Overdose

Z lay still on the bed, listening to the soft, rhythmic knocking at the door. His hands rested on his chest, and he focused on his breathing, steadying the unease growing in his mind.

Protagonist I… he thought. A girl searching endlessly for her red shoe, her story steeped in tragedy. She was the foundation of the scenario.

Then there was the bottle of pills—the warning label burned into his memory: Overdosage causes hallucinations. That, paired with the room's grotesque transformation, could easily mislead anyone.

And lastly, the knocking. Soft, insistent, maddening. It had grown louder each time, demanding attention.

Opening the door doesn't lead anywhere good, Z reasoned. The last time he used Disharmony, it had shown him that avoiding the door completely wouldn't save him. The knocking couldn't be ignored.

He pressed his lips together, the pieces clicking into place in his mind. His death wasn't just about fear or carelessness; it was about misdirection.

Z's brows furrowed. The Ladder was playing games with the Climbers' instincts. Protagonist I's story, the eerie knocking, the grotesque hallucinations—it was all designed to steer them away from the solution.

So, what's left?

He released a slow breath and murmured, "Deactivate Disharmony."

The voice returned, calm and mechanical. Disharmony has been deactivated.

Z swung his legs off the bed and walked to the table, his movements deliberate. He picked up the bottle of pills, his thumb brushing over the warning label.

Blood began to trickle from his sewn eyes, warm against his cheeks. His vision blurred, but he ignored it. He twisted the cap open and shook two pills into his hand. Without hesitation, he swallowed them, dry and bitter on his tongue.

The knocking at the door softened, the heavy pounding receding into a gentle tap-tap-tap. Z stood still, waiting, his heart racing.

The blood dripping from his eyes began to slow. His blurred vision cleared, and when he wiped his face with his sleeve, there was no blood at all. The room stopped shifting, returning to its plain, ordinary state.

He closed the bottle and set it back on the table, exhaling a shaky sigh.

As I thought.

The drugs weren't meant to cause hallucinations—they were meant to prevent them. The grotesque, pulsating walls, the shadowy figure—all of it had been an elaborate trick.

The dizziness, the knocking, the sense of an overdose… It's all misdirection. The real hallucination comes from not taking the medicine.

Z frowned, considering the implications. The drugs had a purpose. The body he inhabited had a reason to take them in the first place.

Schizophrenia? he wondered. Or maybe something worse.

Either way, the answer had been in plain sight the entire time.

As he sighed and turned back to the table, his gaze caught something that hadn't been there before.

A piece of paper lay neatly in the center of the table.

Z sat on the edge of the bed, the paper now in his hands. It had appeared on the table seemingly out of nowhere, an official-looking sheet, its corners slightly curled and damp from the water stains that blurred the name at the top. The paper seemed ordinary at first glance—until Z read the rules.

Fidelity Covenant High - Boarding School Rules

1. Do not leave your room at night.

2. Every meal must contain delicious meat.

3. If you hear knocking at night, open the door for a few minutes, then close it back.

4. Always remember to take your medicine. Lack of medicine may cause hallucinations and nightmares.

5. If you see blood bleeding from the walls, please inform a staff member and visit the infirmary.

6. Always remember to enter the room with your back.

Z read the rules again, something unsettling prickling at his senses. He stared at the paper for a long moment, trying to make sense of it, trying to find some order to the madness.

The first rule seemed reasonable enough—no one should wander at night. The second… well, that wasn't too unusual either. Meat was often a staple of any diet. The third rule caught his attention, though. Open the door for a few minutes, then close it back—it was odd. What kind of rule was that? It implied some kind of unspoken understanding, but it didn't feel right.

And then came the fourth—always take your medicine, or else hallucinations and nightmares would follow. That made sense given the previous overdose scenario. Z was used to the idea that the drugs had some importance in keeping the mind tethered to reality.

The fifth rule about blood bleeding from the walls was bizarre, but it did make sense in a twisted, game-like way. It was a rule for the unexpected, the impossible, perhaps? The last one… Always remember to enter the room with your back. That rule was the most jarring.

Z's gaze lingered on that last line, pondering. It didn't sit right with him.

Sighing, he set the paper down, his mind racing with possibilities. This was a Ladder scenario, and scenarios governed by Order tended to have one thing in common: structure. Rules were to be followed. They created safety and predictability in the chaos of the unknown.

But then… what about the contradiction?

He turned the paper around, thinking about what it could mean. That's when he saw it. Written hastily, in dark, bloodstained ink, was a single line:

"WHAT KIND OF BASTARD TURNS THEIR BACK ON THEIR ROOMMATES?!"

Z's heart skipped a beat as the words soaked into his brain. A question, inscribed in blood. His fingers trembled as they traced the words.

What does this mean?

What kind of bastard? But wasn't the rule clear? Always enter the room with your back to it. Did this mean there was something—someone—Z wasn't seeing? Was there someone else in this room with him?

He stood up slowly, his scalp tingling with a sudden, terrible realization.

Could there be a roommate, someone hidden from his sight?

The knocking at the door had stopped.

He walked cautiously toward the door, his mind still grappling with the implication of the note. The rules, all of them, made sense on the surface. But the one rule that said enter with your back, now conflicted with the blood-stained words on the back of the paper.

Z sighed, bracing himself for whatever he was about to face. He opened the door, the soft creak of the hinges sounding unnervingly loud in the silent room.

And there stood Hao and T-Jan, waiting.

Hao's eyes immediately flickered to Z's. "Why didn't you open the door all this while?" he asked, his tone casual but with a glimmer of curiosity.