Chapter 11: The Hotel's Hunger
The silence that followed Ren's gruesome demise was absolute, broken only by the ragged gasps and choked sobs of the horrified students.
Ren lay motionless on the staircase landing, his body a twisted, bloody ruin—a stark monument to the game's insatiable hunger.
The sweet, decaying floral scent was now overwhelmingly mixed with the metallic tang of fresh blood, making their stomachs churn with sickening regularity.
Nineteen remained. Nineteen out of thirty.
In just three nights, eleven of their classmates had been taken—either vanished without a trace like Hiroshi, or grotesquely transformed and driven to self-destruction like Daiki, Emi, Kenji, Haruto, Mika, Haruna, Hiroki, Taro, Jiro, and now Ren.
The numbers echoed in Kaito's mind—a chilling tally of their dwindling group.
They stood huddled together in the lobby—a devastated cluster of pale, tear-streaked faces, their eyes wide with unspeakable horror.
They were crying—openly, uncontrollably—their bodies shaking with fear and despair.
The sweet floral scent, the lingering smell of blood, and the profound silence that pressed in on them—it was all a horrifying testament to the game's relentless, insatiable nature.
They were utterly helpless, trapped in a nightmare that seemed to have no end.
"We... we have to move them," Sakura whispered, her voice barely a thread, her gaze fixed on Ren's mangled form. "Like Haruto. We can't... we can't leave them here."
The thought of the body decaying, of the smell, was unbearable—a new layer of horror in their already overwhelming reality.
Kaito nodded grimly, his face pale. "I know."
He looked at the group, then back at Ren and other bodies laying on the floor. "We'll need more sheets. And water. And... and a strong stomach."
He knew they couldn't do anything for the others beyond the white line—but Ren and other was here, inside, a constant, horrifying reminder.
With heavy hearts and trembling hands, Kaito, Akari, and a few other students who could stomach the task reluctantly approached Ren first.
The sight of his self-inflicted wounds, the exposed flesh and bone, made them gag—but they forced themselves to endure.
They found more old sheets, wrapped him tightly, and with immense difficulty, carried his body down to the damp, musty basement, laying him beside Haruto in the cold, dark storage room.
Each trip to the basement felt like descending deeper into their own personal hell.
Returning to the lobby, they faced the gruesome task of cleaning the blood from the grand staircase and the polished floor.
It was a long, sickening process.
They scrubbed furiously, trying to erase the dark stains—but the metallic smell lingered, a phantom presence even after the visible evidence was gone.
The whispers in the air seemed to mock their efforts—a low, sibilant hum that vibrated through the very floorboards.
Exhausted, physically and emotionally drained, they collapsed onto the couches in the lobby, their eyes fixed on the torned plastic bag in the center of the room.
The silence was thick, broken only by their ragged breathing.
"What do we do now?" Yui whispered, her voice raw, looking at the bag of phones as if it were a ticking bomb. "We've stopped the game from being played... but it's still out there. It still wants something."
"It's going to kill us all," a boy named Goji mumbled, burying his face in his hands. "No escape. It just... keeps taking."
Akari, though her face was ashen with fatigue, forced herself to speak—her voice trembling but firm.
"We have to think. We have to find a way to stop it. Crying won't save us."
She looked around the lobby, her gaze sweeping over the dusty furniture and the silent grandfather clock.
"We don't know what it wants, or why. But we can't just wait for it to choose again."
"We've searched everywhere," Sakura said, her voice heavy with despair. "The library, the dining hall, the rooms. There's nothing. No way out, no answers."
"Then we haven't looked hard enough," Kaito declared, his voice grim, but with a flicker of desperate resolve.
"This hotel is old. Really old. There have to be hidden places, forgotten rooms, something that holds a clue. We're missing something." and we have nothing else to do.
He stood up, his eyes scanning the walls, the ceiling, the very structure of the building.
"We need to find out why this is happening. What is this place? What is this game?" We have to try everything.And we ahve nothing else to do.
They knew they couldn't just sit and wait for the next midnight.
They had to act.
Kaito pointed to a section of the lobby wall, behind a particularly heavy, ornate tapestry.
"We haven't checked behind everything. These old hotels always have hidden spaces."
With a renewed sense of purpose, born from desperate fear, they began to systematically move the heavy furniture.
They pulled back tapestries, examined the walls, and checked every panel and joint.
The air grew thick with disturbed dust, making them cough—but they pressed on.
After several hours of fruitless searching, pushing aside an old, dusty display cabinet, Akari noticed something.
A faint seam in the dark wood paneling, almost invisible, running vertically down the wall.
"Here!" she gasped, her voice hoarse. "Look! There's a seam!"
Kaito rushed over, his heart pounding.
He ran his fingers along the faint line, then pushed.
The panel didn't budge.
He pushed harder, then tried pulling—but it was stuck fast.
Gojii, despite his earlier trauma, joined him, adding his strength.
Together, they heaved, and with a groan of old wood and a shower of dust, a section of the paneling slowly swung inward, revealing a narrow, dark alcove.
Inside the alcove, tucked away on a small, dusty shelf, was not a journal, but a single, thick, leather-bound book.
It looked ancient—its cover worn smooth, its pages yellowed and brittle.
It had no title, just a strange, swirling symbol carved into the leather.
The same symbol Akari had seen on the book in the reception display case when they first arrived.