Chapter 304: Monster Attack
Sima Xiao'er was highly efficient and immediately called over his teammates from the third floor. It was nighttime, and the five of them moved quietly, avoiding the duty nurses as they gathered in the stairwell between the third and fourth floors.
"Listen carefully. It's best not to alert the medical staff, but if we get discovered, we have to restrain them immediately." Sima Xiao'er lowered his voice as he instructed his companions. "And don't believe what the other patients say. Our daily medication and food have been laced with hallucinogens. They're using special items to interfere with us. If you believe them, you might end up trapped here forever!"
The faith of the several Special Defense Department members traveling with him was already hanging by a thread, especially after hearing that the tall black guy had escaped and gone to the First Research Institute, only to find it didn't exist, and that Ting City wasn't even Ting City—just a place name in a game. Who could handle that?
So now, whatever Sima Xiao'er said, they did, because before their memories got scrambled, they were comrades.
In addition to the people from the Special Defense Department who knew each other, Xu Huo also brought along the few he'd met in the abandoned building. Anyone else willing to follow was welcome; the rest he ignored.
"Are these patients real?" Sima Xiao'er couldn't help asking Xu Huo. "If they're just trapped here too, will they go completely insane if they don't get out?"
Xu Huo was checking rooms one by one. At his words, he glanced down at the floor tiles. They were on the fifth floor now. The patients in the fifth-floor rooms were all tied to their beds, wrapped in cloth, with their mouths stuffed. If not for their open eyes, you wouldn't even know they were alive. But they were practically dead—some didn't even blink.
"Who exactly are we looking for?" Xiao Yang couldn't help asking. "These people give me the creeps. They're not going to—"
"Shut up!" Sima Xiao'er cut him off sharply. "I told you not to overthink it. Just pretend they don't exist!"
Xiao Yang gritted his teeth and dropped the subject of the patients, turning instead to Xu Huo. "Can you really get us out of here?"
"If you don't want to follow, you can leave." Xu Huo didn't waste words on him. Instead, he sped up his room inspections, because the walls on the fifth floor were starting to hatch, and the plaster was peeling off. This spiritual contamination zone was rapidly deteriorating.
"Woo—woo—woo—" A sharp, piercing alarm blared, and the red warning lights on every floor began flashing. From the stairwell, a nurse ran past, screaming, "The patients have all escaped! Come catch them!"
Sima Xiao'er and the others' faces changed. Their first instinct was to stop her, but before they could act, a human head flew back from the stairwell, smashing against the wall with a thud and rolling into the hallway, trailing thick blood—it was the nurse's head!
Then a foot wrapped in bandages stepped onto the fifth floor. From over two meters up, a hand reached out and grabbed the edge of the wall.
"Run!" Xu Huo shouted sharply. The group of about twenty people bolted forward. Sima Xiao'er ran while looking back, only to see the bandaged monster clinging to the wall and chasing after them. He screamed in terror, "What the hell! That thing has four legs!"
Before the bandaged monster revealed its full form, based on the placement of its feet and hands, it seemed at least three meters tall. But once it stuck to the wall, it became clear it wasn't actually that tall—it just had two extra legs and two extra arms attached to its body, which was why it had been "standing" in the hallway like that. Now, the monster crawled along the wall like a spider, moving faster than a normal person could run!
"I told you the hospital was doing human experiments! That's the monster they created!" The tall black guy pounded his head and ran like crazy, but before he got far, he shouted again, "Dead end ahead!"
Both sides of the hallway were corridors, and the ends were dead ends. The only option was to hide in the rooms, but as the bandaged monster appeared, the patients in the rooms began waking up one after another. Some even walked out of their rooms, lunging at them like zombies!
The last Special Defense Department member got bitten. Toxins spread from the wound, and in the blink of an eye, his body turned a dark gray, his limbs twisted, and he changed direction.
"Who the hell imagined zombies into existence!" Because time was tight and he was afraid that saying too much would confuse the Special Defense Department members further, Sima Xiao'er hadn't fully explained what Xu Huo had told him. Instead, he'd made up a lie about hallucinogens and special items. But seeing his comrade turn into a zombie, he desperately caught up to Xu Huo. "Has Xiao Gao really turned into a zombie? Is he dead?"
The fifth-floor rooms had all been checked. Xu Huo didn't waste any more time. Instead of answering his question, he said, "Up to the sixth floor."
"There's no stair—there's a staircase!" Sima Xiao'er saw a staircase suddenly appear at the end of the hallway and quickly called for his companions to follow.
But after he went up, the zombie Xiao Gao, several fifth-floor patients, and the bandaged monster all gave chase. The bandaged monster, in particular, leaped over the people in front and landed on the stairs.
Xu Huo glanced back, and the walls on both sides of the staircase automatically closed in, squeezing the bandaged monster in between!
"Xiao Gao!" Sima Xiao'er shouted, because after the walls closed, the zombie-like figures were all trapped behind the bandaged monster.
"Move!" Xiao Yang pushed him. "The stairs are disappearing!"
The bandaged monster was only stuck in the wall for a moment. The walls didn't stop closing; instead, they kept moving up from the bottom of the stairs, chasing after them. If they didn't want to be sealed in the wall like the monster, they had to reach the sixth floor first.
In that race against time, the group had no chance to think further. Instinct drove them, and they rushed up to the sixth floor in one breath. The first to arrive took up defensive positions, ready for any danger.
But unexpectedly, the sixth floor was sunny, colorful, and full of laughter.
"I must be dreaming," Sima Xiao'er said.
In this beautifully decorated, harmonious setting of doctors and patients, Xu Huo spotted Yan Jiayu. He called out from a distance, "Let's go!"
Yan Jiayu was sitting on a flower bed, swinging her legs, looking thoroughly bored. As soon as she saw Xu Huo, she jumped up and ran toward him with a big smile.
"You're patients from downstairs! How did you get up here?" A nurse spotted them and immediately called for security to come and catch them.
"I can't beat the monster, but a few security guards..." Sima Xiao'er was organizing people to go meet Yan Jiayu when he saw a monster crawling out from the corner. He swallowed the rest of his words and looked to Xu Huo for help. "Brother Xu! You need to think of something fast!"
Xu Huo quickly turned to the nearest door and pushed it open, but behind it was a mass of crimson. As he opened it, something inside the blood clot began to writhe.
He shut the door without hesitation. As he turned around, a bandaged monster lunged at him. He dodged, and Yan Jiayu leaped out from the side, grabbing a tabletop and smashing the thing away!