The silence pressed in, thick and suffocating, broken only by ragged breaths and Xiao Li's stifled whimpers. Trapped. The word echoed in Lie Qiye's skull, a frantic drumbeat against the low, insidious hum that vibrated through the concrete floor.
"My… my phone's dead," Xiao Liu whispered, her voice trembling. Her screen was black, a dead mirror reflecting her pale face.
"Mine too," Ms. Wang confirmed, her usual composure fraying at the edges. She pocketed the useless device. "Signal's gone anyway. Has been since…" Since that *thing* had taken Zhang Wei. Nobody finished the thought.
Mr. Chen was rocking back and forth, clutching his expensive briefcase like a shield. "Money," he mumbled, eyes darting wildly. "I have money. Lots of it. Whoever gets us out… I'll pay anything. Anything!"
"Shut up, Chen!" Manager Zhou snapped, his voice tight with fear despite the attempt at authority. "Money's useless here. We need to think." But his eyes were just as wide, just as lost.
Think? Lie Qiye wanted to laugh, a hysterical bark trapped in his throat. Think about what? How utterly screwed they were? How they were stuck in some impossible, rotting building with… things… that defied explanation?
"We can't just stay here," Ms. Wang said, pushing herself away from the wall. "That… sound… it was getting closer."
She was right. The faint scratching, the wet dragging noise… it hadn't been imagination. Staying put felt like waiting for the butcher. But moving felt like walking deeper into the slaughterhouse.
"Which way?" Lie Qiye asked, his voice barely a croak. The corridor stretched into darkness in both directions, identical paths into oblivion.
Manager Zhou pointed vaguely to the left. "That way. We haven't tried that way." It wasn't logic, just desperation.
They shuffled forward, a tight knot of shivering bodies. Every shadow seemed to writhe, every distant drip of water sounded like footsteps. The air grew colder, damper, smelling of mildew and something else… something metallic and foul, like old blood.
The corridor twisted, turning back on itself in a way that made no sense. Lie Qiye felt a dizzying sense of disorientation. Hadn't they just passed this patch of peeling paint? This particular crack snaking up the wall?
"It's… it's like we're going in circles," Xiao Li whimpered, clutching Ms. Wang's arm.
"Nonsense," Manager Zhou retorted, but his voice lacked conviction. He shone his phone's dying flashlight beam ahead, illuminating another doorway.
This room was different. Wider. The strange hum was louder here, vibrating unpleasantly in Lie Qiye's teeth. And the walls… they weren't bare concrete.
Faded murals covered every surface, painted in sickly greens and bruised purples. Twisted figures with too many joints writhed in agony. Impossible shapes folded in on themselves. And mazes. Everywhere, depictions of intricate, inescapable mazes, some with tiny stick figures trapped within them, their painted forms screaming silently.
"God, look at this," Ms. Wang breathed, revulsion clear in her voice. "It's disgusting."
Lie Qiye felt his stomach churn. The art wasn't just ugly; it felt actively malicious, radiating a sense of despair. Below one particularly large maze mural, words were scratched crudely into the plaster, barely visible beneath grime.
He squinted, leaning closer. 'NO ESCAPE. ONLY THE MAZE.'
A chill, colder than the damp air, snaked down his spine. He remembered seeing that before, back near the start. Or had he? Was this the same message? Or was the whole building plastered with this cheerful sentiment?
"We need to find stairs," Manager Zhou insisted, tearing his gaze away from the murals. "An exit has to be on the ground floor, right? Or maybe the roof?"
But the room offered no obvious exits, only another dark opening on the far side. And something else. Standing sentinel in the center of the room were statues.
Three of them. Roughly human-shaped, carved from some dark, pitted stone. They were crude, lacking fine detail, with deep gouges where eyes should be. Their postures were unnatural, limbs bent at awkward angles, heads tilted as if listening.
"Okay, creepy statues. Great," Lie Qiye muttered, trying for sarcasm but mostly feeling dread.
They edged around them, giving the figures a wide berth. The stone felt cold, radiating a stillness that was somehow more menacing than movement.
Mr. Chen whimpered, pressing himself against the wall, as far from the statues as possible. "They're looking at me."
"Don't be stupid, Chen, they're rocks," Manager Zhou snapped, though he too kept glancing nervously at the figures.
"No, really!" Chen insisted, his voice rising. "That one… the one on the left… its head moved! I saw it!"
Lie Qiye stared hard at the statue. It hadn't moved. Of course it hadn't. It was stone. But… the way the shadows played across its rough surface… the way those gouged eyes seemed to fix on you… it wasn't hard to imagine.
"You're panicking," Ms. Wang said firmly, though she hurried the group towards the far doorway. "Let's just keep moving."
They passed through the opening into another corridor, this one narrower, the walls slick with some unidentifiable dampness. The smell of decay intensified.
"It *did* move," Chen sobbed quietly behind them. "It's watching us."
Lie Qiye risked a glance back. The doorway framed the statue room. In the dim, flickering light of Zhou's phone, the central statue seemed… closer? Or was its head tilted at a slightly different angle?
He shivered, turning away quickly. No. Just shadows. Just fear playing tricks.
