My House of Horrors

When the doors snapped shut, every visitor jumped. They all turned to look at Chen Ge.

“Not closing the door makes me feel like something is going to come in after us. To prevent us from being cornered, this feels better.” Chen Ge found a random excuse and turned to the police officer. “Have you been here before?”

“Yes, the dormitory is a safe zone. It’s for the visitors to relax. After the next scenario, the tour will end.” Hearing the police officer say that, everyone felt rejuvenated. This nightmare-like visitation was finally over.

“A safe zone? Meaning this scenario is not scary?” Chen Ge rarely saw people build a safe zone inside a haunted house.

“This scenario does not have ghosts. There are twelve rooms in total, and one room is hiding a murderer. We only need to avoid the murderer and find the hidden path to exit.” The police officer did not hide anything. He wanted nothing more than to leave this haunted house.

“Where was the hidden path when you visited last time?”

“The location is randomized. Each room has a hidden path, but only one room’s hidden path is not locked. This scenario is luck based. The first room we try might get use the unlocked hidden path, but it might also lead us to a murderer.” The police officer opened his arms. “I’ve told you everything I know. If there’s another accident, it’s really not my fault.”

“Medium difficulty has a murder and an unlocked path spread among twelve rooms, but for hellish difficulty, we might have all locked hidden paths and twelve murderers, one in each room.” Chen Ge stood at the bar counter and turned to the glasses. “Detective, did you get a hint?”

“Yes, I got the message when we entered the scenario.” The man showed the message on his wrist band to everyone—’Do not open the doors randomly.’

“Looks like Chen Ge is not wrong. All twelve rooms might be hiding a murderer, and that’s why the message told us not to open the doors randomly.” The police officer laughed drily. If that was the truth, the information that he had provided was completely useless.

“Shush, keep quiet for a minute.” Chen Ge suddenly raised his hand. Using Ghost Ear, he could hear footsteps and a woman’s maddened laughter. The sound was weak, and it came from underground.

“This dormitory is more than it looks. There might be several floors to it. This ground floor is just the surface. The difficult part is at the basement,” Chen Ge said in a low whisper, causing the listeners’ hearts to shiver.

“How do you know that?” the woman with long hair asked. She now had a new appreciation for Chen Ge.

“A real haunted house seeking the experience of terror will not set up a safe zone. An endless wave of terror is the real aim of the designer.” Chen Ge would not tell the visitors that even if the designers intended to have a safe zone, when the scenario was filled with Specters, the safe zone was useless.

“The police officer’s information is that by opening the door, we will find the exit, but the detective’s hint is to not open any doors. That is very contradictory, so who should we listen to?” Chen Ge turned to the youngest man. “Everyone has revealed their occupation, except you. We’ve been through so much, yet you still don’t trust us?”

The young man shook his head. “It’s not a matter of trust. My ability is key, and it can only be used once.”

Chen Ge did not press. Due to the limited time, the visitors split up to examine the dormitory, and they soon found many strange things.

The dormitory was the largest scenario that they had encountered. It had three floors, two floors above ground and one below ground. Each floor had six rooms, but the path that led to the basement was locked behind a steel door. There were two staircases at the sides of the lobby. They looked normal, but upon closer inspection, one would see signs of them being banged by blunt objects, and there were nails left on the door and uncleaned blood stains left on the ground.

Other than that, Chen Ge found many torn pages from detective novels. Red paint was used to highlight the time and the way of death for the characters. Complicated symbols hid in the corners of the rooms like the scrawling of a devil. Even though the scenario was not as professional as Chen Ge’s Haunted House, it would score quite high; the atmosphere was well built.

“There is no exit, and the path to leave should be like what the police officer said, hidden in one of the rooms.” The visitors gathered together. They were discussing whether to try their luck and open one of the doors while Chen Ge stood to the side and said nothing.

The police officer noticed this and asked Chen Ge, “What are you thinking about?”

“The clock on the wall has been moving.” Chen Ge pointed above the bar counter where an inconspicuous clock hung.

“Isn’t that normal?” The police officer was confused.

“Look closer. The clock is moving backward. When we entered, it was 3 am, but now it’s 2:54 am.”

“A clock that is moving backward? What does that mean?”

“I have no clue.” Chen Ge shook his head. “Ignore it for now. Earlier, you said that the hidden path is hidden inside the rooms. To leave, we must open the doors. I’ve paid special attention to the twelve guest room doors and realized that each door has been stabbed with nails to create some small holes.”

“Holes? Is it for us to look through?” The visitors naturally moved to gather around Chen Ge.

“Unlikely. There is another layer behind the door, it blocks the interior of the room from view.” Chen Ge took out his phone. “The locations of the holes on each door are different. Some looked familiar to me, so I tried to link them together, and I made a surprising discovery.”

“What discovery?”

“The holes represent stars, and connecting the dots forms a celestial sign. The first door is Aries, and the second door is Taurus. These twelve doors correspond to the twelve zodiac signs.”

The visitors listened to Chen Ge’s analysis, and they were shocked. They felt like even though they were in the same place, they were playing different games.

1

“Then… what is the hint behind the zodiac?” The police officer was afraid of interrupting Chen Ge, so he only asked in a whisper.

“That’s the troublesome part. The twelve zodiac signs can represent many things. They can be celestial signs, they can be times, or they can be a code.” Chen Ge looked at his phone. “The term comes from Greek. The original meaning is zoo, and it’s definitely not humans kept at a zoo. Is it warning us that the tenants inside the rooms are not humans? That would match the message received by the detective.”

Shaking his head, Chen Ge frowned. “I’m not good at puzzle-solving. This scenario stumps me.”

Seeing Chen Ge troubled, the other visitors did not dare to speak.