The five of them lingered in silence, an odd stillness draped over their surroundings like a heavy curtain. Quite literally, the curtains of the classroom were drawn tight, sealing off any view from the outside. The room smelled faintly of dust, the kind of musk one associated with abandoned places, though no one could confirm if it even was abandoned.
"Let's open this curtain. Where exactly are we?" Kamiko muttered, his hand already inching toward the fabric.
Alan, standing a little behind the others, exhaled gently. His shoulders trembled as if burdened with an unshakable unease. "It feels like… I don't know, a nostalgic horror setting." His voice was quiet but trembling. His eyes wandered across the walls, the ceiling, and the desks left in a strange arrangement. "This doesn't feel right. This isn't just another classroom… I'm not sure if it even belongs to the real world."
Despite Alan's unease, Kamiko didn't hesitate, pulling the curtain aside with a swift motion. Light abruptly spilled into the room, but what greeted them was not at all what they expected.
Kamiko's eyes widened. "What… what is this?"
Kaguro staggered backward, muttering in disbelief. "What the hell… what the frick is this?"
From the corner, Bachi tilted his head and stared with a mix of fear and fascination. His lips parted slowly before words slipped out. "I… It's not real. This isn't the real world. It's… something else."
The view outside was dazzling—ethereal, unearthly. Everything shimmered with unnerving beauty. Floating clouds refracted colors like prisms, scattering them across the horizon. Streams of light danced like liquid, pooling into lakes that glimmered like molten silver. It was stunning, almost heavenly—a realm too vivid, too radiant compared to the grim misery of their own world. And yet, despite its beauty, it carried an unmistakable sense of danger.
Then, a shadow broke the luminous view.
Suddenly, without warning, a giant eye appeared. It pressed against the windowpane, peering through into the classroom.
Kamiko gasped in shock, stumbling several steps back until his back struck a desk.
The figure outside shifted, moving from the window. As its whole form revealed itself, the five of them froze, each paralyzed in a different way. The creature was lean and oddly muscular, its frame humanoid but grotesquely alien. Where most beings would have a head, it had none. Instead, sprouting grotesquely from its neck was a single, massive eye.
Terror rippled through them like an electric current. Kashimo, overcome by panic, lost his footing entirely. He dropped to the ground with a loud thud, his teeth chattering even as he scrambled backward on all fours.
"What… what the hell is that? An… an eye-head?" Kaguro's voice cracked, nearly screeching.
Bachi tried to laugh, though the fear in his chest still gripped him tightly. "Ha—ha ha… It's—it's freaking like some twisted variation of Sirenhead!"
Kamiko, perhaps masking his fear with humor, added, "Bro looks like he went through a terrible plastic surgery."
The tension cracked like glass. All five of them burst into awkward laughter, their nervous chuckles echoing off the classroom walls. What moments earlier seemed like their doom had, for a brief moment, been reduced to comedy. Their jokes piled up like flimsy shields, covering the fear they couldn't bear to face.
Kashimo, still breathing harshly as he wiped sweat from his brow, protested. "Guys, this really isn't the time to make jokes. We need to get out of here. This… this is wrong."
They fell silent at his words. He was right. Despite the fleeting relief their laughter brought, they couldn't ignore the reality of their situation. They were in a place that wasn't theirs, surrounded by things beyond comprehension. Fear demanded caution, but a bit of laughter was the only bandage they had for their unraveling sanity.
The Realisation
Elsewhere, far from their vantage, Entity 404 stood victorious. He had slain Entity 05, and now its essence was fading, being consumed into him in wisps like vanishing smoke. His monstrous aura surged violently, ripping through the fabric of the realm. The battlefield, once teeming with chaos, now sat in silence except for the heavy thrum of lingering power.
Entity 404 inhaled sharply, muttering under his breath as though the realization were slowly dawning on him. "Wait. No… this is wrong."
He replayed the last moments of combat, the chants, the ritual commands he had used. With each step, clarity struck like cruel lightning.
His tone hardened. "Damn it… I forgot."
His spell to return Team Akashi—the five survivalists—to the human realm was missing a critical phrase. He hadn't uttered "Eartho Smikos"—the incantation specifying Earth's simulation, Earth's dimension.
In Fujism, a simulation was synonymous with a realm, layered forms of reality stacked infinitely. By omitting the specific key, he had unintentionally left their destination unspecified.
His face twisted in frustration. The implications grated against him. "Those kids… They've been sent into another simulation."
A simulation vastly different from Earth's, a place perhaps uncharted even for someone of his knowledge. There was no telling what dangers lurked within.
