Autophagy

The door creaked open. Fresh air with a faint scent of blood filled Lei's nostrils. He had just been in a fatally dangerous situation, having access to a new room was relieving for him.

Lei slapped the wall next to the door and searched for a switch. After some time, he found a switch and turned the lights on.

'So... Where exactly am I?'

The walls of the room he had entered were just like the last room, clad with talismans. Lei carefully walked ahead and started looking around. If you disregard the talismans, the room was pretty normal. A single bed, a little television, and a kitchen were all stuffed into a single room.

'Considering the calculus books scattered on the ground, the person who lived or used to live here must've been a university student.'

Lei bent over and picked up some of the books from the ground. After flipping over a few pages, Lei came to realize that the person who used to inhabit this room was definitely in some kind of psychotic state. Every single page of the book was filled with meaningless words and creepy drawings.

Lei tried to piece together some words but gave up trying after a few minutes.

"This person seems to write about something called 'the city'. the word is repeated a lot in these books. I wonder what it means? Is it talking about a certain city? Or is it symbolic?" Lei pondered.

While Lei was thinking about the book, the room suddenly started shaking violently.

'Is it an earthquake?' Lei thought while crouching next to the bed. The sudden shaking and a weird cold filling the room made his hairs stand up. After a few minutes, the shaking stopped and the cold dispersed.

'What kind of place am I in?' Lei thought. Thanks to Jia Feng, he had been reading some web novels and books here and there. Although he was a high school dropout, he quite liked reading. He had read about all kinds of things. In this situation, he knew that he had to keep his cool and try to think analytically. But it was easier said than done. He was suddenly thrown into a precarious situation with little to no knowledge about it.

Lei got up from his place to keep searching for things in the room. He walked up to the fridge and opened it.

"Ugh..." Lei instantly closed the fridge and took a few steps backward. The fridge was filled with different severed body parts. As Lei had tried to close the fridge in a hurry, he couldn't do it properly. A head fell out of the fridge and slowly rolled towards Lei.

'Maybe I should stop touching things without giving it a proper thought.' Lei thought as he picked up a book. He tore some pages out of it and used those pages to pick up the head. There was a calm expression on the face of the severed head.

'The victim probably couldn't even realize he was killed. He must've been dismembered after being killed. Is it some kind of assassination? Why would a university student get assassinated? Or maybe this is not the person who used to reside in this room...'

Lei cautiously put the head back in the fridge. He didn't want a random head laying on the floor.

After Lei put the head back in the fridge, the room started shaking again. He quickly went next to the bed and squatted next to it.

'Is this some kind of routine here? Maybe I can figure out the frequency.' Lei thought as he searched his pockets. He had transmigrated into a new body and he wasn't sure if he had a phone on him or not.

'It's here!'

Lei pulled a flip phone out of his pocket. He flipped it open. Fortunately, there was no password. He found the timer and started it. After 14 seconds had passed, the shaking stopped.

'There was a delay of 30 seconds. So the shaking lasted 44 seconds.'

Lei immediately restarted the timer. After waiting 4 minutes, the shaking started again.

'So it happens every 4 minutes and lasts for 44 seconds. I should repeat this a few times and make sure that nothing changes,' Lei thought.

After that, Lei tested the timings again and again for an hour. The results were always the same with the timings. The problem was, the shaking was actually becoming stronger and stronger with each cycle.

'If the shaking keeps getting stronger and stronger, it may come to a point that I can't stand up properly anymore. I need to act quickly and figure out what's going on. If I keep staying in this room, the building I'm in may collapse.'

Lei stopped pondering and went to the door. He carefully pulled the handle and opened the door just a little bit. While leaning forward, Lei gazed into the dark hallway. There was nothing that was out of place in the corridor. Lei fully opened the door and looked at the opposing door. The numbers 1408 were written on it. After looking around for a bit, he looked at his own room number which was 1407.

Lei closed the door and went back in.

'It looks like there is no threat but looks can be deceiving. I need to bring some stuff with me.'

Lei quickly rummaged through the room and managed to find an empty black backpack and a knife that was covered in blood. After picking the knife up, Lei suddenly received a system message.

[You've picked up a special item! Cursed Knife is a knife that has been washed by its countless victims' blood. It may or may not be able to hurt an ethereal being. It has rusted with time so it may not be the best choice against flesh.]

'Great... It doesn't sound reliable even a little bit but it's better than nothing.'

Lei wore the backpack and held the knife with his right hand. He waited for the shaking cycle to repeat. After opening the door of his room, he took out his cellphone and turned its flashlight on. He had looked all around the room to find a flashlight but he couldn't. He had to waste his phone's battery but he couldn't be stingy.

He had already searched for any kind of important information about the owner of this body on the phone but he couldn't find any. It was like the phone's memory was wiped clean just before he transmigrated. He didn't have an Id card on him too so he had no way of identifying himself.

The hallway was just like before, quiet and desolate. Besides the faint light of his phone, there was no movement in the hallway.

Lei crouched down and started walking towards the staircase. He was sweating a lot even though it wasn't particularly hot. The walls behind him didn't give him a feeling of safety. As if they would just suddenly cave in and take him to the abyss itself.

Lei walked past a few doors and was about to reach the staircase. He was planning to check out if he could figure out anything from thereon. The best he could hope for was finding a window to look out of so he could understand where the hell he was.

While walking past room 1401, Lei suddenly frowned.

'This room's door looks much cleaner and newer than the others as if someone is cleaning it regularly,' Lei thought while inspecting the door. The doors on this floor were all covered in mold and clearly had not been used for a long time.

*SLAM

The door of room 1401 burst open. Lei who had just passed by felt a tugging on his arm for a moment. Then that tugging became much stronger. Lei was being pulled in.

"Fuc-! Mmf..!"

Another hand came out of room 1401 and closed Lei's mouth. Lei was pulled into the room....