Chapter 604: Shall We Play Together?
Charlotte didn’t have time to figure it out the mystery of this place.
Instead she picked up a small pebble from the floor and tossed it gently toward the man in the first cell. It bounced off his shoulder and he flinched in response.
His head turned, slowly, as if the motion required enormous effort. His eyes, which had been blank and empty moments ago, flickered with something that might have been awareness.
They focused on Charlotte.
And then they went wide.
“L-Lady…Charlotte?” His voice was a croak, rough from disuse. “Is that…is that really you?”
Charlotte’s heart leaped. He recognized her. He knew who she was!
“Yes! Yes, it’s me!” She pressed closer to the bars. “Who are you? What is this place? What’s going on?”
The man scrambled toward her, his movements frantic and desperate. He reached through the bars, his fingers grasping at the air near her face as if trying to confirm she was real.
“How…How are you here? How did you get here?”
His eyes darted around the dungeon, suddenly fearful.
“Did he…Did he capture you too? Did he drag you into this nightmare?”
“Who? Who captured you? What are you talking about?”
But before the man could answer, the woman in the cell with him noticed the motion. She turned, saw Charlotte, and let out a sound that was half-sob, half-shriek.
“Lady Charlotte! Oh thank the gods, Lady Charlotte!”
She threw herself against the bars, her hands reaching out.
“You have to help us! Please, you have to get us out of here! I can’t take it anymore—none of us can take it anymore—please—”
“Shut up!” The man hissed. “Be quiet! If you’re too loud, he’ll hear—”
But it was too late. The woman’s cries had awakened the other prisoners.
All along the corridor, people were stirring, turning, looking toward the motion. And when they saw Charlotte standing there, hope ignited in their eyes.
“Lady Charlotte!”
“It’s really her!”
“Please, my lady, you have to help us!”
“I want to go home—I just want to go home—”
“Save us! Please, someone save us!”
The voices rose in a desperate chorus, and Charlotte found herself surrounded by a wall of reaching hands and pleading eyes.
She didn’t know what to do. She didn’t know how to help them. She was just a child who had stumbled into something far bigger and darker than she had ever imagined.
“Everyone, please—I don’t understand—what is this place—”
“SILENCE!”
The man’s shout cut through the chaos like a blade. The dungeon fell quiet instantly, every prisoner freezing in place.
“You’ll bring him down on us.” The man hissed. “Is that what you want? Do you want him to e back?”
The prisoners shook their heads frantically. Some of them were trembling. One woman had started to cry silently, her shoulders shaking with suppressed sobs.
The man turned back to Charlotte. His expression was grave.
“You can’t stay here, Lady Charlotte. This place is too dangerous. You need to leave. Right now.”
“But I don’t understand—who are you? What’s happening here?”
“There’s no time to explain. You have to go. Find your mother. Tell her—” He swallowed hard. “Tell her that the one behind the Terror Face Murders is—Mmm?!?!”
His mouth snapped shut. But not because he chose to stop speaking.
Instead, his lips pressed together with violent force, as if an invisible hand had clamped over his face.
“Mnnnnm—!”
His eyes were trembling with terror. He clawed at his mouth, trying to pry his lips apart, but they wouldn’t budge. His nails drew blood, but still his mouth remained sealed.
Around him, the other prisoners were experiencing the same thing.
“Mmmm—!”
“Hmmm”
Every mouth in the dungeon was suddenly, forcibly shut. People grabbed at their faces, their eyes bulging with panic, but no one could make a sound.
Charlotte stumbled backward.
“W-What’s happening? Why can’t you speak?!”
The man shook his head frantically. He pointed toward the stairs she had e down.
He was telling her to run. To escape. To get out while she still could!
But before Charlotte could move, a scream split the air.
“AHHHHHHHHHHH—!”
It came from deeper in the dungeon, from a second staircase at the far end of the corridor that Charlotte hadn’t noticed before.
The sound was horrible. Agonized. The scream of someone experiencing pain beyond imagination.
The prisoners shivered in terror. They shook their heads frantically, their muffled sounds being more urgent.
The man grabbed Charlotte’s wrist again and urged her with his eyes,
‘Don’t go down there. Please. Don’t.’
But Charlotte pulled away.
She didn’t want to go. Every fiber of her being was screaming at her to run and never look back.
But someone was screaming. And Charlotte had never been able to ignore someone in pain.
More importantly, she didn’t know who was the mastermind behind all of this.
If she wanted to save these people, she didn’t to find who that person was so that she could report it to her mother.
Especially since if she left right now there was no guarantee that could find these once again.
The failsafe was also still active—she could feel it pulsing in the back of her mind, ready to pull her out, so she decided to go ahead.