This new corridor branched, offering two equally uninviting paths. Manager Zhou hesitated, sweeping his failing light beam left, then right. "Which way now?"
"Does it matter?" Xiao Liu asked, her voice flat with exhaustion and terror. "It all looks the same. It all leads nowhere."
'ONLY THE MAZE.' The scratched words echoed in Lie Qiye's mind. Maybe she was right. Maybe every turn just led deeper.
"Left," Ms. Wang decided, seemingly at random. "Let's just pick one and stick to it."
They trudged onward. The silence returned, heavier this time, punctuated only by their footsteps and Mr. Chen's occasional sniffle.
Suddenly, Manager Zhou stopped dead. He held up a hand, his face pale in the gloom.
"What is it?" Lie Qiye whispered.
"Listen."
Silence. Then… a faint sound. A scraping. Like stone on concrete. Coming from behind them.
Lie Qiye's blood ran cold. He didn't want to look back. He really, really didn't want to look back.
But Manager Zhou did. He slowly turned, his flashlight beam shaking violently, cutting a frantic path back down the corridor towards the statue room doorway.
The beam landed on the opening. Empty.
"See?" Zhou said, his voice tight. "Nothing."
But then the scraping sound came again. Closer this time. And definitely from *behind* them.
Zhou spun around, the light beam dancing wildly down the corridor ahead. It illuminated peeling paint, damp stains, empty darkness.
"Where is it coming from?" Xiao Li cried, burying her face in Ms. Wang's back.
The scraping stopped. Silence again. Oppressive, waiting.
"Maybe… maybe it's just the building settling?" Lie Qiye offered weakly, knowing how pathetic it sounded.
"That wasn't the building," Manager Zhou whispered, his eyes wide with a new, specific terror. He wasn't looking down the corridor anymore. He was staring intently at the wall beside them.
Lie Qiye followed his gaze. Another mural. This one depicted a single, tall, gaunt figure, its limbs stick-thin, its face a featureless oval. It looked flat, ancient, part of the decaying plaster.
"What about it?" Lie Qiye asked.
"Its… its eyes…" Zhou stammered. "They weren't looking this way before."
Lie Qiye stared. The figure had no eyes, just a blank space where a face should be. Yet… Zhou was right. There was an *impression* of a gaze, a subtle shift in the faded pigments, that seemed directed right at them.
"You're seeing things, Manager Zhou," Ms. Wang said, her voice sharp, but Lie Qiye saw her hand tremble as she touched the wall.
"No! I'm not!" Zhou insisted, backing away. "First the statue, now this… this place… it's alive! It's watching us!"
The scraping sound returned, louder now, seeming to come from *inside* the walls around them. A dry, grating noise, like something heavy being dragged across rough stone.
Panic erupted. Raw, mindless terror.
"Run!" someone screamed – maybe Lie Qiye himself, he wasn't sure.
They bolted, stumbling blindly down the corridor, away from the watching mural, away from the scraping sound. They didn't choose a path, just plunged into the nearest branching tunnel.
Darkness swallowed them. Zhou's flashlight beam bounced erratically, showing glimpses of more concrete, more decay, more closed doors.
They ran until their lungs burned and their legs screamed. They rounded a corner, then another, the layout twisting nonsensically.
Finally, gasping for breath, they collapsed against a cold wall. Manager Zhou's flashlight flickered ominously, threatening to die completely.
"Did… did we lose it?" Xiao Liu panted.
The scraping sound was gone. Only the low hum remained, a constant, unnerving presence.
Lie Qiye risked a look back. The corridor behind them was empty. But it wasn't the same corridor they'd just run down. The walls looked different, the pattern of cracks unfamiliar.
"Where are we?" Ms. Wang asked, voicing the question in everyone's mind.
Manager Zhou shone the dying light around. They were in a small, dead-end space. Three walls, no doors except the one they'd entered through. And on the wall facing them… another mural.
This one was simpler. Starker. It showed a complex maze, drawn in thick, black lines. And in the center, a single, crude stick figure, arms raised in despair.
Below it, the same scratched words: 'NO ESCAPE. ONLY THE MAZE.'
"No, no, no," Mr. Chen moaned, sliding down the wall. "It's hopeless. We're just going in circles. It's all a trap."
"There has to be a way out," Ms. Wang insisted, but her voice shook. "Buildings have exits. Fire escapes. Windows."
"Have you seen any windows?" Lie Qiye asked quietly. He hadn't. Not a single one since they'd arrived.
Manager Zhou slumped against the wall, his brief surge of panicked energy gone, replaced by a chilling paranoia. He kept glancing over his shoulder, not at the corridor, but at the blank concrete walls.
"It's watching," he whispered. "Even when we can't see them… the statues… the paintings… they know where we are."
Lie Qiye didn't want to believe him. He wanted to believe this was just a weird, abandoned building, that the statues were just stone, the art just paint. But the scraping sound… the feeling of being watched… the impossible geometry of the place…
Maybe Zhou wasn't just paranoid. Maybe he was right.
The flashlight flickered again, casting long, dancing shadows. It bathed the maze mural in a sickly yellow light.
