Chapter 47 The Alley (7) The fat man felt his strength...
The fat man felt his strength being constantly depleted. He was panting heavily, feeling as if his lungs were about to explode.
"I...I can't run anymore..." The fat man's pace gradually slowed down, sweat streamed down his chubby cheeks, and the back of his clothes was already soaked with sweat, sticking to his flesh.
He felt dizzy, and if this continued, he would really faint and fall to the ground, just as the hands of the expressionless children behind him were about to grab him.
"Squeak—"
The corridor ahead suddenly ended, and a tightly closed door, as dark red as the surrounding area, suddenly opened a crack silently.
There were no children behind the door; inside, there was a warm glow, like the light of a fireplace at dusk.
The light shining through the door was completely out of place with the eerie green corridor around it, instantly attracting the fat man's full attention.
His survival instinct overcame his fear, and without thinking, he used his last bit of strength to rush toward the door.
"Bang!"
His obese body slammed open the door, and he almost stumbled inside before slamming the door shut behind him.
The moment the door closed, he seemed to hear countless tiny, resentful scratching and sobbing sounds coming from outside, but all of this was blocked out by the heavy door.
The fat man collapsed to the ground, panting heavily. Tears, sweat, and snot were all over his face. He pulled at his collar and wiped his disheveled face. After a while, still shaken, he looked around and found himself in a room that looked relatively normal.
This place resembles an 1980s-style children's playroom, with faded wallpaper featuring cartoon stars and moons on the walls, a few worn but still relatively intact plush toys piled in the corner, and a crooked wooden bookshelf with peeling paint standing on it, holding picture books with mostly blurry covers.
An old-fashioned lamp overhead emitted a dim, yellowish light, which, though faint, brought him an unprecedented sense of security.
The air was thick with the smell of dust, which made the fat man sneeze a few times.
"I'm... I'm saved?" the fat man murmured in disbelief, his nose tingling with emotion, almost bringing him to tears of joy.
Just as the fat man entered the warm-colored room, the skinny man and the girl with glasses were experiencing a similar thrilling turn of events.
The skinny man was overwhelmed by the toys that had come to life. Just when he thought he was about to be torn to pieces, the wall beside him, painted with a weeping red sun and a sharp-toothed bird, suddenly began to shake. Then, a piece of the wall began to peel away, revealing a hole just big enough for one person to pass through, from which a warm light emanated.
Driven by his will to survive, the skinny man unleashed tremendous strength. He struggled desperately, crawling towards the hole using both his hands and feet.
The moment he was halfway inside, he glanced back and saw the toys piled up at the entrance, pulling at his lower body. The skinny man frantically kicked the toys away, and after being kicked away, the toys slowly stood up, staring at him with their empty eyes and mutilated bodies. They didn't follow him in after seeing him enter the hole.
The feeling of being watched by something made the skinny man's hair stand on end.
Meanwhile, just as the girl with glasses was about to be pushed into the mirror by the blurry-faced children, the image in the mirror reflecting the black storage room in front of her suddenly distorted, like the picture on a television with a bad signal.
The next second, the chaotic images stabilized and transformed into a quiet corner of a child's bedroom with a nightlight on. The mirror was no longer the hard glass, but instead rippled with warm colors like a water film.
The little girl who was holding her wrist seemed to loosen her grip for a moment, and the girl with glasses seized this fleeting opportunity, using all her strength to break free and rush forward with her glasses closed.
She didn't know what was in the mirror, but her intuition told her this was her last chance.
She stepped into the mirror, first feeling the coldness around her, and then fell onto solid ground.
The girl with glasses looked up and found herself in a somewhat dilapidated game room with dim lighting. What shocked her even more was that she saw the fat man and the skinny man who had just crawled out of a hole in the wall, both of them looking disheveled.
"Fatty! Skinny!" The girl with glasses stumbled over, her glasses slipping down to the tip of her nose, the lenses still stained with tears.
The fat man almost reflexively opened his arms, and the next second he was jolted by the force of the girl's crying. Then the skinny man's shoulder squeezed in, and the three of them hugged each other tightly.
"Girl with glasses! Are you alright! Skinny, you little brat, are here too!" The fat man's voice trembled as he patted the two men's backs. The skinny man frowned as his sweat-soaked clothes rubbed against him, but he didn't push him away as usual.
"Cough...cough...where are we now?" The skinny man gasped for breath, looking at the relatively safe space with lingering fear.
"I don't know, but it's definitely better than outside!" The fat man slumped to the ground, wiped his face, and said in a hoarse voice.
"Why are you all sweaty?" The skinny man finally regained his usual disdainful tone.
"Go away! I'm exhausted. You try being chased by a bunch of shameless kids for three blocks, I was almost scared to death." The fat man waved his hand.
