"After him?"
Zahra whispered in shock.
But before any of the newbies could react, Calvin rushed towards the door.
Zahra who was standing there dumbstruck panicked when she realized that she was already left behind.
"Wait for me!"
She ran after them like mad.
Calvin opened the doors and a terrifying scene was revealed.
Hanging from the ceiling was the emaciated man who had just entered the room!
"Let me in!" Hugo rushed into the room.
He took the man hanging from the ceiling and placed him on the ground.
He then proceeded to check for the man's pulse, and his pupils constricted.
"He's dead..."
"He's dead...?"
"That can't be! Wasn't he just alive? How could he die of hanging for just a few seconds?"
Nicholas had an incredulous look on his face.
The others felt the same.
How could this man die from asphyxiation in just a few seconds?
That was impossible!
Unless...
"L-Let me check..." Zahra suddenly spoke up.
Calvin and the others stared at her as she sat down beside the emaciated man's corpse and felt for his neck.
"H-His neck isn't broken! From the purple hue on his nails and the burn marks on his neck. I am sure that he died a gruesome death out of asphyxiation. But asphyxiation should take at least a few minutes of hanging to set in. What's more, his limbs are already stiff, an indication of rigor Morris. His tongue is also out and his saliva already dry..."
Zahra abruptly stood up.
She was staring at the corpse with her pupils constricted and her shoulder shaking from fear.
"I-Impossible! S-Something like this is impossible!"
"Calm down, Zahra! Tell us what you discovered..." Scarlette immediately went to the rescue.
She patted her shoulder and urged her to calm down. Soon enough, Zahra recovered from her initial shock.
Gulping a mouthful of saliva, she swept her gaze at everyone and said...
"I'm a medical student, so... I know a lot when it comes to cadavers... This man... He must've been dead for a few hours already!"
"What?!" Rose staggered in shock, "How could that be? Didn't we just see him barge into this door?"
"Y-Yes... That's right, we just saw him barge into this door, so he must've been alive. Yet, there's no mistaking it. From the injuries that I can see on his bodies and the signs. He's been dead for a few hours already..." Zahra held Scarlette's arm for support.
Although she was a medical student.
She was only forced by her parents since her parents wanted to have that prestige of having a child who was a doctor.
Needless to say, she could be considered as a scaredy-cat. Second only to Jane who was an absolute scaredy-cat to the extent that she could even be scared of her own shadow for as long as the circumstances were right.
Speaking of Jane, she was already holding Calvin's sleeves for support.
She was trembling from fear once again.
Rose bit her lips to stop herself from trembling.
Nicholas, Roy, and Philip had bitter smiles on their faces. They knew that all the terrifying things that they saw and would see tonight would definitely turn them numb against violence, slaughter, and horror in the future. What's more, they didn't know if this was a good thing or not.
Calvin furrowed his eyebrows, "Hugo, check his body. See if he has the Security Access Keycard."
Hugo nodded his head, he made a thorough check on the crevices and the pockets of the corpse. He looked undisturbed, which made him seem as if he was used to doing something like this.
Seeing such a scene, Nicholas, Philip, Roy, and Ray had a single thought in their minds.
They must never offend him in the future!
Someone who could casually search a corpse without batting an eyelid must be someone who had gone through a lot.
The four glanced at each other and nodded with tacit understanding.
"Jannette, what are you doing?" Rose's voice suddenly rang out.
"There are some interesting files scattered here. I'm planning on gathering them all to see if there's something that we can learn from them about this place." Jannette replied with a smile. But judging from her trembling hands, it was clear that despite her casual tone of voice. She was quite afraid.
"I-I'll help you..." Rose felt that not doing anything was scarier than doing something. She stood up and walked over to Jannette. Then, the two of them crawled on the ground with their flashlights, gathering the documents scattered on the ground so they could read them together with the team.
Calvin didn't disapprove of what they were doing.
But there was something far more important than what they were doing.
It was to find that Security Access Keycard to access the Security Room.
Without that card, it was impossible for them to escape this asylum.
Nicholas, Philip, Roy, and Ray glanced at each other. Nodding their heads in tacit understanding, they started doing something else just so they could temporarily forget the fear creeping up in their hearts.
"Oh, there's a computer here!"
"Really? Damn, jackpot! Maybe we can use that computer to hack into the Security Room."
Calvin could hear the voices of Roy and Nicholas.
He turned to look at them and said, "Trying to hack into the Security Room of this asylum is like trying to crack a stone using an egg. It's incredibly difficult, although possible. But I think you're just wasting your time."
Calvin then turned to look at Hugo and said, "Did you find it?"
Hugo's expression turned grim.
"No, there's nothing here... I've searched everywhere already including his rectal orifice, yet I don't see anything stuffed in there nor there's a card hidden on his clothes and body."
Calvin's eyes widened in shock.
'The Security Access Keycard is... missing?'
'Does that mean that it's impossible for us to get out of this place?'
'No, that should not be it...'
'It's not logical for Fivecent to let us undergo a trial with no escape nor way to survive...'
'But if that card isn't here... where is it?'
'Could it be that it's in the hands of the person who killed this man? But who did him in?'
'The Butcher?'
'No, that's impossible...'
'That big fucking bastard wouldn't possibly spare the life of a person just to kill him later. It's just not in his nature to let his victims unnecessarily suffer.'
'Then, who?'
'Just who killed this man and took the card?'
Calvin stood there rooted and frozen in place.
At this moment, Roy's voice suddenly floated over to Calvin.
"What the heck? There's not even any electricity here... A blackout?"
Calvin's figure shivered upon hearing Roy's voice.
He rushed towards them and asked, "What did you say? There's no electricity in here?"
The room they were in wasn't that dark since the moonlight served as their light bulb. The only reason why they didn't turn on the lights was that Calvin wasn't so sure of the consequences of turning on the lights. But now, it turned out that it was actually impossible for him to even do that in the first place since there was no running electricity!
But...
'The electricity should only disappear when we are about to unlock the front doors of the asylum. Why did the blackout come so early? What the fuck is going on? What is about to happen? What difficulty did Fivecent set this final phase of ours? This is a difficulty that I have never seen before even when I was still working as an employee of Fivecent!'
'Just what does this mean? Could it be that the reason why we were unable to find the keycard in here is that we will not even be able to use it anyway since there is no running electricity? But to restart the electricity, that involves going into the flooded basement of the Administration Block and turn on the generators there...'
The flooded basement of the Administration Block was far dangerous than the Administration Block itself. The reason was that there was a madman rotating through the entire basement. That madman had a cleaver on his hand and would rush and attack anyone that dared to enter his territory.
Calvin's memory of the flooded basement should be accurate to a certain degree.
But now that he realized that the difficulty of this final phase was several folds higher than the difficulty of the final phase that he had experienced back then.
He was now unsure whether the patient roaming the flooded basement was still that madman or another patient such as the Butcher, or maybe even the Benevolent Father saying that her daughter wants to swim or something.
'Fucking hell, Fivecent... Just what did you do? Do you really want us to die that much? But why?'
Calvin gnashed his teeth in fury.
His anger at the Fivecent custodian who made them experience a nightmare with a never seen before difficulty rose even higher.