“I’ll be back.” She told the prisoners. “I promise. I’ll e back for you.”
The man shook his head, tears streaming down his face. But Charlotte had already turned away.
She descended the second staircase. The torches were fewer here, their flames guttering weakly as if the darkness itself was trying to smother them.
At the bottom, she found another dungeon.
Smaller than the one above, but somehow even more horrifying.
After all…the cells here contained children!
Boys and girls, none older than Charlotte herself, huddled in the darkness.
They were in the same condition as the adults above—naked, bruised, their eyes hollow and empty.
Some of them were crying silently. Others just stared at nothing, their minds apparently shattered beyond repair.
Charlotte felt tears prick at her eyes. She wanted to help them.
But the screams were louder now, ing from the door at the very end of the corridor—a door that was slightly ajar, with warm light and faint music spilling through the crack.
She gave the children a reassuring look and walked toward it.
Her legs felt like lead. Her heart was pounding so hard she could hear it in her ears.
But she kept walking, reached the door and finally looked through the crack.
—
The room beyond was a private library.
Bookshelves lined the walls from floor to ceiling, their leather-bound volumes gleaming in the light of a crackling fireplace. A record player in the corner spun a vinyl disc, filling the air with a pleasant melody.
The atmosphere was warm and cozy, the kind of place where one might spend a lazy afternoon reading and drinking tea.
But in the center of the room, there was a dentist’s chair.
It was made of cold metal with restraints attached to the armrests and footrests. And strapped into that chair, pletely naked, was a woman.
And…she was screaming miserably!
“ARGHHHHHHHH!”
Standing over her was a man. He was dressed formally—pressed slacks, a white button-down shirt, a neat vest, a tie.
His posture was impeccable. His movements were perfectly posed. He could have been attending a business meeting.
But he was wearing a white mask. A simple, featureless mask that covered his entire face.
And that mask was splattered with blood.
But most horrifyingly, in his hand, he held a power drill.
Charlotte watched, frozen with horror, as the man pressed the drill against the woman’s chest.
BRRRRRRRR—!
“NOOOOOOOOO!”
The whir of the motor was barely audible over the woman’s screams. Blood sprayed across the man’s white shirt, adding to the stains that were already there.
“PLEASE!” THE woman sobbed. “PLEASE, STOP! IT HURTS! OH GOD, IT HURTS SO MUCH!”
But the man didn’t respond. He simply tilted his head, as if studying her reaction with curiosity. Then he moved the drill to a different spot and began again.
“HAAAHH! HAAAAAAH! ARGHHHHHH!”
The woman’s screams reached a pitch that didn’t seem humanly possible.
Charlotte couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think. She had seen nightmares before. She had witnessed the strange and terrifying creations of troubled minds. But this—this was different.
This wasn’t a nightmare. This was real!
The woman’s pain was real. The blood was real. The man with the drill was real.
“P-Please.” The woman sobbed. “Please stop. I’ll do anything! Just please stop!”
The man paused. Tilted his head, as if considering her request.
“You’ll do anything?” His voice was soft and gentle. “That’s what the last one said. And the one before that. And the one before that. But in the end, none of them could give me what I wanted.”
“What do you want?! I’ll give it to you! I swear!”
“…I want to understand.”
The man leaned closer, his masked face inches from the woman’s terrified eyes.
“I want to understand the exact moment when hope dies. The precise instant when a person realizes that no one is ing to save them. That they are alone. That they will die here, in the dark, and no one will ever know what happened to them.”
He pressed the drill against her chest again.
“That’s what I want. Can you give me that?”
“NO—! NOO—! NO—ARGHHHHH—!”
The woman screamed. The drill whirred.
Charlotte couldn’t watch anymore. She turned away, her stomach heaving, her mind reeling.
She had to get out of here. She had to escape. She had to—
The screaming stopped.
Charlotte looked back. The woman on the chair had gone limp, her head lolling to the side, her eyes staring at nothing.
She was dead. The man had killed her.
“No.” THE man said, his voice heavy with disappointment. “No, no, no. Not again!.I thought she would last longer. She seemed so strong.”
He set down the drill and picked up a cloth, wiping the blood from his gloved hands with care.
“Ah, well. Such is the nature of my work. Some toys are more durable than others. The trick is to appreciate them while they last.”
He chuckled, a soft, amused sound that made Charlotte’s skin crawl.
And then he turned toward the door.
“But not to worry.” He said, and she could hear the smile in his voice. “I have a new toy to play with now. A very special toy. The daughter of the Battle Angels herself.”
He took a step toward the door.
“What do you say, Lady Charlotte? Shall we play together?”
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