Maybe the bathroom window hadn't been shut tight — the night breeze drifted into the room, like an invisible hand brushing across Chen Ge's face.
The stall door swayed gently, creaking as it moved. Droplets of water trailed down the pipes and splashed onto the floor, while something inside the drain seemed to crawl about with a faint, rustling sound.
In the silence, every noise was magnified. Most people would have felt uneasy in such an environment, but Chen Ge was an exception. What he'd endured in his childhood had forged in him an extraordinary mental fortitude and nerves of steel.
His mind went blank. He thought of nothing, simply counting the seconds in his head.
After nearly twenty minutes, Chen Ge felt the temperature in the room drop inexplicably, as though several blocks of ice had been placed around his body. A chill ran through him involuntarily.
"Calm down! Don't wonder why. Don't scare yourself. Ten minutes left — no matter what, I have to hold on!" Faint currents of air whispered past his ears, as if something were circling around him. His fists clenched tight, veins bulging on the backs of his hands, yet his body remained rooted to the ground like a green pine, utterly motionless.
"Chen Ge… Chen Ge… Chen Ge…"
He murmured under his breath. When only five minutes remained, Chen Ge sensed that the flickering flame in the bathroom had gone out. In the darkness, it seemed as though someone else was chanting his name too.
"An echo? That's impossible!"
"Chen Ge…"
The voice seemed to be calling him — urgent, as if there were something terribly important it needed to convey.
"That voice sounds like it's coming from outside the door. Should I go take a look?" Chen Ge quickly dismissed the thought. The rules of the game were perfectly clear: all he had to do was stay in front of the mirror.
He calculated the time in his head. The voice at his ear gradually grew distorted. He was certain now that someone else was calling his name, and that person seemed to be standing just outside the door.
"That person sounds pretty anxious, but I'm the one playing the game — so what's he so worked up about? This is obviously a trap. A pretty lame one, at that." Chen Ge curled his lip. "The setting and atmosphere are decent, but the scare tactics are awfully one-note."
The final three minutes. A grating sound erupted from the bathroom door — like nails scratching and teeth gnawing against the wood. The door shuddered, threatening to swing open at any moment.
"1798 seconds, 1799 seconds, 1800 seconds!" Half an hour had passed. The sounds beyond the door vanished entirely, and everything returned to stillness.
To make sure he hadn't miscounted, Chen Ge didn't open his eyes right away. He counted out another three hundred beats before taking a step back, placing both hands over his chest, and blinking his eyelids open.
The candles in the bathroom had long since gone out. The room was pitch black. Chen Ge vaguely sensed that something had changed.
He switched on his flashlight. When light flooded the room once more, he froze in his tracks.
The bathroom mirror was covered in cracks. His reflection was shattered into countless fragments, looking utterly unreal. But what truly shocked him was what sat right in front of the mirror — a tattered doll that hadn't been there before.
Button eyes gleaming with a strange light, a patched-up body stuffed with cotton batting. The doll wasn't cute, but to Chen Ge it was invaluable. It was the first doll he had ever made, and it had been with him the day his parents disappeared.
The doll leaned against the broken mirror, as though it were holding back whatever lurked on the other side.