Chapter 106: Slender Man

Cold.

The bone‑piercing cold came from the iron slab bed beneath her, making her shiver violently.

Liu Ya opened her eyes.

What met her gaze was not the familiar pink ceiling, but a mottled, peeling gray‑white wall, covered in cobwebs and mildew spots.

The air was filled with a strange smell of rust mixed with disinfectant.

Where is this place?

She sat up abruptly and realized she was lying on an old hospital bed.

Around her were crumbling walls, rusted IV stands, and a window nailed shut with wooden planks.

In the whole space, apart from her own rapid breathing, there was no other sound, a silence that made the heart race.

"What the hell? Am I dreaming?"

Liu Ya frowned, irritated, and lifted the thin, hard blanket covering her.

The dream was too vivid; she could even smell the mildew on the blanket clearly.

She jumped off the bed, her feet on the icy cement floor, and hurried toward the room's only door.

The door handle was a cold iron knob, thickly coated with red rust.

She twisted it forcefully.

"Clack!"

The lock didn't budge.

"Hey! Anyone there? Open the door!"

Liu Ya pounded the iron door hard, her palm going numb from the shock.

The only reply was the echo she herself created in the empty corridor.

An ominous foreboding began to spread in her heart.

This scene... why does it feel familiar?

She suddenly remembered.

Isn't this the abandoned hospital from the horror film she watched with friends a few days ago, Slender Man 3?

In the movie, a few reckless youths explored here, only to be slaughtered one by one by that faceless monster.

Thinking of that, Liu Ya's face turned pale.

No.

Impossible.

It's just a dream.

Coincidence, it must be coincidence!

She desperately tried to reassure herself, but her heart hammered uncontrollably.

She pressed against the door and looked out through the palm‑sized, cracked glass pane.

Outside was a dim, long corridor.

The corridor lights flickered, and the walls were smeared with dried, dark‑red handprints.

At the end, an impenetrable darkness.

At that moment,

Something seemed to move within the darkness.

An extremely slender, disproportionately tall black silhouette flashed by.

Its limbs were as thin as a spider's segments, and it wore an ill‑fitting black suit.

Most bizarrely, its neck was empty, lacking any facial features.

Liu Ya's pupils constricted instantly, her blood turning to ice.

She tried to scream, but fear clamped her throat shut, no word escaping.

She rolled and crawled back to the center of the room, her back slamming into the cold wall.

Run!

Must run!

She looked around; the only escape was the window blocked by wooden planks.

Liu Ya lunged forward, using all her strength to tear the planks.

Her nails were ripped off, blood seeping, but she didn't mind.

Survival instinct overrode everything.

"Bang!"

"Bang!"

The iron door behind her produced heavy, slow thuds.

One hit.

Another hit.

As if not striking the door but pounding her heart.

Finally, a plank came off under her pull.

Liu Ya, disregarding everything, smashed her elbow into the glass.

"Crash!"

The glass shattered, revealing a hole just large enough for one person to squeeze through.

Cold wind poured in.

She didn't even look, using hands and feet she crawled out.

Outside the window is another Corridor.

She dared not linger, identified the direction, then bolted, sprinting toward the Exit she remembered from a movie.

Her slippers struck the cluttered floor, producing a chaotic rhythm.

She didn't dare look back.

She could feel it.

That thing was right behind her.

It neither ran nor chased.

It simply stayed there.

Yet no matter how fast she ran, the oppressive presence that clung to her like a Shadow constantly enveloped her.

She turned a corner; ahead was an operating room, its door ajar.

Liu Ya didn't think, she slipped inside, then immediately crouched, hiding behind an operating table, clamping her hand over her mouth so tightly that she even stopped breathing.

Inside the operating room, the shadowless lamp continued to emit a grim white light.

On the operating table, a scalpel reflected a cold, sharp glint.

Quiet.

Outside there was no sound at all.

Did it leave?

Liu Ya's heart eased a little.

Perhaps it hadn't noticed her.

At the instant that thought rose, the operating room door was slowly pushed open by a pale, slender hand as thin as a dead branch.

There was not the slightest gritty friction.

Dead silent.

That thin, elongated Shadow, stretched by the shadowless lamp, slowly projected onto the floor, gradually covering her curled body.

"Ah—!"

The scream, suppressed to the limit, finally erupted.

Liu Ya, like a madwoman, burst out of the operating room, fleeing aimlessly through the maze‑like hospital.

Morgue.

Nurse Station.

Pediatric Ward.

Whenever she thought she had shaken off that monster, it would appear before her or behind her in an incomprehensible way.

Sometimes it was the thin Shadow cast outside the cabinet door.

Sometimes it was a flash of a black suit's corner at a turn.

It was like a patient hunter, toying with its prey that was about to be caught.

Liu Ya's stamina was depleting rapidly, her lungs burned painfully, and her legs felt as heavy as if filled with lead.

Despair, like a tide, engulfed her.

Just as she was about to give up, she saw a door.

Security Office.

That was the building's Monitoring Center!

Perhaps, perhaps there was a phone there, to contact the outside!

The final hope made her summon all her strength; she charged forward, flung the door open, then quickly locked it from the inside.

"Clack"

The crisp click of the heavy lock dropping was the most melodious sound at that moment.

She leaned against the door, gasping heavily, her body slipping down as she grew weak.

The Security Office was small; directly opposite her was an entire wall of surveillance screens.

At that moment, every screen displayed a field of crackling snowflakes.

Liu Ya couldn't pay attention to that; she lunged onto the desk, frantically searching for a phone.

None.

There was nothing.

Only a dust‑covered intercom sat there.

She, trembling, lifted the intercom and pressed the call button.

"Help... Help! Is anyone..."

Zi...... zi zi......

The intercom emitted only a series of harsh electric static noises.

Suddenly.

All the electric static vanished.

The entire Security Office fell once more into that maddening silence.

Liu Ya stared blankly at the wall of snowflake screens.

The next second.

All the snowflake dots disappeared.

In their place was a face.

A face with no eyes, no nose, no mouth, only a blank expanse.

Twenty-four screens, each showing an identical face that filled the entire screen, were staring at her from within the screens.

Liu Ya's pupils dilated to the limit, all the strength in her body drained away, and she collapsed limp on the ground.

"Creak——"

Just then.

Behind her, at the door lock, came a grating metal twisting that made her teeth ache.

She turned her head stiffly, inch by inch.

She saw the sturdy Alloy Door lock being twisted, in a way that violated the laws of physics, by an invisible force from outside, slowly...... into a twisted coil.