Doomsday Wonderland

Reaching the last few steps on the flight of stairs she was on, Lin Sanjiu looked up. Just as she expected, she saw a three-seater sofa occupying half the stairs ahead of her and a red panda once again.

Lin Sanjiu sighed softly. Just moments ago, she had started from that exact spot. After climbing up three floors, she found herself back here.

From the looks of things, they probably couldn’t escape these three floors of stairs by any normal means.

“It’s just like what you said. It’s like ‘ ghosts building walls ¹ ‘”, Lin Sanjiu crossed her wings, sat down and gave up walking as well. “I’ve read a ghost story once. I think it mentioned that a virgin boy’s urine might dispel the setup,” after Lin Sanjiu said that, she eyed the red panda.

“Don’t look at me when you say virgin boy!” Qing Jiuliu gnashed his teeth at her. “How insulting!”

“I don’t think that’s what it is,” the blue floral furniture interjected. “I think we’re affected by someone’s ability.”

“Is it that old lady? We didn’t even provoke her. Why can’t she just leave us alone…”

Lin Sanjiu looked at the two people and thought of an idea. She stood up and walked to the door with the “EXIT” sign. She opened the door pushing her large body against it before turning to instruct the two people behind her, “Follow me. Give me some time to think while we go back inside. If there are no options, I will jump out of the window and see if I can break this weird loop.”

The red panda leaped onto the sofa nimbly after hearing what she said. Ji Shanqing gritted his teeth as he shimmied out of the door.

There wasn’t anything unusual about the 16th floor.

The carpet had been drenched in blood which had dried over time so it made crunching noises when they walked over it. The stale and oppressive stench of iron and mold in the corridor was more unbearable compared to the upper floors. As the guest rooms above the 19th floor were more expensive, they were mostly empty before the apocalypse, so their conditions were better and cleaner. On the 16th floor, there were a few guests rooms with ajar doors because the corpses of their previous occupants were stuck in the doorway. In fact, the corpses barely even retained any human shape. It was as if someone had bitten or mutilated those corpses to reveal most of the white skeletons beneath their flesh. The remaining flesh and skin were black and dry. They hung on their skeletons like broken rags which fluttered as Lin Sanjiu walked past.

“Nothing looks different,” Lin Sanjiu concluded as she inspected the corridor quickly. She marched back to her two companions swiftly, “Wait for me here. I’ll go to a balcony and try to climb up.”

After she said that, she pushed the door beside her. Using her large wings almost like a broom, she swept a dismembered corpse out of the way and stepped into a room.

There was a balcony attached to this particular guest room. It was very difficult for Lin Sanjiu to climb up to the next floor without her hands. However, Lin Sanjiu saw that she could grab the edge of the balcony above with her beak if she leaped up and flapped her wings as hard as she could. When the two other people entered the room, they watched as two chicken claws fumbled in mid-air before she finally climbed up to the next floor and disappeared from the view of the window.

The room was silent for a moment.

“What are your thoughts?” the red panda suddenly spoke after some time.

“I don’t think it would work,” the blue floral sofa sighed.

“What if we try to go downstairs instead?”

“If we head downstairs, we’ll probably find ourselves on the 18th floor.”

Qing Jiuliu hesitated for a moment before he turned behind to look at the sofa, “So, you’ve already…”

“Look outside the window,” Ji Shanqing suddenly interrupted.

As if to prove his words, they heard a sound from the edge of the balcony. They saw a familiar beak gripping the metal railing of the balcony. Using the strength from her wings, Lin Sanjiu pushed herself up. Slowly, they saw the head of a hen spouting out from the edge of the balcony. Her black round eyes stared back at the two people inside. Lin Sanjiu suddenly made some clucking sounds as if she was swearing her head off.

“What the hell!” That was the first sentence she said the moment she landed properly in the balcony and regained her balance after much effort.

“What is wrong with these three floors? Why can’t we get out!” Small feathers floated around the room as the disheveled hen entered it. “Maybe I should try jumping off the building. I can still see the ground level—”

“Don’t!” Ji Shanqing immediately reacted, “If you jump down from the 16th floor, you will probably fall from the 18th floor… Then, I think you would continue falling through the three floors in a never-ending loop, I think.”

Lin Sanjiu looked at the sofa. She did not know where Ji Shanqing’s ‘face’ was so she could only shift her gaze around the sofa with uncertainty. “You already figured out the situation?”

“Yes, I have a conjecture. This isn’t something hard to guess.” Ji Shanqing probably saw that Lin Sanjiu’s eyes lit up so he sounded a little embarrassed, “Even though I don’t know if the culprit using this ability or even Special Item, I think that the space between the 16th floor and 18th floor has been converted into a Möbius strip.”

Lin Sanjiu frowned when she heard that familiar term. As she tried to recall where she had heard that term before, Qing Jiuliu exclaimed, “Ah! It is that unorientable, never-ending loop!”

“Yes, if you walk on the surface of a Mobius strip, you can walk on forever without seeing an end…”Ji Shanqing muttered. “Don’t you think it resembles our current situation?”

“I have a vague idea of what that is. It is related to math,” Lin Sanjiu replied. “With that in mind, what should we do next?”

Her question was constructive but no one answered her.

She asked again. Suddenly, she noticed that the red panda was looking her way. The latter’s sparkling black eyes slowly shifted upward. He was staring directly behind her. Ji Shanqing fell silent and acted like an ordinary sofa.

There was something behind her!

Lin Sanjiu turned around abruptly. She was shocked the moment she saw what it was.

There was a head of black hair floating in the mid-air above the balcony. When Lin Sanjiu saw it, it shot upward and disappeared into the floor above. Seconds before, someone seemed to have been hanging upside down to look into the room they were in.

“Wait for me here!”

Before the two people behind her could speak, the hen sprinted to the balcony. She spread her wings and leaped up. She caught the metal railing with her beak with finesse, pulled her body and disappeared from sight.

Qing Jiuliu sat upright and stared at the balcony. However, he wasn’t staring at the top of the balcony, but at the bottom. If that head of black hair jumped upward, it would reach the bottom of the balcony on their floor soon.

After waiting for a few minutes, he did not spot any sign of that head of black hair near the beige white balcony floor. Additionally, he didn’t know where Lin Sanjiu was after she chased that intruder.

Just then, Ji Shanqing spoke:

“Qing… Qing Jiuliu?” For some reasons, he was speaking softly and his voice was even trembling slightly.

“This chap is smart but too timid… ” Just as this thought surfaced in Qing Jiuliu’s mind, he questioned Ji Shanqing without turning his head, “What’s up?’

Even though he didn’t have any saliva nor esophagus, the blue floral sofa made an audible gulping sound.

“Someone just touched my back.”

The red panda turned his neck immediately, the fur on his back was standing on end.

There was no one behind the back of the sofa. As the sofa was standing sideways at the room entrance, he could only see a wall, the open door and a short passage of the corridor outside.

“What do you mean by ‘touched’?” Qing Jiuliu asked quietly.

“I can’t see my back but I felt someone accidentally brushing past my body,” Ji Shanqing’s was whispering so softly that he was barely audible. “Anyway, something touched me.”

“Could it be the owner of that black hair? ” The red panda grabbed the sofa back and stretched his legs, standing. He looked around cautiously.

His black eyes swept across the luggage bags, the carpet, the light switches and the pile of bones…

Nothing seemed different. He didn’t see that “someone” that Ji Shanqing mentioned.

Wait.