The game room doors slid slowly open, and a smell mingled with sweat wafted out.
The first to emerge was the girl who had been holding an e-cigarette between her lips earlier. Her silver-dyed hair was now plastered messily against her forehead.
Her smoky eyes were wide open, her pupils still recovering from their extreme contraction.
She braced herself against the doors and staggered two steps, her knees visibly trembling. But when she noticed Lex watching her, she forced her back straight and tugged at the corners of her mouth.
"It was all right... nothing special."
The moment she finished speaking, she instinctively swallowed, as though suppressing the churning in her stomach.
The young man in ripped clothes followed close behind, veins bulging on the back of his hand, his right hand gripping the safety bar for dear life.
He stumbled as he crossed the game room threshold, nearly crashing into the metal rack beside it.
"The effects were... pretty realistic. Good experience."
He mumbled indistinctly in front of his friends, but his gaze involuntarily darted into the game room, as though afraid something might suddenly spring out. Then he feigned composure and said:
"The sound effects were just too loud."
Yet his voice clearly trembled as he spoke.
The last young man to emerge was in the worst state. A large patch on the back of his white T-shirt was soaked, as though he had just been fished out of the water.
He said nothing, merely bracing himself against the wall and gasping for breath, his face as pale as a sheet of paper.
His eyes were still somewhat unfocused, as though he remained immersed in the terrifying scenes.
As if something had occurred to him, his legs suddenly grew too weak to support him. He tried to squat