Chapter 6: 5 || Shrink

Words: 2379

(Unedited)

 “Ji-Yoo?” Li Bao asked, a bit flabbergasted.

“Oh we found you guys.” Soren nodded in greeting towards them while walking ahead of Ji-Yoo who was now shaking his fist in pain.

“Did you find the piece?” Yona asked.

“Piece?” Hailey asked, looking curiously at Yona. The elevator man looked a bit exhausted and didn’t even bother trying to shut her up.

“In the body parts there are the pieces of the key we need to escape.” Yona explained to Hailey, believing that she was doing a great job at being a helper.

“Oh…” Hailey gave a cold glance to the elevator man who just looked the opposite direction and let out a small whistle. “Some people are less talkative than others I suppose.”

“Did you guys find anything about Alice and Bunny?” Li Bao asked. “No, we just ran away from that bear with the X on its cheek, but it disappeared randomly a bit ago.”

Li Yan figured that it was probably when they opened the mirror to this passageway. But, said passageway was now broken, so the bear should probably come back soon. “We should leave quickly then.” Li Yan mentioned this thought to the others who also agreed to leave quickly.

They all walked out back into the control room and down the stairs, but Li Yan stayed behind and thought a bit before grabbing the severed leg. After grabbing the leg, he followed the others down.

“Why’d you bring the leg?” Hailey asked, her voice a bit nervous.

“I just thought we may need it later.” Li Yan mentioned. He figured he’d just put it in the pile where the others were. The others either nodded or ignored him, and Li Yan didn’t add any more explanation. Ji-Yoo refused to break another mirror again, so the elevator man did it instead since they couldn’t find an easier method nor did they want to get caught up with the little bear.

“It’s different.” The elevator man said walking out and into the mirror maze. Before, the maze was pretty simple to navigate which is why they could go through so easily, the corridors were straight and the mirrors were lined up almost like a normal corridor, but now all the mirrors went in diagonal directions.

“I could barely make it through when they were straight.” Ji-Yoo commented.

“It wasn’t that hard.” Li Bao sighed. “Just walk while putting your hands on the mirrors.”

“Aren’t you scared something will grab you?” Ji-Yoo asked. Li Bao just rolled her eyes and ignored him.

“It’s a bit darker too.” The elevator man added. Although it was a bit darker, it was still manageable, but he was more worried about the light that they had left going out.

“We have flashlights, it's fine.” Ji-Yoo waved his hand. “But there are mirrors everywhere, wouldn’t using a flashlight be difficult?” Li Bao asked.

Ji-Yoo just gave her a shrug and said vaguely that he’d still try it out if they needed it.

“These mirrors seem different too.” The elevator man mentioned. “Maybe we weren’t entirely right on the mechanism.” He looked towards Li Yan.

“This still doesn’t look reasonable to me.” Li Yan also looked towards the elevator man, both spitting fire on each other.

“Whatever.” The man sighed and held both of his arms out on the sides of him. “Let’s try to get out of here and see if that kid from the hedge maze is back.”

“There should be two ways we could get out. Find the entrance again or find the exit.” Li Bao mentioned as she copied the man's movements. Because the space was tight, they were all standing in a line with the elevator man at the start, Li Bao in the middle, and Ji-Yoo at the end. Li Yan stood behind the elevator man while the others stood somewhere in between the others in a straight line.

“Let’s try to get out of here before the lights go out or the bear comes.” Li Bao sighed. They all started to walk slowly, but walking with this many people while in a group, especially one without good coordination, never goes completely smooth.

“Hey, who is stepping on me?” Ji-Yoo asked.

Everyone was completely silent. “Ji-Yoo.” Soren said, sounding more stern than ever. “You’re at the back.”

Ji-Yoo didn’t say anything for a while. “Want to switch places?” He finally spoke, a bit choked up.

“No, run you idiot!” Soren yelled out to the others who got the hint and ran, but with everyone going at different paces a lot of pushing and clashing happened. Yona and Nikolas, the two newbies that were less calm ran without a care, causing them to directly run straight into Hailey and Li Bao who were in front of them.

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Hailey grabbed Li Bao’s hand while pushing Yona and Nikolas back, causing them to stumble into Soren and Ji-Yoo. The elevator man and Li Yan were lucky enough to not get caught in their mess, and they were running ahead. Li Yan looked back to see Hailey and Li Bao charging at him to which he moved to the side and let them get ahead.

“Quick!” He yelled as he saw that behind Ji-Yoo was the same bear as from earlier. The only difference was instead of being a plain bear, it was dressed in a rabbit costume. It would have been cute if it wasn’t for the blood dripping out of its black beady eyes and the chainsaw in its hand. Luckily, the chainsaw wasn’t on, but as soon as Li Yan thought that, the bear started to rev it up.

BRUM BRUM BRUMMMMM BRRRRRRRRRR

The chainsaw made an obvious noise to all those in the mirror’s hallway, and the panic caused Yona and Nikolas to run headfirst in many of the mirrors, some even leaving cracks. Soren helped Ji-Yoo up and ran past Yona and Nikolas who were recovering from running into the maze.

“Don’t try to help them.” Soren gave a hint to Li Yan as he ran past. “Also put that leg in your storage space. It’s in your interface.” Li Yan quickly opened his interface and found the storage space and threw the leg in. Li Yan glanced back one more time at Nikolas who was catching up to him, but Yona wasn’t as fortunate. Luckily, storing the leg was the correct idea because the bear looked straight at him, almost as if sensing something, but when the leg was put up the bear turned its attention back to Yona, who was the closest.

