A soft creak echoed from the wooden floor. Mitsuki blinked a couple of times, waking up abruptly. He looked toward the door in fear, suspicion creeping into his mind.
'What was that?'
It came from the other side of the door—a faint knock against the wood, a grinding creak, followed by a dreadful, otherworldly groan.
A chill ran down Mitsuki's spine.
'Don't tell me this is the kind of game where, if you don't look at the statue, it follows you without you noticing. That'd be way too obvious…'
The door rattled with a heavy thud.
'Oh, no.'
Wrapping himself in the blanket, Mitsuki felt fear crawl along his spine—or maybe it was just an insect. What mattered now was figuring out what the hell was going on.
'I'm the best, so I can't get scared over stuff like this. Did I spend all those Halloweens playing horror games for nothing? Of course not! I can handle this!'
He gathered enough courage to approach the door. Though his legs trembled like twigs, his face bore the seriousness of a born survivor—he is not.
He slowly opened the door, but immediately fell backward when an ash-covered hand shot out from the darkness, nearly ripping his face off.
He was frozen speechless with fear, unable to look away from the creature staring at him.
It was the ash statue of an adult man—probably the father of the family who had lived in this house. Its eyes glowed yellow.
'It's not moving…'
He blinked once. In that tiny fraction of a second, the statue shifted a centimeter from where it had stood.
'Shit! I hate being right about something I clearly shouldn't be right about.'
Completely terrified, he stood up. He kept his eyes wide open and stepped through the doorway, passing beside the statue without taking his gaze off it.
'If I don't stop looking at it…'
He moved down the narrow, dark hallway until he reached the stairs. The moment he stepped down the first one—
"Ahhhhhh!"
He bolted, screaming like a coward because his life depended on it.
He nearly ripped the door off its hinges as he burst out of the house. He ran for his life while the rapid footsteps of the statue echoed behind him.
'Ahhh! Damn it! I don't like this tutorial!'
His stamina began dropping rapidly with each passing second.
Sweat flew from his forehead to the ground. His bare feet tore open on the stones along the path.
Despite the pain, he kept running.
The footsteps behind him multiplied. At first there were two, then six, and the number kept growing as he fled.
"I'm tired! Shit! Ahhhh!"
His heart pounded violently, threatening to burst through his chest. His lungs compressed painfully, and his legs gave out as he tripped over rubble in the road.
He fell face-first, scraping his forehead.
"Damn it," he muttered, sitting up on the ground.
Knowing he was cornered, he looked ahead. The sound of footsteps stopped.
His eyes widened in horror.
In front of him, like a nightmare come to life, hundreds of ash statues piled on top of one another, stretching their hands forward, trying to reach him—a wall of abominable beings.
Mitsuki froze. Once again, the same scenario from inside the house presented itself.
'If I look away, I…'
Breathing heavily, he stood up—something dripped down his forehead as he did.
He didn't need to check. It was definitely blood running down his face.
'What do I do? This isn't like games. I don't have a third-person camera to help me outplay their line of sight.'
He slowly stepped backward.
'I can't leave the walls either. They're blocking my path.'
As he retreated, he noticed the castle was close enough to reach.
'If I head toward the castle, I might find somewhere to hide until sunrise. It looks like these bastards only act at night.'
He took another step back.
'I'm exhausted. My lungs feel like they're about to explode, but I don't have a choice.'
He prepared to run. He frowned, and the next second, he sprinted toward the castle.
The hurried footsteps of the statues resumed, sending a wave of deep terror through him.
He felt something fall down his cheek—something other than blood.
"Ahhhhhh!"
He pushed himself forward, glanced back to freeze the statues in place, then kept running.
Ten minutes passed—ten minutes of pure agony.
Now Mitsuki was on his knees, gulping down massive breaths of air.
'If I blink for even a second, they move forward. I can't keep this up. I feel like I'm going to pass out.'
Just a few meters ahead stood the massive staircase leading up to the immense castle.
He was lucky he had appeared so close to it. Otherwise, there would've been nowhere to run. As for the statues, he still hadn't figured out a way to get rid of them.
After one final breath, he turned around and ran again.
He climbed the stairs using his hands to push himself up, almost like an animal.
The statues behind him tripped over one another, tumbling downward.
With one last surge of survival instinct, Mitsuki burst through the shattered doors of the palace.
He ran through the corridors, dodging the statues that lay inside, and entered the first room he found.
He shoved the double doors closed and, with his remaining strength, dragged every heavy object small enough to barricade them.
Worn-out cabinets, broken tables, and anything else he could move. He even wedged a rusted iron lamp through the door handles, sealing it shut completely.
The moment he finished, the statues on the other side slammed against the wood, filling the entire hallway and cutting off access to the room.
Certain he was alone, Mitsuki dropped to his knees.
"What a shitty game," he muttered with his last breath before collapsing face-first onto the worn carpet, unconscious.
At the same time, in the castle's throne room, a gigantic being clad in black armor opened its eyes—burning like raging flames.