The lady smiled at the group of teenagers waiting at the entrance, "Welcome, you must be the next contestants?"

  The boys stopped their conversation and glanced over at the lady with a warm smile on her face. She wore a neat tuxedo and had the look of a professional secretary assigned to escort the VIPs.

  A tall boy with blonde hair whistled, "Fuck, what did I say? I told you that the expensive one was better."

  The youth standing next to the blonde boy glimpsed down at the two plump bulges under the female attendant's neckline and kicked the blonde boy, "What the heck! You said you'd actually try to do something with the group this time, what are you ogling at others for?!"

  The blondie just snickered and whispered towards the back of the group, "Hey Peter! You have similar taste to me right? Don't you also think this bitch is fucking hot?"

  Being called upon, Peter simply lifted his head and glanced at the direction of the attendant. He replied indifferently, "I don't know."

  The blondie, after receiving such a mundane answer, immediately lost interest. He instead shifted his attention to the skinny boy at the very back of the group. The boy had his head completely down and the slight shaking of his hands revealed his current nervous emotions.

  The blondie's eyes curved upwards after seeing this and he turned his head back to the front and announced, "It seems like someone's excited to go in, let's not waste any more time then."

  The group of five people followed the female attendant through a corridor and into a small rectangular room. Immediately after everyone entered, the door was closed and she started explaining the rules and guidelines for completing the escape room.

  However, there was something slightly odd about the rules mentioned. Most of what was said was the usual: Don't break anything, mind your manners, no violence, etc. But there were a few rules that didn't quite seem to fit in.

  At the end of the 10 minute speech, the attendant slightly cocked her head to the side and said monotonously, "Most importantly, don't be too afraid, most of the objects in the room won't endanger you. Just keep calm and quickly find a way to escape."

  The group was slightly stunned and couldn't understand the meaning. Obviously there shouldn't be any object in the room that could potentially harm them, much less endanger their lives. And the message about keeping calm... This is a horror escape room, shouldn't the creators want the players to get scared?

  Chris, the person who stood next to the blondie, was the first to restore his expression, "Anthony, what's with that look? Are you actually afraid? It's way too obvious that their intention is just to scare us before we enter the actual room."

  Anthony, who was the blondie, immediately calmed down after hearing this. He just sneered and didn't say anything else.

  The female attendant heard their quick exchange and the corners of her lips lifted up inconspicuously. She then glanced at the end of the line of people and saw the now pale looking boy whose hands were shaking more extremely than before. Her gaze stopped on the boy for a full second before moving her attention back to the whole group and announced, "That should be it for the rules, shall we proceed?"

  ------

  The so-called "room" was actually bigger than expected. It wouldn't be an exaggeration to call it a mansion. The whole escape room consisted of a living room, kitchen, washroom, and a couple bedrooms up the spiral stairs. There was also a door placed at a wall in the living room that seemed to lead to the basement, but it was locked and didn't budge at all.

  In all honesty, the mansion didn't look like an escape room at all. If anybody were to come to this place without context, they could easily believe they were invited to a party at some rich second generation's place. Even the floor was made with beautifully decorated marble tiles.

  Anthony noticed the pale faced boy and walked up to hook his arm around him, "Hey Sammy, what's wrong? Don't tell me you didn't want to come here?"

  The skinny boy was called Sam. He looked as if he wanted to say something, but just stayed silent in the end.

  Anthony was unamused by this and smacked the back of the boy's head. "You're so fucking boring, I paid for all of this and yet you just stand there acting like you're about to piss yourself."

  Sam continued to stay silent and ignored the stinging sensation on the back of his head.

  Chris simply took a quick glance in their direction then went back to observing the room, pretending as if he didn't see anything.

  Anthony was about to continue harassing the boy but was cut off by someone mid-way.

  "Should we split up and look around? They only give us one hour to escape so we can't waste time." The one who spoke was named Samuel. He was a rather buff brown haired boy with glasses.

  Anthony was displeased by the sudden interruption, but had to condone to it as time was indeed tight.

