Apartment

Feeling pain in every part of his body, Chen struggled to lift his head, and with a flash of lightning, he found himself bound by the seatbelt and hanging upside down in the car. His taxi seemed to have overturned in the rain from the violent impact. Immediately afterward, he was astonished to find that a protruding corrugated steel railing had penetrated the body of the car and pinned the passenger in the back seat.

The warm and wet blood flowed from his body, gradually fading in the cold night.

Was the male passenger in his taxi dead like that?

Was it an accident or a supernatural force?

Today's encounter was beyond Chen's comprehension, but he still remembered that the man had a knife in his hand, yelling something about "you know it" before the accident. Did this mean that the "story" played on the radio was not just a story, but an actual case?

Indeed, the passenger was the criminal in the case and had murderous intentions.

Plus, the last voice Chen heard in his head made him feel a hint of danger.

At that moment, he suddenly saw a black mass slowly emerging from the window.

A woman's hair!

Chen was startled, and with an unknown strength, he unbuckled his seatbelt and pushed the door open with all his might to escape the deformed cockpit. A woman, seemingly made up of dismembered body parts and covered in blood, slowly crawled out from under the car! The woman's limbs touched the ground and her bones creaked as she twisted her body in a bizarre manner and crawled towards Chen with incredible speed.

In an instant, Chen's whole body was covered in goosebumps. He didn't know what this thing was, but the feeling of danger made him jump up and run into the stormy rain!

"Whoosh, whoosh, splat, splat!"

Chen's footsteps splashed in the puddles, sending off a spray of water until he had run a long way, and finally slowed his pace. Suddenly, he noticed something strange. The accident had happened on a mountain road surrounded by woods and wasteland, but as he ran, the area around him suddenly became a dark alleyway. The most bizarre thing was that there wasn't a single light in the entire street.

Just as Chen was shocked by the transformation of the scene, a faint rustling sound started up again behind him, and a white figure appeared not far away!

He had been running for his life, yet he still couldn't shake off that thing!

Just as he was about to bolt again, Chen suddenly stopped in his tracks. He could run all he wanted, but how far could his strength take him, and when would this mad dash come to an end?

 It was clear that running was not enough to get rid of the thing! After the initial shock and panic, Chen suddenly calmed down. He looked around, and to his surprise, he noticed that the alley had suddenly lit up with a few dim lights, which stood out in this dark world.

"Is this a hint?", Chen thought as he quickly turned and ran towards the light. The female ghost was about to catch up, and Chen had no time to think. He turned and ran towards the place where the light was on!

A chill descended again, and Chen rushed up the stairs and pushed the door open with all his strength. To his relief, the door opened. He quickly darted into the room and the sound from behind stopped. Standing inside the door, Chen only saw the terrible female ghost standing outside the door, staring at him fiercely through the glass.

 It seemed as if something inside was preventing it from entering!

Coldly gazing at Chen for a moment, the female ghost's figure slowly disappeared into the darkness.

His body had a few scrapes that were now burning with pain, but Chen ignored them and immediately took out his cell phone to dial some numbers.

Just as he had suspected, none of the numbers connected.

"It's hard to believe... but the only explanation is that I really am trapped in a supernatural world, and if I don't finish this story, I'm afraid I won't be able to escape."

Although it seems safe for now, the danger I face has not yet been removed.

Mumbling a few words to himself, Chen stood up, since the hint led him to the apartment, then the clues to the mystery should be inside.

The first floor of the apartment had 12 doors, and an elevator was installed. Chen pressed the button and the elevator door opened with a ding, surprisingly it was still running. Even though the elevator was still functioning, Chen had no intentions of taking it, after all, many of the foolish acts in horror films happened in elevators.

Although he wasn't going to take it, Chen still noticed something strange. From the outside, the apartment seemed to be at least ten floors high, but inside the elevator, there were no buttons for the upper floors, only B1, B2, B3... all the way to B100!

In other words, this elevator is an elevator that only leads to the underground! Chen tried the locks of several nearby doors again, and none of them could be opened without exception. This gave him a strange feeling that this place was like a world in a game.

Except for the necessary scenes to trigger the plot, other buildings and rooms were just "backgrounds" that could be seen but could not interact. The reason for their existence was just to make you feel that this was a "real" world.

Since he had no plan to take the elevator, Chen immediately opened the flashlight of his cellphone and kept walking forward. Soon he found the stair of the apartment, however, like the elevator, it only had descending stairs, as if the building of more than ten levels was merely a decoration seen from the outside. This apartment seemed safe but gave out a strange atmosphere! "Damn it... I have no choice but to force myself to go up..."

　With no other choice, Chen had to walk down the stairs, as if he was heading not to the basement of the apartment but to the eighteen-story hell. I walked down while pondering over the story the female host was telling halfway.

There were still many questions in the story.

Was the female ghost the thing that crawled out of the passenger's suitcase? What kind of relationship was there between the murderer and the deceased?

Uncovering these secrets might be the key to solving the case.

Standing on the B2 floor of the apartment, Chen took a deep breath and twitched his mouth.

　Although he was at B2, a light could be seen through the cracks of a room door.

　Yes, it was the light he had seen from outside the apartment.

"This damn ghost story makes no sense at all..."

Chen walked slowly, reaching out to turn the lock on the door, only to find it still locked. However, when he pressed his ear to the door, he could faintly hear some loud noises coming from inside - the sound of footsteps, talking, and laughter.

What was originally quite ordinary suddenly seemed out of place in this strange environment. Just as Chen was about to try to force the door open, the lights in the room suddenly went off.

At that moment, a click sounded, as if something was opening. Chen stiffened. Could it be that the story was going to involve a murder behind a locked door...?

He reached out and tried the handle, and found that the door was indeed unlocked. An unpleasant smell came out, and the room was filled with furniture covered in dust, scattered objects, and a swaying ceiling lamp.

A crisp 'clack' resounded and a red-covered notebook suddenly dropped in front of Chen. It was as if a story was being deliberately arranged here. Chen walked over and picked up the red diary, reading it carefully under the faint light from his phone screen.