A billion question marks fill the screen on the stream.
“the aircon is bleeding??”
“seriously, did whoever install the furniture in that nightmare with sentient furniture come around or something?”
“im confused why the blood is coming out from there”
“I have a guess that would be hard to verify. This maybe be how the Janitors deal with their ‘trash’… Using the ventilation shafts as their garbage chute”
“!! what the dalao said makes sense!”
“but… could there really possibly be that much blood…”
“maybe the entire building had the ventilation shafts modified… for um, automatic trash disposal”
“this still makes me feel like it’s the nightmare’s… ‘special fx’? maybe the nightmare owner subconsciously made this creepy scene”
“agreed! I definitely cant bear if the real world had something similar…”
“its just a game lol [laugh cry emoji]”
After some enthusiastic discussion, the viewers turn to less heavy topics. Though neither Jiang Shuangmei nor Wu Jian can feel at all at ease with this scene right in front of their eyes.
After a brief silence, Jiang Shuangmei takes a deep breath to say, “let’s go, and see the other floors. I doubt anything useful remains here.”
They keep heading up.
Wu Jian can’t help but ask, “where do you think all that blood could come from?”
“Honestly?” Jiang Shuangmei says, “I think the Nightmare’s owner might be completely insane.”
Wu Jian is visibly surprised.
Jiang Shuangmei explains, “we know that this is her Nightmare, right? So whatever scene is in play here is based on her memories. So this might simply be because she is delusional.”
Wu Jian’s mouth is twitching, even if he can’t find any words to retort.
It is true that this Nightmare still ultimately belonged to the Tower resident. Sometimes, when Missiontakers interact with Nightmare owners, they could even trigger changes in the Nightmare itself.
That said…
Wu Jian looks back at the red glass on the door to the 22nd floor.
He wonders what kind of memory or delusion could make a Nightmare owner recreate such a terrifying scene in turn.
There was blood spewing from every corner of the floor, flooding it entirely.
If the Nightmare’s owner is the little girl’s mother, then did she experience it herself, or… could it be related to what she remember of her child?
If the Nightmare’s owner is the little girl herself, what kind of dismal experience could have contributed to leaving such a deep impression on such a young child?
What if the Nightmare’s owner is some other person?
Wu Jian is shuddering and decides against thinking any deeper.
This building is full of memories of madness and desperation. Perhaps not only having belonged to the Nightmare’s owner, but this is something reflecting what has befallen all the survivors and casualties of this apocalypse.
After the last conflicted glance at the 22nd floor, he climbs up to the 23rd floor alongside Jiang Shuangmei.
The floor contains nothing unusual, neither dangers nor elevators. It’s also entirely deserted.
The two of them are able to calm back down.
They’ve gone to the 24th floor the first run already, so their next target is the 25th. That is when Jiang Shuangmei pauses to tell Wu Jian, “it’s almost an hour now.”
Wu Jian gets it, and says, “should we stop here?” He can’t help but wonder, “nobody would die from it this time, right?”
Jiang Shuangmei shrugs and says, “who knows? Let’s just hope nobody has such bad luck.”
They wait in the stairwell for a while, and finally, a rumbling sound can be heard coming from the floors above, alongside moderate shaking. Something is clearly collapsing.
It takes about thirty seconds for the movements to subside.
Jiang Shuangmei and Wu Jian look at each other; the Nightmare doesn’t restart, and so, sighing in relief, Jiang Shuangmei says, “let’s go. We’ll keep going up.”
Wu Jian nods and follows her.
Along the way, the silence gets to Wu Jian, who speaks up, “where do you think the rest of the elevators might be?”
“What I think?” Jiang Shuangmei says, “never mind elevator One, but elevators Two and Three were both on the 20-something floors. So I suspect the rest would be distributed below, not far away.”
“On the 10’s?” Wu Jian says, “there might be elevators below the 9th floor still.”
Jiang Shuangmei dryly replies, “who knows.”
She’s quite disinterested in the awkward banter, but Wu Jian seems to cope pretty badly with the suffocating silence. Fortunately, they have reached the 26th floor now.
Jiang Shuangmei is thinking that, it seems the dangers from the 20th to the 30th floor are still largely manageable…
Yet the moment they push open the door to the 26th floor, they see countless eyes suddenly point to their way, as their blood-drenched owners suddenly starts yelling at the top of their lungs.
Nobody can tell what they’re speaking, but they immediately rush for Jiang Shuangmei and Wu Jian, who are standing at the door, like a wave.
“Fucking hell!” Jiang Shuangmei cusses, “the madmen are on the 26th floor!”
They immediately turn to retreat, but it is too late.
The lunatics have grabbed them.
Jiang Shuangmei and Wu Jian have their hands twisted to a knot behind them. Then the bloody people dragged the panicking Missiontakers to the restroom of the floor.
It has been modified into a cleaning closet already, with lots of clothes and plastic buckets placed within.
Bloody clothes are forced onto the two Missiontakers, alongside a plastic bucket each. Then they are shoved by the other lunatics to stand underneath each of the air conditioning vents.
They stand there in silence, as if waiting for something.
It might really be insufficient to simply call these madmen lunatics, because their faces look so serene with such a fanatically pious expression. They seem to be boundlessly ecstatic about what they are doing.
Jiang Shuangmei is making eyes at Wu Jian. She doesn’t know if he can read her, but Jiang Shuangmei is feeling pretty scared right now, though she knows better than to act rashly.
Also, this is a chance to see what these madmen really are doing.
She recalls the formation of the sea of blood down on the 22nd floor, and can’t help but wonder, with goosebumps and chills, whether the lunatics could be waiting for the blood to come, and then use it to ‘shower’…?
Well, nothing that happens in the building can surprise her anymore…
A while later, Jiang Shuangmei suddenly hears an odd noise coming from the ceiling.
Almost immediately, the madmen besides her come to life. They form a human ladder, with the topmost person moving the flaps for the conditioning unit out of the way with calculated, professional motions.
Then, Jiang Shuangmei can hear a dragging sound coming from the vents.
The noise must be enchanted somehow, as Jiang Shuangmei’s consciousness is now drifting. Suddenly, the world seems to have refreshed itself. Some kind of knowledge, information, or instinct has overtaken her…
She picks up the plastic bucket she put on the ground earlier.
Her vision shows that opposite her, Wu Jian looks similarly dazed, while picking up his own plastic bucket in silence.
A mangled corpse drops out of the vent, somehow.
Jiang Shuangmei, Wu Jian, like the other Janitors, robotically and mechanically moves forward and picks up the pieces without delay, putting separate pieces of human material into their own plastic buckets.
Then, they hand the plastic buckets to others.
The others take the plastic buckets off-camera, while the two of them stand there, holding new and empty plastic buckets, to wait for the next wave of garbage.