Being an Extra Actor in an Escape Game

X Beijin is watching the Missiontakers closely.

He is praying for them to be faster, quicker, go work out the secret of this Nightmare quickly, and head for the next Cell Nightmare. Now. Go find find the Cell Nightmare he needs quickly.

While watching the Missiontakers, X Beijin is also trying his best to look for the one pivot Nightmare he needed of all the Cell Nightmares present as particles in the wind, but it is really a torturously long process.

And nightmarishly difficult, too.

After a mere ten minutes, he finds his vision swimming already.

And of the cells hes observed, the insanity of the ex-Missiontakers and ex-Actors are also highly discouraging.

He must keep his disgust down, however, if he were to look for what he needs to. He is also paying some attention to the Missiontakers every so often.

The one he observes the most often, is obviously Lin Qin.

Not becauseNot simply because, at leastof the relationship he has with X Beijin, but also, because of his extraordinary instincts, which gives X Beijin hope that he has good prospects of finding the one Cell Nightmare he needs.

The Cell Nightmare Lin Qin ended up inside is also quite surprising to X Beijin, though.

Because it is the very first Nightmare to have Collapsed, meaning that this Nightmare owner, is the very first Actor, to have lost their sense of self in the entire Tower, completely subsumed by the identity of the script they have been assigned.

X Beijin knows this because he once read a log entry about this as reported by NE in the Update Log that he read.

However, the target to whom NE reported this to, did not make any comment or implement any measures.

In fact, they have told NE not to report on this in the future. They do not seem to care about humans losing their minds.

By now, Collapsing Nightmares and humans who succumb are rare enough sights, but this large, boundless landfill also has enough rubbish data to be a Nightmare to NE.

In the very beginning, the grey fog was merely a fog;

Until later, when it became the name of this whole place.

In any case, thats why X Beijin remembers this first Collapsed Nightmare so well.

This Nightmare happened to a middle-aged personA man, or a woman.

Its difficult to tell, because this is a loving couple, married for over twenty years, and after what happened to them was used to generate a Nightmare, the Nightmare owner had to Act as the both of them, similar to Ke Zhu and Xie Ji.

When the madness spread among human society, the couples parents and children both gone mad, and treated the couple as a meal. They cooked and ate the couple, and left the bones for the stray cats and dogs of the community.

The poor Actor had to relive this abhorrent situation over and over again, and has gone completely mad, or succumbed, in basically no time.

However, succumbing doesnt mean peace from the suffering and the Nightmare stopping, but merely, it means the Missiontaker has become the couple completely, repeating the fate of being eaten, over and over again.

In this disturbing Nightmare, the scene is rather large, and the Actors included not just the family, but coworkers of the couple, the familys neighbours and close friends.

The Nightmare itself plays out like a detective noir story.

First, the neighbours called the police because the couple living next door has been missing for a while, and their apartment unit is giving off a really pungent smell now, along with the occasional fragrance of cooking meat.

During the preliminary investigations, the police discovered that the apartment unit has been using an extremely abnormal amount of water and electricity recently, far above their average consumption.

Then in interviews, the granny of the unit would complain that the kitchens pipes are clogged;

The children would complain that the fridge is too small to put ice cream in;

There are also reports of the stray cats and dogs acting violently towards people.

The police also visited the company where the couple worked. The two worked in the same company, and they have many complaints the couples parents are old and need constant care, their children need to go to cram school, they need to visit neighbours, friends, socialise, and it all costs money.

They are barely scraping by, so theyre always looking really exhausted.

That all lasted until one day, they just vanished from everyones eyes.

The Missiontakers in this Nightmare acts as the investigators of this case.

When they enter the Nightmare, it is just before the couple has been killed;

And it lasts until the final pieces of the couple are cannibalised, when the Nightmare finally restarts.

The Missiontakers can reach the simplest Normal End by stopping the heinous murder of this couple;

The True End involves making the couples parents and children realise, that they are not eating normal food, but their own blood relative.

The Nightmare isnt actually too difficult to resolve, but unfortunately, the Actor in charge is so traumatised that before they can do anything to help the Missiontakers along, theyve already gone mad.

Which means, the fate has become set in stone for them.

Unless, there comes a day when they regain lucidity and sanity, and can leave the Tower.

Perhaps this nightmarish experience would still stress the Missiontaker mentally; maybe theyd gone irrevocably insane, even out of the Tower, with or without professional psychiatrists, but there is hope, that one day, the Missiontaker can heal, if they escape.

All of this, would depend on, what the ten Missiontakers achieve.

The moment Lin Qin entered the door, he feels his vision dimming out, and then, he finds himself situated in the unlit corridor of some building.

Hes a bit irritated. He wants to find X Beijin, but he finds his instincts bugging out right now. It doesnt point to where X Beijin is at all.

So X Beijin wasnt behind the door he entered? Where would he be?

Lin Qin is confused.

On the outside, Lin Qin doesnt look like hes forgotten why hed entered X Beijins Nightmare, still reacting and responding with the speed of his usual self.

But the truth is, Lin Qin only recalls X Beijin.

He doesnt know why hes in this Nightmare. He doesnt even remember when he ended up here. He just knows, he wants to find X BeijinThat is the person he likes, so he must find him.

But where is X Beijin?

Lin Qin tries to think about it, but he cant come up with anything.

He knows one thing though, at least. If X Beijin is not here, then he should leave this place.

Leave how?

Lin Qin takes in his surroundings, and then slowly casts his gaze up towards one particular apartment unit upstairs.

There are strange noises coming in from there.

Lin Qin listen closely. His inhuman hearing allows him to make the sound out clearly.

Someone is chopping meat Directly off-the-bone. The knocking noise is unmistakable.

Any unprepared Missiontaker hearing this would feel disturbed for sure.

In fact, the more imaginative ones, or ones that have been avid readers of horror novels on the internet before entering the Tower, may have stumbled upon the crucial point of this Nightmare already.

But Lin Qin does not have that experience backing him.

He does not have memories from Earth, nor is he easily spooked by such creepy environment.

In fact, Lin Qin hasnt ever felt fear.

Merely curious about the noise, and thinking the most important part of this scene is probably where the noise comes from, he walks up.

X Beijin finds himself at a loss to describe what happens next.

Lin Qin first knocked on the door, then when nobody came to open the door, he destroys the door with brute force, and walks in.

Ignoring the granny and gramps with blood all over their bodies, and a little kid that is holding up a finger bone, and licking the blood off of it, Lin Qin paces about the room once, and then his instincts guides him to the fridge.

He opens the door.

A rolling grey fog spills out of the door to the fridge, obscuring Lin Qins vision immediately.

The thick scent of blood also starts to dissipate. The people of the apartment unit also look obscured from the fog.

Then Lin Qin sees a door, still largely hidden away in the fog.

He has a feeling that this is the way to leave this scene and head to the next one. This is the way to X Beijin.

Lin Qin walks in without hesitation.

He leaves the Cell Nightmare with almost cheat-like efficiency.