Chapter 3

I was taken to a carousel.

No one was riding it, but it was still turning on its own, creaking with every slow rotation.

In the dead silence of the amusement park, the grinding sound crawled under my skin.

My heart jumped straight into my throat.

I had no idea what kind of role the owner of this amusement park would have.

By the time I snapped back to my senses, the staff member who had brought me here was gone.

I stood there alone, not knowing what I was supposed to do next.

Then footsteps sounded beside me.

I turned and saw a woman with a graceful figure walking toward me.

She was dressed casually in a long coat, jeans, and knee-high boots, giving off the air of some artsy, mysterious woman.

But she wore a mask that looked like a painted opera face, making it impossible to see what she really looked like.

She stopped in front of me.

In her hand was a leather whip.

“Um… I don’t really want to ride the carousel,” I said, completely at a loss. “I want to go home. My wife is still waiting for me. Next time, I’ll bring her here to play.”

She said nothing.

She only tapped the whip lightly against me while staring at me.

Who the hell could figure out what she wanted?

“Kid, my amusement park is a lot of fun,” the woman finally said.

Her voice was cold, with a faint teasing edge.

“Don’t you want to play?”

I glanced at the rides around us.

The roller coaster was stained dark, and something awful was hanging from one of the cars.

The water ride beside it wasn’t filled with water.

It was filled with something dark red.

“I think… I’ll pass,” I said carefully. “I’m not really in the mood.”

I was afraid that if I played any of these rides, there wouldn’t be enough of me left to bury.

Who would come to a haunted place like this for fun?

Wait.

They were ghosts.

The woman didn’t give me a chance to refuse.

She flicked the whip around my arm and smiled.

“That isn’t up to you. Since you’re here, you have to follow the rules.”

The moment I heard the word rules, I understood.

In this place, I had no choice.

“It’s five in the afternoon,” she said. “You may hide anywhere inside the amusement park. At midnight, I’ll come looking for you.”

Her voice dropped slightly.

“If I find you, you’ll have to play with me properly.”

She put extra weight on the words play with me.

I nodded in terror, my hands shaking uncontrollably.

I knew then that my real horror game had only just begun.

The entire amusement park was locked down.

Around it stood walls nearly thirty feet high. Unless I could fly, there was no way out.

I forced myself to calm down.

Only by staying calm could I find a way to survive.

I began searching for somewhere to hide.

When I reached the Ferris wheel, I had just opened one of the cabins when I saw the maid player inside.

A staff member was trying to push her out.

The Ferris wheel was still moving slowly, and her head had been forced outside the cabin.

“Save me! She’s going to kill me! Please!”

The maid player cried out to me for help.

I glanced up.

A metal support beam was about to swing past her head.

Meanwhile, the NPC was still letting out a low, eerie laugh.

I rushed forward and kicked the NPC away.

Then I grabbed the maid player and pulled her back inside.

The NPC tried to come after us, but I slammed the cabin door shut.

Get lost.

Still trying to chase us?

“We were forced into this hide-and-seek game too,” the maid player sobbed. “But they’re trying to kill us one by one.”

She was crying so hard she could barely speak.

If I hadn’t shown up, she would probably be dead by now.

But now that I had saved her, who was going to save me?

The amusement park was huge, and that woman clearly knew the place better than anyone.

Panic slowly started to rise in me.

If this kept going, I was definitely going to die here.

Then my eyes landed on the staff uniform worn by the NPC inside the Ferris wheel cabin, and an idea hit me.

What if I put on an NPC uniform too?

If I wore the uniform and covered my face with a mask, could I pass as one of the staff?

Would that woman still be able to find me?

Luckily, the maid player and I found a break room.

Inside were plenty of staff uniforms, helmets, and face masks.

We quickly changed.

From the outside, we looked almost no different from the NPC staff.

When we stepped back out, the maid player was still trembling.

I was nervous too, but I knew this was our only chance to stay alive.

She was too scared to keep moving, so I told her to find a room and hide.

I continued searching outside for a possible exit.

Along the way, I passed several NPC staff members.

It was terrifying, but nothing happened.

They glanced at me strangely, but soon walked past.

Just then, a female staff member wearing a mask stopped in front of me.

“Did you patrol that area?”

She pointed behind me.

“I just finished checking it,” I said. “No players there. I was about to patrol the other side.”

I tried not to meet her eyes.

I was afraid one wrong look would give me away.

But the moment I took a step, the female staff member moved directly in front of me.

She was blocking my way.

“Is there a problem?” I asked. “I need to continue my patrol.”

Even after I said that, she didn’t move.

What was strange was the look in her eyes.

There was something eerie in them.

“I’m scared patrolling alone,” the female staff member said. “Why don’t you come with me?”

As she spoke, she pulled a leather whip from her waist.

The moment I saw it, my mind went blank.

It felt as if my heart had been struck by a hammer.

I backed away in terror, my breathing turning sharp and uneven.