“Oh my god—!”
One of the contestants gagged, stumbling backward out of the doorway before collapsing against the corridor wall to throw up.
The sound of retching echoed down the dusty hallway, breaking the frozen shock that had seized the group.
Sam braced himself, waiting for the familiar, violent wave of nausea to hit his own stomach.
It came, but it was surprisingly dull—a faint, hollow knot rather than a paralysing surge.
Staring at the crimson pool spreading across the floorboards, a quiet, horrifying realisation settled over him.
The blood no longer shocked him.
That realisation terrified him far more than the bodies ever could.
Somewhere along the way, the visceral horror of murder had given way to a cold, survivalist numbness.
He was adapting to the nightmare.
“Look!” Bella gasped, her trembling finger pointing directly at Ryan’s corpse.
Jutting out from between the seagull-man’s blood-soaked feathers was the dark handle of a knife.
Sam’s eyes narrowed.
It was a standard, heavy-duty kitchen knife—the exact same design as the missing blades he had spotted in the mansion’s kitchen earlier.
It was the same type of kitchen knife that was buried in Ellie’s back.
While the others shrank back in terror, Sam stepped over the threshold and dropped to one knee beside the body.
Ignoring the metallic reek of blood, he leaned in close to examine the corpse, his eyes scanning every square inch of Ryan’s back.
He needed details.
He needed to know how one person managed to take down three contestants.
And that’s when he noticed something deeply unsettling.
The white feathers around Ryan’s throat were badly matted, flattened into a uniform ring, as though something had been pulled violently tight around his neck.
Sam crossed the blood-soaked floor to examine the other two bodies.
Sure enough, dark purple choke-bruises blossomed across both of their throats, matching the knife wounds in their chests.
The pattern was clear.
Someone hadn’t simply rushed in swinging a blade.
It looked as though each victim had first been strangled into unconsciousness before being stabbed.
It was cold, precise, and required terrifying efficiency.
But even with a stealthy approach, one chilling question lingered: how could a single person overpower three contestants, one after another, without a struggle breaking out?
Unless… they weren’t working alone.
A cold knot formed in Sam’s stomach.
A killer operating with an accomplice changed everything.
“You okay?”
Alice’s soft voice broke through his spiralling thoughts as she gently placed a reassuring hand on his shoulder.
He turned to face the pale, trembling survivors standing near the doorway.
“We need to search this room,” Sam announced, his voice carrying a firm, commanding edge.
“Check everywhere. We need to find whatever clue Ryan’s team was looking for—and see if the killer left anything behind that could give them away.”
Everyone offered subdued, solemn nods before fanning out to search.
They moved through the room with painstaking care, stepping awkwardly around the dark pool on the floorboards.
They searched every corner.
Every shelf, every drawer, every crack in the wall.
Nothing.
No clues, no hidden mechanisms, no discarded weapons, and no tracks.
The oppressive reek of iron and the sheer futility of the search made staying in the room unbearable.
One by one, they trickled back out into the chilly corridor.
“We should at least try checking the rest of the doors on this floor,” Sam said, rubbing his temples as a throbbing headache began to set in.
Nobody argued.
Nobody suggested splitting up this time.
Glued together in a single, paranoid cluster, they swept through every remaining room down the hallway.
But room after room yielded the exact same result: dust, empty frames, and bare wood.
The upper level was completely barren.
With nothing left to wring from the upper level, the group filed back down the grand staircase in grim silence.
Before them lay the only remaining option: a fresh, unlit passage disappearing deeper into the mansion.
Another dim corridor.
Another path wrapped in absolute uncertainty.
“I just hope this one isn’t rigged with traps…” Sam muttered under his breath, his eyes tracing the shadows clinging to the ceiling.
“Don’t worry about it,” Bert rumbled, squaring his broad shoulders and stepping past Sam to take the lead.
“Whatever’s down there, I’ll deal with it.”
Small, weary smiles appeared on a few faces.
As long as Bert was in front, the darkness felt a little less terrifying.
The group moved through the passage in a tight, single-file line.
Alice set the pace just ahead of Sam, while Bella trailed closely behind his heels.
As they descended deeper into the corridor, Sam’s eyes caught a series of deep, jagged gouges carved straight into the wooden walls.
They looked like massive claw marks.
His throat tightened, his pulse spiking all over again.
They kept walking.
Minutes stretched.
Slowly, Sam felt the tight knot in his chest loosen.
Perhaps the hallway was just abandoned, a harmless bypass.
He couldn’t have been more wrong.
CLICK.
Bert’s heavy boot came down on an uneven floorboard, depressing it an inch into the ground.
RING!
RING!
RING!
The entire group instinctively stopped moving.
High-pitched bells began screaming from concealed hollows inside the surrounding walls.
The noise was deafening, shattering the quiet gloom and echoing wildly down the length of the corridor.
When the bells finally ceased, the ensuing silence felt heavier than the deafening chime.
Sam froze, every instinct screaming at him to understand the meaning of that alarm.
Grrrrrrrr!
The entire group spun around, their eyes sweeping the impenetrable darkness, desperately trying to pinpoint the source of that primal, resonant growl.
They found nothing.
Until suddenly, a deafening CRACK exploded through the hallway.
Two massive, black-scaled claws, easily the length of broadswords, burst upward through the heavy floorboards right in front of Bert.
Splinters rained down as the monster drove its body upward, tearing through the foundation.
It was a behemoth.
Even in a crouch, the beast towered over the group, twice the size of Bert’s already imposing frame.
It was draped in matted, rust-colored fur that looked like wire.
Four massive, spiralling black horns erupted from its broad forehead.
It planted four tree-trunk legs onto the shattered floor.
The beast didn’t hesitate.
It lunged forward with a throat-rattling roar, aiming to crush the line of survivors.
Bert planted his heavy boots against the crumbling floorboards, lowered his centre of gravity, and caught the monster head-on.
His massive arms shot out, locking his grip onto two of the creature’s thick, spiralling horns.
The impact rattled the walls, but Bert held his ground.
Snarling in fury, the behemoth unhinged its jaws, exposing rows of dagger-like teeth.
Saliva dripped from its maw as it lunged again and again, snapping at Bert’s neck.
Bert grunted, his muscles straining to the absolute limit as he held the dripping jaws just inches from his face.
But four heavy, clawed legs gave the monster overwhelming leverage.
Slowly, inexorably, the beast began pushing Bert backward, his boots skidding across the wooden floorboards as his fingers began to slip against the slick horns.
“Everyone! Run!” Bert roared, his face turning red from the sheer exertion.