The Sound from the Third Floor

Time passed, and night fell over the House of Horrors.

In the middle of the night, a strange sound suddenly echoed through the quiet Haunted House, as if someone were sawing something.

In the Staff Break Room, Chen Ge slowly opened his eyes and checked his phone—it was 1:10 a.m.

He rolled over and pulled his pillow over his head, but the strange sound kept worming its way into his ears.

Am I dreaming? What keeps making that noise?

Chen Ge had made or modified every prop in the Haunted House himself, so he knew full well that none of them could make a sound like someone sawing wood.

He'd slept for six or seven hours, but his mind still felt a little foggy. Chen Ge pinched his thigh hard, put on his clothes, and took a hammer from his toolbox.

He turned on his flashlight and opened the break room door.

The Haunted House was many times more terrifying at night than during the day. Chen Ge stayed by the doorway, not in any hurry to step outside.

"It can't be a thief. Only an idiot would come to the Haunted House in the middle of the night to steal something. And it can't be a rat. They make quiet, faint noises when they gnaw on wood, not something this clear." After ruling out the two possibilities that any ordinary person would think of, Chen Ge began to consider the supernatural. "Could the Monster in the Mirror have escaped?"

Since he didn't have enough fabric, Chen Ge hadn't covered all the mirrors in the Midnight Escape scene on the third floor.

He stared down the pitch-black corridor, then backed away a few steps and pressed the Ragdoll left behind by his parents against his body. Only then did he dare to leave the room.

The sound was coming from overhead. Chen Ge kept climbing the stairs until he finally stopped outside the Midnight Escape scene.

"So it really is coming from in there. I just don't know whether it's the Residual Souls of the Ping An Apartment victims, or something filthy from inside the mirror." Chen Ge hesitated at the doorway. To be honest, even he didn't want to enter a horror scene in the middle of the night.

Tormented by the sawing sound from inside, Chen Ge tightened his grip on the hammer. "I have the title Ghost Favored, and I've also earned the goodwill of the Ping An Apartment victims. Even if I run into that filthy thing from the mirror in the Midnight Escape scene, it shouldn't be able to do anything to me."

He thought of the time the Mirror Monster had knocked He Shan unconscious. Xu Wan's sudden appearance had foiled its plan, which showed that the monster wasn't all that powerful.

"I should go in and take a look. The Mirror Monster and I are already locked in a fight to the death. The more I learn about it, the better my chances of getting rid of it." Chen Ge was perfectly calm. He knew that what he feared wasn't the monster itself, but the feeling of facing the unknown.

When he opened the door to the Midnight Escape scene, a faint musty smell drifted out. The place was growing more and more like Ping An Apartment.

The doors on either side of the corridor stood half open. Chen Ge raised his phone, gripped the hammer in his other hand, and went inside.

The sawing sound grew louder. Chen Ge knew he was getting closer to the truth, step by step.

He searched the entire third floor and finally stopped outside a room. He was certain the eerie sound was coming from inside.

The door wasn't shut all the way. Chen Ge grabbed the handle, and its icy coldness instantly jolted him more awake.

The muscles in his legs tensed, and he shoved the door open.

"Who's in there?!"

Hammer raised, Chen Ge charged into the room. He caught sight of a hulking black figure crouching in the bathroom. Its outline looked remarkably like He Feng!

The Dark Shadow hadn't expected anyone to come in. It dropped what it was holding, turned around, and leaped into the mirror, vanishing inside.

"Stop!" Chen Ge shouted and swung his hammer, but it hit nothing.

The bathroom was empty, as if everything that had just happened were an illusion.

"That figure definitely wasn't He Feng! But why was it exactly the same height and build as him?" Standing in front of the mirror, Chen Ge looked at his reflection and felt an odd sense of unease. "Is this monster imitating He Feng? What's it really trying to accomplish?"

The Dark Shadow's appearance raised many questions, but it also revealed two things to Chen Ge.

First, the Mirror Monster could leave the mirror and move around. Second, it could transform into someone who had looked into a mirror.

"This thing is even more dangerous than I imagined."

The sawing sound echoing through the Haunted House finally stopped. Chen Ge crouched down and looked at the items the Dark Shadow had casually thrown aside.

Four crooked Ragdolls and several sharp shards of mirror lay on the rough concrete floor.

He picked up the Ragdolls and examined them. The ones representing his mother, older sister, and younger sister were merely covered in dust and dirt. They were otherwise unharmed.

Only the Ragdoll representing his father had been badly damaged. Its neck had been half severed, and there were several cuts on its body.

"Why was only Father hurt?" Chen Ge quickly thought of a reason. The Ragdoll representing his father had helped He Feng escape, foiling the Mirror Monster's plan. The monster must have been taking revenge on him.

"The four victims' Lingering Spirits couldn't stop the monster in the mirror. They could only let it bully them. The difference in strength is pretty huge." Chen Ge knew nothing about the powers of that world, so he could only make deductions from the limited information he had. "The victims' Lingering Spirits can only scare people; they have no way to attack. The Mirror Monster is one level above them, but it runs away as soon as it sees someone. That suggests that it's actually pretty weak in a fight. Its main means of attack must be mental—exploiting the hidden weaknesses in people's hearts and making them hallucinate, until they lose themselves."

Based on what had happened to He Shan and He Feng, as well as what he had just witnessed, Chen Ge reached his conclusion.

The Mirror Monster was extremely difficult to deal with, but it couldn't use its abilities in a head-on fight. So all he had to do was find a way to lure it out of the mirror, and then everything would be easy.

"I need to plan this carefully and try to get rid of it tonight. Then I can open the Midnight Escape scene tomorrow." Chen Ge's gaze remained calm. The monster in the mirror was growing bolder by the day. Until he got rid of it, he wouldn't be able to eat or sleep in peace.

Carrying the four Ragdolls out of the Midnight Escape scene, Chen Ge locked the door and went into the Tool Room.

As he took out a needle and thread to stitch up the Ragdolls' wounds, he thought about what to do.

"That monster is extremely aggressive. It seems very interested in living people. If I want to lure it out of the mirror, the simplest way is to use a living person as bait." Chen Ge was handy with a needle, and he had stitched up most of the wounds in just a few minutes.

"But the key question is, once I've lured it out of the mirror, how do I kill it? I've heard ghosts are afraid of salt and garlic, but if we actually fight, wouldn't it be a bit ridiculous to throw those things at it?" After thinking it over carefully, Chen Ge decided to log onto the Paranormal Forum and ask for advice.