The horrifying disappearance of five students from the local university was no minor incident.
Thus, after the school authorities reported it to the police, it took less than ten minutes for two patrol cars to show up, sirens blaring.
A few smartly-dressed officers stepped out from the first car followed by three youths from the second, who were dressed very differently. The youths were in casual attire, and the one in the lead even sported a faint tattoo on their left arm.
"Are these officials specially designated to handle such incidents, I wonder...? Do they have superpowers or sothing?"
Bai Zhi was casually leaning on a railing so distance away, watching the events unfold. He chewed a piece of gum as he ruminated on his observations.
The mysterious disappearances had put everyone on edge. Since it happened so close to ho, most students could not focus on school and had left the campus early. Bai Zhi was in the minority who stayed behind out of so morbid feeling.
People were wising up to the rumors now. The proliferation of urban legends—more like real sightings, considering the recent events—had been heavily restricted before, thanks to governntal intervention, but such news always found a way to sneak past the system. Now, they circulated with increasing vigor in major communities on social dia.
Everyone behaved like mice talking about belling the cat. They were keen to follow the news and theorize all day, but not a single one of them wished to encounter such entities themselves.
"Far be it from to ddle, I better leave this to the professionals..." Bai Zhi morized the faces and notable features of the three youths, then stuffed his hands into his jacket pockets as he walked away.
But no sooner had he turned the corner than a small figure rushed out and bumped into him before he could react, falling backward from the force of the collision.
"!!"
As he identified the person who had bumped into him, Bai Zhi's pupils shrank and his face paled.
"Hoho, you escaped my clutches twice before, but I've got you now, haven't I?" The little boy raised his head, revealing a brilliant, yet creepy smile. In his left hand was a dark, squirming thing, and he raised it triumphantly.
"Hey, that's my sha—!"
Before he could finish the sentence, Bai Zhi's vision suddenly faded into darkness. When the darkness eventually lifted, he was startled to find that he had been teleported to a corridor lined by doors on either side. Before he could fully assess his situation, his ears were assaulted by the sound of a piercing shriek.
Bai Zhi turned to look behind him. "Well, that escalated quickly," he said with a wry smile.
He seed to be in an abandoned school building. The ground was littered with shredded test papers and wood chips, and the doors on either side of the corridor seed to open into classrooms.
A dim light above him flickered on and off, and the weak illumination left everything beyond an arms' length shrouded in pitch-black darkness for about ten ters, where there was another light. A little distance beyond that, the corridor seed to turn, forming a corner.
The scream he had just heard had seed to co from that very corner.
"Picked on by two supernatural entities in as many days... Damn, my luck's been shitty ever since I transmigrated," Bai Zhi lanted.
Making full use of what light ca from the bulb above him, he hunted around for sothing to defend himself with, like the leg of a table, or a stool.
All fear stems from the fear of the unknown, but Bai Zhi was soone who reacted to the unknown with excitent instead. No matter what had made that shrieking noise behind him, he was sure that a solid whack with a club would take care of it.
Sadly, no matter where he looked, all he found were scraps of paper and splinters of wood. After a completely futile attempt to piece together the papers for so clues, Bai Zhi threw his hands up in resignation.
It had been two minutes since he was attacked by the supernatural entity—disguised as a little boy—and brought into this mysterious space. In that ti, he had accomplished nothing except a thorough search of his imdiate surroundings.
He did not hear that initial shriek a second ti, and all around him was unbroken silence. However, the light above his head had begun to dim significantly, and it stayed on for less and less ti.
That was his only imdiate source of light, and he knew that once it went out, his surroundings would be plunged into darkness. It was not hard to imagine the terrible fate that lay in store for him once he lost the safety of the light.
"Looks like so kind of school building, but it looks neglected..."
Muttering to himself, Bai Zhi chose to venture into the darkness and check out the nearest classroom door. There was no lock on the rusty tal door, and at his touch, it swung open slowly with an unpleasant, drawn-out screech.
"Hmm... Can't see a thing, as expected," Bai Zhi comnted unhappily as he peered inside.
Poking around abandoned classrooms in the dark under bizarre circumstances would give anyone the heebie-jeebies, even strong n with balls of steel.
After all, nothing is scarier than the unknown. There was no way of knowing what lay hidden in the room, and everything that could be seen in the surroundings only heightened the tension.
Not that it mattered to Bai Zhi.
"So far, this appears to be a sort of Battle Royale-type situation. Standing sowhere well-lit might seem safe… but I was sent here when that thing got hold of my shadow, so who knows—anything to do with shadows in this place could be deadly," Bai Zhi thought out loud. "There are rules to every ga, even supernatural ones. Sowhere in one of the darkened classrooms has to be a clue, so key to getting out of this prison..."
He made his way from the back of the classroom to the front in the dark, running his hands blindly along each table as he went. He was keen to check the drawers, but did not neglect the tabletops.
"The five missing students must have been sent here when that thing caught them unawares and stepped on their shadows. If they're still alive, it could an safety in numbers if I could rendezvous with them while we wait for soone to get us out..."
At the third table, his fingers brushed up against sothing decidedly icy.
"Hmm... it's about the size of my palm, feels cold... and it's got five fing—uhh..."
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