He felt an oppressive heaviness that made it hard to breathe.
When he barely managed to open his eyes, all he could see was darkness, as though he himself had already been wrapped up inside it.
His body was almost unable to move, as though it had lost all strength, or as though some heavy object were pressing down on him, leaving his whole body numb and completely unable to move.
Huff… huff…
Breathing became more and more difficult.
A powerful squeezing sensation came from his chest, yet in his perception there was clearly nothing on top of him at all.
This was… sleep paralysis?
In his haze, Takumi seemed to hear the sound of sobbing coming from around him.
And at his side, he heard footsteps—as though someone were slowly pacing around, walking back and forth beside him.
The next moment, Takumi fully opened his eyes.
He found that he was lying on an iron-frame bed. The bedsheet carried the moldy smell of having gone unwashed for a long time, and the pillow under the back of his head was somewhat stiff, making it very uncomfortable to sleep on.
Beside his pillow sat a red candle. It was burning silently, providing a faint bit of light. By the candlelight, Takumi could make out the general layout of the dorm room and confirm that he was at Bed No. 4.
The whole dorm room had four beds. Each one was an iron-frame bunk bed with a ladder. The lower section had a small desk with drawers, while the upper section was the bed itself—a very common type of bed in student dormitories.
Between the two beds on the same side stood two large cabinets placed side by side, which looked like they were meant for students to store clothes and other belongings. On one side of the not-too-large dorm room stood a storage rack with things like towels and toothbrush cups placed on it. On both sides of the rack were windows, both of which were currently shut. Opposite the windows was the dorm room's entrance door, which was slightly ajar, and through it he could vaguely make out the corridor outside.
Takumi slowly sat up from the bed.
He turned his head and saw a line of words written in chalk on the wall beside him.
[Alice's Puzzle Game is about to begin!]
[This time, the riddle you need to solve is this—]
[Little broom, one for every room, morning and night patrol, sweeping away the grime]
[It's a very, very simple riddle, okay? Hurry up and guess it, find the answer, and put it in the correct place!]
[As long as you complete the game, you'll become Alice's good friend~]
It was the same cutesy handwriting that was thoroughly Alice in style as always, and when combined with all the twisted things this thing did—murdering people and torturing them—it was impossible to find it enjoyable. All one could feel was the sheer malice hidden beneath the surface sweetness.
"I'm already starting to hate malicious cutesiness."
Muttering that complaint, Takumi picked up the candle and looked around.
At this moment, the room was extremely dark. Other than the candle burning on each bed, there was no light source at all.
It was also at that moment that Takumi discovered a crumpled sheet of paper under him. Written on it were the specific rules of Alice's game in the dormitory building—in other words, the rules sheet for Alice's Puzzle Game, which Takumi had already investigated before entering Fujihana Middle School.
He could not tell anyone else his riddle, nor could he let anyone else help him search for the answer, or else he would be attacked by the Big Bad Wolf. If he did not clean the dorm room properly and fold up the bedding, he would attract Teacher Broom. After dark, Aunt Owl would inspect anyone sleeping on a bed. There was no basement level in the dormitory building—that was just a prank by bad kids. In the stairwell one would encounter Grandpa Bull. Uncle Cat prohibited students from going to the rooftop. Inspector Giraffe did not allow anyone to remain in the dorms during the daytime. Brother Faucet would open the heads of people who wasted water. The toilet lights were broken, making it impossible to tell the men's and women's bathrooms apart, and something inside would respond to anyone outside...
That was roughly it. Just like the Teaching Building, this was another place filled with all sorts of aberrations.
After roughly reviewing the dormitory building's rules in his mind, Takumi climbed down from his bed and stepped onto the floor.
The other three beds were all occupied by students. Their eyelids had been cut off, leaving them permanently staring wide-eyed. Blood seeped out from the bodies hidden beneath their blankets, nearly soaking through the beds themselves.
Just like in the Teaching Building, these aberrations were temporarily restricted from moving by the burning candles.
Takumi put on the Sheep-Head Hood, using the Rescue Team Badge and the hood to counteract each other and preserve his self-awareness.
Holding his machete, Takumi chopped off the heads of the three aberrant students, seized their candles and stuffed them into the black watch, then stuffed his own candle into the watch too and took out a different candle in exchange. Only then did he walk toward the dorm room door and slowly pull it open.
Only then did Takumi see the room number plate for the dorm room he was in.
[304]
The hell is this number targeting me for?
Feeling thoroughly displeased, Takumi frowned, then stepped out into the corridor.
A set of footsteps sounded beside him.
He turned his head and saw that at this very moment the door to the dorm room next to his had also opened, and a figure walked out from inside.
Creak—
The harsh squeal of the door swinging sounded especially loud in the pitch-black corridor.
…
A few minutes earlier, Miko had also awakened.