The girl with glasses rubbed her red eyes and forced a smile: "Never mind that, anyway... it's good that everyone is alright."
After a brief moment of relief, an even greater fear gripped them.
Although the room appears safe for the time being, it is still within this mysterious labyrinth.
The air was silent for a few seconds. The skinny man patted the dust off his pants and said, "Staying here isn't a solution. Let's find an exit. If we stay here any longer, who knows what kind of weird things might appear."
The three of them began searching the room when the girl with glasses let out a gasp. The other two rushed over after hearing the sound and found two small figures curled up together in the innermost corner of the game room. They were leaning against the wall with their eyes closed, seemingly asleep.
They were two boys, who looked to be about seven or eight years old. Their brows were furrowed, their little faces were covered in tears, and their bodies would twitch from time to time, as if they were experiencing something terrible in their sleep.
“It’s…it’s those two children who went missing in the news.” The girl with glasses lowered her voice and recognized the photo of Taro Ishishita.
"They, they're still alive!" The fat man was also a little excited, but then he fell into confusion: "But how do we get out of here with both of them?"
The game room had only one door they came in through, and the hole the skinny guy climbed in through that was slowly closing and returning to normal walls. Apart from that, there were walls on all four sides, no windows, and no other exits.
Just then, the only heavy wooden door made a sound, and the three of them looked over at the same time, only to see the doorknob being slowly turned from the outside!
The three men felt their hair stand on end instantly, and their hearts, which had just calmed down a little, started pounding wildly again. The fat man quickly distanced himself from the doorway and hid behind the two men, while the skinny man grabbed a seemingly hard-looking block from the ground, and the girl with glasses covered her mouth tightly to prevent herself from screaming.
"Damn, could it be those kids?" the fat man muttered.
The doorknob turned a few times, as if someone outside was testing the waters, and then with a soft "click," the door was pushed open a crack.
An eye peered through the crack in the door.
Those were a child's eyes, but the gaze was empty, carrying a coldness that didn't match his age.
The fat man almost choked on his breath. The terrifying experiences of being chased by children had left him with a deep-seated trauma, and now he felt extremely fearful whenever he saw a child.
The fat man's anticipated attack did not occur; the door was only pushed open slightly, and a clean but old-fashioned little boy stood in the doorway.
He looked about the same age as the child sleeping in the corner, but his face was expressionless; he simply watched them quietly.
"Who...who are you?" the skinny man asked, his voice trembling as he mustered his courage.
The little boy did not answer the skinny man's question. His gaze swept over the three wary men and then landed on Ishishita Taro and another child in the corner.
Then, the little boy raised his arm and pointed to the wall on the other side of the room.
The three of them looked in the direction he was pointing, and there was nothing there except a faded tapestry with a rainbow pony on it.
"What do you mean?" the girl with glasses asked, puzzled.
The little boy remained silent, stubbornly pointing in that direction. Then he took a step back, his figure gradually disappearing into the dimly lit corridor outside the door. The heavy wooden door was silently closed once again.
The room fell into a deathly silence.
"What...what does he mean?" The fat man swallowed hard.
"Could he be telling us... where the exit is?" the skinny man guessed, but his tone was full of uncertainty.
That little boy was too strange. Was his appearance and instructions well-intentioned or another trap?
The girl with glasses mustered her courage and walked up to the rainbow tapestry.
"No..." the fat man began, but seeing that the girl with glasses had already reached out and touched the tapestry, he shut his mouth again. She first touched it with her hand, and it seemed that there was a wall behind the tapestry. Then she tried to pull the tapestry, and the tapestry was pulled off, revealing the bare wall behind it covered with star wallpaper.
"There's nothing there," the girl with glasses said disappointedly.
Just as the tapestry hit the ground, the skinny man seemed to notice something.
"Wait!" He stepped forward and carefully examined the wall.
In his dim light, he noticed that the color of that patch of wallpaper seemed a little newer than the surrounding area.
Moreover, there is an extremely fine, barely perceptible gap along the edge.
The skinny man reached out and carefully felt along the crack. When his fingers touched a point in the center of the wall, the wall suddenly caved in with a soft sound.
Immediately afterwards, a square wall panel about the height of a person slid open like a hidden door, revealing a dark passage that extended downwards.
A musty and damp smell wafted up from the depths of the passage.
The three looked at each other, their faces filled with astonishment, shock, and hesitation.
Where does this passage lead? Is it a path to survival or a deeper nightmare?
And if that strange little boy really wanted to help them, what was his purpose? Who exactly was he?
The three hesitated as they stood in front of the passage, peering inside. The passage was pitch black with no end in sight.
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