  The final arrangement went like this: The two Sams were put together, Anthony was in a group with Chris, and Peter wanted to look around by himself.

  Samuel was discontent with working together with Sam, but had to give in as he couldn't win an argument against Anthony.

  The group then split and started searching.

  ------

  This escape room really was a bit... Weird. There were barely any clues and no explanations were given as to what they were supposed to look for. Everybody just went into individual rooms and tried to find any suspicious objects.

  Fifteen minutes passed by like this.

  Eventually, Anthony couldn't take it anymore and shouted, "Is this really a horror escape room?! Where's the horror? There's not even a single clue!"

  Chris just frowned and reassured his friend, "Maybe something will happen later. Like shutting off the lights for example. Let's continue looking around." He said this but he himself felt some unease. Was this company just cheating them of their money? Fifteen minutes had already passed but there was no sign of a change.

  The group had decided to participate in this escape room after Anthony got the link for the website from who knows where. The website was indeed a bit shady, but the site was too professionally done and didn't look like it was half-assed.

  On Peter's side, he was currently in the middle of observing the leather couch in the living room. The couch itself didn't look unusual in any way, but something made Peter feel something was off about it and kept searching everywhere around the couch.

  To his surprise, he actually did find something. He had just casually put his hand in the crease between the back cushion and the seat cushion. His fingers grazed past a slightly rigid sheet of paper and he grabbed onto it.

  He took the piece of paper out and observed it. The note was folded and covered in splashes of what looked like red paint.

  However there was something terribly unusual about the paint. Part of it felt sort of... greasy. There was also a smell. Peter wondered what type of paint was used to so closely impersonate real blood.

  He slowly unfolded the paper and was instantly stunned upon reading the message. He paused for a moment and read it again. He couldn't make out a lot of the words, but the parts that he could make out sent a chill down his spine.

  From what Peter could understand, the note read:

  [ This escape room was the best... fun... real death... They all died... Best experience... I'm going to be next. ]

  The rest were a jumble of illegible words as if the person had written this in a hurry. The person who wrote the note didn't seem to be a character from the theme of the escape room but was instead... an actual player? In any case, the two words, death and fun... shouldn't be placed in the same sentence.

  What were the creators trying to pull? What was the point of a hint that didn't correspond with the escape room's theme? Peter couldn't figure it out and instead decided to bring the note to be examined by the rest of the group.

  The reactions of the other group members were similar to his own. Even Anthony was left speechless. Sam, who was already scared shitless, looked like he was about to faint at any moment.

  "We spent almost twenty minutes searching and this is the only thing we found?" Chris had an irritated look on his face.

  Anthony's appearance didn't look any better. He was the one that paid for the escape room fees after all, and they definitely weren't cheap. He was prepared to just storm out of the room and ask for his money back.

  The group had practically lost most of their excitement at this point and they planned to just spend the rest of the time carefully searching each room again one by one just in case they missed anything.

  ------

  Forty minutes had passed and not another clue was found. Anthony had really had enough at this point and straightforwardly went downstairs and knocked on the entrance door to ask to be let out.

  However, there was no sound on the other side of the door and it seemed as if there was no one there. According to the rules, as long as the players felt uncomfortable or wanted to get out, they should be allowed to leave. But at this time, Anthony had already knocked countless times and he was almost fuming yet there was no indication of activity on the other end of the door.

  Chris came over and directly tried to push open the door but it seemed to be locked from the outside.

  "Hey! We want to be let out! Is anyone there?" Chris shouted at the door.

  There was no response.

  The group tried again and shouted in unison. However it was as if they were shouting at empty air. One could easily think that behind the door was simply a brick wall and nothing else.

  When Chris was about to try again, he directly heard someone shout from a distance behind him, "Get out of the way! I'm kicking the damn thing down!"

  Anthony was about ten meters from the door and he began to dash forward. Chris tried to remind the blond haired man not to be impulsive, but it was already too late.

  Anthony gathered up all his strength and kicked at the door. What he didn't expect was, instead of the door cracking open, it unexpectedly stayed firm and didn't show any sign of being damaged. On the other hand, the ground seemed to shake for a bit and all the lights in the mansion went out.

