Tick... tock... tick... tock...
The clock on the round table ticked in the silence, its pendulum swinging with a slow, heavy creak, each movement reverberating through the room.
Around the table were ten people, dressed in all sorts of mismatched clothes, like they didn't even belong to the same world. Their clothes were dirty, and their faces were covered in dust. Some were hunched in their chairs, others were awkwardly leaning on the table, all of them deep in sleep—or more like unconscious, completely out of it.
The air in the room was dead still, thick with an eerie silence, slowly spreading, like ink dripping into clear water.
Beside the table, a man stood silently. He wore a black suit and half a face mask, his presence almost ghostly.
One of his eyes peeked through the mask, gleaming with a mischievous look as he observed the group.
The clock on the table chimed again, its hands pointing to 12.
A deep, distant bell could be heard from outside.
At that moment, one of the people sitting at the table—slowly—started to wake up.
As they regained consciousness, they looked around, confused, then glanced at each other. It seemed like they didn't recognize one another and had no idea how they ended up in this place.
"Morning, all nine of you," the masked man said, breaking the silence. "Glad to see you here. You've all been asleep in front of me for twelve hours."
The sudden voice startled them all.
The group stared at the man warily, afraid he might do something dangerous.
His appearance was weird—half of his face was covered by a mask, and the other half... it was almost blank, just a faint outline you could barely make out if you really looked.
The whole scene was unsettling, and the room felt colder the longer they looked at him. The eye visible through the mask gleamed with something sinister.
The man's every movement seemed to radiate a decaying aura.
A man with a ship tattoo on his arm froze for a few seconds, then finally spoke, his voice filled with hesitation. "Who... are you?"
"You're probably all wondering that," the masked man replied, grinning and waving his hands like he was enjoying the moment. "Well, let me introduce myself to the nine of you."
A young man named Elliot Hayes, sitting at the farthest end of the table, quickly surveyed the room. After a moment, his face grew serious.
Something about this place felt... off.
There were no doors—just walls on all sides.
That meant the ceiling, walls, and floor were all sealed off, yet a table was placed right in the middle of the room.
And how had they even gotten here?
Had the walls been built around them?
Elliot looked around again. The floor, the walls, and the ceiling were all covered in crisscrossing lines, dividing the room into sections.
Something else caught his attention—the masked man had referred to them as "nine."
There were clearly ten people at the table, including the masked man, making it eleven in total!
What did he mean by "nine?"
Elliot checked his pockets. His phone was gone.
"No need for introductions," a cold woman spoke up, cutting off any further conversation. "You need to stop what you're doing right now. I suspect you've been illegally detaining us for over twenty-four hours. Everything you're saying is being recorded."
She spoke while rubbing the dust off her arm, as if she cared more about getting dirty than being locked up.
Her words snapped the others into a clearer state of mind. No matter who this man was, he'd dared to abduct ten people—he'd already broken the law.
"We just woke up, how do you know we've been trapped for twenty-four hours?"A middle-aged man in a white doctor's coat interrupted, his voice filled with suspicion as he looked at the woman.
She turned her gaze to the middle-aged man, pointed at the clock on the table, and said, "The clock reads twelve o'clock. I have a habit of staying up late, and the last time I checked my watch at home, it was already twelve. So, we've been locked up for at least twelve hours."
Then she pointed to the walls. "You've all probably noticed the room has no doors. That means someone went to great lengths to trap us here. The man said we've been asleep for twelve hours. And now, the clock shows twelve again, which means it's probably gone around twice. So, I suspect it's been over twenty-four hours. Does that make sense?"
The middle-aged man gave her a cold look, still looking doubtful.
After all, in a situation like this, her calm demeanor was suspicious.
Normal people, when faced with a kidnapping, wouldn't be so composed, would they?
At that moment, a young, muscular man in a black T-shirt spoke up. "Masked guy, why are there ten people here, but you keep saying nine?"
The masked man remained silent, not answering immediately.
"Fuck, I don't care how many people are here," the tattooed man cursed. He slammed his hands on the table, trying to stand up, but his legs felt like jelly—he couldn't move. He could only point at the masked man and yell, "Bitch, I suggest you back off. You have no idea what you've gotten yourself into. I'll fucking end you."
His words made the other men's faces harden. It seemed like someone had to take charge. If they could all work together to subdue the masked man, they might still have control over the situation.
But they realized, too late, that their legs were completely paralyzed, as though some kind of drug had been injected into them.
So, the tattooed man had no choice but to threaten the masked man with words, shouting angrily.
Elliot Hayes stayed quiet, his hand resting on his chin as he stared at the clock on the table, deep in thought.
This situation was far more complicated than he had imagined.
He realized the masked man's words referred to "nine participants," which meant one of them wasn't a participant.
Who was it?
The room was full of six men and four women. Could one of them be an accomplice?
The masked man remained silent, slowly walking over to Elliot Hayes, standing behind a young man.
Everyone followed his gaze and saw that the young man was different from the rest. Though his face was dirty like everyone else's, he wore a strange, happy smile.
The masked man raised his hand slowly and placed it on the young man's head.
The young man's smile grew even more unsettling. He looked at the others, his expression gleaming with excitement—as if he knew something they didn't.
Then, with a muffled sound, the masked man slammed the young man's head into the table.
A pinkish-white substance splattered like paint, spreading across the table, and splattering blood across everyone's faces.
The young man's skull had been shattered on the table.
Outside the room, the distant bell rang again.
Elliot Hayes was closest to the corpse. He felt something sticky and warm land on his face.
He thought his mental strength was strong enough to handle this, but he found himself trembling.
The woman sitting next to the dead man froze for a moment, then her face twisted as she screamed.
The scream shattered everyone's mental defenses.
How could the masked man break someone's skull with his hands like that? Was he even human?
How could someone so thin unleash such strength?
The masked man spoke slowly, "The tenth one's just here to keep the rest of you quiet."