Congratulations on Your Successful Escape

Chapter 3

The bell stopped and the corridor became silent again.

Everyone looked at one another and saw their confused faces reflected in each other’s eyes.

What did the bell mean? What will happen next? No one knew. They were like blindfolded people, step by step walking to the edge of a cliff. No one knew if the next step will be to their doom.

All of a sudden! There was a sharp noise by their ears!

The whole corridor was twisting and stretching at a speed visible to the naked eye. The snow-white walls peeled off quickly, revealing the dirty grey wall underneath. The steel reinforcement beams penetrated the cement and contorted in a hideous manner.

“Ze.” The lights became blurred and dim.

The door frame of the classroom also became twisted and deformed. It looked like a greedy mouth opened in the darkness, and vague shadows were moving in the classroom.

“Ah!” There was a scream in the crowd. A middle-aged man was staring at the wall beside him. His face was pale, and his fingers trembled as he pointed, “…You, you see…”

They saw that the walls were covered with large and small crooked and twisted words written in blood that had not dried. The thick blood dripped down, revealing the cruel malicious words, “Go to hell.”

Mo Yi felt something cold from behind his back.

An inexplicable feeling filled him and made his hair stand on end, but this feeling was not because of the bloody words in front of him, but from behind…

He turned his head and looked.

A thick mist slowly spread from the end of the corridor, quietly and silently approaching. The

peaks in the mist were steep and distinct from one another, and with speechless horror, approached them like a living creature. The chilling malice came from here.

“The unnamed mist?” The previous hint suddenly struck Mo Yi like a lighting bolt.

He raised his voice and screamed, “Run!”

As he spoke, he ran in the opposite direction of the mist.

The others turned around and saw the mist. They instinctively wanted to escape, but their heels seemed to be glued to the ground, and they couldn’t move. The slow-moving mist seemed almost magical, firmly capturing their gaze.

But in a flash, the mist was already closer.

The man standing at the end of the crowd suddenly fell to the ground. His fingernails dug deeply into the cracks in the floor, and screamed in horror, “Save me!! Something’s grabbing my leg!! Help!”

The dense and murky mist continued to creep forward slowly, and the man’s body seemed to be pulled before he was dragged into the mist. The screaming and sounds of struggling abruptly stopped.

There was only the cold dead silence, as if everything had been swallowed up by the silent mist.

His screams finally brought people back to their senses:

Run!

The inexplicable fear struck everyone’s heart, making their hair stand up and their backs cold. No one doubted Mo Yi’s words anymore. They all had one word left in their hearts: Run!

Run like hell!

The sound of pattering footsteps and panicked panting were mixed together and in the empty corridor, it was especially clear, rushed, and chaotic, while the slow-moving wall of mist behind them was moving forward quietly and smoothly, devouring everything: sound, light and shadow, and life.

After the bell had rung, the whole corridor had become strangely long, and it was almost impossible to reach the end. Fortunately, the mist was not moving very fast. With everyone’s quick running, the mist was no longer visible.

Mo Yi slowed down, panting heavily with his hands on his knees, his face flushed from the exercise.

The others also gasped and stopped, with the luck of surviving a disaster in their eyes.

A man came over and patted Mo Yi on the back to help him smooth out his breathing.

Mo Yi looked up and recognized him: he had greeted him in the corridor before, and he was also the first person to react.

At this moment, he was squinting and looking down at Mo Yi.

Just then, a man ran over. He stood still, panting heavily. The panic still remained in his eyes. It was obvious that he had not recovered from the crisis just now. He took a few deep breaths and then looked up at Mo Yi, half stunned, and half dumbfounded, and asked, “You, how did you know there was something wrong with the mist?”

Mo Yi adjusted his breathing and stood up with his hands on the wall. His voice was unsteady, “The hint… “the unnamed mist”, should refer to “The Nameless Mist.”

Even though he was panting, his voice was still clear and loud. In this environment, it accidently brought about a sense of horror. As his voice fell, the air suddenly became quiet.

