Scenario One: Painted Skin — 7

[Side Quest 2: Find the outdoor staircase on the second floor. (Complete)]

[Side Quest 2: Escape the killer.]

Run.

Bu Jianhan turned and bolted.

Run, run, run!

He poured every ounce of strength into sprinting madly back down the corridor he had come from. The flashlight on his phone bucked wildly in his hand, its beam flashing across the jumble of furniture blocking the hall in a dizzying blur.

Behind him came the slap-slap-slap of bare feet pounding the floor—heavy and oppressive. Thud. Thud. Thud. Each footfall was clear and rapid, drawing closer by the second.

Bu Jianhan had the dazed impression that the monster was right behind him. The Skinner was on his heels; all it had to do was reach out and it could seize him by his vulnerable nape!

Scared out of his wits, he scrambled over a cabinet lying across the passage, dropped to the floor and crawled beneath a bookcase wedged diagonally across the corridor—only to find his way blocked by a swivel chair.

He crashed into it and stumbled onward. The furniture battered his waist and legs with bursts of pain, but he ignored it all, smashing through every obstacle in his path as he ran!

Damn it. The second he saw what a mess this corridor was, he should have known there would be a chase scene here!

The corner was just ahead!

Bu Jianhan lunged forward and was about to turn when his foot came down on a thermos. Unable to stop himself, he slammed bodily into the wall with a thud.

He scrambled back up in abject panic. A bone-white light flashed past, and a blood-red hand—its muscles and veins visibly throbbing—was already reaching for his face!

Crash—

The clothes rack he had knocked askew suddenly toppled over with a tremendous bang, landing diagonally across the Skinner.

The Skinner let out a shrill, agonized scream and reached back for the rack. With no skin to protect it, its back had been smashed into a bloody mess!

An opening!

Bu Jianhan, who had flinched so violently at the sight of the Skinner that he had fallen right back down, pushed himself up on all fours, whipped around the corner, and fled down the other corridor!

He ran with a stagger, his breathing growing harsher and harsher. The ankle he had twisted on the first floor began throbbing again, reducing his desperate flight to a hobbling limp.

And at this crucial, life-or-death moment...

He actually...

Ran out of steam!

For the record, I used to run a thousand meters in three and a half minutes, okay?

Damn it, are the protagonists of all horror games hard-coded to be out-of-shape shut-ins? I've barely gone anywhere! Why do they start panting like crazy and collapsing from exhaustion the second a chase begins?!

A tremendous clatter came from behind him. The Skinner threw aside the clothes rack, gave an enraged howl, and came after him once more.

Bu Jianhan dragged his leaden feet onward, gasping, almost walking while going through the motions of running. The monster behind him seemed tireless. Its footsteps grew louder and faster as it closed in on him again.

He rounded another corner, and the obstacle course formed by all the furniture was finally almost at an end.

Bu Jianhan clambered over the last sofa in his path. At last, the corridor before him opened into a broad, unobstructed stretch. The Skinner was right on his back now, its thunderous footsteps practically exploding beside his ears.

But Bu Jianhan's eyes lit up.

He saw the door to Lin Four's room!

"Lin Four, save me—!"

As though he had spotted his savior, he kicked off hard, half running and half scrambling to Lin Four's door. He plastered himself against it and began hammering frantically on the panel.

[Friendly Reminder: You need the Dragon Key.]

Bu Jianhan: "..."

Shit. He had forgotten.

He had traded his Dragon Key to Lin Four for the Tiger Key. He couldn't get into this room anymore!

Despair descended over Bu Jianhan like a suffocating pall.

He turned around, and an enormous blood-red face appeared before him with a whoosh.

The Skinner's huge eyes bulged as he fixed Bu Jianhan with an icy glare. Two rows of white teeth showed in what looked like a grotesque, tormented grin.

"Aaaah!"

Bu Jianhan screamed and hastily backed away, only to slam into the door again with a bang.

In the brief moment he had wasted calling to Lin Four, the Skinner had caught up. It seized Bu Jianhan by the arm and hauled him off the floor, raising a cleaver that gleamed with a chilling light in its other hand!

What now?!

Bu Jianhan's mind buzzed, his will to survive surging to its absolute limit. Acting on instinct, he opened his inventory and pulled out the bloodstained utility hammer.

He raised it high and brought it crashing down on the Skinner's face!

Clang—!

The Skinner lifted its cleaver just in time to block the hammerhead. But the strength Bu Jianhan unleashed in his desperation was so great that he knocked the cleaver clean out of its hand.

He followed with another blow, slamming the hammer into the Skinner's shoulder!

This one struck true. Bone broke with a sickening crack, and the Skinner howled in pain. It stumbled back a step, released Bu Jianhan, and grabbed hold of the utility hammer instead.

Bu Jianhan tried to wrench the hammer free, but the Skinner's strength was monstrous. The tool might as well have been locked in a vise; he couldn't budge it. He made the decision at once. Abandoning the hammer, he rolled sideways across the floor, sprang up, and resumed running for his life!

He could still escape!

He had the Tiger Key. If he could reach the branching passage at the start of the corridor, he could still seize his final chance at survival!

Their brief struggle had allowed him to recover a little stamina. He broke into a sprint, raced all the way back to the head of the corridor, and drifted around the corner into the side passage.

Victory was right in front of him!

The instant he reached the door, he used the Tiger Key without hesitation. The lock clicked open. He lunged into the room, flung the door shut, and locked it.

