Become A Character Who Dies Within Three Chapters

It's called a haunted house combined with an escape room. They needed to provide the correct answer at each door to move forward and escape this place.

Right now, the group was gathered in front of the very first door.

Someone muttered, "Does anyone know how many doors this escape room has?"

"No idea. Will, you must have read through the summary of this escape room, right?"

Will, the confident one leading the group—and effortlessly the most handsome among them—curved his lips into a smile and nodded. "Of course. There are only seven doors, and the questions are straightforward. We'll get through them quickly."

As soon as he finished speaking, he pulled out a piece of paper that had been placed under a rock.

The rock, under the eerie gloom of the haunted house, looked pitch black. When Will touched it, he instantly felt a strange, clammy stickiness creep across his palm.

His brows knitted in discomfort, finding it odd, but he didn't think much of it and quickly pulled the paper free.

None of them realized that when Will lifted the small slip of paper, an irreversible change had already begun to spread through the entire place.

Louis, who was standing at the very back, suddenly shivered. Something… he was sure there was something different about this place now!

Bang!

At the same time, the door behind Louis slammed shut. He flinched, and Layla, who stood just a step ahead, turned her head back with a hesitant look. "Louis…"

Before she could finish speaking, Will's loud voice boomed from the front: "There are only ten of you, yet when you count, you find 22 legs. Answer—why is that?"

"What the hell kind of question is that? That's insane."

"Seriously, I thought at least it'd be some kind of trivia or a normal riddle."

"As expected of a haunted house—only good at fake demons and fake scares, ha ha ha."

"But wait, how does this question know there are ten of us…"

Everyone burst out laughing together, and Will chuckled, "Didn't anyone bother actually to count if there are 22 legs?"

The group laughed louder, not feeling scared in the slightest.

Will then guessed, "Well, this is a haunted house. If there's an extra pair of legs among us, it must belong to a demon. That's all."

But Louis only felt the cold intensify, seeping into his bones and curling around them all—especially right as Will finished speaking.

The others found his reasoning perfectly logical, urging Will to hurry up and write down the answer. Someone sighed, "It feels like the longer we're stuck here, the colder it gets. I'm already shivering like crazy!"

"Yeah, exactly…"

The rest chimed in nonstop.

By now, Will had already picked up the pen lying nearby. Looking puzzled, he muttered, "There's nowhere to submit the answer. Don't tell me we just need to write it on the paper and that's it?"

"That's probably it. Afte, the haunted house somehow knew we had ten people and tailored the question for us."

While the group naively chatted on, Louis had already started sensing the ominous undercurrent hiding in every little detail.

Twenty-two legs, was it? But despite his fear earlier, he had counted carefully—there wasn't an eleventh person among them.

It felt like…

"No—wait, stop!"

Louis practically shouted, shoving his way past the group and rushing forward.

By then, Will was already holding the pen. Seeing Louis's sudden outburst, he couldn't help but glance back in suspicion.

He didn't like Louis. The company kept their distance from him because of his ties to the director.

But Louis—just a nobody, ugly to the point of never daring to show his face—someone like that was supposed to live like an ant. Yet Louis didn't know fear; he had even dared to provoke him repeatedly!

Will frowned at Louis, disdain flashing openly in his eyes. "What is it now? Did some ghost jump out and scare you so bad you're about to piss yourself, Louis?"

The corner of Louis's eye twitched, but he still curved his lips into a faint smile and spoke quickly: "Even if you just write down 'chicken,' it still works. A chicken has two legs, right? That would solve it. But we shouldn't write 'demon'—no matter how you look at it, th. wrong."

Not only Will, but the others also exchanged complicated looks.

"But what if the answer is 'demon'? What's the big deal? It's just a question."

Will sneered. "Louis, don't tell me you're afraid that if we write 'demon,' a real demon will pop out, ha ha ha. You're too naïve."

Louis didn't want to waste more time arguing. He was just about to snatch the paper by force when Will suddenly raised both hands high and deliberately tossed the paper and the pen onto the ground. "Too bad—I already finished writing, ha ha ha."

The paper fluttered down, revealing Will's scrawled handwriting.

At that exact moment, a sharp, piercing screech split the air. The entire space around them seemed to tremble. The dim lights flickered out all at once, and everything was swallowed by pitch darkness so deep they couldn't even see their own fingers.

Some instinctively braced against the wall, while others cursed aloud.

"What the hell is going on?"

"Is this part of the experience, just to make it scarier?"

"My phone—why won't it turn on? It was fully charged before! This is insane!"

Someone muttered, "I'm feeling a little scared now…"

Louis felt Layla stumble against him, and he instinctively caught her. Layla, however, noticed that the hand gripping her arm was trembling far more violently than she could have imagined. She was both startled and amused at the same time.

She quickly said, "Everyone, hold hands—stay close together. Luckily, I brought candles and matches."

Someone shouted, "Thank goodness we have Layla!"

"This is way too much. What if a guest actually gets hurt?"

No one questioned why Layla happened to have candles in her bag. After all, Layla was like a walking magic pouch—always prepared with the most unexpected items. They were long used to it.

Layla giggled, looking completely calm, without the slightest hint of panic. Meanwhile, Louis thought about his own trembling hands and let out a bitter laugh. People compared to people… really can't be compared. He was terrified—terrified to death!

Scratch, scratch!

A match was struck in the darkness, and soon a candle was lit. The dim glow immediately illuminated the not-so-large space around them.

The group had already huddled close, even linking hands to form a circle. Now, with the flickering light casting uneven shadows across their faces, each looked eerily sinister from the odd angles.

"I… I think I just saw something…" said a round-faced young man with a lively personality.

Louis: "…" Can we please not pay attention to that? We should ignore things like this, absolutely ignore them, please!

Still upset over what had just happened, Will looked at the frightened faces of his coworkers with growing irritation. Snatching the candle from Layla's hand, he shouted, "Goddammit, you bunch of cowards! What's so scary about this?!"

He strode into the darkness with the candle no sooner had he said it. But suddenly, he froze. The others all sucked in sharp breaths.

Right before them stood a nearly two-meter-tall skeleton, draped in a layer of ashen-gray skin. Countless maggots crawled and squirmed across its surface, gnawing at the flesh, some falling off the ground with faint, wet splattering sounds.

Its eyes were hollow, pitch-black sockets. The whites of its eyes took up nearly the entire orb, while the pupils were reduced to pinpoints—staring, unblinking, directly at them!