  The whole group fell silent.

  Chris swore under his breath, "What is this bullshit escape room?! They chose to shut down the lights after forty minutes and the only clue given to us was the stupid note that didn't even make sense! On top of all that they wouldn't even let us out?!!"

  Unexpectedly, it was at this time that the always pale and shivering boy in the group said his first words upon entering the escape room. "U-um, maybe something happened to the door in the living room? We couldn't open it before so..." His voice was so quiet that it would be impossible to hear if not for the current quiet atmosphere.

  Hearing this, Samuel walked over to the door and casually turned the doorknob.

  Unexpectedly, the door was opened effortlessly, revealing the long row of stone stairs that led downward into the basement.

  Samuel stiffened upon seeing this and instinctively took a step back.

  The stairs to the basement were lit up by flaming torches on the wall. This dungeon-like scene was entirely inconsistent with the fancily decorated interior of the mansion.

  Peter checked his watch. Forty-five minutes had passed since entering the room. They only had fifteen more minutes to escape. The sudden thought of that made Peter feel uneasy. Obviously it wasn't like they were literally going to die if they couldn't escape, but something about this whole escape room didn't feel quite right.

  The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

  Chris took the lead in heading down the stairs, followed by Anthony, Samuel, Peter, and finally, Sam. Just as Sam stepped both feet onto the staircase, the door behind them forcefully shut closed.

  Anthony flinched and looked behind him. His eyes flashed to the figure closest to the basement door, "Sam you fucker, do you think it's fun to play with us like that! What, want revenge?" The blond haired boy sneered slightly at the last sentence.

  Faced with Anthony's cold expression, Sam could only stutter and desperately try to explain himself, "I-it r-really wasn't me... I didn't touch it..."

  Anthony stared suspiciously at the trembling boy, then clicked his tongue and continued following Chris down the stairs.

  The flames flickered, casting distorted shadows of the people advancing lower into the basement. Sometimes the shadows would almost look like they had detached themselves from the body, but the effect only lasted for half a millisecond so nobody paid it any heed.

  The time it took to reach the basement was unexpectedly long and by the time they arrived, the watch on Peter's wrist showed that the time had passed the fifty minute mark.

  ------

  The group stood on top of a rocky and uneven ground. In front of them was a long corridor. The end couldn't be seen at all and the light of the torches on the walls appeared to be getting weaker.

  "This... Is this really part of the escape room?" Samuel couldn't help but ask.

  Chris wanted to refute, but he couldn't come up with an explanation. He had gone to a couple escape rooms before with the whole group consisting of Anthony, Peter and Samuel, but he had never seen an escape room that included a long corridor lit up by real flaming torches.

  Anthony, the so-called "most bravest one of the group" couldn't help sweating a bit and feeling rather anxious.

  "They wouldn't put this place here for no reason, there's most likely going to be more clues here." Chris said this as if he was persuading others, but really he just wanted to persuade himself.

  "Do you seriously believe there's going to be more clues here? We've been upstairs for forty minutes and yet we didn't find a single clue except that shitty piece of paper. So you're saying they wasted most of our time just so we could spend the last measly twenty minutes to quickly find some clues from the basement and escape?" Anthony was more agitated than usual and talked for a long time.

  Chris could only stand to the side and accept that what Anthony said was indeed true. He was about to suggest going back upstairs when a scream rang out from further down the corridor.

  "Fuck! What the hell is that?!"

  Everybody immediately turned their head to the direction of the noise. They noticed that it was Samuel that had screamed. From Anthony's point of view, Samuel was currently staring wide eyed at the wall on one side of the corridor.

  The group looked at each other and went to examine the situation. Closer inspection revealed that countless rooms were cut out of the walls and iron poles lined up the openings of the rooms. These were cells.

  Chris quickly looked at the multiple cells that lined the corridor. Most of the cells only had a small mountain of hay and nothing else. The cell Samuel was peeking into was no different in appearance to the others except that it wasn't quite as empty.