"I'll have to find them. Shit!" he spat, punching into the void until the air trembled with a warping vibration. Ripples expanded, condensing into swirling light. A new portal opened, its vortex shimmering ominously as 404 dove through, beginning his search.
Back in the Mysterious Realm
The five explored cautiously. Without warning, a disembodied voice reverberated through the corridors. Its sound was uneven, distorted like static corruption bleeding through old speakers.
"Wel… come… to the realm of Entity… se…venty—"
It glitched, tearing in and out of clarity like a broken transmission. They exchanged worried glances, shivers running down their spines.
Then the voice returned, clearer this time. "Yes… 70. Entity 70."
The classroom lights flickered faintly as though to punctuate its words.
"This was once a backrooms level… a setting of horror disguised within the banality of a school. The rules were simple. The children stared, their gazes crawling across your flesh. You had to flee before the epidemic struck, before the whispers consumed you. Escape hinged upon a single task: find the exit door."
The voice warped into a laugh, low and uncomfortable.
"But… timelines collided. Fragments fractured. And now, this is not merely a level but my prison, my realm. I rewrote its laws. Modified it… until no trace of escape could truly remain, save for one."
A silence hung, suffocating, before the final statement dropped like a thunderous warning.
"Those who enter shall never leave. Good luck, little ones. Find your exit, if you think you can."
The five froze like stone statues.
Then, abruptly, hallucinations swarmed their vision. Children—pale, uncanny—materialized within classrooms, their grins stretching grotesquely from ear to ear. Each child stared unblinkingly, pupils dilated too wide, heads tilting mechanically in eerie synchronization.
One of them spoke, voice shrill yet reverberating unnaturally.
"Do you want purification?"
The child extended his hands forward. In them, two objects materialized. A knife gleamed with stale, rusted blood. The other hand held a gun, cold and absolute.
"Choose."
The implication was unmistakable. Purification meant blood. Violence. Death.
Fear crawled into their bones, each heartbeat like a drum warning them to flee. Without hesitation, they bolted. From corridors to stairways, stairways to dim classrooms, through hall after hall—they sprinted with lungs burning, chased not by students but by the horror of choice itself.
Time here unfolded differently. In Entity 70's realm, every second stretched monstrously long. A minute in this distorted dimension condensed into a mere second in Earth's world.
Though they had only been here ten minutes, Earth had spun forward ten entire hours.
The Traces of Victims
Exhausted, panting, they at last slowed. Chills ran through them as their eyes scanned the walls and floors they had ignored earlier. Bones jutted sharply from piles of clothing. Flecks of rotten flesh clung stubbornly to frail remains. The pungent stench of meat long dead filled the air, turning their stomachs violently.
None of them needed words. The message was clear: others had fallen here before. Victims, perhaps wanderers like them, had suffered a fate cruel beyond description.
Would they, too, end up as hollow remains scattered on the floor?
Though their bodies quivered with fear, they pressed forward, unwilling to surrender.
Encounter
The silence was pierced by the shuffle of footsteps—not theirs. Ahead, down a hauntingly dim corridor, a figure swayed weakly.
At first glance, he looked like a man dressed in formal wear, though disheveled, and missing his coat. His shirt was marred with broad splashes of blood, stained like an endless wound stretched across fabric. His right hand gripped a knife loosely. His dark black hair clung with sweat to his forehead. His knees wavered with each agonizing step, as though he might collapse at any moment.
Bachi, swallowing his fear, dared to call out. "Sir… May I ask… who are you?"
The man froze mid-step, shoulders rigid. Slowly, hesitantly, he turned his head to glance back at them. Expecting monsters, he nearly leapt at the sight of five adolescents.
His cracked voice broke the silence. "What are you… what are you all doing here?"
Kaguro stood forward cautiously, his tone guarded. "It's a long story." He paused, eyes flicking to the bloodstains. "But first… why are your clothes drenched in blood?"
The man let out a bitter laugh quickly choked by weariness. His eyes glistened faintly as he whispered, "Monsters. This place… is filled with them. I've been… killing them… one after the other. For six hours now…" He clutched the knife harder, though his hand trembled. "…But they just won't stay gone."
Alan stepped closer, his expression softening. Seeing the tear trailing down the survivor's worn face struck a pang of sympathy through him. Without thinking, he wiped it away with one hand.
"Then we'll help you," Alan reassured, his tone firm.
The man looked horrified at the suggestion. He shook his head frantically. "No. Don't. Please… don't put your lives in danger. Not for something so small."
His words, however, only heightened the weight in the air. For the five, this was no longer just survival. Fate had entangled them deeper into a realm few dared to imagine.
And thus, the story of Entity 70's realm was only beginning.
Chapter 31 Ends
To be continued…