Thud!
The white-painted iron door of the infirmary slammed shut, and we bolted it from the inside, the heavy latch falling with a solid metallic clang. Leaning against the cold, rough metal, the four of us gasped for breath, foreheads and backs slick with cold sweat soaking through our thin uniforms, clammy against the skin.
The infirmary wasn't large, but right now it felt like Noah's Ark. A strong, acrid smell of disinfectant hit our nostrils, slightly suppressing the stench of blood and decay from the corridor. A bed with white sheets, a locked glass medicine cabinet, a dusty doctor's desk, an outdated human skeleton chart on the wall.
On the desk, an old-fashioned red LED digital clock emitted a weak glow, displaying the time: 21:17.
"Thank god… we made it before 9:30…" Emily was the first to collapse, sliding down the door to sit on the cold tile floor, her face paper-white, lips still trembling, clearly terrified.
Marcus, catching his breath, cautiously approached the only window, lifting a corner of the grimy curtain just enough to peer out. "Outside… it's quiet. Those masked freaks… didn't follow," he whispered, relief in his voice.
I let out a small sigh, my taut nerves relaxing slightly. As the adrenaline faded, exhaustion and fear began to set in. I instinctively walked towards the glass medicine cabinet, wondering if there were any tranquilizers or… at least some bottled water. The cool glass reflected my own pale face.
"Something's wrong!!" Emily suddenly shrieked again, her voice even more terrified than before. She scrambled up from the floor, finger trembling like a leaf in an autumn wind, pointing outside. "The moon! Look at the moon!!"
Her panic was infectious; the three of us rushed to the window, following her pointing finger.
One look, and we felt plunged into an icy abyss.
Outside, the moon, sometime while we weren't looking, had turned a deep, ominous blood-red! Like a giant eyeball, freshly gouged out and still dripping blood, hanging in the ink-black sky. Its crimson light bathed the campus, coating everything in a sinister, terrifying hue.
But that wasn't the worst part.
Marcus let out a choked gasp. "Look at the floor! Where the moonlight hits!!" he cried out.
We looked down at the infirmary floor.
The blood-red moonlight streamed through the window, casting a square patch of light on the floor. But the patch wasn't still; its edges seemed corrosive, slowly etching numbers onto the terrazzo tiles beneath our feet! Like an invisible branding iron, burning them into existence, one stroke at a time!
The numbers formed a rapidly decreasing countdown!!
[00:08:53]
[00:08:52]
[00:08:51]
…
"What's happening?! What the hell is this?!" Marcus spun around wildly, pointing first at the old quartz wall clock, then at the glowing digital clock on the desk. "They… they're all stuck at 21:17! They haven't moved since we got here! Time stopped!!"
We frantically looked around. Sure enough! The wall clock's second hand was frozen! The digital clock stubbornly read 21:17! I instinctively pulled out my phone – the screen displayed 21:17 too!
But the blood-red countdown on the floor ticked relentlessly, second by second, towards zero!
Time… hadn't stopped at all! The clocks here had been tampered with! The safe time we thought we had was a lie! A trap from the start! That damn school rule—Rule 4!—about watching for environmental changes and broadcast announcements!
In this moment of extreme panic, my hand was still resting unconsciously on the medicine cabinet handle. Maybe it was survival instinct, wanting to see what was inside. I pulled. Click. The cabinet wasn't locked tight; I pulled the door open a crack.
A smell stronger and more pungent than the disinfectant instantly flooded out – a thick stench of blood, mixed with that unique, nauseatingly sweet odor of formalin!
In the blood-red moonlight, I saw something stuffed deep in the shadows of the cabinet—
One of the old-fashioned gas masks worn by the Prefects!
Black rubber cracked with age, one round lens shattered, leaving a dark hole. The entire surface was caked with dark brown, dried blood! Strands of hair clung to it!
An icy hand seemed to grip my heart!
This thing… why was it hidden in the infirmary medicine cabinet?! Had a Prefect been here before…?
Almost simultaneously, the dusty wall-mounted speaker in the corner crackled with ear-splitting static, "Bzzzt— Kssshht—" as if something was forcefully trying to break through interference.
Then, a cold, monotone, emotionless synthesized voice echoed through the small room, sounding as if it were whispering right beside each of our ears:
"Special… urgent announcement… All students, please… immediately locate and assist… classmates wearing… red… arm… bands. Repeat… Please immediately locate and assist… classmates wearing red armbands… confirm their status. Failure… to complete the task before the countdown ends… will be considered voluntary forfeiture… of this survival round…"
The voice was intermittent, like a bad signal, but the message drilled clearly into our chaotic minds.
Red armbands?
The four of us stared at each other, faces filled with shock and confusion. Who wore red armbands? Besides student council members on patrol, nobody wore those things anymore. We were just regular students…
Just as the thought crossed my mind, a warm, damp sensation spread on my left arm.
I whipped my head down to look at my left sleeve.
A startling patch of crimson was slowly seeping through the white fabric of my uniform shirt! As if an invisible wound beneath the skin was bleeding uncontrollably, rapidly staining the white cuff red!
The blood spread incredibly fast, quickly forming a roughly five-centimeter wide, wet, still-expanding… blood-red 'armband'!
"Ah!" Emily gasped in horror.
I snapped my head up.
Not just me!