  Inside the cell lay some kind of deformed creature. The light in the cell was very dim so not much could be made out, but one could tell even from such terrible lighting that it wasn't a normal animal. The plump body lay flat on the stone floor and it was slowly rising and falling, the creature appeared to be asleep. It's legs were bent and protruding out of the squishy main body. However, unlike the body, they were long and straight. Not quite like a spider's but more like an enlarged grasshopper leg.

  Everybody instantly sucked in a cool breath upon seeing the creature. Samuel had instinctively let out a yelp after being the first to see the creature, but he no longer dared to make a sound.

  Peter, who was presently standing right next to Chris couldn't help whispering in his most quiet voice, "Chris... Do you think it's real?"

  Normally Chris would sneer at such a thought and say that it should obviously be a fake, but after so many unusual things happening at once and the fact that the creature looked a bit too real, Chris really could only muster out a "I don't know."

  ------

  At the same time upstairs.

  The vent on the ceiling of the washroom fell down with a clang and a slimy green liquid oozed out from the pipe above.

  ------

  In the basement, the group was left paralyzed in shock and didn't know what to do. In the end, it was Chris that spoke out.

  "Let's head back upstairs first, we don't know when that thing will wake up... If it's real, that is."

  The others simultaneously agreed and prepared to head back upstairs. Sam took another look at the creature but immediately turned his head back in fright.

  The whole group was just about to reach the top of the stairs when they saw the closed door. Then they remembered, the door had been closed after all of them entered. At the time, they didn't check if the door was locked and just assumed that it was the wind. Now that they were facing such a problem, all of them realized. There shouldn't be any wind inside the room, so how did the door shut by itself?

  Chris nervously gripped the knob and attempted to turn it. The knob turned but before Chris could sigh with relief, he realized the door couldn't open.

  Anthony noticed the problem and directly walked to the back of the group and roughly grabbed Sam's arm. His eyes were slightly red with anger.

  "So you did do something. Tell me. What did you do? What did you do to the door!"

  Being yelled at like this, the originally scared boy only started shaking even more. Tears started to form at the corner of his eyes and looked like they would fall the very next second.

  Seeing, he wasn't going to get anything out of it, Anthony could only swear under his breath and release his hold on the boy. Then he muttered. "If I find out it's actually you, you're done for."

  The group had no choice, but to go back into the basement to search for a way out. By the time they got to the end of the stairs, sixty minutes was almost up. Theoretically, there should be people that would warn them of the time but there didn't seem to be any movements upstairs.

  The group were just about to pass by the cell containing the deformed creature when suddenly, the eyelids of the creature that was previously shut closed, sprung open and the yellow snake eyes shifted 90 degrees and faced the silhouettes of the group.

  Sam saw this and screamed. All the other group members were paralyzed on the spot and felt as if their feet were glued to their current position.

  The watch on Peter's hand showed that exactly one hour had passed.

  Chris was about to shout out for them to run when the creature leaped forward abruptly and slammed into the iron poles. The poles were originally relatively strong, but under the impact of the huge creature, it directly broke off of the cell and slammed onto the ground.

  Samuel, who was standing exactly in front of the cell, was quite... Unfortunate.

  His body instantly was crushed to a pulp and pieces of metal pierced through his skull. Bits and pieces of his limbs flew in different directions and a slump of flesh happened to land on Peter's cheek.

  Seeing such a sight, the group of teens almost fainted on the spot.

  "FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! RUN!" Chris shouted and started dashing in a random direction.

  The group woke up from their dazed state and started running for their lives. Anthony, Peter, and Sam ran for the stairs up to the ground floor while Chris ran alone deeper into the corridor.

  Seeing the prey dash in different directions, the creature wasn't in a hurry to chase after them. Instead it leaned it's head down and started to munch on the first meal it had managed to catch after breaking out. Crunching sounds could be heard echoing clearly throughout the corridor.

