Chapter 12: Found Them

……

Speak according to your own thoughts.

This place is not like any normal place, regardless of what appears inside the dormitory, the staircase that has now emerged before the eyes, or even that trace in the distance, and even the corpses of those dead cats behind.

These things all prove that his own thoughts were not guessed wrong.

This place.

It is absolutely not a normal world!

Huaiyou pulled the confused Zhou Yanqing back two steps at this moment.

Zhou Yanqing also felt very strange at this moment, wondering why Huaiyou's expression had suddenly changed so much.

When she looked again in the direction of Huaiyou's gaze, her complexion once again became pale and dim.

The reason Huaiyou pulled her back was because…

It was clearly the 2nd floor.

In other words, one should be able to reach the 1st floor by taking the stairs.

At the corner of the 2nd-floor staircase, besides the strangely and abruptly appearing wooden stairs, a woman wearing white clothes had quietly appeared at some unknown time.

She just stood there quietly, with her back turned, not moving at all.

It seemed as if she had been standing there for a long time.

Just a moment ago, Zhou Yanqing could say with absolute certainty.

There was absolutely no one here.

Even if someone had walked by, she would definitely have discovered it, and it would definitely have made a sound!

Yet that woman had just suddenly appeared there.

Without a sound.

Huaiyou suddenly remembered.

Since the things that should appear have basically all appeared.

Then even in a movie, it is estimated that it would have to slowly advance toward the end.

He himself must hurry up…

He could already feel that the danger was closing in.

The woman who suddenly appeared before his eyes had appeared so openly and did not perform any attacking behavior, which already explained the problem very well.

Sure enough.

The next second, Huaiyou and Zhou Yanqing only blinked their eyes once.

That woman, however, had abruptly disappeared again.

Beep.

The mobile phone rang softly once again.

The software sent another message.

【Warning: Movie audience, please complete the search mission as soon as possible. (There isn't much time left, I don't want to play with you anymore…)】

When he saw this message, Huaiyou's heart also contracted violently.

What this message represented was already self-evident.

His own time, there wasn't much left…

Huaiyou was of course absolutely afraid of these things, but now he could only harden his courage and brace his anxious heart.

Huaiyou swallowed his saliva slightly.

With his pupils slightly dilated, he said: "Do you still remember what I said before? Time cannot be dragged out; we must find those few missing friends as quickly as possible, we might not make it in time…"

If we don't find them, we won't make it in time, and I'll probably be done for too.

Thinking about it, he was still a bit scared.

Of course, Huaiyou would absolutely not say those later words to her at this time.

When Huaiyou finished saying this, he subconsciously glanced toward a certain direction in the surroundings.

There was indeed something there, which shrank back all at once.

It looked like it should be a child…

"Mm…" Zhou Yanqing also keenly felt that the surrounding atmosphere had become a bit strange; looking at the direction of the woman who had suddenly appeared and disappeared, she almost screamed in fright for a moment.

Fortunately, she forcibly held it back.

Because she also couldn't be sure if she would be targeted by something if she didn't hold back her scream.

"Then let's set off. I roughly know where they might be, but I can't say for sure exactly where."

Huaiyou first comforted Zhou Yanqing slightly, then directly led her to head upstairs.

Afterward, he also explained in detail.

Under the current circumstances, wanting to go downstairs would mean the risk taken might be extremely high.

Because both of them had just seen that woman who suddenly appeared and disappeared standing at the stairs.

Even if both of them were thick-skinned, they could roughly see that the position where the suddenly appearing woman stood seemed to have just happened to block the path for the two of them.

In other words, it was a situation where they couldn't necessarily run even if they wanted to.

She was just blocking that spot.

Although they didn't see her now, there was no guarantee she wouldn't suddenly appear again when the two of them were passing by.

At that time, if she was still standing quietly in place without moving, that would be hard to say…

The two of them directly stepped over the black trace in the distance, carefully stepped over the fresh blood on the wooden stairs, and slowly headed toward the top floor.

With Huaiyou in front, Zhou Yanqing also slowly began to calm down.

Trying his best to look at the things appearing on the ground, he also pressed his heart tightly to the bottom of his chest.

The surrounding lights, for reasons unknown, were completely unable to be turned on; Huaiyou had once tried pressing the switches, but found it was completely useless.

Fortunately, the light from the two mobile phones was able to make the path a little clearer.

Otherwise, based on this dim environment alone, it is estimated that both would have been scared out of half their lives.

The Girls' Dormitory has a total of 6 floors, and the two soon reached the 6th floor.

It was just a little bit more to the roof.

Because of the building's special design, coupled with the weather and certain regional reasons, the roof also had a low layer built over it.

This layer was not the height of a normal floor, being only about half as high, and was used for heat insulation.

And the place where the stairs ended was an open hole.

Although there were no stairs inside.

But there was a way.

