Nightmare Game
Copyright© 2025 by CaffeinatedTales
Chapter 59
To recharge for day and night, he caught a quick nap before rising.
As he headed out, something caught his eye in the corner.
He froze, staring at the web where a palm-sized spider now spun silk, seemingly expanding its trap.
Ethan felt uneasy; yesterday’s spider had been thumb-sized, so how had it grown overnight?
He scanned the web’s corners for a second one but found none, confirming it was the same.
What did that mean?
Clueless for now, he left the room and went downstairs for breakfast.
Everyone else had gathered in the dining area.
When they saw him, they reacted like he’d risen from the dead.
“Whoa, buddy, if you’re fine, why not come down sooner? We thought you were gone.”
The speaker was a crew-cut guy with thick brows, sharp features, in a tank top showing sleek muscles from regular workouts; his name was Oliver Grant.
“Didn’t sleep well last night, so I caught up this morning.”
Ethan replied, carrying his tray to the serving window.
No staff inside, self-serve apparently; he grabbed sandwiches, eggs, and milk, then returned to the table.
“What happened?”
Oliver sat down too, shaking his head. “Not sure yet; we did a headcount and found two missing, including you.”
“You probably heard the glass break last night, so...”
He trailed off, but the implication was clear.
Ethan had noted the absences upon arriving.
“Let’s check upstairs after I eat.”
He dug in, while the others looked grim, the night’s events fueling their sense of peril.
Soon, they reached the second floor, stopping at Maya’s door.
A weird, acrid stench seeped from the cracks; Ethan frowned, not blood but more like rotting decay.
The door wasn’t locked; he twisted the knob and pushed.
Instantly, an overwhelming foul odor hit, sending those behind him backing away, hands over noses.
Ethan suspected the worst inside, steeling himself against the dread as he swung the door wide.
The room’s horror unfolded before them all.
Screams and retching erupted from behind; the sight terrified everyone.
At the window hung a massive blood-red spiderweb, sticking a body barely recognizable as human, her form riddled with rot, scarcely an intact spot.
She looked hammered repeatedly, flesh and bone fragments mashed into a limp pulp.
Her face twisted grotesquely, eyeballs slipping from sockets in a nauseating mess.
Yet what struck Ethan as odder was the lack of blood on the floor despite the trauma, replaced by green slime scattered everywhere.
To learn more, he pushed past his revulsion and approached the corpse.
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