  It didn't take long for the creature to finish its first meal. However, it wasn't quite satisfied yet. The creature paused for a moment as if deciding which prey to go after first. Then it turned its head to the right and darted in the direction of the corridor.

  Chris had been running for over twenty seconds. Hearing that the creature wasn't chasing after him, he sighed in relief. He was about to pause to catch his breath when suddenly, loud crawling sounds appeared behind him again. His whole body immediately tensed and his hair stood on end.

  It didn't go after the others? Or did it already...

  Hearing the tapping of it's long legs getting closer and closer, Chris had no choice but to get up and start rushing forward. While running, he constantly glanced to the sides looking for any doors or other paths he could run to. But unexpectedly... This corridor only had one path!

  Feeling his stamina almost running out, Chris grit his teeth and commanded his legs to keep moving.

  However, luck didn't seem to be on his side today as he could no longer run any further. It wasn't because he ran out of stamina. It was because it was simply impossible to move forward.

  Staring blankly at the dead end in front of him, Chris could only kneel down and question how exactly he had gotten himself into this mess.

  ------

  Up the staircase, Anthony, Peter, and Sam were also facing a crisis. To escape, they would need to get past this door. Without thinking, Anthony lifted his leg and got ready to kick open the door.

  He wasn't as confident now after the experience with the entrance door but to his surprise, it only took one kick before the door cracked open.

  As if finally gaining hope, the three people crawled through the large crack one by one and managed to get out.

  Of course, that same hope soon died out after they realized their current situation. What next? They got out of the basement but how do they get out?

  "...closet"

  "What did you say?"

  "There's some closets upstairs, we can hide in there for now." Peter simply suggested something out of thin air but what else could they possibly do?

  Anthony just clenched his teeth and headed to the stairs leading to the upper floor. Peter and Sam followed after him.

  They had previously searched through the mansion for over half an hour so they all basically knew where everything was. The three people found a closet just barely big enough to fit three grown men and stuffed themselves inside and closed the closet door.

  Then there was silence.

  Unfortunately, this calm silence didn't last for long. After almost a minute passed, a slight sound was heard. However this sound wasn't the sound of crawling feet but instead... A slushy and wet sound. It was as if someone was dragging a dead squid across the tiled floor.

  The group of three soon found that the air had also at one point become sort of salty. They all held their breath but the sound got closer and closer to them, as if already knowing where they were hiding.

  The sliding sound eventually stopped in front of the closet. The silence began again. It lasted like this for quite a while.

  Peter was just wondering if the thing had actually gone away before he looked up and was met with a pair of dark pearl-like eyes through the slight opening between the two closet doors. His heart immediately skipped a beat and he internally wished he had switched places with one of the other two people.

  The creature outside then started to move closer to the closet. It's whole body was basically like mush and could stretch and bend in any direction.

  Anthony was now also able to see the creature up close and his first thought was to get out of there. If he stayed in the closet he would certainly die. But he was crushed to the right side of the closet and getting out safely was unfortunately not as easy as it seemed.

  Many thoughts ran through his mind in just one second. It wasn't known what sort of conclusion he had come to, but the next moment, Anthony directly grabbed the back of Peter's jacket, and shoved him out of the closet. Immediately afterward, Anthony didn't look back as he sprinted out of the closet and headed back down the stairs.

  Peter was shoved without time to react. He plunged right into the slime creature the moment he fell out of the closet. It was visible to the naked eye as his clothes began to melt due to the acid from the creature. Next was his skin, then flesh. After the whole process, not even a single bone was left to be seen.

  Anthony ran down the stairs and grabbed any object he could pick up and smashed it onto the tile floor. The originally neat interior of the mansion was completely destroyed in a mere few seconds.

  In the living room, a blond man was grabbing objects like crazy and throwing them around, no longer thinking of possible consequences. He was about to pick up a flower pot next to the TV stand when he heard someone call him, "Anthony!"

  Anthony turned around and was met with the sight of his closest friend. He put down the pot in his hand and strode over to Chris. "What happened? You escaped?"