Everyone had a blank face.

Mo Yi, “…”

He rubbed his temples and explained, “In the Myth of Cthulhu, the Nameless Mist is mentioned in “The Revelations of Gla’aki.” It has another name: Nyog’Sothep. It is a mysterious Outer God. It is said that no one can look directly into it because of the horrors lurking within…”

H.P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos was a source of inspiration for many horror novels and the spiritual idol of many authors.

But before he finished speaking Mo Yi suddenly stopped and swallowed his long speech.

He looked into the eyes of the people who were still confused. He was silent for a moment, then he asked in a different way, “Has anyone read Stephen King’s, 《The Mist 》?”

Jiang Yuanbai raised his hand hesitantly, “…Does watching the movie count?”

Several others nodded.

Mo Yi explained, “The mist in “The Mist” was based on this. In short, don’t get close to it or touch it.”

The man nodded, the previous contempt disappeared from his eyes. Then he took a deep look at Mo Yi. He held out his hand and smiled, “Shen Lei.”

“…Mo Yi,” He shook the outstretched hand.

Shen Lei frowned. He felt that the palm of the other party was surprisingly cool, thin with only bones left, and his hand was as cold as jade.

He patted Mo Yi on the back, and he stumbled, “Young man, look, you’re out of breath and your body is too weak. Even if you are in the office, you can’t lack exercise. It’s easy to die in the game.”

Mo Yi, “…Cough cough!”

Brother, please don’t pat him, or he’s afraid he will die in his hands before being killed by a ghost.

Shen Lei let go of Mo Yi with a smile and then gave a cursory glance around: everything around him had changed. The whole corridor looked like an abstract Picasso painting, with the strange and bizarre addition of it being cracked. He frowned for a moment, then turned to the crowd and said, “It’s impossible that this game will not give us the chance to escape which is in violation of the rules. Although the mist is deadly, its moving speed is a weakness. As long as we are fast enough, there should be the possibility of surviving.”

A girl sobbed and asked, “Well, where are we going next?”

“Go upstairs.” Shen Lei had already thought about it clearly, and his reply was firm, “Just now, I looked at the map of the whole school building. There are four floors in this building. The lower three floors are for Grades One to Three. The fourth floor is for the teachers. The faster we get to the top floor, the greater the chance of survival.”

Everyone looked at each other, then nodded and agreed to Shen Lei’s proposal.

“The stairwell is at the end of the corridor. Let’s go.” Shen Lei brought a cigarette to his mouth and led the way while others followed.

The further they walked, the dimmer the lights in the corridor, and the dim darkness made the silence more frightening. Only the faint blue countdown light was seen in the sky outside the window.

Several people in the front apparently came prepared, and they pulled flashlights from their backpacks to illuminate the way.

After an unknown period of time, Shen Lei finally stopped.

“Here it is.” With the light from the flashlight, Mo Yi saw that the scene was completely different from before. The staircase handrail was broken, and the walls had peeled off, revealing the blue walls, and cracked cement. Dust was falling down, and the stairs were uneven, like the debris after an earthquake.

A smell of decay came out.

Just as everyone was about to walk up the stairs, they heard a gentle humming not far away. The sweet voice of a child was chilling. It sang, “Dear… come and play…”

A black, round thing rolled down the stairs and hit Mo Yi’s leg.

Mo Yi looked down.

It was a blurred, frightened pale face, wrapped in black hair like a melting wax figure.

This was the face of the missing woman.

It was her head that had rolled down the stairs.

The strange child’s voice came closer. It laughed sweetly and sang, and then asked, “Did anyone see my ball? Has anyone seen my ball?”

The voice became clearer, closer, and gloomier.

Mo Yi looked at the head by his foot, took a deep breath, raised his foot and exerted his greatest strength to kick it flying.

The head rolled into the distant darkness.

The child’s voice, “…”

Shen Lei, “…”

All of them, “…”

There was a strange silence in the air.

Mo Yi, “What are you doing? Run!!”