Chapter 770: Knock Knock Knock Knock
With a bang, the door was shut, and A returned to his spot.
Y asked, "What's wrong? No one outside the door?"
A nodded. "I don't know who was knocking. Some kind of prank."
Just then, the knocking sounded again.
Y stood up and said, "I'll go open it."
By the time he reached the door, the knocking had already stopped for a few seconds.
He opened the door and peered through the wide gap. He also saw no one outside the door.
Then he closed the door and turned back toward A.
But the moment he turned, the door behind him was pounded again with that dull, heavy knock-knock-knock.
Each sound seemed to strike directly at his heart.
He turned around, listening to the knocking, and placed his hand on the inside door handle.
At that moment, the knocking continued.
Unlike the first two times, which paused after a few knocks, this time was different.
This time, the knocking was nonstop—knock, knock, knock, without a break.
Which meant that as soon as he opened the door, he'd see exactly who was knocking.
Without any hesitation, Y yanked the door open.
In his mind, the instant the door swung open, he'd catch sight of whoever was knocking outside.
But—the knocking, which was still going when he opened the door, vanished the second the door was fully open.
Outside, there was also no trace of anyone.
Y froze for only a second, then unfastened the security chain, opened the door completely, and stuck his head out.
He stretched his head out and looked down both sides of the corridor.
The hallway was empty, dead silent.
"What... what's going on here?"
A trace of confusion and fear appeared on Y's face.
The knocking was still happening the moment he opened the door, but there was no one there when he opened it—and no one hiding on either side, nor anyone fleeing down this floor.
Y remembered clearly: he hadn't heard any footsteps at all.
He then looked at the surface of the hotel door.
He touched it, then knocked on it himself.
It was identical to the door sounds he'd heard before.
"Kao, kao, kao—no one's there?"
A rushed over, even charged out, and stared at the empty corridor on both sides, his face contorted with terror.
Excitedly, he said to Y, "Is it a ghost? Is it that paranormal event that guy was talking about? Did we just run into it?"
Y closed his eyes, then opened them three seconds later. When he opened them, a flicker of clarity returned to his gaze.
"How could it be that coincidental? That guy just said this place was haunted, and we immediately encounter it—that's way too much of a coincidence."
A said, "So what's your take?"
Y replied, "I'm an atheist."
"I flat-out don't believe in any ghosts or supernatural nonsense. If they really existed, then the residents of that Alice Apartment we stayed at—those people who've got blood all over their hands—why are they still alive and well? Why haven't the people they killed turned into ghosts and come back for revenge?"
"So I suspect this whole thing is someone playing tricks. It's just that whoever's pulling the strings is very clever. Take this knocking, for example. When I grabbed the door handle, the knocking was still going. The moment I opened the door, it stopped. And I didn't hear any footsteps running down the hallway outside."
"So, could there be some kind of vibrator inside this door? When triggered, it mimics the sound of someone knocking?"
Hearing Y's explanation, A's heart calmed down somewhat.
A said, "So, do we stay in this room now? Or switch to another hotel?"
Y replied, "Switch hotels? What for? Best not to switch. Staying put is the smartest move. Maybe someone out there is hoping we'll switch hotels. Don't forget why we came to Aisen Town. We might have already been targeted by some sicko. And who's to say that person who just came in to clean our room wasn't a deranged serial killer looking to take us out?"
A agreed with Y's plan and decided to stay there with him. The two of them shut the door and went back to playing games in the room.
They played one round of a game, about half an hour later.
Both of them were a bit tired and worn out. They were about to head to the small balcony to relax when the knocking on their door started up again, just like before. And this time, it was frantic—knock-knock-knock-knock-knock-knock.
Y told A to stay put while he went to open the door alone.
Y reached the door. The knock-knock-knock knocking was still going. This time, the security chain was still properly fastened, so he twisted the door open and left it at a wide gap.
Y figured it'd be like last time—he wouldn't see anyone. After all, the situation was almost identical. The moment his hand gripped the handle and he opened the door, the knocking stopped.
But this time, it was different. He actually saw someone standing outside the door.
However, the moment he laid eyes on that person, even Y—who had endured eight rounds in the Maple Country Alice Apartment—felt his face, which had been relatively ruddy, drain of color in an instant, turning deathly pale.
He stood there like a puppet, nailed to the spot, staring blankly at the person outside the door.
The person outside was a woman, a white woman, it seemed.
But this white woman had her hair hanging in disarray, her face obscured, mostly hidden by a messy tangle of pitch-black locks, with only a few parts visible. Besides that, she reeked of a powerful, nauseating stench, as if she'd just crawled out of a garbage dump.
And she was wearing a tattered, beggar-like long dress.
Filthy and torn, completely unlike the original white appearance of that dress.
When A saw Y frozen stiff by the door, he rushed over frantically to see what was happening.
But by the time he got there and craned his neck to look outside, he saw nothing at all.
Seeing nothing, he wildly shook Y by the shoulders.
Shaken out of his daze, Y snapped back from his terror. When he came to, A asked him what he'd seen. A noted that when he'd run over just now, there didn't seem to be any strange sounds from outside the door either.
Y said that when he'd opened the door just now, he'd seen a white woman outside, reeking, with disheveled hair, wearing ragged clothes like a beggar.
A was shocked, because when he arrived, he'd neither smelled any stench nor seen any white woman.
So he told Y not to scare him like that.
But Y frowned. "When have I ever scared you? Only that bastard S liked to mess with people and lie."
At that, A got spooked, his whole body trembling slightly.
"Could it... could it really be a ghost?"
Y, who had originally been an atheist, now hesitated. Because he had definitely seen that woman outside the door just now. Yet when A came over, he said he hadn't seen her. And now, when Y looked outside the door again, he couldn't see where the woman had gone—as if she'd vanished in an instant.