"W-what's going on? Is it an earthquake?!"
Inside the kitchen, Yamamoto Hiroshi clutched his head and shouted, while Maeda Miwa beside him let out a piercing scream.
"Stay still! Don't run around! Bro, Sis—what the hell is going on?!"
Green, equally terrified, forced himself upright and yelled at Yamamoto and Maeda, instinctively wanting to rush out to find the other three.
"Don't move! The problem isn't on our end! Get everyone to calm down!"
Takumi's voice rang out at that moment, and Maki immediately turned around, scrambling up from the floor before pulling a wall clock out of her backpack.
The source of that violent tremor wasn't Room 208—but Room 210.
Although she had no idea what exactly was happening, it was clear that whatever had been drawn into Room 210 was now locked in a struggle with something that had already been there.
And the scale of their clash was far more terrifying than the earlier knocking incident—the continuous, thunderous shaking made everyone inside feel as though the entire building might collapse at any moment.
"What is this…?"
Kaguya, who was standing closest to the front door, could hear it most clearly.
From the living room, Maki could only roughly tell that the vibrations came from Room 210—but Kaguya could distinctly hear the muffled sobbing mixed with roars and shrieks coming from within that room.
Such chaotic sounds.
Glass bottles shattering.
A bookshelf crashing to the ground.
Scattered objects spreading across the floor.
It was as if everything was losing its original shape, inching toward total collapse.
Just what on earth—
The girl's eyes widened. The sounds in her ears suddenly grew faint.
At some point, Takumi had rushed up to her—half crawling, half stumbling on the trembling floor—and shoved a pair of earplugs into Kaguya's ears.
"Don't listen."
Takumi mouthed each word distinctly. Though Kaguya couldn't hear him through the earplugs, she understood instantly from the shape of his lips what mistake she had just made.
Without realizing it, she had been listening too intently—completely forgetting that hearing such abnormal sounds for too long might itself be dangerous. How could her reaction speed have dropped to this point?
She gave Takumi a small nod, braced herself against the wall, and stood up. The two of them supported each other as they dashed through the quaking corridor into the living room, quickly shutting the door behind them to block out the sounds from outside.
Curiously enough, though the tremors had been violently intense only moments ago, once Kaguya put in the earplugs, they seemed to lessen slightly—and as soon as the living room door closed, the shaking began to subside rapidly, stopping altogether within moments.
'Even if we're not detected or chosen as targets, just coming into contact with certain information—like auditory input—can cause an effect? No, if that were true, we should've been attacked back when we were in Room 205. So maybe it depends on whether the entity is in an activated or dormant state. This is getting more and more troublesome… So in short, once anything happens, we're only safe if we're in the living room with the door shut?'
Takumi thought seriously about the possible scenarios, still feeling that something didn't quite add up.
If the corpse in Room 205 had been alive all along, why hadn't it attacked them right away? Why had it waited until they left before following them?
It could understand Takumi's misleading directions and head toward Room 210—that meant it had human sensory perception and could comprehend human speech. So what exactly was its mode of thought? What level of intelligence and memory did it possess?
That thing in Room 210 had apparently clashed with… whatever was already inside. At least, that's what it sounded like. The exact details could only be confirmed later—Kaguya was the only one sharp-eared enough to have truly heard what happened.
Takumi couldn't help but think back to the frozen corpse in Room 208.
Why had the thing in 205 started moving so quickly, while the one in 208 remained completely still?
And what about Room 204—the one he and Kaguya hadn't fully explored yet? Could something be hiding in there too, perhaps even watching them from the shadows?
There were few questions that could be answered right away.
And even if they tried to seek those answers, whether they could survive the process—honestly, that was anyone's guess.
"Compared to these mystery-filled horror games, I'd rather play a mindless hack-and-slash where you don't have to think at all."
Takumi could only mutter that in the end.
"B-Bro… what the hell happened out there…?"
Terrified nearly to the point of wetting himself by the earthquake-like tremors, Green cautiously poked his head out from the kitchen to ask.
"It's got nothing to do with us. Don't scare yourself. Where are the other two?"
Kaguya still hadn't removed her earplugs—her mind seemed unsteady, likely needing some time to recover. On the other side, Maki sat where she was, seemingly also shaken by what had just happened, though she didn't quite understand what it was.
Takumi, the only one who seemed largely unaffected, stood up and spoke in a cold tone toward Green.
"They're fine. Everyone's fine. All behaving themselves," Green quickly replied, grinning as he shook the knife in his hand to show everything was under control.
