Immersive Horror Game - Chapter 1
In a hotel late at night.
[Help me!]
Mo Shouchen was awakened by his phone vibrating. He picked it up and saw that it was a WeChat message from Liu Lei.
Huh? Was he in danger? He was instantly wide awake and quickly replied, “Where are you?”
Knock…knock…knock…
Just as he sent the message, there was a knock on the door.
Strangely enough, the knocking was eerily rhythmic. Each knock occurred at roughly the same interval, just like a pendulum. It was quite annoying.
“Who is it?’”
“It’s me…”
Mo Shouchen was stunned. Hadn’t he just asked him for help on WeChat? Why was he knocking on the door outside?
Was that SOS just a prank?
He rolled out of bed, ready to go open the door, but just as he reached the door, his phone vibrated again. Turning the screen up, he saw it was a voice message from Liu Lei.
What’s wrong with this guy? He’s right at the door. Couldn’t he just say what he wanted to say directly? Is this bastard that bored? With a belly full of complaints, Mo Shouchen looked through the peephole and confirmed that it was indeed his friend standing outside.
He opened the door and said with displeasure, “What kind of prank are you playing in the middle of the night? I almost called the police, you know?”
He thought Liu Lei would apologise, but unexpectedly the other didn’t say anything. Liu Lei just lowered his head, walked into the room, and collapsed onto his bed.
Seeing him so tired, Mo Shouchen teased, “You’re already this tired on your first date? There’s no such thing as a field that’s been over-ploughed, only an ox that’s been worked to death! You have to take it easy with these things. There’s plenty of time in the future!”
Liu Lei, who never suffers a loss, didn’t talk back today. He seemed to be really exhausted.
Mo Shouchen shook his head helplessly, closed the door, and went back to bed. At that moment, he suddenly remembered the voice message Liu Lei had just sent.
He glanced at the person lying on the bed next to him and felt that something was not quite right, so he got cautious and did not directly open the voice message. Instead, he turned his body over and converted the voice note into text.
A moment later, a few lines of text appeared on the screen.
[That game is real. I can’t go back. Zou Qianqian is missing too. I’m hiding in the public restroom on the 10th floor. Please help me!]
After reading those words, Mo Shouchen suddenly felt a chill run down his spine. If this wasn’t a prank and Liu Lei really was hiding in the public restroom on the 10th floor, then….
Who was lying on the other bed?
Moonlight shone through the curtains onto the wall, casting a pale white glow in the dark room.
Mo Shouchen focused on the soft breathing sounds in the room. Just like the knocking earlier, the breathing was so regular it didn’t sound human.
Mo Shouchen was now lying with his back to the other bed. He really wanted to turn around and see if it was Liu Lei lying there, but he was even more afraid of seeing something terrifying.
So he quietly shrank under the covers, slowly turned over, and finally, he gently lifted the covers a crack…
The room was dark. Through the narrow gap, he could only see the outline of a person lying on the opposite bed. He couldn’t make out the person’s face.
He thought about it carefully again. He had indeed seen Liu Lei through the peephole. But why would the other send a message saying he was hiding in the public restroom?
Was it really just a prank?
Mo Shouchen replied to Liu Lei’s text and warned him to stop messing around.
After hitting send, Mo Shouchen stared at the opposite bed through the gap in the covers. Except for their chest rising and falling, the person lying on the bed didn’t move.
But a few seconds later, he still received a reply from Liu Lei, which meant that the person who was texting him was definitely not the one lying in the bed.
[Believe me! I’m not joking! I swear to God!]
Liu Lei wasn’t one to make empty promises, and the person lying on the opposite bed hadn’t moved. Mo Shouchen suddenly thought of another possibility. Could it be Zou Qianqian using Liu Lei’s phone to send him messages?
To verify this guess, he asked the other person to send a selfie, and soon he received a photo. In the picture, Liu Lei’s face was deathly pale, and his eyes were filled with fear. The background of the photo was the white tile of a public bathroom.
Mo Shouchen was now certain this wasn’t a prank, but why were there two Liu Leis?
Which one was the real one?
Mo Shouchen was more inclined to believe Liu Lei, who had sent him the message. He not only had the selfie as proof, but he also sensed his desperate emotions pleading through it. This Liu Lei felt more like a real person.
The “Liu Lei” lying on the other bed, aside from responding at the door, had remained silent. His knocking rhythm, his gait, and his breathing were all incredibly rigid. So rigid that he didn’t seem like a living person at all.
But if this person who looks exactly like Liu Lei isn’t Liu Lei, then…who is he?
Or rather, what was he?
Mo Shouchen dared not think any further. He felt the most important thing right now was to escape.
He slowly stretched his legs out, hooked the clothes at the foot of the bed under the covers with his feet, and quietly dressed under the covers.
From beginning to end, his gaze never left the opposite bed. Fortunately, the person on the bed remained motionless, which gradually emboldened him.
He gently lifted the covers, rolled out of bed, put on his shoes, and slowly stood up.
Creak…
Unexpectedly, the floorboards emitted a piercing scraping sound. It was like a cold awl piercing Mo Shouchun’s heart in the quiet darkness.
The sound caught him completely off guard. Mo Shouchen immediately felt short of breath, and his entire body stiffened.
He stared fearfully at the opposite bed, but “Liu Lei” lying on it seemed unaffected by the sound and remained motionless. If it weren’t for the slight rise and fall of his chest, one might easily mistake him for a corpse.
After waiting a few seconds and seeing that nothing terrifying happened, Mo Shouchun secretly breathed a sigh of relief and began to tiptoe towards the door.
Fortunately, apart from the loose floorboard near his bed, the rest of the floorboards in the room remained intact and made no further noise along the way.
Having finally reached the door, Mo Shouchun was eager to open it and rush out. But just as his hand touched the doorknob, a familiar voice suddenly came from behind.
“Where are you going?”
Mo Shouchun turned around in horror.He didn’t know when, but “Liu Lei”, who had been lying on the bed moments before, had stood up and was walking towards him step by step…