Lie Qiye stared at the trapped stick figure. He felt a kinship with it. Utterly lost. Utterly alone, even surrounded by his colleagues.
"Okay," Ms. Wang said, taking a deep breath, trying to rally them. "Okay. We rest for a minute. Catch our breath. Then we backtrack. Carefully. Maybe we missed a turn, a door…"
But even as she spoke, a new sound reached them. Faint at first, then growing louder. Not scraping this time.
A wet, dragging sound. Accompanied by a low, guttural clicking.
It was the sound the Dark Mass Creature had made.
It was coming from the corridor they had just fled down.
Manager Zhou's flashlight chose that exact moment to flicker one last time… and die, plunging them into absolute darkness.
Panic, cold and sharp, seized Lie Qiye's heart. Trapped in a dead end. Blind. With that *thing* approaching.
Someone screamed. A raw, piercing shriek that was abruptly cut off.
The wet dragging sound was closer now. So close.
***
Darkness. Utter and complete. The kind that pressed against your eyeballs. Lie Qiye couldn't see his own hand in front of his face. The only reality was the chilling sounds.
The wet shuffling. The clicks. And now… a low, gurgling noise, like liquid draining down a blocked pipe.
Someone was hyperventilating nearby – short, sharp gasps. Xiao Li, maybe?
"Wh-who screamed?" Lie Qiye managed to whisper, his throat tight.
Silence answered him, thick with terror. Then, a choked sob.
"Chen?" Ms. Wang asked, her voice strained. "Mr. Chen, was that you?"
More silence. The dragging sound seemed to pause, just outside their dead-end alcove.
Lie Qiye pressed himself flat against the cold, damp wall. He could feel the vibrations of the building's hum, a malevolent thrumming beneath the surface.
Where was Chen? He'd been right beside them, slumped against the wall…
A sudden, sickeningly wet *thump* echoed from the corridor, followed by a series of soft, squelching noises.
Lie Qiye squeezed his eyes shut, bile rising in his throat. He didn't need light to imagine what was happening. Zhang Wei… now Chen… absorbed, consumed by that… that *thing*.
The gurgling intensified, closer now. It felt like the creature was right there, just past the threshold of their dark refuge.
Someone bumped into Lie Qiye – Xiao Liu, judging by the terrified gasp. They clung together, trembling violently.
Think. Think! There had to be something. Some way out. But there was only the wall behind them, the walls beside them, and the unseen horror in front.
Manager Zhou started muttering, his voice a low, frantic drone. "Watching… always watching… the walls have eyes… the stone… it sees…"
"Shut up!" Ms. Wang hissed fiercely. "Be quiet!"
The dragging sound started again, moving slowly past the entrance to their alcove. It didn't seem to be coming in. Not yet.
Lie Qiye held his breath, listening with an intensity that hurt. Was it leaving? Please, just keep going.
The sounds faded slightly, moving down the corridor. A collective, silent sigh seemed to pass between the survivors.
But the relief was short-lived. Where could they go? Back out into the corridor where that thing had just been? Stay trapped in this dead end?
"We need light," Ms. Wang whispered desperately. "Anyone else… phone… lighter… anything?"
Silence. Their last light source had been Zhou's phone.
Lie Qiye fumbled in his own pockets. Keys. Wallet. Lint. Useless.
Suddenly, Manager Zhou let out a strangled cry. "It touched me!"
"What?!" Ms. Wang snapped. "What touched you? The creature's gone!"
"No! Not… not that!" Zhou gasped, scrambling away from the wall, stumbling into Lie Qiye in the darkness. "The wall! Something… cold… it touched my back!"
Lie Qiye recoiled, pressing himself against the opposite wall. Was Zhou finally cracking completely? Or…
He ran his own hand cautiously over the concrete beside him. Cold. Damp. Rough. Nothing else.
"There's nothing there, Zhou," Lie Qiye said, trying to keep the tremor out of his voice.
"There is! It's the walls! I told you! They're part of it!" Zhou was near hysterics now, his breath coming in ragged sobs.
A low scraping sound started up again. Not the wet dragging of the creature. This was drier. Sharper. Like fingernails on stone.
And it wasn't coming from the corridor.
It was coming from the wall behind them.
Lie Qiye froze. He felt the vibrations through the concrete against his back. Scrape. Pause. Scrape.
It was inside the wall. Or… it *was* the wall.
The maze. The murals. The statues. The watching eyes. The creature. It wasn't just the building that was the trap. The building *was* the monster.
"We have to get out of here," Ms. Wang said, her voice tight with dawning horror. "Back to the corridor. Now."
But as they turned, shuffling blindly towards the entrance, a new obstacle appeared. A dark shape silhouetted against the slightly less absolute darkness of the corridor beyond.
Tall. Gaunt. Still.
It looked disturbingly like one of the statues from the other room.
Except statues didn't block doorways. Statues didn't move.
The scraping inside the wall stopped. A heavy silence fell, broken only by Manager Zhou's terrified whimpers.
The figure in the doorway didn't move. It just stood there. Waiting. Watching with eyes they couldn't see.
Trapped between the watching walls and the silent sentinel. The maze had closed in.