LotM: Surviving as a Marionette

"I told you long ago, don't come, don't come, don't come!"

A young man with flaxen short hair hissed in a low voice, "Why didn't you listen, ah! Why didn't you listen!"

"Even if it was Elder Bronn's order, we could have refused! There was absolutely no need to take such a risk!... We'll be killed, we will definitely be killed."

"No—rather than die here, I'd rather end myself! Yes, I don't want to become some inhuman abomination, no no no, it's impossible, absolutely impossible…"

"Enough, Charlie!"

The speaker was an Abraham family member who appeared slightly older. Yet, like the frantic Charlie, his face was also covered in fine beads of cold sweat.

But he still maintained necessary composure, sharply cutting off Charlie's self-destructive talk: "It's nowhere near time for self-termination yet. As long as we're alive, there will surely be a solution.

"Even if we can't leave, Elder Holloway will return soon. By then, even if we're still trapped here, Elder Holloway will rescue us out of kinship ties."

"If that Marionettist still wants to cooperate with us, he can't possibly let us die here."

Undoubtedly, he was rational.

But their survival hinged on them staying alive until Elder Holloway returned, and Elder Holloway truly caring about them.

A chilly wind whistled through the dormitory window panes. Outside the window lay a bizarre world.

Countless buildings were shrouded in black. Though it was daytime, a massive black sphere floated in the sky, like an extinguished sun, radiating tainted and corrupt light.

Yet it illuminated nothing.

Miskatonic University, Crimson Campus.

Its layout resembled the Surface and Inner Campuses they had been in days before, but it felt more like centuries or millennia of erosion had left everything dilapidated. The once amiable students were gone without a trace, as if they had entered an underworld where none survived. Strange phenomena constantly manifested.

Beyond the buildings stretched a vast wilderness.

Only by standing at the highest point of a teaching building, peering over the tallest wall at the campus edge, under the pitch-black sun's lightless radiance, could the distant scenes be seen.

Field ridges woven from grey straw; paper figures in white clothes carrying a coffin along a path; an inverted mausoleum; a flock of sheep with filthy, matted wool… shadowy and indistinct, these things encircled the entire school in a surrounding formation.

Snowflake-like entities drifted constantly down from the sky. Pitch-black 'snowflakes' piled thickly on the ground. If anyone left the buildings, each step would likely sink deeply into this snow, leaving deep and shallow pits.

Anyone approaching then would smell a faint, scorched odor from this 'snow'.

Like the embers of a sun.

When a sun grows old, when a sun dies, it loses the power to radiate light and heat.

An empty husk, stripped of all energy, becomes a black sun that heralds corruption and death.

There was no breath of life here. Apart from them, it seemed nothing else lived.

"Everything was fine these past few days. Who knows what made that guy turn on us?" Another female Abraham member undid her hair tie, revealing a key-shaped pendant hidden within her hair.

She was also calm, yet her eyes held the same terror.

This was a Sealed Artifact of the Abraham family, formed from the Beyonder characteristics of a Sequence 4, Secret Sorcerer.

It was one of their lifelines, yet this demigod-level Sealed Artifact utterly failed to let them enter the Spirit World or traverse through it.

They weren't fools. By now, they understood they had likely exposed something.

That guy, without a word, had thrown all the Abraham members—who he'd just been welcoming with a smile—into this place. He called it a 'visit', but what kind of visit forces people into a death trap?

Though unclear about the others' situations, the fact that the three Abraham members sent by Elder Bronn with a secret message had gathered together—how could this be coincidence?

"Heh heh heh—"

"Hehehe—"

"It's coming, again." Despite being a Sequence 6: Scribe, Charlie's mind seemed on the verge of shattering. This was far more intense than the effect of unknown whispers.

In barely half an hour, two Travelers and one Scribe had nearly suffered mental collapse here.

Beyond the empty dormitory corridor, a tall, slender black figure emerged from the stairwell.

It was extremely tall, its frame like a bamboo pole, utterly devoid of flesh. Its limbs were similarly unnaturally long and thin, almost dragging on the ground.   

This monster had started knocking on doors ever since they appeared in the first-floor "104" dorm room. When it found their dorm, it would break in. Even using the Beyonder abilities of a Sun Priest couldn't completely destroy this thing!

What exactly was this…

Soon, it knocked on the first door on their floor again.

"Is anyone there?"

No response came from within.

After waiting a few seconds, seemingly hearing no movement, it moved to the second door and knocked again.

"Is anyone there?"

Then the third.

"Is anyone there?"

"Is anyone there?"

"Is anyone there?"

Like a death knell, each whispered question carried a terrifying psychic pollution, forcing images of their own gruesome deaths by the monster into the minds of the Abraham members present.

Until, the knocking sound echoed outside Charlie and the others' door.

"Thump—"

"Thump—"

"Thump—"

"Is anyone there?"

The raspy voice was like nails scraping sheet metal, grating and unbearable, causing their minds to freeze.

Charlie and the others instinctively held their breath, their minds ravaged, trying once more to pretend no one was inside.

They had tried this tactic in "204" and "304", but the time bought was pitifully short, far too short.

Yet they all knew what would happen next.

A few more knocks sounded.

The monster outside didn't leave.

"If no one's there… I'm coming in…"

Squeak—

The locked door slowly, slowly opened from the outside.

Fingers deathly pale, a skeletal hand large enough to grasp a person pushed the dorm room door open.

Then, a bald head, with only two eye sockets occupying a quarter of its skull, silently slipped in through the gap beneath the door.

It was like a sheet of paper; the opening hand was merely a diversion.

"Now!"

The next instant, a burst of pure, radiant light like raindrops exploded from within the dorm room. The Slender Man instinctively covered its eyes with its other hand, letting out a piercing shriek.

The three Abraham members bolted past the Slender Man out of the room, sprinting towards the end of the corridor.

Every time they passed another dorm room door, it would crack open slightly.

Inside might be masses of hair, or rows of hanging mannequins, or surging foul-smelling liquid, or perhaps humanoid creatures writhing their bodies.

No room was safe; only the one they had been in offered temporary sanctuary!

Run upwards? Or downwards?

They were on the fourth floor. Running down risked encountering that woman in the wedding dress—she was too dangerous, truly too dangerous, definitely at the demigod level. They absolutely could not meet her!

"Run! Upwards!"

(End of Chapter)