So I tagged along with Samantha, and guess what? We ended up back in that room packed with doors, the "Beverly Room".
"You can handle the decay vibe from Level 19, and you should be cool with the resistance thing from the mahjong table in here," Samantha said, pointing at the table in the middle with her paw.
She went on, "There's this unfinished mahjong game on the table. No one's ever cracked it. I call it the resistance effect. Give it a shot and see if you can wrap it up."
"Uh," I paused, kinda embarrassed, "Actually... I have no clue how to play mahjong..."
Samantha looked surprised, like she hadn't thought about whether I knew mahjong or not...
But after a sec, she said, "Just wing it. As long as you can finish the game, winning or losing doesn't matter."
I nodded, walked over, and sat down.
As I did, the three sets of mahjong tiles next to me moved like they were being controlled.
It was wild, but I kept my cool. After all, Samantha was right there with me.
Since I didn't know how to play, I just watched the air next to me and copied how it picked and placed the tiles.
A few times, I really wanted to bolt, but I held it together.
About half an hour later, with a "clattering" sound from the air, I knew the game was done.
Sure enough, as the "clattering" stopped, the tiles on the table quickly arranged themselves neatly, turning from a mess into a fresh start.
I was pretty amazed.
Then, Samantha suddenly hopped onto the table and stared at the mahjong table, like she was studying something.
After a few minutes, she jumped down. I couldn't help but ask, "Does something cool happen after this game?"
Samantha shook her head, "I don't know what happens after this game. I'm curious too, but I haven't seen anything yet."
I nodded. Then, I remembered something and asked Samantha, "I have one more thing to ask."
"Since you helped me this time, I'll answer your question for free. Go ahead, wanderer," Samantha said.
"How do I get back to Level 1 from Level 5?" I asked.
Samantha looked at me puzzled, "Why would you ask that? Even that big guy with you could answer that. Ask something else, wanderer."
I felt a bit embarrassed and tugged at the corner of my mouth. What Samantha said made sense, but since I just got to the Backrooms, I didn't have any other questions. So I said, "Then I have no more questions."
Samantha nodded, "Since you didn't ask me a question, as a reward for helping me this time, you can ask me one question next time you see me without having to offer a meat sacrifice."
After that, Samantha said she had something important to do and left, leaving me alone in the Beverly Room...
After Samantha left, I didn't know where she went, but that unknown fear suddenly came back.
When I was with Samantha, I knew she'd protect me, so I wasn't too scared and even felt kinda relaxed. But now, I was alone in the Backrooms again, and that unknown fear wrapped around me once more. Maybe it was my imagination, but as soon as Samantha left, I felt the quiet around me suddenly break.
I faintly heard someone mumbling behind me, and even felt like someone was patting my shoulder from behind. But when I turned around, only the eyes of a few old portraits on the wall were staring at me.
I was drenched in cold sweat. I clearly remembered that I'd been to the Beverly Room twice before and had never seen the eyes on the wall. Now that Samantha had just left, these eyes appeared. This was definitely a bad sign.
But I wasn't a newbie to the Backrooms anymore. After being chased by entities a few times, facing the unknown and strange things in the Backrooms again, I at least wouldn't panic to the point of being lost.
I took a deep breath and pushed open one of the doors in the Beverly Room. Behind the door was a long corridor.
The lamps on both sides of the corridor gave off a dim yellow light, but it only lit up two-thirds of the corridor, while the ceiling stayed dark.
This was different from the scene I saw last time. Clearly, this time it was even creepier.
I didn't know where this corridor led, but I had to go down it to find M.E.G. so I could survive in Level 5.
As I stepped into the corridor, the lamps on the walls started flickering like crazy. The little courage I'd mustered just sank like a stone. You see, in the Backrooms, flickering lights are a dead giveaway that an entity's about to show up. And right now, I was in no shape to face one.
I had a dagger in one hand and an open bottle of almond water in the other, ready for anything. But luckily, I made it through the whole corridor without running into a single entity.
At the end of the corridor was another hall, but this one was way bigger than any I'd seen before. "Maybe this is the 'main hall' Duan Yongning mentioned," I thought to myself.
The main hall was massive—so big I couldn't even see the walls. As I ventured deeper, I noticed the ceiling was always shrouded in darkness, even with chandeliers hanging from it! That immediately put me on edge. I figured the dense death moths were probably hiding up there.
The hall had tons of rooms, but all of them were locked tight. I remembered finding supplies in a room in a hall before, so I figured some of these rooms might have supplies too. I tried opening a few, but no luck—they were all locked.
When I got to the seventh room, there was a "click," and the door opened. But what I saw inside shocked me. The room was decorated just like the one where I'd found supplies before, but this one was packed with people!
As soon as I opened the door, someone yanked me in and covered my mouth. A hushed voice whispered, "You got a death wish? Wandering around when the King and Queen of the Moths are out hunting?"
"King and Queen of the Moths?" I was totally confused, but with my mouth covered, I couldn't say a word. All I could do was mumble.
"Let him go, Ronide," an old voice said. "Looks like this guy's new to Level 5 and doesn't know the rules. Explain to him what it means when the King and Queen of the Moths are hunting."
The guy who'd covered my mouth, Ronide, sighed and let go. Then he said, "You know why there are so few other entities in Level 5? It's because the King and Queen of the Moths hunt them down regularly."
"Right now, in the Backrooms, the only confirmed place where the King and Queen of the Moths exist is Level 5. They're among the most dangerous and rare entities here. And they don't just hunt other entities—they'll even go after their own kind. Their hunts are random, but after years of exploring, our 'Home Hotel' has figured out one pattern: before they hunt, all the ceilings go dark, and when the hunt starts, the entire level plunges into darkness, and all the lights go out..."
Ronide's explanation was cut off by a sudden "pop" as the light above us went out, plunging the room into total darkness. The only sound was the heavy breathing of the people around me.
Then, a deep voice rumbled in the darkness: "The hunt has begun. Stay quiet, everyone."
As the voice faded, I heard countless doors being smashed open, followed by a relentless buzzing that filled my ears. I could almost picture it: swarms of death moths bursting out of the rooms, pouring into the hall, and dropping from the ceilings, circling in the air, ready to hunt...
I had no idea how many people were hiding in this room. When I first walked in, it looked like there were at least thirty. And there were probably many more rooms like this on Level 5, all packed with people.
If those death moths found a room full of "food" like this and broke in... I couldn't even imagine how brutal that would be.