Under the pale light lay a vast, cold hall.
No trace remained of the slaughter that had taken place here last night. The hall was clean and tidy, as though it had never happened.
Even so, the oppressive atmosphere inside made all five of them tense.
The banging against the doors that sounded from time to time kept making Sofina jump.
"That chef lied to us from the start. He even said all the animals here had been bitten to death. I bet he was messing with us on purpose!" Bailey complained to distract himself, so the atmosphere wouldn't get to him and make him too tense.
His voice echoed through the space.
But as soon as he finished speaking, the noises around them suddenly grew more violent, as though something was desperately trying to break through the doors. Scattered English words mixed with the clamor.
"Roar... HELP... ME..."
"Boo-hoo-hoo... anyone..."
"Kill me! Kill me! Aaah!!!"
It was as though they had been dragged into the depths of an endless sea, the voices engulfing and suffocating them like seawater.
Her lips trembling, Sofina tried to hide behind Song Nan, looking from side to side. "Wh-what's in there? C-could it be ghosts?"
"Ghosts? What ghosts!" Bailey's face looked terrible. He tried to push up his glasses, but he couldn't control his hand, which wouldn't stop shaking.
"Could it be that what the chef and Mrs. Caster raised on this farm wasn't animals, but...?"
Song Nan's face was exceedingly grim. She went alone to the door the sounds were coming from and listened.
Phil and Annie looked troubled too. Even with their mental fortitude, they found the scene before them horrifying.
They too walked over to a closed door like Song Nan. Annie quietly asked a few questions, and even more violent banging came from inside.
"You're not going to let them out, are you?" Bailey didn't dare approach and stood at a distance by the main entrance. Sofina stood there too.
"We can barely protect ourselves as it is. What if letting them out causes some kind of chaos?"
He had a point. Even though the others thought what he said was too selfish, none of them argued.
But they had come to the farm to look for food in the first place, and now all the food was gone. Were they supposed to do what they had done at sea again?
At the thought, all five of them wore disgusted expressions.
"There should be other things here besides them. The vegetables Annie ate looked pretty fresh too. Let's look around some more and see if there's anywhere else food might be stored."
Song Nan forced herself to turn her head away, doing her best to ignore the noises coming from behind the door.
"Places like this usually have a cellar. The vegetables might be kept there," Annie suggested another possibility.
The others had no objections and split up to search the place.
"Ah! Over here! There's a door here!"
It was Sofina who found a clue. She hurriedly called the others over.
In a corner near the main entrance, a patch of floor was slightly darker than the surrounding area, and beside it, close to the wall, was an inconspicuous keyhole.
"You actually found something? You're pretty good at this." Bailey looked at Sofina in surprise.
At his praise, Sofina lowered her head as though shy, but she didn't go over to the spot. She stayed behind Song Nan.
When Annie saw the keyhole, she thought of the key they had found in the study.
They had searched many rooms, but the key hadn't fit any of them. Now that they saw the keyhole on the cellar door, they immediately connected the two.
Song Nan thought the same thing. She had kept the key with her all along, and now she took it from her pocket and stepped forward to open the door.
The patch was about a meter long and a meter wide, and it looked as though only one person could pass through at a time.
She inserted the key and turned it. All five heard the lock click open.
Before they could look for a handle to lift the door, the stone slab suddenly opened on its own. The clatter of the mechanism concealed the faint footsteps of something.
The opening looked very dark, and they couldn't see what lay below. There was only a ladder for going up and down.
The smell coming from inside was unpleasant. Song Nan, who was closest, covered her nose and frowned as she looked down.
Seeing that nothing had changed after the cellar opened, the others gathered around too. When they saw the narrow passage, silence spread among them.
Under normal circumstances, the two men should have volunteered to go down first.
But one of them was a selfish lawyer, and the other was a rich second-generation heir who never cared whether others lived or died.
There was no way they would willingly take the risk.
Seeing the standoff, Song Nan frowned and first asked Sofina to bring over the kerosene lamp they had seen earlier.
They had spotted the lamp on the floor as soon as they came in. Although it looked low on fuel, it should still be usable a few more times.
She took a lighter from her pocket and lit the wick of the kerosene lamp.
Smelling the strange burning odor coming from the wick, Song Nan gave the lamp a puzzled look.
But before she could think more about it, she told the others to move farther away. She planned to use the lamp to see what was inside from outside first.
Song Nan hadn't asked the others to step back for their safety. She wanted room to dodge if anything happened, and it would also keep them from ambushing her from behind.
She didn't trust this group at all. She didn't even expect them to lend her a hand if she was in danger; it would be good enough if they didn't kick her while she was down.
Hearing her, the other four silently stepped back a few paces and formed a circle around her.
The air suddenly fell silent.
Song Nan braced one hand against the wall and held the lamp out into the darkness with the other.
The light reached only two meters, illuminating a small patch of the cellar floor.
There was nothing there, and nothing looked strange.
Just as Song Nan was about to go in and take a look, the rustling of footsteps suddenly came from below.
Startled, she hurried to pull her hand back, but a dark figure suddenly lunged at her from below.
"Ah!"
Song Nan quickly threw the kerosene lamp at it, blocking the figure for an instant, then hurriedly got up and ran.
The others were startled by the sudden turn of events too. The dark figure was extremely fast; it paused for only an instant before attacking Phil, who was closest.
The white-haired young man looked thin and weak, but he wasn't as panicked as the others. Although he was also surprised by the monster's appearance, he stopped when he saw that he was its target and dodged as it lunged at him.
He was very agile and even pulled Annie along the way. The two hid along the sides of the corridor, out of the monster's sight.
Having failed to land either attack, the monster seemed enraged. Its blood-red muscles, exposed without skin to cover them, rose and fell as though alive.
Song Nan had also just hidden beside the corridor. She tried to keep her breathing steady and avoid making too much noise.
Only Sofina and Bailey remained in the hall.