Then he collapsed to the floor.

He let out a long breath.

He had finally survived the second high-intensity scare.

Only after coming to a stop did he notice the aching all over his body and the weakness and trembling in his legs. The abrupt release after such prolonged tension left his limbs refusing to obey him.

His phone chose that moment to issue a low-battery warning.

Bu Jianhan understood the rule governing this lousy phone now: it always ran out of power right in the middle of a scare. Since he had entered a brief safe period, he casually pulled a spare from his inventory and fitted the phone with a fresh battery.

The spare battery had only two bars of charge, but if past experience was any guide, it should last until he found another one.

He opened the quest log and took a look.

Something horrifying had happened.

Side Quest 2 still had not updated.

Bang!

Something slammed heavily into the door with a deafening crash. Bu Jianhan flinched so hard he could have sworn the whole room shook.

Bang! Bang, bang!

Bu Jianhan whipped around to see the door shuddering under a relentless barrage of blows. A bulge had even appeared in the middle of the wooden panel. The paint split apart, and the whole door teetered on the verge of collapse, as though whoever stood outside might break through at any moment.

Bang, bang!

Damn it, the Skinner had taken his utility hammer and was using it to smash down the door!

The scare wasn't over yet!

Frantic with dread, Bu Jianhan scrambled up and began feeling around. He swept his phone's light across the room and finally found another door directly opposite the first—this one made of stainless steel!

You might be able to smash through a wooden door, but surely you can't break down a stainless-steel one. So going through this door must be how he truly escaped the scare!

Bu Jianhan was overjoyed. He rushed over and frantically twisted the handle.

[Friendly Reminder: You need the Snake Key.]

Bu Jianhan: "...?"

Shit. No nesting doors!

And where the hell was the Snake Key?!

Stay calm. Stay calm. The worse the situation, the more important it was not to panic.

A properly designed horror game would never include a pointless sequence, nor would it put the player in a guaranteed-death scenario. If the Snake Key was his only way out, it had to be somewhere along the route he had taken. Since he hadn't picked it up earlier, it had to be inside this room!

Search!

Bu Jianhan began tearing madly through every box and cabinet. He yanked out drawers, flung open cupboard doors, smashed a table lamp, and even pulled up the bedspread and crawled beneath the bed to search. Apart from a spare phone battery, however, he found nothing.

How was that possible?

Was he really going to die here?

Bu Jianhan rushed back to the stainless-steel door, hammering at the handle and wrenching it over and over. The door did not budge in the slightest. It stood as firm as a mountain.

The room's other door shook more violently with every passing second, sustaining more and more damage. Bu Jianhan had no doubt that two more blows from the Skinner would finish it off completely!

The circle of light from his phone swung past the wardrobe.

Bu Jianhan's mind suddenly cleared. It was as though a little lightbulb had popped on above his head!

Of course—the indispensable horror-game staple: hide-and-seek in a wardrobe!

Without hesitation, he pulled open the wardrobe, shoved aside the clothes hanging inside, and squeezed himself in. Then he reached back to close the doors and switched off his phone's light.

The whole sequence was smooth, fluid, and flawless.

The instant the phone's light went out, an explosion-like crash—bang!—rang through the room. The Skinner had smashed the door completely off its hinges, sending it flying into the wall.

An instant later, the slap-slap of footsteps rushed closer, and the Skinner charged into the room.

Bu Jianhan immediately held his breath, not daring to make a sound.

The Skinner prowled back and forth, passing the wardrobe where Bu Jianhan hid two or three times. It seemed unable to believe that a living, breathing person could have simply vanished right beneath its nose, and it let out an enraged roar.

Bu Jianhan heard it furiously smashing things, heard it lift the bedspread to check for anyone hiding beneath the bed, and heard its unmistakable harsh, labored breathing whenever it passed the wardrobe.

Inside, Bu Jianhan wrapped his arms around himself and curled into a tiny ball, his whole body rigid and trembling with tension.

Good thing I didn't hide under the bed just now.

But where was the Snake Key? As he hid, he tried to distract himself by thinking through the problem, hoping it would ease his fear.

Looking back over everything he had done, the quests and scares had followed one after another at a relentless pace. He had already searched every room he could enter. He should have collected every item. How could he still be missing the Snake Key?

Was it a system bug, or had he really overlooked something?

At last, having found nothing, the Skinner let out a frustrated howl. Its footsteps slowly receded toward the room's entrance.

Was it finally over?

Bu Jianhan was just about to breathe a sigh of relief.

Riiing—!

The shrill ringtone shattered the deathly silence of the darkness.

The incoming-call display lit up the phone screen. At the same time, the Skinner, which had been on the verge of leaving, heard the ringtone. Its rapid footsteps actually turned and came straight back!

Bu Jianhan went rigid. Consumed by despair, he answered the deadly call.

"Hello? Hello? This is Lin Three. Can you hear me?" The person on the other end sounded equally frantic, every word tumbling into the next. "This is the last recording I made before I died. The key is in the bathroom! Remember, the key is in the bathroom!"

The moment the voice stopped, the wardrobe doors were yanked open with a whoosh.

The Skinner, looking like an anatomical model from a medical school, gave a hoarse, sinister chuckle as his shadow engulfed Bu Jianhan.

In the deep, terrifying darkness, only a pair of frighteningly bright eyes could be seen.

Bu Jianhan stared blankly ahead, phone still in hand, and muttered, "...Thanks a lot."

[You have died.]