“HELPP!” Yona yelled, looking straight at Li Yan with begging eyes. Li Yan hesitated a bit, but he still decided to turn away. He wasn’t stupid, nor was he a saint. He knew that there were some people he could save and some he couldn’t. Yona was desperate and a newbie, so she shouldn’t be able to be as heartless to use him in her place, but her eyes showed a different story. Li Yan trusted his instincts the most and decided to run.

“I’m sorry!” He yelled as he ran away, Nikolas was behind him also following. He saw Yona try to grab his shirt and let a harsh noise from the back of his throat. The sounds of the chainsaw were getting louder and his whole face was soaked with sweat. “Get off me!” Nikolas yelled, pushing Yona back.

Yona’s eyes opened wide with shock and disbelief. She admits, she wasn’t perfect. She was planning to use one of them in her place, but she didn’t expect both of them to be so cold-hearted! Before she could shout, her back was already handed straight on where the bear held up its chainsaw. The chainsaw noise got a bit warped due to the body being suddenly thrown on it, and the players could clearly hear the noise of Yona’s screams and her body being cut through. Though with the bear's body it shouldn’t be physically possible to cut through a full grown woman, the bear was hardly bothered and continued to brutally slice her in half.

The others could only use the horrible noises behind them as a way to guess what had happened, but they didn’t dare look back lest they slow down. Nikolas felt warm blood falling onto his back, but he only clenched his teeth and continued to run, hoping that he could catch up with the others fast enough.

Once Yona’s screams calmed down, the sounds of the chainsaw also disappeared. It seemed the bear was gone, but no one wanted to test it so they all ran hurriedly in different directions trying to leave. Naturally, they were all split apart while running since no one cared to stay together at this point. Being together naturally seems like a safer option, but in situations like these it’s actually more dangerous. There were too many unknown factors and people grew selfish once experiencing such dangers over and over again.

Li Yan was by himself, which he slightly preferred since he didn’t have to be as on guard as usual. He stopped running, and he was now walking around the mirror maze randomly, trying his hardest not to run face first into a mirror. He eventually found a place in the mirrors that were different from the others. While the mirrors before were reflecting other mirrors, hence making the maze incomprehensible to the average person, this part of the maze had covers over the mirrors. Li Yan could easily see the layout of the area, thus stopped worrying about accidentally running into a mirror.

Beige tarps were put over the mirrors, almost as if someone didn’t want to look at themselves. There were old blood splatters randomly strewn across the tarps and a few broken toys that children would use. Ignoring the blood splatters, the odd collection of toys reminded Li Yan of some kind of lost and found area.

A small end table was placed in a corner of the tarped covered mirrors with a dirty mattress laying next to it. The mattress was small, but it held the most stuffed animals. Li Yan came to the conclusion it was most likely a child staying here but as for the reason he couldn't tell. He saw a small journal on the bed which had fake fur all over it that was bright pink and a small silver plate that should have held a lock.

Luckily, there was no lock on it, so Li Yan easily grabbed the fluffy book and opened it. The first few pages were simple and seemed to be from some little girl who was from a fairly well off family. After seeing nothing important in the first half, Li Yan flipped the pages until finally coming across something different.

The handwriting which was neat and hinted at the owner being from a well-educated family turned crooked and uneven, almost as if a toddler wrote it. Li Yan frowned and started to read the badly written entries.

Deer Dairy,

Bunny got mee a knew toi! I am so happie, I want 2 sea Bunny again.

The entries were all in similar formats, most being badly spelled 2-3 sentence statements. All of them talked about Bunny but they never mentioned the writer's name, but according to the rest of the room, he could probably infer that this diary was taken from another child and given to this one.

Maybe they were homeless and made themselves a place in the mirror maze since it was hard to navigate. Most security guards should know the main layouts though, so there was no reason why this person was never found, especially since they seem like they’ve been living here for years.

Li Yan was still new to the escape rooms, so he didn’t quite understand how the individual rooms were set up nor the unspoken rules that make each of them up. He figured that the Bunny this person was talking about must be the Bunny from Alice and Bunny though. Since it was a bit of a fantasy type world and the player was able to come back from the dead, there’s no reason that this world couldn’t make its own fictional subworlds for the players. At least, this is what Li Yan figured, but he wasn’t sure.

Afterall, it wasn’t too clear on whether or not Wonderland was a world made because of Alice and Bunny or if Wonderland was just a setting beforehand. He was leaning towards the first option though. He sighed, if only the elevator man was here.

He turned to look at a partitioned off area and saw a small hole in the wall, similar to a mousehole. It looked a bit out of place, especially since this whole area was supposed to be mirrors covered in tarps. He walked over to it, but it was too small for him to even stick a hand in.

Next to the hole was a small table with a glass bottle on it. In the bottle was a green liquid, and a sticky note was placed on it saying “Drink me!” Li Yan remembered the theme of this park was most likely Alice in Wonderland, so he wondered if he would shrink or something.

Before consuming the liquid, he wanted to find the others. However, when he turned around the partition that was blocking the area fully stretched out like magic and blocked him in. It covered the tarped mirrors completely, almost as if it became part of the tarps. He put his hand out to touch it, but it really felt like hard concrete instead of a wooden partition like before. Since he had no choice, he didn’t hesitate to chug down the mysterious-potentially-harmful liquid.

“Maybe I’ll shrink or something.” He looked down at his body, but nothing happened. He frowned slightly. Maybe he got it wrong? Worst case scenario is just death afterall, but he didn’t really want to die again either.

He inspected his body once again, but before he finished looking at his legs his vision darkened. Suddenly, the table in front of him was huge and his field of view was lowered to the extreme. He had successfully won his gamble.

~~~