"Larger than it should've been. Silent. Breathing.
The floor was frosted glass, and beneath it: eyes.
Dozens. Maybe hundreds. Blind and milky, staring . The Welcome Room
"Safety is just the pause between screams."
The ceiling split open like a bleeding eye.
A dull glyph pulsed inside it — a white circle spinning slowly like the iris of something waking for the first time in centuries.
Light poured out.
But not light.
Something that worelightlikeamask, colorless and hungry, humming like teeth grinding against bone.
Jié Dè didn't remember standing.
He just was. Upright. Awake.
Heart pounding.
He's sister gone
The mattress beneath him dissolved. The rot-stained floor vanished.
Gravity stopped mattering.
And then the world bent inward — a cruel fold of reality.
He didn't walk here. Not really.
One blink, and he was in a hallway that had never existed.
The walls pulsed like living skin.
They weren't just holding the elevator. They were feedingit.
At the end of the corridor stood agate—fifteen feet tall, framed in oily black metal that drank the light.
Symbols crawled across its face, mutating with every blink: Mandarin, Latin, Hangul, Arabic… and some letters shaped like screams.
There were no buttons.
Only a glowing white circle floating inches from the door.
It flickered like a dying star. Or a warning.
"You don't ride the elevator," whispered something inside Jié's skull.
"You enter its mouth and pray it doesn't swallow you whole."
He touched the circle.
And the doors peeled back.
Not like machinery.
Like skin—groaning wetly as something ancient opened its ribs.
The stench of rust and silence hit him like a wall.
He stepped in.
InsidetheElevatorit was not a box. It was a room floating in black void.up at Jié like fish waiting for the hook.
Chains hung from the ceiling — some rusted, some still wet.
The walls were metallic, but his reflection didn't move with him.
Near the front: a single glowing glyph.
No numbers. No floor indicators.
Only this:
PRESS TO ASCEND
(There is no escape. Only forward.)
Scratched beneath it in something like rust or dried blood:
(THE NEXT FLOOR REMEMBERS YOU.)
Jié took a breath.
The air tasted like coins and old spit.
He stepped forward—
And the doorsshut behind him like a coffin sealing.
The world twisted again.
Suddenly he was standing in what looked like a hotellobby.
It was a all white area with
Marble floors. Clean air. Soft lighting. A white couch still warm as if someone just left.
A table sat in the center with bread, fruit, and bottledwater—none of it spoiled.
It looked like safety.
Smelled like peace.
But feltwrong.
Tooperfect.
The room watched him.
He crept in slowly, body coiled, teeth clenched.
And then he saw her.
A girl. Seventeen, maybe.
Bandages over one eye, stained with blood.
The other eye? Unblinking. Too calm.
She didn't look up.
"Don't eat the bread," she said.
Jié froze.
She continued, voice flat:
"I watched someone eat it. He turned into a scream."
"…A scream?"
She looked at him then.
And Jié understood.
She didn't mean it metaphorically.
"He bit into it. And the room tore him out of himself. He didn't die. He just became... pain."
Jié stared at the bread.
It looked perfect. Still warm.
But the crust was too clean.
The fruit had no seeds.
The water didn't ripple. Not even when he stepped close.
"It's not food," the girl said.
"It's bait. The elevator gives it to see who's too weak to climb. If you eat, you're marked. The next door doesn't open."
"What happens then?"
She didn't blink.
"You open instead."
Over the next few hours, Jié learned three things:
The Welcome Room doesn't allow violence. Not by rule, but by something that watches. The girl called it The Eye.
You could stay for 24 hours. Then the elevator moved—with or without you.
Everyoneherehaddiedonce. Or almost.
Jié sat near the door, a stolen knife resting under his palm.
He didn't trust the calm.
"Why are you still here?" he asked.
The girl stared blankly.
"I'm waiting."
"For what?"
A pause.
"My floor."
On the 23rd hour, a new figure stumbled in.
A boy. Sixteen, maybe.
Half his face was burned to wax.
His hands trembled. He didn't speak.
He stared at the bread like a starving animal.
Jié stood.
"No."
The girl whispered: "Don't."
But hunger has its own gravity.
He lunged. Bit down.
And then—
He screamed.
It wasn't a human sound. It wasn't a sound at all.
It was a noise that peeled the walls inward, like the room itself couldn't stand hearing it.
His skin cracked.
His mouth split.
His body bent backwards—
And vanished.
No blood. No bones.
Only the bread remained. Whole. Uneaten.
Jié didn't look away.
Neither did the girl.
"I told him," she said.
Jié stared at the table.
Then at the eyes beneath the floor.
And he understood.
"This place doesn't care if we live or die," he said.
"It just wants to see how much we'll begfirst."
The girl tilted her head.
"You're not like the others."
He nodded.
"I'm what happens when the world forgets you."
System Message: a sound like metal breathing echoed through the room.
The glyph above the wall pulsed.
NEXT FLOOR SELECTED
FLOOR 1 – THE DOLLS WHO BLEED
OBJECTIVE: SURVIVE 6 HOURS
(Masks must be worn at all times.)
Jié turned toward the elevator.
"You coming?"
She shook her head.
"I told you. I'm waiting for my floor."
"What kind?"
"The one that kills me."
Jié stepped inside.
The elevator's doors folded shut like flesh sealing over a wound.
The lights dimmed. The glass beneath his feet fogged.
And the eyes below?
One opened.
This time, it smiled.
"Ascension is not a right," whispered the elevator.
"It is an exchange."
Jié didn't flinch.
Not when the room darkened.
Not when the elevator sighed.
Not even when the mirrored wall showed his reflection—and it didn't move with him.
He just stood there.
Waiting.
For war.