Of all the people there, he should've been the last to volunteer. He wasn't the social one. The "I'll sit over here and exist quietly" guy didn't sign up to be the center of any game.
But the idea felt light. Harmless. Easy.
It was just a dream anyway.
The lights cut off.
Not dimmed. Not flickered.
Snapped.
Music strangled mid-beat. Whispered laughter scattered into the dark as people shuffled, chairs scraped, doors creaked.
Hao turned to face the wall and lifted his arm out of habit, as if checking a watch he didn't need.
"One…" he muttered.
"Five."
"Twenty."
"Fi—"
The pain hit like someone had thrown a knife straight into his skull.
It wasn't the dull, foggy throb of exhaustion. It was sharp. Precise. Like a clean cut through the softest part of his brain.
His breath caught. His stomach dipped.
Something inside him shifted.
The usual fuzz of inner monologue, that endless hum of *What am I doing with my life* and *Did I set an alarm* and *I should've cooked earlier*, went silent.
Then a voice spoke inside his skull.
It sounded like him, but cleaned up. Sharper around the edges, stripped of doubt and hesitation.
> **No lights.
> Don't go outside.
> Survive till sunrise.**
The words didn't echo. They didn't feel like thoughts.
They felt like rules being stamped directly into his mind.
Unskippable.
He leaned forward, one hand flat on the wall, breathing through his teeth as the pain ebbed.
"Math exam's tomorrow… I still need to cook… and…" he whispered, then stopped.
"Wait. Why am I here? Who is Kevin?"
The cabin's warmth suddenly had edges.
The silence after the laughter felt too complete.
"If this is some half-awake dream," he muttered to himself, "where's the flying? Why is my brain's idea of fun a dark cabin in the middle of nowhere?"
No answer, obviously.
He let out a long sigh, then pushed himself off the wall and started moving.
No light. No phone glow. Only the thin grey blur of moonlight sneaking in around curtains and through windows.
He stretched his arms out in front of him, fingers spread, taking careful, small steps.
Toe. Heel. Test. Shift weight.
"Anyone here…?" he asked quietly.
Silence pushed back.
He swept the first floor. Under couches. Behind them. Inside wardrobes. Under the big dining table. Behind the curtains. In the bathroom.
No muffled giggles. No poorly hidden shoes sticking out from behind furniture.
More importantly: no breathing he could hear. No heartbeats he could feel.
The dark pressed against his skin, heavy and close.
That was when he saw the basement door.
It wasn't open. Didn't glow. It just existed at the edge of his vision, a rectangle of black cut into the hallway.
If he hadn't been staring so hard into the dark, he might've missed it entirely.
A thin strip of moonlight from a distant window fell exactly along its outline, picking it out like someone had traced it on purpose.
"Don't tell me someone actually hid down there…" he muttered.
He still went.
Because of course he did.
His survival instincts were apparently hourly contractors.
The wooden steps complained under his weight, each creak swallowed quickly by the thick air below.
The smell hit halfway down. Damp. Old. The sour-sweet scent of things that had been forgotten for too long.
"Too dark," he said under his breath, hand sliding along the rough railing.
He repeated the rules in his head to keep himself anchored.
*No lights.*
*Don't go outside.*
*Survive till sunrise.*
"Survive what exactly…"
His foot hit concrete.
He paused, letting his eyes try and fail to adjust.
His hands did the work his vision couldn't. Fingertips brushed boxes. Fabric. The corner of something wooden. A chair. Rusting metal.
Storage. Junk. Nothing moving.
"This is just boring," he muttered.
Then he heard it.
**Tac… tac… tac…**
Soft. Rhythmic. Not far above him.
The sound of something hitting wood. Not heavy enough for footsteps. Not irregular enough for random creaks.
He found himself smiling despite the creeping tension in his shoulders.
"Found you," he said quietly.
The basement somehow felt closer behind him as soon as he turned his back on it, like the room had shrunk out of spite. The stairs seemed longer on the way up.
He climbed anyway, following the sound. First floor. Second. Higher.
The attic.
The noise grew clearer with every step, like it was pleased he was coming.
**Tac… tac… tac…**
It came from the far corner.
"Hehe… found you," he said again, half mocking, half trying to keep himself calm.
He stepped forward.
His foot slid on something slick.
The world tilted. He crashed down, dust exploding into his face, a dry taste in his mouth as his shoulder slammed against the boards.
The sound didn't stop.
**Tac… tac… tac…**
Cold spread up his spine before he even stood back up.
He pushed himself onto his feet and moved toward the noise.
When he got close enough, the culprit revealed itself in a thin blade of moonlight from a crooked attic window.
A rope.
Thick. Old. Hanging from a beam. Swaying back and forth in a slow, lazy arc.
Its end tapped against the floor with each swing.
**Tac… tac… tac…**
Hao's lip curled. "Seriously…"
He knelt, reached for the trapdoor, and pushed it open.
Dry wood groaned softly.
That was when the scream cut the air in half.
It came from directly below. Not faint. Not playful. A raw, ripping sound.
Not a party shriek. Not someone jumped as a joke.
Something was being dragged into a place it would never leave.