The corridor is empty. Just a straight, baking path of dirt and adobe.
It's a little strange. Usually when one of those enemies or puzzles are overcome, I get some kind of read out. A new level or power. Or something. That didn't happen this time. Or the prior time, either.
And that tapping-
...I glance over my shoulder.
The strange barely human companion who had been so repulsed by the man before is...
Still not following me. He must have left after all, probably when the warden approached.
Well, it's fine. I'm not looking for any company. And...I can't blame him for not wanting to go into a fight with that thing.
Though I suppose he must have been prepared to try if I hadn't managed to free the prisoner. Not that it matters now.
I continue walking. The silence is a relief after the violence of the chamber. My body aches, my lungs burn, but I'm still moving forward. That's all that matters.
After what feels like an eternity, the corridor ends.
Not in a door, or a staircase, but in a wall. A solid, seamless wall of the same sun-bleached adobe. There's no way forward.
This isn't right.
I press my hands against the wall, searching for any sign of a hidden panel, a crack, a seam. There's nothing. It's just a dead end.
A spike of panic shoots through me, cold and sharp. Did I make a mistake? Is this a trap? Did the warden's chamber lead me to a cul-de-sac on purpose?
No.
I refuse to believe that. I've come too far. I've fought too hard. There has to be a way.
I take a step back, my eyes scanning the wall, the floor, the ceiling. There has to be something I'm missing.
That's when I feel it.
A breeze.
It's faint, almost imperceptible, but it's there. A soft, cool current of air brushing against my cheek. It's coming from...behind me.
I turn around.
The corridor I just walked down is gone.
In its place is another wall. Identical to the one in front of me. I'm sealed in a small, square room, no more than ten feet across. There are no doors. No windows.
I'm trapped.
The adobe is gone, and in its place is the yellow wallpaper. The ceiling lights flicker back on. The hum of the fluorescent lights fills the small space, a sound that's suddenly terrifying.
I'm back on Floor 1.
The [Ice Will] skill flares to life, not out of panic, but out of a cold, focused anger. This is a trick. A test. The warden wasn't the final puzzle of the floor. This is.
I don't have any help in this one.
I don't have a guide, or a strange person with me. Just me.
The room is shrinking. The walls are moving, inching closer, the yellow wallpaper beginning to tear and buckle under the strain. The space is getting smaller. Tighter.
I have to find the way out. Now.
I turn to the wall behind me, running my hands over the familiar, stained surface. There's nothing. No hidden panel, no loose brick.
I turn to the left wall. Nothing. The right wall. Nothing.
The room is now nine feet across. The humming of the lights is getting louder, more frantic, like a swarm of angry insects.
Think.
There's always a way. There's always a loophole. This place is a system. A game. And every game has rules.
What are the rules of this room?
[Ice Will] sharpens my focus, freezing the anger and the panic bubbling up inside me.
...The walls are closing in. That one's obvious. Not quickly, but noticeable enough to know what will happen if I try to just sit and wait this out. I'll be crushed by this little space, eventually. And the other rule is that I have no doors. No exits.
Nothing.
I scan the room again.
It appeared suddenly.
There was a wall in my way.
And now there are walls surrounding me where there were not before. It's as if the floor has...folded.
This place changes.
But it changes based on...what, exactly?
I've seen the library change when I picked up the book, the greenhouse when I broke down the door, even that strange dream corridor changed when I defeated it with my anger. So it does react to things I do. Things I have. I have the shears and the prybar, neither of which seem to do anything.
But those were straightforward, easy solutions, at least insofar as someone could easily guess what needed to be done.
These are just...
Walls.
I frown and turn back to the first wall. The one that blocked my progress to begin with.
My hands press against the paper, palms flat. It feels like any other wall. It doesn't have any give.
But it should. This place has to let me out. It always does. I just need to figure out how.
I press harder, the muscles in my arms tensing, my fingers splayed out against the wallpaper. It's firm. Unyielding.
My frustration boils over, and I bang my fist against the wall.
Thump.
The sound is dull, muffled by the thick wall.
But it's a sound.
An action. A change.
I do it again.
Thump.
And again.
Thump.
I'm not just hitting the wall randomly. I'm hitting it in a rhythm. A slow, steady beat. Thump. Thump. Thump.
I don't know why I'm doing it. It just feels...right. It's the same kind of instinct that told me to run into the Silence, to trust the feeling in my gut. To do something that seems wrong.
I keep pounding, my fist aching against the unyielding surface. The room is eight feet across now. The walls are groaning, the sound joining the frantic hum of the lights.
Then, I hear it.
An echo.
It's faint, but it's there. Coming from the wall in front of me. A soft, rhythmic tap. Tap. Tap.
It's answering me.
My heart leaps in my chest. I don't stop my own rhythm. Thump. Thump. Thump.
The tapping on the other side of the wall speeds up, matching my pace. Tap. Tap. Tap.
It's...
That creature.
That tapping creature.
I don't know what happens if it reaches me, but it has something to do with the walls.
Not only that, but the man I was with the first time had been confident that a hidden door was somewhere around when it was tapping.
I'm not sure that's how it works in abstract. Luring whatever it is closer might just get me devoured or killed. But right now I have no other exit from this death trap, anyway.
If it brings an escape doorway...then that's one more door in this room than exists right now.
It's worth the gamble. And, as far as I can tell, the tapping is following a pattern I recognize. I've only heard it a few times, but it seems to be going in sets of four, with a pause.
Like I heard in the library.
Like I heard on the wooden floor.
I continue tapping on the wall. The tapping on the other side grows louder, more insistent. The wall is vibrating slightly under my fist.
The room is seven feet across. The air is hot and thick. The humming is a scream.
Then, with a sound like tearing paper, a crack appears in the wall in front of me. It starts at the center, where my fist has been pounding, and spreads outwards in a jagged lightning bolt.
I stop hitting it.
The tapping stops.
For a moment, nothing happens. The crack just hangs there, a dark line in the yellow wallpaper.
Then, the wall begins to crumble.
It's not a violent explosion. It's a slow, quiet decay. The wallpaper flakes away, the plaster beneath turning to dust. The crack widens, becoming a hole.
And through the hole, I see a stairway.
It's the same as the others. A single, concrete step leading up. To the next floor. To safety.
I don't wait. I lunge forward, squeezing through the widening hole just as another wall begins to buckle from...something.
The thing on the other side making its way through.
I stumble up the step, my body aching, my mind reeling. I don't look back. I don't wait to see the room collapse completely.
I just keep going, putting one foot in front of the other, leaving Floor 3 behind me.
The blue light of the System flickers into existence in front of my eyes, but I barely register it.
LEVEL UP!
CURRENT LEVEL: 4
ATTRIBUTES INCREASED:
STRENGTH +1
SPEED +2