By placing the old ladder from the side directly against the ceiling facing it, one could go straight to the roof.

And here, he discovered something.

When standing in the corridor and looking out.

Everything around was quiet, terrifyingly quiet.

There wasn't a single person, and the surroundings were shrouded in darkness.

The streetlights weren't on either, and there wasn't even a breeze.

The surroundings appeared very eerie, as if in the entire Domain there were only the two of them, Huaiyou and Zhou Yanqing.

Huaiyou naturally discovered this point; the fear in his eyes, although well suppressed, was, all in all, actually outweighed by his caution regarding danger.

The direct fear that appeared at home had not completely broken his psychological defenses, so as the fear extended infinitely at this moment, it also allowed him to develop a certain degree of habituation to it.

Looking at the deathly silence of the surroundings, Huaiyou was very clear that if he couldn't find a way, he might not even be able to leave the Girls' Dormitory.

This place was no longer the world it originally was.

Huaiyou even felt that this was the most central core part of the movie viewing.

"Why has the outside become like this... why is there no one at all?" Zhou Yanqing's tone was a little shaky; she had also seen the situation appearing outside.

Huaiyou did not speak.

In fact, he was also in a state of confusion regarding these changes in the outside world and was completely unable to provide any useful information.

Or to put it another way, what he knew was actually just a general idea.

"Calm down! Believe me, we can leave this place, okay?" Huaiyou walked over and looked into Zhou Yanqing's eyes.

Huaiyou's eyes revealed a convincing sense of firmness.

When Zhou Yanqing looked into his eyes, she also slowly calmed down, though the distress in her heart did not diminish much.

"Hoo..." Huaiyou exhaled a breath, then continued to speak: "Let's stop worrying about the situation outside for now, help me, let's move the ladder over together and go up to take a look."

Huaiyou walked to the side and moved the ladder, which was already old and in poor condition, then leaned it directly against the ceiling opening above.

Zhou Yanqing calmed down and also helped move the ladder together.

Huaiyou first tested its sturdiness, then turned his head and said to Zhou Yanqing: "If I haven't guessed wrong, those few friends should be up there, prepare yourself mentally..."

Zhou Yanqing's gaze flickered a few times, but she asked suspiciously: "How could they be up there? And how did they get up to such a height? It looks like the ladder hasn't been moved either..."

"And... they disappeared from this place, the police or someone should be looking for them..."

Zhou Yanqing's tone was a little shaky, as if she didn't believe what Huaiyou said.

But after Huaiyou heard these words of hers, he did not deny them, and then said: "I only said they should be, let's take a look together and we'll know; if they aren't here, that would be for the best."

After speaking, he didn't waste any more words, then stepped onto the wooden single ladder one by one and slowly climbed up.

Zhou Yanqing, seeing Huaiyou go up, gritted her teeth and followed.

She had to see for herself whether her friends were really here or not.

Soon, the two had successfully climbed up via the ladder.

Then, within their line of sight.

What Huaiyou saw was a place that looked like a storage room.

As the topmost area, the height here was only about two meters or so, at most approaching two and a half meters.

The entire floor had only one entrance, or to be more precise, this was the entire floor, just not in the form of individual separated dormitories.

Fortunately, the place was not completely enclosed; the side facing outward had an opening, something similar to a window.

Of course, there were no windows installed there.

Everywhere was an empty space, with almost nothing special.

Except for some hammers and scrap wood and plastic left over from construction on the ground, there was almost nothing else.

Seeing this empty space, Zhou Yanqing seemed to breathe a sigh of relief.

"I said it was just the top floor, look, there's nothing here, let's go, let's look elsewhere, or think about how to leave the Dormitory Building... this place looks a bit creepy."

Zhou Yanqing looked left and right, feeling a chill.

She didn't know if it was psychological or a truly tangible change.

But at this moment.

Huaiyou fell into a brief silence, but after a moment he asked: "Check the time on your phone, is it still 11:59?"

Suddenly.

Zhou Yanqing also lightly tapped her phone screen to light it up at that moment.

The time displayed on the screen was exactly 11:59.

"Yeah, it's 11:59 right now... what's wrong..."

That was just after asking the same question.

11:59 instantly jumped and changed to 12:00.

Zhou Yanqing raised her head and asked, "It's 12:00 now."

Huaiyou's heart gave a start.

"As expected, it has reached 12:00."

At the same time, cold sweat could not help but break out on his face.

Because at that moment, he heard a sound, coming from the position of the wall in front.

"Thump! Thump! Thump!"

At the same time, an extremely rotten stench clearly wafted over, and within this rotten stench, there also existed a thick, bloody smell.

At this moment, Huaiyou was illuminated by the faint light of his mobile phone.

He saw a few blurry black shadows over by the wall.

The shadows looked like they were embedded in the wall, and also like they had appeared suddenly.

"Found the friends..."

Huaiyou's complexion turned deathly pale.