  Chris looked extremely tired, possibly from exhausting all his stamina. He breathed heavily as he spoke. "Yeah. I somehow managed to hide somewhere and let the creature pass by me. Then I darted up here immediately."

  Anthony was relieved to hear that his friend was okay, but he was still concerned about another thing, "Doesn't that mean that the creature will come up here soon? We should hurry and find a way out!"

  Chris however, just stared at Anthony and didn't move. Seeing something wasn't right, Anthony walked closer and asked, "What's wrong?"

  Chris glanced at Anthony's figure for a while before reaching into his pocket. "It's nothing. Come closer for a bit, I need to show you something."

  Had Anthony been in his right mind, he would have known that something was terribly off about his friend but his current state was anything but normal. He quickly walked over and asked, "What, did you find something?"

  Anthony was now standing right in front of Chris. Chris reached out and grabbed Anthony's arm. The next second, something heavy fell on the ground.

  At first Anthony didn't feel anything, but after a few seconds, the rush of pain surged up his arm and he tumbled to the ground screaming. Blood began to form a puddle on the marble floor, forming a contrast between the brightly decorated tiles and the dark red blood.

  In the midst of his confused screaming, Anthony looked up and saw the hand that 'Chris' used to grab his arm with, had become a sharp pointed green leg, identical to that of the creature from the basement.

  Anthony froze at the sight of it and slowly understood the meaning behind it. "This fucking creature can even shapeshift?!"

  However, realizing it now was too late, what could he possibly do with the creature right in front of him?

  The next moment, another limb was sliced off Anthony's body. This time it was his left leg. Anthony could only lay on the ground motionless, as he looked with a dazed expression at the creature that was currently savouring on his cut off limbs.

  His consciousness became hazier by the second and Anthony was about to faint when he noticed a figure standing just a few meters away. Anthony recognized the figure and a sudden rush of anger made him wake up from his dazed state.

  It was him! It was definitely that bastard who did something to the door! If he didn't lock it, no... If he didn't mention the basement door in the first place then I wouldn't be like this! It's all his fault!

  Obviously, such thoughts made no sense, but in the face of a dead end, humans would inevitably try to find someone to blame. No one wants their downfall to be their own fault.

  At this moment, the thoughts were still running crazily in the man's mind.

  I knew this fucker was useless the moment I saw him. Why did I even think it would be fun to take him along? Since when was he even in our group?... Since when... Huh?

  Anthony suddenly came to a realization.

  Sam walked up to the blond man who was now limp lying on the ground with two of his limbs severed. The skinny teenager was standing right next to the deformed creature yet the thing didn't seem to pay any attention to him.

  The always shaking and nervous looking young man was unexpectedly smiling at the moment. He was still as pale as always but the air he gave off was completely different, as if coming from a whole other being.

  Anthony stared up at the man in disbelief. He was about to say something but was interrupted.

  "Do you want to live?"

  Anthony paused for a second, then aggressively started nodding his head. He could live! As long as he could live then everything would be fine.

  Sam's smile grew wider, almost covering half of his face. He reached into his pants pocket and pulled out a notepad and a miniature pen. He ripped out a page and placed it on the ground. Then he handed the pen to Anthony's remaining right hand.

  "Write."

  "Huh?" Anthony didn't quite understand.

  "Just write about your experience here. How was our escape room? Was it fun?" The smile on the youth's pale face gave off a creepy vibe.

  Anthony felt the ends of his hair rising at this unnatural smile but thinking this was his only chance, he gripped the pen tightly and started to write.

  After Anthony finished writing the note, Sam picked it up and read over it. He smiled happily at the completed note. Then he casually reached out his hand and crushed the blond teenager's skull.

  He went over to the couch with the bloodied paper and shoved it in between the cushions.

  ------

  A day later

  A group of teenagers stood outside the entrance and chatted amongst themselves. A pale and nervous looking boy stood to the back of the group.

  A lady walked in front of the group of people and politely addressed them, "Welcome, you must be the next contestants?"

  THE END

  Author's note:

  This took me way too long to make. I will never write so much in one day ever again ;-;

  Hope you enjoyed the story though