Mindreader in a Nightmare Game

After three back-to-back nights of working until 3:00 am, I dropped dead.

Honestly, I thought it was a relief and that my 23 years of corporate misery had finally come to a blissful end. But when I opened my eyes, I found myself transmigrated into a horror game.

Right now, I was sitting in a classroom. A hanging ghost dangled from the blackboard, and its long tongue was dragging across the floor.

A jumper ghost was doing a handstand on the desk with its eyeballs stretched six feet out of their sockets.

Every ghost here had scattered facial features. They were barely recognizable as anything that was once human. Severed limbs and mangled flesh lay everywhere, and the stench of blood filled the air.

Cold sweat soaked through my clothes. I clamped a hand firmly over my mouth and refused to let out a whimper.

"Stay calm. The worse it gets, the calmer you need to be," I muttered and reminded myself.

I lifted my stiff legs and inched toward the corner, but my foot landed on something hard and round at the worst moment possible.

A sharp, piercing screech rang out beside me.

When I quickly lifted my foot to take a look, I noticed it was a bloody eyeball, which gave me such a fright that I recoiled back several steps.

This was something I would normally only see on late-night TV.

A ghost skittered over in a twisted, broken crawl, scooped up the eyeball, and popped it back into its socket.

To suppress the scream in my throat, I pinched myself to stay focused, but the ghost had noticed me.

Its bloodshot eyes locked onto me, like it was about to lunge and tear me apart any second.

Soon, every other ghost seemed to sense something and slowly turned its head toward me too. Dozens of empty or blood-filled eyes stayed fixated on me.

Great. It seemed like today was the day I died for sure.

I squeezed my eyes shut, only to hear faint voices echoing in my mind, carrying different tones and inflections.

"A human! It's a human! She looks so well-behaved!"

"She's tiny, and her nose is under her eyes! That's so cute!"

"Can I pet her? If I touch her, she won't die, will she?"

"She's so adorable that I want to keep her as a pet! What do humans usually eat?"

"Whoa, a human! Gotta take a picture for my great-grandma."

What was going on? Was I hearing all their thoughts? What on earth was that?

Confused, I cracked my eyes open and, sure enough, was met with a room full of menacing, fierce-looking ghosts staring straight at me.

But perhaps influenced by their voices, I had an increasingly strong feeling that their stares weren't exactly hostile. They all had the bright, intense look of someone staring at a puppy they desperately wanted to pet.

Nope… I absolutely had to be imagining it.

…

I had no idea how long we remained in that standoff, but my legs started going numb.

Finally, the restless ghosts in front of me began to move.

A female ghost hesitantly shuffled forward and stopped just a few steps from me. That was when I finally got a clear look at her face.

Well, I wasn't sure how I should put it… If I could ignore her missing facial features, she might have been quite pretty.

Quietly, I took two steps back.

When the female ghost noticed that I was backing away, she crouched down on the spot and tried her best to radiate friendliness while cautiously scooting toward me.

"Don't be scared, little human. I'm a nice ghost," she gently said. "Come here, and I'll feed you some thigh meat."

I fell silent. What kind of world was this? Why were the ghosts not tearing humans and eating them, but treating them like pets?

Weren't ghosts supposed to wield incredible powers and feast on a thousand souls a night?

While I was processing this insanity, the female ghost had quietly crept forward until she was staring at me at eye level.

When she raised her hand, my body tensed. I braced myself for her to twist my head off at any moment. But all she did was pat me lightly on the head.

Then, I heard her inner voice explode with a blissful squeal.