The monkey hid alone on the second-floor stairs, always paying attention to the movements around him.

He stood in the corner and could see the entrances to the third and second floors at the same time. No matter which direction the killer came from, he could escape as quickly as possible.

The lights in the scene seemed to be dimmer, and the eerie background music in the dark corridor made people feel uneasy.

Monkey pinched himself hard and took a deep breath. As a medical student, he knew very well that slight pain and sufficient oxygen could help a person calm down quickly.

"There was something wrong with the timing of the monster's appearance. As soon as Lao Zhao discovered that there was an eighth person among us, the monster accelerated and rushed over. This couldn't be a coincidence." He recalled everything that had just happened in his mind: "After Lao Zhao discovered that there was one more person, everyone panicked. If Brother Feng could take out his phone at this time and see everyone's face clearly, he would definitely be able to find the eighth person. We missed the first chance. After the monster rushed over, if everyone could stand still and not be scared by it, everyone would not be scattered. We missed the second chance."

Monkey sighed softly: "Although everyone was very scared when the monster rushed over, they didn't run away. All of this happened because of the first person who ran away. He started it and disrupted our thinking. If I'm not mistaken, the first person to run away should be the extra person. I heard Xiaohui's scream just now. She was the second one to run away and was closest to that person. This can also prove from the side that my guess is correct."

He had a wry smile on his face. Guessing correctly was one thing, but whether he was scared or not was another. Hiding alone in such a gloomy and terrifying environment, he felt a chill on his back. "The monster and the extra eighth person cooperated with each other, using the psychology of deserters and the herd mentality to spread fear, scatter us, and then defeat us one by one. Is it really necessary to rise to the level of strategy just to scare someone?"

Monkey is very smart, but he is also very timid. He never dares to go in and out of the laboratory alone at school. "I have to tell Brother Feng and the others about this news as soon as possible, and then meet up with them."

He took out his phone, the dim light of the screen shining behind him, and he suddenly shuddered: "How did this puppet get into the stairs? Didn't I throw it in the corridor on the third floor?"

The monkey was afraid of attracting monsters, so he didn't dare turn on the flashlight. He turned up the brightness of the screen and aimed it at the wall, where a tattered doll was lying flat.

"Did someone accidentally kick it downstairs while running?" After thinking about it, the monkey could only come up with this explanation. There was a note stuffed inside the doll's body, and it didn't have any mechanical parts, so it definitely couldn't be controlled remotely. "It looks pretty scary."

There's nothing particularly scary about this doll except that it's a little worn out. But if you look at it enough times, you'll get a strange feeling that it's alive.

The monkey himself felt puzzled. He stared at the doll on the ground and felt that it was not a doll, but a pitiful and somewhat aggrieved little girl.

"It must be an illusion. I need to stay away from this thing. Playing in a haunted house is almost giving me psychological problems." Monkey dialed Brother Feng's number, and a cell phone rang in the corridor on the third floor.

"He's on the third floor? Or did he accidentally drop his phone like Lao Zhao did?"

The sound of a telephone ringing rang in the haunted house, making it inexplicably more terrifying.

Monkey didn't hang up the phone. He put the phone in his pocket and quietly went to the third floor. He hid at the entrance of the corridor and looked inside. Brother Feng's phone was thrown in the corridor.

"Old Zhao and Brother Feng don't have their cell phones with them, so we can only try other people." Monkey stood alone at the third-floor staircase, looking at the empty corridor and the doors on both sides opening and closing in the wind. He was so scared that his legs went weak.

He swiped the screen frantically, looking for other people's phone numbers, but at this moment, his phone vibrated and suddenly rang.

"Fuck! What's going on!" He looked down and saw someone calling him: "Shi Ling? Why did she look for me? Is she alone now too?"

In front of girls, Monkey always acts fearless, which is also a common problem of most passionate young people: "Shiling, have you lost contact with everyone? Where are you now? I'll go find you."

"I'm locked in a room on the third floor. I didn't see the specific house number clearly. Come here quickly. Something is wrong with this room!" Shi Ling was a very quiet girl. At this moment, her tone was hurried and she looked like she was about to cry. No one knew what had happened to her.

"Tell me slowly, how did you get locked in the room? The single rooms on both sides of the corridor should not be lockable." Monkey said as he walked in the corridor, trying to determine Shiling's location through sound.

"I don't know either. After I hid in and closed the door, I couldn't open it again! And this room is different from the other rooms. There are two dolls sitting side by side in the middle of the room!"

"Sit?!" When Monkey mentioned the puppet, his hair stood up. He knew very well how weird the puppets in this haunted house were.

"Come quickly!" Shi Ling's voice gradually became sharp, as if she was on the verge of losing control.

"Right away! Stay away from those dolls first. Do as Heshan said before. Don't touch anything in the house. I suspect that doll..." The monkey stopped talking halfway. He stared blankly at the front of him. A rag doll was lying flat half a meter away from his toes.

He almost resisted the urge to smash his phone and moved closer to the doll.

"They have long hair and look painful and self-blaming. They look different from the puppet in the corridor. They seem much more mature." After saying this, Monkey's eyes widened. "Damn it! How can I analyze so many things from a puppet? Am I hallucinating because I was scared? Or are these puppets too lifelike? I feel like they are living people with their own emotions."

"Now is not the time to think about that. As long as the puppet in front of me is different from the puppets in the stairs, it at least means that these puppets can't move by themselves. Things haven't developed to the worst point. My top priority now is to rescue Shi Ling." Shaking his head, Monkey encouraged himself: "I am just scaring myself. If it was the puppet in the corridor that chased me, how could she appear in front of me? She should be behind me. It seems that this is just a trick of the owner of the haunted house. There is no need to be afraid."

After he finished speaking, he glanced back guiltily: "I told you, there's no need..."

The monkey's gaze was fixed on a point one meter behind him, and he swallowed back the rest of the sentence because there was a rag doll lying quietly there.