A child's voice sang this time.
Searching, searching, for a friend,
I found a good one in the end.
I gave a bow and shook their hand
A timer counted down at the edge of his vision. 30... 29... 28...
Was this truly a game? Based on the lyrics... it seemed as though it were hide and seek. Ah'Ming assumed he was the hider, so he squished himself into a cupboard in a bookcase. It was a tight fit, but he made it.
When the timer reached zero, Ah'Ming noticed how all the lights went out. The singing remained constant, an off-tune warbling noise. He couldn't see with his eyes, but he could sense a large, shuffling thing outside of the cupboard, going from one room to the next.
The timer for the hiding period was even longer, at a startling two minutes. Based on this, wouldn't there be over twenty rounds of hide and seek?
Ah'Ming counted silently in his heart. He noticed that every time the thing sang, with every repetition, the song grew distorted.
Searching, searching, for a friend,I found a fgood one in the end.They had to bow and tore off their hand,[][][] are now my good good friend!
The timer hit the last twenty seconds. Ah'Ming's heart pounded. He'd wait till the next round, then try to fight the creature.
Searching, searching, for the end,I nearly found it in the end.They tried to bow, but I tore off their hand,[][][] are now my good food fo-riend!
The lights turned back on. Ah'Ming crept out. There was a little giggle, and Ah'Ming knew it was his turn to seek. There was a low-pitched white noise building up, and his vision was becoming quite staticky.
He waited for a while, just to see what would happen. Faces started to form on the walls, and the shadows underneath furniture stretched wider, impossibly wide. Nothing else scary happened.
Ah'Ming shrugged, then began to sing.
Searching, searching, for a friend,I found a good one in the end.I gave a bow and shook their hand,You are now my good good friend!
There didn't seem to be anyone underneath the chairs or tables. He flipped open all the cupboards and closets. He checked the hallways and the bedrooms, but the kitchen was still locked. The classrooms proved empty as well.
Any moment he stopped singing, the static would build back up behind his eyes. His throat was growing parched, tired from all of the singing.
Ah'Ming ran out of time.
Nothing bad happened, but he had another thirty seconds to hide himself away. This time, he chose a storage closet in one of the classrooms.
The lights cut out once more, but this time the timer showed five minutes instead of two. He heard two sets of heavy footsteps trudge around. There was a series of loud crashes from the direction of the living room. The bad singing was from there too.
Ah'Ming held his breath, and waited. He wanted to fight the monster, but now knew that he was bound by system rules. In a rule-based instance, it didn't matter how strong you were physically. If the script demanded for the monsters to win, then there was nothing the players could do but run. Running did not help much either.
Fighting boredom, Ah'Ming wished he had the forum. There was nothing to do but sit and wait for the time to finish.
The monsters didn't find him.
His turn to seek.
His turn to seek.
He sang and sang, and was curious to see how much leeway he could get away with.
Searching, searching, for a phone,
I found a good one in the end.
Half off yet the screens still fine,
Now I can play league till the end!
Hey! It actually worked!
He entertained himself by making up the most random sets of lyrics he could think of, but still struggled to find the child. Or monster? He didn't really know what he was looking for.
In the bedrooms, surrounded by a billion beds, Ah'Ming squinted at the teddy bear under the bed.
He didn't remember it being there.
Hmm.
He picked it up, and felt around. It was soft, but it had some strange hard things in the middle.
He poked around, and found a small hole,. Pulling the things out, he noticed they were bones.
Children's bones.
That explained it.
"Found you!"
The bones melted to putty, then merged into his skin. A child giggled, and two hands covered his eyes. Ah'Ming followed where they wanted him to go. Based on the mental map he had drawn of the massive building, they were heading to the dining room.
He sat.
His eyes were uncovered, and he sat face to face with another player.
sick.