Isaac didn't deny it, and Glen didn't wait for him to speak, continuing, "Anyway, just stay here for now. When someone comes to talk to you, they will come. Asking more questions won't speed things up."
After saying that, Glen left, his footsteps echoing down the stairs until he reached the second floor, followed by the sound of a door opening and closing.
Isaac stood in the corridor for a while, then pushed open the door and went into the next room.
There was a wooden plank bed, a square table, a chair, and a window that wasn't nailed shut with planks. On the table were a candle and a matchbox.
Isaac walked to the wall where Halperin had locked the room and listened for a while.
There was no sound coming from next door; it was as quiet as an empty room.
Suddenly, a very soft knock came from outside the door; it was a single knock followed by silence.
Then footsteps sounded again, heading towards the stairwell.
Isaac walked to the door, opened it, and found the hallway empty except for a paper bag on the floor.
I picked up the paper bag, opened it, and inside were a tin can and a loaf of bread.
Isaac glanced toward Halperin's room; the door was still ajar, just as it had been, showing no signs of having been moved.
Dinner has been delivered, but it seems no one has ever delivered it to the neighbors.
Isaac went back into the room, closed the door, put the paper bag on the table, and took out the canned food and bread.
The can was labeled "Vegetable Broth Canned Food." He picked it up, examined it for a while, and concluded that it required a tool to open.
Isaac took out the letter opener left by his adoptive father from his pocket and tried to pry it open along the edge. The lid popped up at one corner, revealing a grayish-brown paste with a layer of grease on the surface. The smell wasn't pungent, but it wasn't appetizing either.
Isaac looked at it for a while, then put the lid back on the can and turned to examine the black bread. He picked it up and tapped it on the table, the sound deep and resonant.
He used a letter opener to cut the bread into several slices of varying thickness. He took a slice, put it in his mouth, and chewed it, finding it more like a biscuit than bread.
He ate a few slices of bread to stave off hunger, and put the rest back into the paper bag along with the canned food, setting it aside.
It looks like I won't be able to sleep well tonight. The last time I stayed in a similar environment was at the Amorin Mansion, where I encountered both a ghost pretending to be one and a real ghost in the middle of the night. I wonder what kind of thing I'll encounter this time.
In the middle of the night, Isaac lay in bed with his eyes closed, but he couldn't fall asleep. His revolver and letter opener were within easy reach, and his cane sword leaned against the headboard.
Isaac had been resting with his eyes closed for quite a while, but he didn't relax at all.
It wasn't that he was being vigilant or anything, but rather that he felt a chill run down his spine.
Isaac had read similar accounts in the Joint Investigation Bureau files. Some people become alert when danger approaches, and that feeling usually has no clear source. He himself couldn't even say exactly where the danger was, but it was often not an illusion.
This is called " Spiritual Alertness," which means that danger has been detected spiritually, but the physical senses have not directly seen where the danger is.
It's like an unseen person standing behind you; your spirit receives the information that they are there, but your eyes haven't seen them yet. You intuitively know that someone is nearby, but you can't pinpoint their exact location.
Isaac kept his breathing steady, squinted his eyes, and scanned the room again.
The room was the same as before I closed my eyes. The candle was still burning, and the flame flickered a few times in the wind that seeped in through the window cracks, casting a swaying shadow. The room wasn't too dark; it wasn't bright enough to illuminate everything, but it was bright enough to see the surroundings clearly.
Everything was so ordinary that he felt the absence of anything unusual was itself unusual.
He held the twenty-sided die, wondering if Carlo could sense it even if he was asleep in the middle of the night. However, Carlo had said that holding the die would continuously send out connection signals, and while he could ignore it, he wouldn't be completely oblivious.
Isaac lay there for a while; the chilling feeling was still there, but it neither intensified nor subsided.
He considered getting up to check the windows and doors, but many people had been ambushed because they had rashly revealed that they had noticed something was wrong without knowing the situation. So, should he wait a while longer to see if the danger would emerge?
In the midst of his hesitation, he finally saw with his squinting eyes that something was moving upwards below the windowsill.
Half a face peeked out from under the window; the thing was probably under the windowsill—even though this was the third floor—only the upper half of its face was visible on the windowsill, its eyes fixed on the direction of the bed.
Isaac kept his eyes closed, leaving only a very narrow slit to observe the thing.
The outline of that half-face was blurred in the candlelight, and the skin was different from that of a normal person, appearing excessively pale. The lower part of the face was obscured by the window frame, with only the eyes visible.
Isaac couldn't be sure if it was a human face.
After about ten seconds, the face retracted.
Gone?
Isaac remained motionless, and after another half minute, that thing... poked half of its face out again.
Just like last time, it shrank back down after a while.
Isaac remained motionless, weighing his options in his mind.
Does this thing pop up every now and then to check things out, and then retreat again? No wonder I waited for ages and didn't see it; it's only by sheer luck that I saw it peek out...
Furthermore, looking away after a while suggests... confirmation. Confirming his state, confirming if he's asleep, confirming whether he'll see it?
In short, the half-face did not make any further moves, and no other part of it emerged from the windowsill.
Isaac wondered if he should move or open his eyes wide the next time that thing poked its head out, to see how it would react.
However, if that thing is still crouching below the windowsill, if he rashly approaches the window, he will have very little room to maneuver in the room should the window be breached. If the thing leaves directly, he might alert it.
Isaac calmed his breathing, wondering when that face would reappear. This thing couldn't possibly be there all night long, leaving him little time to figure out how to deal with it.
He also knew that, holding the dice in his hand, if Carlo was indeed monitoring the situation, he might have already seen this scene.
Carlo didn't speak, which probably meant he judged that intervention wasn't necessary at the moment, or that the thing didn't pose a threat, or that Carlo was simply asleep and didn't care.
The candle flame flickered again, and in the faint sound of the wind, Isaac heard a slight noise from the corridor, like a wooden floorboard being stepped on and making a creaking sound.
Something seemed to be approaching from outside the corridor.
Isaac sighed inwardly. How could there be someone at the window and in the hallway in the middle of the night?
Although it might not be people, it was still quite lively.