"…the rabbit skull." Nasrul
"What???" Nasrul
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Nasrul sensed that something was wrong the moment he finished speaking. He cast a glance around — and felt his stomach drop.
"Where is everybody?"
The group that had been walking with him just moments ago had vanished without a trace.
He spun in every direction, searching, but found no one. Forcing himself to stop, he drew a slow breath and pushed down the rising panic before it could cloud his thinking.
His heartbeat had been hammering — loud and frantic — but with each deliberate and control breath it began to settle. Gradually, the pounding eased into a steady, manageable rhythm.
Once he felt calm enough to think clearly, Nasrul began to piece together what had happened.
Based on everything he could observe, he had been transported to a different location. The surroundings were completely unfamiliar — nothing like the path he had been walking just moments before.
The shock of it still lingered, but he found himself calming down faster than he expected. Part of that was thanks to the light in his hand.
The candle. Despite being separated from his group, the candle had come with him.
Without the others nearby, he was down to just the one. Its glow barely reached the surrounding trees and ground — enough to illuminate a few steps of the path ahead, but for a little more distance. His field of vision was severely limited.
He would have to rely on his other senses.
He focused on his hearing first. Sound carried further than sight in a place like this — it was his best tool for understanding what lay beyond the flickering ring of candlelight.
After standing still for a short while and listening to the forest around him, he started moving. Knowing his surroundings before acting was important, but standing in one spot in an unfamiliar location wasn't going to help him. He needed landmarks — something that could tell him where he was.
He also kept his eyes open for other light sources as he walked.
The distant flickers he occasionally spotted were faint and small — too far away to mean someone was nearby. He decided against moving toward them for now. Finding his own bearings first was the priority; knowing where he stood would let him plan a safer route if he needed to move quickly.
After walking for a while, he stumbled upon something that made him stop cold.
The structure before him was unmistakable. He recognized it immediately — the same map design as the game Wick.
Nasrul let out a slow breath and shook his head. He had told himself it would be like the game. Now reality was staring him in the face, he wasn't just playing Wick. He was living inside of it.
The structure was a construction foundation — the kind used to support a building. In the game, there was only one place like this, the water tower.
A faint sense of relief washed over him. This was exactly where he needed to be. The next clue — a cross — should be somewhere nearby.
He began searching the area carefully. It took some time, but eventually his fingers closed around it.
The moment he touched it, a voice emerged — a child's voice, soft and recitative, as though murmuring a prayer:
"Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep. If I die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take."
Then the clue dissolved, just like the others had.
Nasrul was quiet for a moment.
"That would be Benny, I suppose," he muttered. "What really happened here?"
He turned and began moving in the direction of the next clue — toward the bus. With any luck, the rest of his group would be heading there too.
He hadn't gone far when it reached him — the giggling. High-pitched and childlike, drifting through the dark trees.
Then he saw her.
Nasrul didn't hesitate. He broke into a run, veering right, his free hand curled around the candle flame to shield it from going out.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
"He he he…"
He ran as hard as he could. The sound of that laughter sent a cold spike of fear straight through him. Even when he had only been playing this game, it had unsettled him. Now, experiencing it firsthand, the fear was something else entirely — visceral and immediate in a way no screen could replicate.
When the giggling finally faded and he could no longer hear her footsteps, he eased his pace back to a walk.
"Good thing Lilian didn't chase me," he said under his breath. "As long as I'm not caught, I'm fine."
He continued toward the bus, his thoughts drifting even as his eyes stayed sharp.
This game was not good for his heart.
The atmosphere pressed down on him constantly — a weight on his mind that hadn't been there when he was sitting safely behind a monitor. Playing a horror game was one thing. Being inside one was something else entirely.
He was more alert than he had ever been during a playthrough. Every footfall on thick grass made him tense. Every rustle in the dark snapped his attention sideways.
When he had been with the group, the burden was shared. Others kept watch so he didn't have to watch everything alone. Now that weight rested entirely on him.
Occasionally he could hear shouting from other groups in the distance. Sometimes he caught glimpses of candlelight moving erratically — too fast for someone walking. They were running.
It occurred to him then why his own path had been relatively undisturbed. With so many people scattered across the area, the ghosts' attention was divided. Those who weren't being targeted had a much easier time moving freely — at least for now.
But that wouldn't last forever.
As the numbers dwindled, the ghosts would have fewer targets to chase. The odds of encountering one would only go up as the night wore on. His chances of making it out would shrink accordingly.
He turned the thought over once, then let it go. There was no point in spiraling. Worrying about the end wouldn't change what he needed to do right now. What mattered was staying alert and keep moving.
He allowed himself a short rest at one point — a brief pause to catch his breath while the night was still relatively calm. He knew better than to waste energy. There would be plenty of running later.
Eventually, the shape of the bus emerged from the darkness ahead.
In the game, the bus was one of the safer locations — not a true sanctuary, but a place to breathe for a moment. Even so, Nasrul knew he couldn't linger here long.
He approached and looked it over with quiet amazement. He had never seen a bus like this in person. Up close, the rust eating into its surface made it feel genuinely, deeply abandoned — not a game asset, but a real relic slowly being swallowed by decay.
He climbed inside and scanned the seats.
There it was — the name written on one of them. A small but important detail he had nearly forgotten about: the bus showed which ghosts were currently active.
The names on the seat read: Tim and Lilian.
He filed that away. It sounded trivial — knowing the names didn't change the danger. But there was something valuable in it nonetheless. The unknown was what truly taxed the mind. Giving the threat a name, a shape, a set of known behaviors — it let him think more clearly and react faster when the moment came.
He waited by the bus for a while, watching for familiar candlelight approaching from the trees. Other groups' lights flickered in the distance now and then, but none came this way. His group still hadn't appeared.
After enough time had passed, he decided not to wait any longer.
He set off toward the next clue.
As he walked, he kept scanning ahead for light sources while staying attuned to the sounds around him. When he reached the rock where the clue was supposed to be, he circled it carefully — but found nothing. He widened his search to the surrounding area.
Still nothing.
Nasrul straightened up. Someone else had already been here.
He turned and moved on toward the next clue.