“Ugh, my head...”
The paper figure inside the room hadn't broken through the door. Jenkins had simply stumbled and hit his head, his body and mind both reeling from excessive exposure to the Cursed Items.
He felt his dinner threatening to co back up, but he still managed to stuff his recent acquisitions into his clothes with a trembling hand.
“ow~”
The cat erged from another room. The little creature stared at Jenkins with its beautiful eyes. In addition to the feather in its mouth, its tail was curled around a bracelet woven from silver thread.
“Thirty-three seconds. Good!”
Jenkins felt he was reaching his limit. The intense ntal contamination and shock in such a short period were becoming too much to bear. He was sure he looked dreadful, but he struggled to his feet, staggered forward a couple of steps, and shoved open the door nearest the staircase.
It was a bathroom, completely devoid of light. As Jenkins pushed the door open, he found himself facing a sink and a mirror. The Jenkins in the mirror smiled at him and made a move as if to climb out, but then the mirror shattered with a loud crack.
Jenkins hadn't done it. He suspected the Cursed Item had shattered because it tried to imitate his form. But this was no ti for speculation. He had already noticed a dark shape stirring behind the shower curtain, and a few strands of hair were writhing their way out of the drain.
He blinked, confirming the cup on the sink wasn't a Cursed Item, and reached for it. But just as his fingers brushed against it, a bloody hand shot out from the sink's basin and clamped down on his wrist.
“Get off !” Jenkins roared, his mind already hazy with strain. He swung the sword in his left hand, severing the hand at the wrist. The dismbered hand dissolved into icy slush, splashing onto his trousers and boots, but he paid it no mind. Grabbing the cup, he spun around and shattered a cursed figure coalescing from the shadows behind him. He kicked away the spectral children clawing at his leg and threw himself sideways against the door, crashing through a web of bloody threads and stumbling out of the room.
“Oh, Sage...”
Jenkins groaned, his mind in a worse state than it had been for a long ti. But he rembered the sixty-second limit. Fifty-one seconds had passed. He had nine seconds to get downstairs to the basent.
“ow~”
The cat stood obediently at the top of the stairs, watching Jenkins sprawled on the floor, its wide eyes filled with a look of pure innocence. Now, in addition to the feather in its mouth and the bracelet on its tail, a gold ring set with a brilliant erald was looped around its left front paw.
“Nine seconds...”
He had no idea why Chocolate was still here, but as Jenkins scrambled to his feet, he snatched the cat up.
“Eight seconds...”
No ti for the stairs. He leaped from the second-floor landing, landing hard and quickly scanning his surroundings.
“Seven seconds...”
The professor lay face-up in the hallway between the living room and the dining room. Jenkins quickly grabbed his hand.
“Six seconds...”
No need to search for the basent entrance—it was right behind the staircase.
“Five seconds...”
Clutching the cat, he dragged the professor to the basent door. Jenkins hoped the man would forgive his rough handling.
“Four seconds...”
The basent door was unlocked. He threw it open and tossed the cat and the professor inside.
“Three seconds...”
He spun around and ran back into the living room.
“Two seconds...”
He snatched the talking alarm clock. He'd wanted to grab the two corpses as well, but there was no ti.
“One second...”
He sprinted for his life toward the basent entrance.
In that final second, an overwhelming sense of danger enveloped Jenkins from all sides. The mont stretched into an eternity. Everywhere he looked, a thick, black spiritual aura closed in on him.
“Was this the apocalypse? The entire world transforming into one giant Cursed Item?”
The thought flashed through his mind as he leaped. He felt a sinister chill creep up from the soles of his feet toward his heart, but the golden light radiating from his body instantly dispersed it.
Finally, just before the black aura and terrifying howls could overwhelm his senses, Jenkins dove into the basent, alarm clock in hand.
Just like the doors to the rooms upstairs, the basent door swung shut on its own the mont Jenkins crossed the threshold.
He lay on the dusty basent floor, gasping for breath.
The only light ca from an old-fashioned miner's lamp hanging overhead, but for those in the basent, it was enough.
Jenkins couldn't muster an ounce of strength. Each ragged breath was the most strenuous movent he could manage.
In that last second before he'd made it, he thought he'd lost control of his entire body. Thankfully, his montum had been enough to carry him inside. As the door closed, a warmth spread from his limbs to his heart and up into his mind. The spirit of life stirred within him, and with every breath, his body took a great leap toward recovery.
“ow~”
He couldn't move his head yet, but he recognized the ow. His cat. In fact, among the living creatures now in the basent, Chocolate was the only one moving freely.
Soon, Jenkins's view of the dirt ceiling and rough-hewn beams was blocked by Chocolate's face peering down at him. The cat seed to be investigating his condition, its expression full of curiosity.
“ow~”
Jenkins had no idea what his cat was up to, but he assud it was just checking on him.
The cat, now certain that Jenkins hadn't fully recovered, let out another soft, pleased ow. Then it stared intently at Jenkins's head, its eyes suddenly widening.
“ow~”
Still in a daze, Jenkins felt another wave of dizziness wash over him, as if sothing in his very perception had shifted. But he was in no condition to investigate further. Beside him, the cat couldn't help but look smug.
“The apocalypse...”
Jenkins lanted internally, already wondering how they would survive the next twenty-four hours. Just then, the lamp in his field of vision began to flicker.
That was highly unusual. It was a miner's lamp; in the windless room, it should have burned steadily until its fuel ran out. It shouldn't have been flickering like an electric bulb or a gaslight.
Terrifying darkness and hopeful light pulsed through the basent. Each ti the darkness fell, Jenkins feared the light would never return, or that when it did, so strange shadow would appear with it.
Sothing was definitely wrong. That damned alarm clock had ntioned it, after all—the twenty-four hours of survival in the basent wouldn't be peaceful.
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