Takumi frowned, then turned to Kaguya. Seeing that she had somewhat recovered, he rose and walked toward the kitchen doorway. Passing by Green, who was a head taller than him, he looked toward the two sitting by the refrigerator inside.
Maeda Miwa didn't dare speak. Yamamoto Hiroshi, however, had enough nerve to question him directly.
"What the hell were you doing out there?"
Takumi didn't answer. He simply stared intently at Yamamoto's angry face, at the trembling Miwa beside him, and at the refrigerator behind them—silent and unmoving from the very beginning.
He watched it for quite a while, but even then, he didn't dare go closer to check if everything was truly all right.
"In this damned place, we just know a bit more than you two idiots, that's all. I don't want to make things hard for anyone—I just want to get out of here alive. So as long as you don't cause me trouble, I won't do anything to you. You understand that, right?"
Saying this, Takumi casually tossed two chocolate bars to Yamamoto Hiroshi. Seeing him instinctively reach out to catch them, Takumi then turned toward Green beside him.
"Keep an eye on those two. If you notice anything strange about them, tell us immediately."
He had considered taking the opportunity to explain things properly, but Kaguya and Maki weren't in great shape right now. Besides, their first impressions had already been set in stone, and since those two had probably died in the hallway before the clock rewind, there was no telling whether after the rewind they'd just vanish again like dust in the wind once their time came. In the end, Takumi decided it was best to maintain the current situation for now. At least after an hour—if the two still showed no problems—then he'd try talking to them.
"Bro… you mean they…"
Green swallowed hard. At first, he'd thought he was just keeping watch over two ordinary people, but now he was realizing this was no simple matter. Fear started creeping in, and he wasn't so sure he wanted to keep doing this.
"If you think it's too much for you, we can switch—you go check out the situation instead. How about it?"
Takumi stared calmly at the man's deliberately strained expression as he said that, immediately draining the color from Green's face until it turned as pale as a ghost from a village horror flick.
"S-sorry, no, please don't say that. I'll keep watch over them properly…"
Green stammered an apology from behind him, shrinking back. Takumi had already turned away and didn't see the mix of resentment and helplessness in the man's eyes.
Meanwhile, in the living room, Maki had handed the few letters containing crucial information to Kaguya, then slowly sat down on a nearby stool.
Something felt off.
Though everything seemed normal on the surface, as Takumi returned to the living room, he couldn't shake a faint sense that something wasn't quite right.
"Sanchez… 109… So, what you're saying is that the Shirakawa Apartments turned into what they are today because of a chain reaction triggered by one survivor's extreme actions?"
As she flipped through the papers, Kaguya frowned and muttered to herself.
"Be careful when you're looking at those—these letters seem strange. I just saw a few sentences, but now they're gone again…"
Maki seemed a bit out of it. She rubbed her temples, yawned, yet her eyelids kept drooping.
Weird… she felt her body getting heavier…
It felt like she'd forgotten something—something clearly important, something she should say right away—but she couldn't quite remember…
It wasn't like this just a moment ago. Strange. Ugh, what's going on…
"You okay?"
A hand landed on Maki's shoulder, snapping her out of it a little.
"Hah, what could happen to me? What, are you worried about me now? You should worry about yourself instead. We've only just figured out the basic intel, so don't think that means we can relax already. Get serious—that's what matters. Oh, and you didn't get hurt earlier, did you? The alcohol and disinfectant bandages in the supply box were well preserved, they should still work fine. If you're hurt, don't you dare try to tough it out."
The girl frowned and shot back sharply, but halfway through her proud words, they turned into concern.
Takumi didn't answer. He just frowned, watching this girl who seemed strangely sluggish and unfocused.
Something was off about her.
He couldn't put his finger on why, but his instincts told him—she wasn't right.
Ever since he'd touched the wall clock—ever since he could constantly feel the gaze of those two, no, now three head clocks—Takumi had noticed a subtle shift in his senses. When looking at Maki and Kaguya, he could vaguely sense something abnormal about the former.
'Are you really okay? Why do I feel like you're not all there?'
Takumi opened his mouth, wanting to ask that—
—but before he could speak, another sound came first.
[Click—]
It was like some kind of mechanism being triggered, a machine starting to move.
The sound came from Maki's backpack. From the head clock in her hand. From the pointers themselves—clearly, audibly ticking.
All three of them froze their gaze on the wall clock beside Maki—the one they could directly see.
And right before their eyes, the hands on that clock suddenly began to spin faster—accelerating forward, racing toward the future, faster and faster.