Novel Full Chapter 394: The game that makes you kill yourself [1]
Chapter 394: The game that makes you kill yourself [1]
The silence that followed the call felt agonizing.
’Reception? Did it say reception? It said reception…’
Darwin’s breathing subconsciously grew heavier. He tried his best not to show it once he noticed, but this wasn’t something that he could control.
’What is wrong with me? Why am I acting like this?’
“Haha.”
He laughed it off.
“I guess it looks like I’m the next target.”
His back shuddered.
“So, from what we’ve observed, it takes about several seconds to a minute before the victim dies. Well, at least for something to happen. We don’t actually know what happens. In the first one, the person hung himself, but do you all think I’m going to do the same? Hah.”
Darwin laughed again, finding the thought to be ridiculous.
He sat back down and checked his watch.
Tik, Tik—!
For some reason, the ticking of the clock felt louder than ever.
To hide his nervousness, Darwin continued to check the cameras.
“There’s nothing here. Nothing here. Nothing else here. Do you guys think the smiling man from before will come to me? Ehhh… Honestly, this is pretty terribly designed.”
Darwin continued to point out the flaws of the game.
“The tension would’ve been a lot higher if the smiling man had appeared on the fourth floor; it would’ve shown some progression. Honestly, I might’ve even felt a bit of panic if that happened. But as you can see, the programmer skipped over something that basic. This is game design 101.”
Darwin wasn’t a game designer, but he didn’t need to be to know stuff like this.
The chat also thought similarly.
—Yeah, honestly. What is this guy thinking? I’m honestly not feeling that tense.
—Wasted potential.
—Honestly, for a moment, I thought it was starting to get good. What wasted potential.
—…Has anything happened yet?
Tik, Tik—!
The clock continued to tick. Pulling his gaze away from the timer, he looked towards the surroundings.
At first glance, the reception seemed unchanged, but the dim lights appeared to breathe, pulsing faintly as they fed and withdrew from the shadows.
The air grew thick, pressing in on him, as if something beyond the scope of the reception had stirred awake and was now watching, waiting just beyond the edge of sight for the next second to slip by.
Darwin’s lips parted slightly, his mouth dry as if the air itself had drained all the moisture from him.
The gentle tune continued to play in the background, and as he focused his attention on his surroundings, he suddenly felt a change.
Crrr crrr!
“Hmm?”
Darwin’s attention snapped toward the speakers as a faint crackling sound bled through them. His body tensed instantly, every nerve on edge, waiting for whatever was about to follow.
“…Is something finally happening? I’ve been waiting for quite some time. Was wondering if it was coming or not.”
He still maintained an outward calm. He couldn’t let the viewers think that he was actually nervous.
He waited in silence, his eyes fixed nervously on the speakers.
Crrrrrrr!
The static continued to bleed through, growing louder, swallowing every other sound in the room. It started to grow unbearable, and Darwin’s face started to wince. The viewers also started to find it uncomfortable, and just as the noise started to reach a point where the viewers were about to shut the stream off, it stopped.
Silence.
The dim reception turned completely silent.
But it was that silence that heightened the tension.
Ba… Thump! Ba… Thump!
Darwin’s heart pounded, each beat drumming steadily in his ears until it drowned out everything else.
He tried to push the sound away, to focus on anything but that relentless rhythm, but it stayed, echoing inside his skull, refusing to fade.
His eyes scanned the surroundings cautiously, ready to react at any given moment. Everything felt off to him.
The shadows seemed to shift and breathe, stretching along the walls in unnatural patterns. The mirrors and paintings around him felt alive, their still surfaces staring at him in the silence.
Everything felt alive, and chills started to spread across his back.
He opened his mouth, trying to say a word, but nothing came out. His throat was completely dry.
And just as the tension reached the limit—
Da Dang!
The speakers fared back to life, causing Darwin’s heart to pound.
“Huh?”
He turned his gaze back to the speakers. They were playing again, the same soft jazz tune as before.
The stretched shadows slowly receded to their places, and the invisible ’eyes’ that had lingered in the dark seemed to vanish, leaving the room as it was.
“What? Is that all?”
Darwin looked around, trying to see if there was anyone around him.
However, the entire place was deserted. It was just him.
“What’s this? Is this really it?”
He looked rather disappointed.
