"Run! West Gate!!" Christopher violently kicked aside the fake 'Marcus', who had dropped all pretense and whose body was starting to turn translucent. (The creature shrieked inhumanly as it was hit, its body dissolving like smoke, leaving only an empty lab coat fluttering to the floor). Simultaneously, Christopher pulled a crumpled, sweat-soaked piece of paper from his inner uniform pocket. He spread it open forcefully—it was a hand-drawn, extremely crude map of the campus!
"I stole this old blueprint from the archives!" Christopher yelled, his voice hoarse with exertion and fear. "It marks the West Gate! Marked as 'Emergency Evacuation Route'! That must be the way out!"
No time to think! Behind us, the 'us' in the mirrors were almost fully solid, their cold gazes seemingly piercing the glass, fixing on our backs!
The three of us burst madly through the now-unsafe infirmary door, back into the ink-thick darkness saturated with the mixed stench of blood, disinfectant, and decay.
The building now felt like a living, twisting maze. Lights flickered erratically, strange bloodstains would appear and disappear on the walls, and faint whispers and footsteps echoed in the air. Following Christopher's fading flashlight beam, we ran for our lives, hearts pounding fit to burst. Several times we nearly took a wrong turn or tripped over obstacles that seemed to materialize from nowhere.
Finally! A faint light ahead!
A huge, heavy, rusted iron gate barred the end of the corridor. Faded red paint spelled out two peeling characters: "West Gate". Beside it stood an even more dilapidated, small guard booth, lit by a single, dim, pea-yellow incandescent bulb that barely illuminated the immediate area.
Hope! Like a drowning man grasping a straw!
We practically stumbled and fell towards it.
"Sir! Open the gate! Quick! Let us out!!" Christopher pounded on the cold, hard iron with all his might, the impacts echoing loudly ("Clang! Clang! Clang!").
The small frosted glass window of the guard booth creaked open a crack. An old face, covered in liver spots and deep wrinkles, appeared behind it, eyes cloudy, expressionless. It was the school's notoriously taciturn old gatekeeper. He seemed to have been here since I enrolled, always wearing the same look of utter indifference to everything.
"Entry… exit… requires registration," the old man stated, his voice dry as rubbing bark. He slowly passed out a battered, coverless hardcover logbook through the crack, along with a ballpoint pen whose tip was worn almost flat.
"Register?! At a time like this, you want us to—" I started, furious, but Christopher snatched the logbook and pen as if grabbing life-saving medicine.
He frantically flipped it open, eager to sign our names quickly.
Then, he froze. Utterly still. As if instantly encased in ice.
I leaned in to see what stopped him.
The logbook was open to the most recent page. There, written clearly in glaring, seemingly still-wet red ballpoint ink, were—
Christopher
[My Name]
Emily
Marcus (?)
Four names. Corresponding exactly to the group that had fled to the infirmary moments ago!
But that wasn't the most terrifying part.
The worst part was that next to each of our names, someone had drawn a huge, vicious red 'X' with the same pen! Like some kind of death mark!
And below our names, the registration date, written in the same shocking red, was clearly visible:
April 7th, 2022.
That date… that date was exactly…
THREE! YEARS! AGO! TODAY!
The old gatekeeper's murky, dead-water eyes watched the three of us through the crack in the window, impassively. His lips seemed to curve upwards, almost imperceptibly, a minuscule fraction, as if in mockery, or perhaps pity. "The logbook says… didn't you… already leave through the West Gate… three years ago tonight?"
My blood froze solid in an instant. My mind went blank.
We… 'died' here three years ago? Or 'left'? Then what are we now? Ghosts? Or… have we been trapped in this damned night all along, repeating the cycle of our deaths from three years ago?! Jacob embedded in the wall, the fake Marcus… were they… previous failed versions of 'us'?!
"No… no…" Christopher muttered distractedly, his gaze unfocused. But he quickly shook his head violently, as if trying to cast off some possessing curse. His gaze sharpened again, staring intently at the blank space next to our names in the logbook, then snapped his head up, looking past the booth towards the deeper darkness beyond the gate.
"I know… I finally know…" his voice was low and raspy, filled with a do-or-die resolve. "It's not a time loop… it's… the rules! The last rule! The one that was erased!"
Then he did something utterly insane, something neither Emily nor I could have ever anticipated.
He glanced down, spotted a shard of glass on the ground with an edge like a razor – debris from something broken earlier. Then, taking a deep breath, closing his eyes, without hesitation, he slashed his left wrist with all his might!
Not a cut, a deep gash!
"Spurt—"
Blood instantly sprayed like a fountain, splattering on the cold iron gate and the ground, showering Emily and me!
"Christopher, what are you doing! Are you crazy!!" Emily screamed, horrified, lunging as if to stop him.
But Christopher seemed to feel no pain, letting the warm blood flow freely, soaking his sleeve, pooling on the ground. He opened his eyes, a strange light burning within them. He dipped the fingers of his uninjured right hand into the hot blood flowing from his wrist and began quickly drawing on the cold, heavy iron gate, stroke by stroke!
