Mysterious Awakening

In that chilling, pivotal moment, Miles was utterly oblivious to the betrayal that was about to unfold. His classmate, Jing, seemed to have been overtaken by a disturbing madness, suddenly gripping him and forcefully directing him towards the spectral hand.

“Are you trying to kill me, Jing?” Miles exclaimed, anger bubbling within him. As a palpable sense of impending treachery began to seize his senses, he swiftly reacted, grasping Jing’s arm, halting their frantic struggle with a jarring cessation of motion.

Faced with their imminent peril, Jing found his voice, “If you survive this ordeal, Miles, my life will be one of eternal torment. Did you honestly believe my prior threats to be mere jests? Unsurprisingly, you remained blind to the seriousness of my words despite my explicit warnings. It’s quite typical for someone as naïve and sheltered as you. However, let me take this opportunity to introduce you to the cruel and unforgiving nature of our world.”

Swiftly pivoting, Jing addressed their surrounding classmates, his voice high pitched and frantic, “What are you all doing just standing there? Help me thrust him towards the ghost that’s lurking in the restroom! If that thing gets free, it would mean the end for us all. Our only chance of survival is by making a sacrifice. There is simply no other option.”

His desperate plea, underpinned by a profound sense of moral urgency, managed to find receptive ears. The ominous threat of the lurking ghost spurred their classmates into action. With faces of pure terror, three of them took hold of Miles and began to overwhelm him with a force that would be impossible for any single person to resist.

In an abrupt turn of events, Miles was again pushed towards the restroom door.

Then, the spectral hand, chilling and otherworldly, emerged from the shadows. It rested on his shoulder, its grasp icy and unyielding, pulling him into the utter darkness of the restroom with a forceful jerk.

“Enjoy your time in the afterlife, Miles. Maybe you’ll gain some wisdom there,” Jing snarled, giving a decisive push.

A wave of rage washed over Miles. His shoulder had turned numb, seemingly crushed by the icy clasp of the ghostly hand, causing his blood to feel as if it were turning to ice.

“You spineless cowards, trying to kill a fellow classmate! Mark my words, you won’t escape unpunished. If I’m going down, I won’t go down alone.”

With this grim declaration, he ceased his struggle, reaching out to grab the arms of two of his classmates. The forceful pull from behind yanked them forward.

Sensing the threat, Jing sidestepped just in time to evade the desperate grasp of Miles.

“Let go, Miles! Don’t do this!” cried the ensnared classmates, their voices trembling with sheer terror.

Despite facing what appeared to be his imminent demise, Miles remained eerily calm. He addressed the encroaching darkness with icy detachment, “Since you’re all so intent on ending my life, I won’t hesitate to drag you down with me. And Jing, don’t celebrate too soon. If I turn into a ghost after death, you’ll be the first I come for.”

“Bang!”

With a loud crash, the ghostly pale hand retracted into the gloom, abruptly slamming the restroom door shut.

In an instant, Miles and the two classmates who had callously betrayed him disappeared, leaving a profound silence that was deafening.

Having witnessed this eerie spectacle, Jing let out a sigh of relief, a forced and distorted smile edging onto his face, “At last, you’ve met your demise, Miles.”

“Jing, did you… did you really just sacrifice Miles and the others?” a shocked bystander stammered, visibly shaken by the haunting scene that had unfolded before them.

A cruel smirk twisted Jing’s features. “Silence! Had I not intervened, we’d all be corpses by the time that ghost was finished. Now, what are you waiting for? If you wish to live, follow me. The sacrifice of those three will only delay the ghost temporarily. Once it’s done with them, it’ll turn its attention to us. Then it’ll be our turn.”

Without another word, he pivoted on his heels and began ascending.

“Jing, why are we heading back?” one of them questioned.

“Continuing along this path leads us directly to our doom. Who knows what other horrors await us? On our way back, we might cross paths with Right. If he’s still alive, he might be of some assistance,” Jing retorted.

Despite his outward display of confidence, a gnawing sense of dread lingered in his heart. Time was running out, and they needed to escape the mounting fatalities in this haunted territory.

Meanwhile, back in the restroom, the situation had grown dire for the students there.

“We need to escape quickly!” Duan Peng and Zheng Fei, paralyzed by their fear, managed to wriggle free from Miles’s grip. In their panic, they desperately groped the damp, stinking walls, attempting to find the door.

Under normal circumstances, they would have been able to find the door and exit with their eyes closed. But now, their fumbling hands only met with the icy, crumbling wall regardless of where they reached.

The door, it had disappeared.

“Where’s the door? The main entrance… It was right here just a second ago. Zheng Fei, did you find it?” Duan Peng’s voice shook with pure terror.

“I can’t find it either,” came Zheng Fei’s equally frightened reply.

In their desperate bid to locate the familiar restroom door, they continued their frantic exploration, running their hands over every inch of the walls.

Despite their persistent attempts, they could not locate an exit. There seemed to be only the cold, decaying wall.

Or maybe, there was no door to begin with.

While they were engrossed in their fruitless search, Miles found himself facing an even more dire predicament.

He could feel the chilling grip of the spectral hand on his shoulder, a numbing sensation that began to radiate from his back, steadily engulfing his entire arm. As the moments passed, the numbness continued its relentless march throughout his body, leaving him with no doubt that he would soon be encased in a shell of ice if this continued.

Cold sweat streamed down Miles’s face. Despite exerting every ounce of his strength, he was unable to shake off the ethereal clasp. The spot where the ghostly hand had taken hold felt anchored in place, refusing to yield even the slightest bit.

Despite his frantic and desperate struggles, nothing yielded any results.

“Is this where I meet my end?” This chilling thought began to consume his mind.

Eventually, it seemed as though he had accepted his impending fate, and a wave of morbid calm washed over him. The inevitability of his predicament was looming, and death was inching closer. Faced with such a grim reality, he yearned to connect with his family one last time and leave behind a final message.

A bitter smile began to form at the corner of Miles’s mouth. Fighting against the steadily encroaching numbness, he managed to extract his phone, intending to dial his family’s number.

However, as he powered on the device, the screen flickered to life and revealed the page of the ghost story forum he had been immersed in earlier.

The story was paused on the concluding page, where an audio file had been attached.

Upon seeing the audio file, Miles was momentarily taken aback—the memory of the unnerving sound of the old man’s knocking resurfaced abruptly.

“Wait a minute, if that old man did indeed kill people by merely knocking on their doors, then this sound might not only affect the living but could potentially affect the ghostly beings too. Right had once suggested that the only way to fend off a ghost was by utilizing another ghost.”

Inspired by this sudden realization, a glimmer of hope sparked in his eyes, offering a potential lifeline amidst his dire predicament.

Miles, who still retained control over his other arm, hastily selected the audio file with no moment to spare.

“Knock, knock, knock!” The monotone, rhythmic knocking noise once again echoed ominously in the pervasive darkness.

Unexpectedly, the ghostly hand that had been clenching his shoulder recoiled as though scalded, hastily withdrawing back into the shadows. Sensation and warmth gradually returned to Miles’s previously immobilized body.