She felt as though she had had a dream.
A blurry dream, one in which she could not remember clearly what had happened.
In the dream, Takumi had always been with her, and the two of them had walked through one dark and gloomy place after another.
It seemed that something terrifying had been chasing after her and Takumi, speaking in a sweet voice and tone, yet filled with a level of malice so intense it made one shudder.
The end of the dream had been filled with pain and despair.
It seemed that she had done something to Takumi. She had hurt him. She had tormented him. She had… killed him.
It seemed like nothing more than an ordinary nightmare.
But for some reason, she had an intense premonition that it had not been a dream at all.
And when the dream was just about to end—
everything seemed to turn blood-red.
[What the hell is going on?!]
And she had even heard Takumi—who should have been dead by her own hand—letting out a startled cry right beside her.
[Hey, wake up—]
And then there were the words he spoke as he leaned close to her.
Then Miko woke up, only to find herself lying on an iron-frame bed, with a burning red candle placed beside her.
On the wall illuminated by the candlelight, there was text written in a cute font. Among it was a riddle:
[Approximately 3 meters long, a single piece, four corners and two faces; it recognizes only human faces, not the faces of beasts.]
Miko wasn't particularly good at solving riddles, so she felt somewhat confused, but she still made up her mind to act quickly and leave this dorm room as soon as possible.
Creak—
Then she heard the sound of the door beside her being opened.
A tall figure slowly stepped into the dim dorm room.
Was that… someone wearing an owl hood?
At the instinctive first glance of eye contact, that was the thought that flashed through Miko's mind.
But in the very next moment, as that thing suddenly drew closer, the girl finally saw clearly—it was a head whose face had been torn apart and then crudely stitched back together, forcibly reshaping the original human face into something resembling an "owl," a blood-soaked, grotesque head.
"Are… you… asleep…?"
A shrill voice leaked out from between teeth that had lost their lips, accompanied by a foul, rotting stench.
Miko didn't move at all.
She was completely frozen with terror.
"Are… you… asleep…?"
That thing had already stretched out its hands—its fingernails ripped out—and climbed onto Miko's bed. Its mangled, bloodied head pressed right up against the side of her face as it continued whispering its question.
Miko: "…"
The girl remained completely motionless, not even blinking, rigidly frozen in place.
The thing circled around her, crawling slowly across the bed, its bloodshot eyes fixed tightly on her the entire time.
Her mind had completely shut down.
At this moment, Miko's entire body had fallen into a state of extreme fear-induced rigidity. She had even stopped breathing, as though she had turned into a statue.
Even so, that thing showed no intention of leaving. It continued circling her, about to speak again—
At that moment, a faint noise came from outside the door. It seemed that someone in the neighboring dorm had opened their door.
The thing that had been circling Miko immediately shifted its target. At a speed invisible to the naked eye, it returned to the doorway, opened the door, and stepped out.
"Are— you— aslee—"
"Sleep my ass!"
The sharp sound of a blade cleaving through bone, the spray of liquid bursting outward, the shriek of something screaming—all of it erupted at once, then quickly fell silent.
A person wearing a Sheep-Head Hood pushed the door open and entered the room. Then he removed the hood, revealing Takumi's face.
Miko, sitting on the bed, stared blankly downward at him. After locking eyes with him for a while, she slowly went limp and lay back down, instinctively clutching the filthy thin blanket covering her.
"You okay? With me here, you don't need to be afraid of this stuff."
As he spoke, Takumi walked over to her. Along the way, he casually hacked at the aberrations lying on the other three beds, dismembering them and taking their candles.
"I-I'm… sob… I'm fine… sob…"
At that moment, the cute girl's eyes filled with tears as she spoke in a trembling voice. That pitiful appearance honestly stirred a strong urge in Takumi to tease her a bit—but in the end, he restrained himself. He simply reached out and patted her shoulder, signaling for her to get up.
Next, they still had to reunite with Kumagai Mai as quickly as possible. Having that teammate would significantly improve their survival chances. Unfortunately, taking out the doll would inevitably allow Alice to track them, and it consumed too many pills, so for now Takumi didn't have the confidence to release another player from the dolls. After all, there was no guarantee the person would have a way to preserve their sanity like Kumagai Mai—if he ended up rescuing a lunatic, it wouldn't be worth it.
"Let's go, let's go. Stay close to me. If you notice anything that feels off, tell me immediately."
Putting the hood back on, Takumi grabbed Miko's hand and quickly left the room, returning to the corridor.
After the two of them left, the dorm room door slowly opened on its own without a sound. Then, a small figure quietly appeared, raised its head to glance at the spot where Miko had been lying, and then turned to look in the direction Takumi and Miko had gone.
---
I will post some extra Chapters in Patreon, you can check it out. >> patreon.com/TitoVillar
---