“…I guess this was the cheap jumpscare tactic? Is it trying to build up tension? I don’t know, but it certainly wasn’t much at all. Haii… And here I was getting excited.”
Shaking his head, he sat back down on the chair, wiping some of the cold sweat from his forehead.
—That was incredibly disappointing. To be honest, I expected more.
—All of this for…?
—It’s a waste of time. Change the game.
—Hmm. Isn’t the music different?
“Hm?”
Picking up a certain comment, Darwin frowned.
He tried to listen to the music better, and as he did, his brow rose.
It really was different!
’There seems to be a soft hum in the music. Like that of a little girl. It’s faint, but it’s there.’
He hadn’t noticed it before, but now that he did, he also noticed something else. The tempo of the music… it was a little bit faster than before.
He wasn’t the only one.
The viewers started to notice the abnormalities with the music, too.
And just as Darwin was about to speak….
Trrrrr! Trrrrr!
“….!”
The phone rang again.
For a moment, Darwin was startled. He nearly jumped up at the sound of the phone, but quickly collecting himself, he reached for the phone and responded.
“Room 409.”
Click!
The same voice, and the same quick call.
“…..”
Staring at the phone in silence, Darwin forced a laugh while checking the cameras on the fourth floor.
He waited exactly one minute, hoping to see something, but…
“Nothing?”
Nothing happened.
“Another bug? This game seems to be full of bugs…”
Darwin frowned, no longer paying attention to the music. He fiddled with the cameras for a couple of more seconds, until—
Trrrrr! Trrrrr!
The phone call came again.
This time, Darwin was less hesitant as he picked it up.
“Room 703.”
Click!
“What in the world…”
Darwin checked the cameras for the seventh floor, but still nothing.
“Another bug?”
He frowned, waiting for a minute.
But…
Nothing happened yet again.
“This is the second time nothing has happened. This game is really shit.”
Even the viewers were growing frustrated.
Seeing how the situation was turning out, Darwin was just about to change the camera angle when something happened.
Creaaaaak!
The door on the seventh floor opened, and an elderly figure walked out.
“Oh? Something is finally happening.”
Darwin narrowed his eyes, staring at the old lady through the poor-quality camera, and just as she walked out of the room, something occurred. She reached for her pocket and retrieved a certain rope.
“….!?”
A familiar scene was starting to play out.
The camera started to lag, and a moment later, her lifeless corpse started to dangle on the rope.
“…”
Darwin felt the air leave his lungs at the sight, an audible gulp escaping him as he hurriedly switched the camera feed. He flipped back to the fourth floor, and the moment the image came into view, his entire body went still.
A woman knelt on the floor, her hands clasped together in desperate pleading.
Standing before her was the same man from the fifth floor, his eyes stretched wide, his mouth hanging open in a grotesque imitation of a smile.
Ba… Thump! Ba… Thump!
Darwin’s heart drummed loudly.
The chat stopped moving.
And the surroundings turned silent.
All besides that soft music that played in the background.
As every eye remained fixed on the woman kneeling before the man, the camera feed began to stutter and glitch. The image warped and froze for a moment, then abruptly shifted, revealing the next scene to everyone watching.
“….!!!”
The woman…
She stood before the camera, staring at it.
Her face was deathly pale, her smile stretched too wide, and her tangled black hair hung in disarray. She wore a simple white dress, tilting her head slightly as she stared into the camera.
Catching sight of such a figure, Darwin’s legs trembled, the surrounding light turning even dimmer as his heart thumped even louder.
But he cared nothing for that as something else pressed his mind.
’Where…? Where is it?’
Without thinking, he glanced around, his trembling hand reaching for the drawer beside him.
The moment he pulled it open, his breath paused, then turned ragged.
Because inside, lying coiled and waiting, was a rope.
A rope he recognized instantly.
“H-hoo.”
His mind spun out of control, a suffocating dread creeping into every corner of his body as his hands shook beyond his control.
He wasn’t stupid.
He understood what the videos meant. The calls. Every single thing that had happened.
The man was coming.
Floor by floor, he was getting closer.
Three options. That was all Darwin had left.
Hope the man didn’t reach him by morning.
Wait for him to arrive.
Or… hang himself.
“Haa… haa… haa…”
Darwin’s inpenetrable face finally started showing signs of cracks.
Fear had finally started to consume him.