He wasn't writing words, nor any pattern we recognized. It was an incredibly complex, twisted, ancient symbol, radiating malevolence! Its lines coiled and intersected, emanating an ancient, evil aura, as if capable of tearing the fabric of space, communicating with some forbidden entity!
Watching the blood-red symbol take shape on the gate, a memory fragment I had suppressed, almost forgotten, exploded in the depths of my mind like a lightning strike!
My first day exploring this old campus, fascinated, I'd wandered alone into the overgrown back hills. I got lost and stumbled upon an ancient stone stele half-buried in the earth, covered in moss. It was inscribed with dense, tiny, blurred characters. Curious, I brushed off the dirt and vaguely saw something about school rules written near the bottom. But the very last rule, that one was different – it had been violently, repeatedly scratched out with a sharp tool! Leaving only fragmented, almost illegible marks…
At the time, I dismissed it as some student's prank.
But now! Right now! The eerie symbol Christopher was painting with his own blood on the iron gate, its twisted strokes, its ominous structure… matched perfectly with the blurred scratch marks I remembered from the stele!
Like two broken pieces of a jade pendant finally reunited!
I understood instantly! I finally remembered! The deliberately erased, hidden thirteenth rule – the fragmented characters on the stele, pieced together, seemed to read:
[…All survivors who pass the final trial… are eligible… and obligated… to become the next… Rule… Guardian…]
Christopher… he knew about this hidden rule all along! He wasn't killing himself! He was using his blood as a medium to perform some ancient ritual! He was activating his eligibility to become a 'Guardian'! He intended to use that status to break these damned rule restrictions, or… force open a path to survival outside the rules!
The final stroke of the blood symbol fell into place.
"Vwooom—"
The entire massive, rusted gate emitted a deep, resonant hum, seeming to vibrate from within the earth! Rust flaked off! The blood symbol pulsed with an unnatural red light, as if alive!
"Screeeech— Groooan—"
The gut-wrenching sound of twisting metal filled the air. Directly in the center of the symbol, a fine crack appeared out of nowhere, then rapidly spread upwards and downwards, widening! Beyond the gate wasn't the familiar campus night, but a deep, viscous, absolute darkness that seemed to swallow all light and sound! Something seemed to stir within that darkness, calling out!
"Go!!" Christopher's face was paper-white from blood loss, leaning heavily against the doorframe, barely able to stand. He roared at Emily and me with his last ounce of strength. "Now! Go quickly!!"
Emily, terrified beyond reason, was just crying instinctively. She grabbed my hand – I was still reeling in shock – and we stumbled towards the widening rift of ominous darkness.
Freedom! Escape! Finally leaving this hellhole!
That single thought consumed me. Overwhelming joy and hope surged through my nerves.
Just as my right foot was about to cross completely into the absolute darkness representing 'outside', just as I thought the nightmare was finally ending—
Buzz— Buzz—
That familiar vibration.
My battered old phone in my pocket lit up again, unprompted! Its light seemed incredibly bright against the edge of pure darkness!
This time, there were no blood-red rules on the screen.
Instead, a simple pop-up message, like a system notification:
[Survivor detected attempting to exit rule zone… Verifying permissions…]
[Verification complete. Congratulations, Survivor ID [My Student ID], you have successfully survived to the Final Choice stage!]
[Please make your selection within 10 seconds:]
[A. Agree and accept the 'Blood-Red Rule Guardian' contract, assume the previous Guardian's duties, maintain rule order, gain 'Rule' authority (partial).]
[B. Refuse the contract, forfeit Guardian status. System will automatically initiate a new round of the 'Blood-Red Rules' game for you, identity and initial rules will be randomized.]
[Countdown: 10… 9… 8…]
Choice???
What damn choice?!!
A chill deeper than any ice cave, deeper than any fear before, seized me instantly. I slammed to a halt, turning back in disbelief.
Through the faint light spilling from the rift's edge, I saw Christopher.
Still leaning against the doorframe, his face deathly pale, blood still slowly weeping from his left wrist. But his uninjured right hand, hidden behind his back, was also gripping a phone!
A phone… identical to mine! The same old, battered domestic model!
His screen was lit too!
But his screen glowed not white, nor blood-red, but a cold, deep… eerie blue!
He was also looking down at his screen… at that… or a similar… choice interface!
His blood ritual wasn't to open an escape route for us… or not just for that! Like me, he was a 'player' in this game! His so-called 'Guardian ritual' might just have been… the necessary trigger for the final choice?!
Then this gate… this rift of darkness that seemed like freedom… wasn't an exit at all! It was… another trap? Or… the entrance… to Option A or Option B?!
In the guard booth, the old man watched us, still expressionless, his murky eyes showing no ripple of emotion, as if he'd seen this exact scene countless times before, watched countless people make different choices, walk towards different fates.
The eerie blue light from Christopher's phone and the white glow from mine mingled, reflecting on my own pale, sweat-drenched face.
A, or B?
Become part of this hellhole, become the new 'Guardian', the new 'Prefect'? Or… return to the start, with a new identity and unknown rules, to endure this damned, hopeless night all over again?
The countdown continued.
[…5…4…3…]