she would turn back and exchange these wordless signals with him. While they couldn't be certain of its effectiveness, if Kaguya were attacked again by something with mind-corrupting abilities, Kaito should be able to detect the anomaly. In that case, he would put on earplugs, rush to her side, and bring her into the living room, shutting the door behind them to isolate the source of contamination. If that failed, they would then consider using the Clock to rewind time.
Given the overwhelming lack of information, this was the best temporary solution the three of them had managed to come up with.
In the kitchen, Sun Dajun and Maeda Miwa still sat on the floor, leaning against the refrigerator. Across from them was Grimm, who had seemed arrogant at first but was now so terrified upon learning about the thing inside the fridge that he wanted to flee immediately.
Meanwhile, Maki, stationed in the living room, sorted through the letters and drafts she had found, trying to extract any valuable clues.
From the writings, she could tell that these belonged to a man named Lin Wenfu, an obscure contributor to magazines who wrote useless feel-good essays and trivial pieces to barely scrape by.
According to the records on these papers, he had gone to sleep one night only to wake up inside Room 205.
The writings indicated that his survival here had been aided by other residents. Xu Sheng from Room 309 was the leader of the survivors. From the first to the third floor, roughly twenty people lived in this apartment building, with Xu Sheng being the longest resident—having stayed in Shirakawa Apartments for over five years. Thanks to his efforts, this place had transformed from a hopeless death trap into a home where survivors found solace in hardship.
However, Lin Wenfu, being a melancholic person by nature, grew increasingly resentful of this place after being trapped in Shirakawa Apartments. Unable to live normally and forced to spend a night in the apartment every couple of days, his relationship with his girlfriend deteriorated, leading him to lose interest in documenting anything about the building.
"Seriously? We finally find some intel, and this guy stops writing because he's in a bad mood?!"
Maki was so frustrated she gritted her teeth, half-tempted to storm out and beat up that bespectacled corpse—though, of course, she wouldn't actually dare.
However, these fragmented records eventually took a different turn.
[Sanchez]
This name appeared in the final few pages of the documents Maki had gathered.
There were only two records about him. The first was a brief note:
"Today, a foreigner came out of Room 109. He said his name was Sanchez. Originally, he was supposed to be placed in 206, but the kitchen floor in 206 collapsed, so he was moved to 109 instead. This man doesn't seem to be in a good mental state. I don't think he'll like this place."
That was all there was to it.
The second document mentioning Sanchez was the third-to-last one Maki found.
"Sanchez opened the door to 304."
"He misses his daughter too much, but Shirakawa Apartments are too far from his hometown. With the three-day time limit, he could only see her for a very short time, even if he pushed himself to the limit. His family isn't well-off, and honestly, neither are we. Ever since we were trapped in this place, those who once had steady incomes have had to make sacrifices because of this damned place's restrictions. Even if we wanted to help him financially, we don't have much to spare."
"Xusheng stopped Sanchez and didn't let him enter 304."
"I've heard that those who enter that room, even if they come back out, are no longer themselves."
"They shatter, they vanish, and in the end, they become ghosts no one can see, forever wandering the apartment, trapped in an endless cycle of suffering until they forget everything."
"But Sanchez said he had to enter 304. He said the root of everything was there—that he could change it all, that he could save all of us."
"Could something so good really be that easy?"
Dots of ink and many smudges marred the entire record.
Though the words themselves seemed detached, Maki could sense the writer's deeply conflicted emotions from the strokes of the pen.
Next was the second-to-last document—just two sentences long.
"Xusheng is dead."
"We can't leave the apartment anymore."
The messy handwriting made it impossible for Maki to imagine what Lin Wenfu had been thinking when he wrote those words.
Maki lifted her head and looked toward Kaito, who was standing guard at the door.
She wanted to call him over, to have him bring Kaguya so the three of them could examine these records together and analyze them.
But then she remembered—right now, Kaguya and Kaito were on high alert, guarding against the corridor outside the door, against the corpse of the man who had likely written these records, now transformed into the vessel of something terrifying.
After a brief hesitation, Maki lowered her head again and turned to the last document she had found—a letter stained with dark red blotches, scattered beneath the desk in Room 205.
"Don't go near the windows! Don't look outside! Don't look! DON'T LOOK!!!"
The nearly incoherent words sent a chill down Maki's spine, stirring an inexplicable sense of unease.
"Trust no one! Don't trust anyone! Don't enter anyone's room!"
["Everyone's gone mad! They're all different from before! They're all mad! They're all mad!"]
["I'm a good child, I'll be obedient, I'll stay quietly at home, I won't be punished, I'm a good child, I'm not mad I'm a good child I'm not mad, I, am a good child I'm not not I'm not I'm not mad I'm not mad I'm a good child good child (the words 'good child' here occupy nearly half the length of the letter, each character written with extreme neatness)"]
["Don't trust anyone, don't trust anyone (this is written at the very bottom of the letter, the handwriting extremely chaotic)"]
["Can't trust anyone, once separated it's over, not even once is allowed"]
["Don't go to the 3rd floor, the 3rd floor isn't here, don't go"]
["Can't get out from the 1st floor, I can't get out, no one can get out, we've always lived here, why would we want to leave (the messy handwriting slants from the bottom edge of the letter up to the middle, overlapping with the repeated 'good child' script, requiring great effort from Maki to decipher)"]
["No one can be trusted"]
["Don't trust anyone"]
["Don't trust anyone"]
["Don't trust anyone"]
The handwriting begins repeating again, growing increasingly disordered, nearly to the point of wild cursive.
Had Maki not studied cursive script and attained a deep mastery of Chinese calligraphy—enough to decipher a traditional doctor's prescription at a glance—she likely wouldn't have been able to make out what was written.
This repetition continues all the way to the very bottom of the page.
Only one sentence remains unfinished, with ink stains at the edge suggesting it continued onto the back.
So Maki turns the letter over.
["Don't trust anyone"]
The handwriting is still chaotic, but somehow more legible than before, as if the writer was gradually calming down from their frenzy.
["Didn't I say not to trust anyone?"]
The next line isn't purely repetition, just somewhat odd—why does it read like a conversation with someone?
["I said, don't trust anyone, no one can be trusted, no one at all!"]
As if truly seeing someone shouting at them, the handwriting grows messy again.
["No one can be trusted, not even me"]
["Can't trust me, my words can't be trusted, no one can be trusted"]
["Why would you trust me? Why would you trust me?"]
Only upon reaching the final line—written in blood-red ink—does the girl suddenly recall in her daze that when she first picked up this letter, its back had been completely blank.
Rustle—
The slightly stained letter falls to the ground, revealing its empty reverse side.
Her forehead drenched in cold sweat, the girl nervously glances around, only relaxing slightly after confirming nothing new has appeared in the room—though her heart continues pounding wildly, nearly out of control.
In this place, events defying common sense truly occur one after another.
Still, at least she's finally found some slightly valuable clues.
Sighing, Maki steadies her emotions, stands up, and prepares to share her findings with Kaguya and Kaito.
Boom!
The next moment, the entire apartment shook violently, sending Maki, who had just stood up, Kaito guarding the door, and Kaguya in the hallway tumbling to the ground.