Christopher! Marcus! Emily! All four of us had the same bizarre change happening on our left sleeves! Blood seeped uncontrollably from under our skin, forming shocking, still-dripping 'red armbands'!
Panic exploded like a plague! We… all of us were the 'students wearing red armbands' the broadcast mentioned!
We had to help each other? How? Help with what?! Confirm status? What status?! And—which countdown?! The blood-red one etched on the floor?!
"Find… find gauze! Alcohol! Stop the bleeding! Quick!" Marcus seemed to recover first from the shock, his face deathly pale. He turned, reaching for another closed metal cabinet nearby, his voice high-pitched with fear. "Damn it! What the hell is going on!"
"Wait!"
Christopher's voice turned sharp as a drawn blade, ice-cold. He lunged forward, a gleaming scalpel—grabbed from the doctor's desk earlier—suddenly in his hand. Its tip flashed coldly as he pressed it instantly against Marcus's carotid artery! The move was lightning fast!
"You're not right," Christopher stated flatly, staring hard into Marcus's eyes, his own gaze hawk-like, devoid of emotion. "Tell me, three minutes ago, who was huddled by the door saying they've always hated the smell of disinfectant, that it makes them sick, that they even need two masks to enter a hospital?"
Marcus froze instantly, his Adam's apple bobbing violently. He tried to shift his eyes, but Christopher's blade kept him still. He forced a smile uglier than tears, his voice dry. "President… Old Chris… what… what kind of joke is this… now's not the time… we need to stop the bleeding…"
"I'm not joking." Christopher pressed the scalpel slightly harder, the sharp edge indenting the skin on Marcus's neck, ready to slice at any moment. "So why are you suddenly the first one rushing to open the medicine cabinet? Not bothered by the smell anymore?"
Christopher's gaze slowly lowered, past Marcus's trembling hand, finally settling on the hem of the white lab coat he wore (snatched from a hook when we rushed in).
"Besides, I remember clearly. You're a sports scholarship student. Freshman year, going for a rebound, you had a severe ankle fracture. Had pins in for a year. Even after they were removed, you walk a bit differently. Your left ankle, specifically, is thicker than your right, and there's a very obvious old surgical scar."
Christopher's voice wasn't loud, but each word hammered into the silence of the infirmary.
"Your ankle…"
The three of us, including the 'Marcus' with the blade at his throat, instinctively followed Christopher's gaze down.
Marcus's borrowed lab coat was slightly short, revealing his ankles in brand-name basketball shoes. Those ankles… how to describe them… were unnaturally slender, pale, the skin smooth as fine porcelain, without a single flaw or scar. One might even call them 'dainty,' 'delicate.'
Definitely, absolutely not the ankles of a six-foot-plus basketball player who engaged in high-intensity training and had suffered a severe, compound ankle fracture!
My heart leaped into my throat!
"Who the hell are you?!" Christopher demanded, his voice sharp, eyes cold as steel, the scalpel's gleam reflecting in his dark pupils like a predatory light.
The 'Marcus' with the blade at his throat… the panic and pretense vanished from his face like a mask being stripped away. Replacing it was an unsettling calm… even a faint, mocking smile touching his lips. He stopped struggling, simply staring at Christopher with inhuman, cold eyes.
BOOM—!!!!
A deafening, thunderous roar erupted outside, as if the sky itself had been torn open! The entire building seemed to shake with the impact.
We looked towards the window in horror.
The blood-red moon hanging in the sky—that giant, malevolent eyeball—its pupil suddenly contracted! The round pupil instantly narrowed into a long, vertical slit! Like a reptile's eye! Emitting an even more ominous, colder light!
Simultaneously, the infirmary speaker crackled again, "Bzzzt—" and the cold, synthesized voice returned, faster this time, clearer, and more desperate:
"Emergency rule correction! Emergency rule correction! Infirmary safety status has changed! Safety duration, calculated from entry, total 19 minutes! Repeat! Safety duration only 19 minutes! Overstaying will be considered a serious violation! Evacuate immediately! Evacuate immediately!"
19 minutes!!!
My eyes shot to the blood-red countdown still ticking on the floor! The numbers had reached…
[00:00:03]
[00:00:02]
[00:00:01]
Shit! We've been in here way longer than 19 minutes! Running here, breaking in, observing, arguing… it must have been…
"How long have we been here? Since we got in?!" Emily's voice was laced with tears and despair, on the verge of breaking down.
I struggled to recall, my heart sinking to the pit of my stomach. "Probably… at least… 23 minutes… maybe more…"
Time's up!!
The instant the countdown hit zero, every reflective surface in the infirmary—the dusty full-length mirror on the wall, the glass cabinet doors, the surface of the undisturbed water in the cup on the desk, even the gleaming blade of Christopher's scalpel—began to ripple strangely, like a still pond disturbed by a thrown stone.
In the mirror, the glass, the water, the blade… next to our reflections, faint, transparent, blurry figures began to appear!
Their shapes, their postures, were identical to ours! Like our shadows coming alive! At first just indistinct outlines, they rapidly sharpened, solidified, overlaying our true reflections, as if trying to crawl out of the two-dimensional mirror world, push into our bodies, and replace us!
"They… they're coming out!!" Emily screamed, pointing at the largest mirror. The transparent figure identical to her within it had almost completely merged with her reflection, and… on its face, the same cold, mocking smile the fake 'Marcus' had worn was slowly forming!