Capítulo 23: Chapter 23: Closing Walls
Staring at the walls that were closing in on both sides, Helen panicked for a moment.
Her voice was hoarse, "W-What's happening?"
Although the cellar's descending staircase was never very wide, Helen could initially move freely when she started walking down.
"It must be an illusion, right? Maybe the staircase was always like this..." Helen whispered to herself, trying to maintain a shred of sanity and avoid completely breaking down.
She was already experiencing some PTSD.
Helen's breathing was rapid, and anxiety continued to spread through her heart.
She kept moving deeper into the cellar, her mind completely blank, trying not to recall what had just happened in the attic.
Compared to the terrifying attic, Helen felt the cellar was somewhat safer...
She cautiously took a few more steps down.
Helen's eyes were fixed on the walls, and seeing no change, she began to relax.
Just as she let out a breath of relief, her shoulder brushed against the wall.
Helen stopped, gripping the candlestick tightly, and turned her head to the side, her eyes locked on the wall, with her pupils trembling.
"The walls... are really closing in..."
She could no longer deceive herself and accepted the horrifying truth: the bizarre staircase was indeed getting narrower the further she went down.
Moreover, she had already walked a considerable distance but still hadn't reached the cellar.
Helen's fear of confined spaces instantly peaked.
A strong sense of suffocation overwhelmed her, as if an invisible hand was choking her throat.
"No, I need to get out, I must get outside!" Helen now felt the entire little house was unsafe.
She wanted to leave the cellar and head outside.
Even freezing to death outside seemed better than waiting to die inside the house...
Helen turned and started to flee upwards, her pace quickening. She felt that if she stayed in the cellar any longer, she would soon be crushed to death.
But she hadn't gone up for long when she realized she could no longer move.
The cellar walls were now pressed tightly against her shoulders... she couldn't walk normally anymore.
Helen stopped, standing motionless.
She was too scared to move.
She had a strong premonition that if she turned her body and took another step, the walls of the staircase would continue to close in.
Helen felt like the cellar was alive, and the endless staircase was its esophagus, slowly swallowing her whole.
She broke down and wailed, "What do I do? I don't want to die! Ahhh!"
The taut string in Helen's mind finally snapped, and intense despair spread from her heart.
She looked back up the stairs, only to find the door she came through had vanished.
Beyond the reach of the candlelight, there was an abyss.
At that moment, Helen's hand trembled violently, and the candlestick fell to the ground. She hurriedly bent down to pick it up.
Luckily, she moved quickly enough, and the candle did not go out.
But just as Helen sighed in relief and prepared to stand up, her back hit the wall heavily.
"Ah, it hurts!"
Helen's heart skipped a beat, and she felt as if she had turned to stone.
She realized that merely bending down to pick up the candle had left her unable to stand up straight.
Helen strained to turn her head and saw that her back had already become part of the wall.
Not only were the walls on both sides closing in, but even the ceiling had also suddenly contracted while she wasn't paying attention.
A terrifying thought entered Helen's mind.
This endless staircase would keep getting smaller, eventually trapping her like a plaster mold used to make mannequins.
It would be like a custom-fit coffin.
The more panicked a person is, the more mistakes they make. The heat from Helen's candlestick had set her hair on fire.
The situation quickly became even more chaotic...
Flames flickered in the darkness as Helen frantically slapped her head, trying to extinguish the fire. The acrid smell of burning hair filled the confined space.
Instinctively, she lifted her head to keep her hair away from the flames.
But she did it too forcefully, and the back of her head slammed into the wall.
She staggered and collapsed helplessly to the ground, plunging her surroundings into total darkness.
The walls, like merciless hands, seemed to press down on Helen, making it impossible for her to move.
She couldn't even turn her head.
Helen could only barely move her arms.
After fumbling in her pocket, she found the matches she was carrying.
She didn't want to be trapped in the dark, even a little light would be a comfort to her.
Helen remembered her favorite childhood fairy tale—
It was about a little girl selling matches on a cold winter night, who tragically froze to death in the street. Each time she lit a match, she reunited with her beloved grandmother.
Helen struggled to light a match.
The suffocating darkness was briefly illuminated, revealing the wall mere inches in front of her.
The match quickly went out.
Unwilling to give up, Helen lit a second match. On the wall before her, a face appeared.
It was the rotting face of an old woman, seemingly writhing and ever-changing.
Black hair sprouted from it, making it look less and less human. Those terrifying, unblinking eyes stared right at Helen.
Helen instinctively wanted to escape.
But she was already trapped in this narrow space.
If there were a button in front of her that would allow her to die painlessly with just a press, Helen wouldn't hesitate for a second.
The fear of death finally consumed her.
It was like the last straw that broke the camel's back, or the first domino to fall.
As the match went out, darkness swallowed everything.
...
At this moment, in Jon's classroom.
The piercing scream woke up those who were sleeping.
Everyone's attention was drawn to the electronic whiteboard displaying the live broadcast.
"Damn, that scared me. I thought something happened to Jon."
"What's going on with Player 4?"
"She's probably experiencing severe cognitive pollution..."
At this time, in Helen's live broadcast.
She was curled up on the cellar staircase, her eyes blank and howling non-stop.
There was nothing terrifying in sight, she looked like a mentally disturbed patient having an episode.
No one knew what she was experiencing. Just as people were about to lose interest, an extremely eerie scene unfolded.
"Ahhhhhhh—"
With a blood-curdling scream, Helen's body in the live broadcast began to twist rapidly
"Crack! Snap!"
Accompanied by Helen's agonizing wails were the sounds of bones breaking.
In the live broadcast, Helen now looked like—
An uncooked, still-flexible gingerbread man.
She seemed to be crushed into a puddle of flesh by some invisible force.
"Test Site 42, Player 4 Helen has failed the examination."
"First-year Environmental Engineering class has failed the entrance exam. Punishment will commence."
The elimination announcement echoed once again.
Helen's entire class was wiped out by the Black Goat.
"Hmm, it seems like Player 4 Helen, just like Player 2, must have suffered severe cognitive contamination after breaking the rules..." Alex picked up his pen and silently noted down what happened to Helen in his notebook.
"But, doesn't it seem a bit different?" Hanson pondered.
Although both players died from intense cognitive contamination, there were fundamental differences.
Tony couldn't distinguish between hallucinations and reality, setting the house on fire and ultimately killing himself.
Helen's death was fundamentally different.
She was crushed to death by a bizarre and powerful force, which should be "its" capability.
REFLEXIONES DE LOS CREADORES 
BWbear
BWbear Creation is hard, cheer me up!
Like it ? Add to library！
Have some idea about my story? Comment it and let me know.
Estado de energía semanal
-- Ranking de
Poder 
-- Piedra de
Poder