The Lilith Protocol

While playing the escape room, I marveled at how realistic the body prop looked. It wasn't until the debriefing that I realized the corpse was actually one of our teammates.

Lightning suddenly illuminated the room, and I saw another teammate lying in a pool of blood...

The moment we saw the body, the female players' high-pitched screams erupted one after another.

In the darkness, people stumbled and fell. Others yanked desperately at the door, trying to escape.

Of course, they couldn't open it.

"Hey Walter, where's that oil lamp? It's too dark to see anything."

The flash of lightning just now must have been artificially created—it only lit up for a second.

Aside from a puddle of blood, I couldn't see anything else.

I turned to the oldest player in our group.

Supposedly he was a veteran—there wasn't an escape room on the market that could stump him, no puzzle he couldn't solve.

"The lamp only lasts five minutes. It's precious. We need to save it for a critical moment."

Walter's cryptic response immediately drew complaints from the others.

"We all found that lamp together. What gives you the right to keep it? Just because the body isn't sitting next to you, you're not scared, is that it?"

"Of course I'm scared too. Why don't you come over here? Then you won't be next to the body. Besides, it's obviously just a prop."

Walter quickly countered, easily handling multiple people arguing with him.

But when it came to physical confrontation, that might be a different story.

The first body we saw belonged to player number twelve. Now this one was number eleven.

Walter believed eleven's body was also a prop, but twelve had two friends who came with him—numbers four and seven.

Even if the first corpse had been fake, the one who just died was their friend. How could they not recognize him?

"What kind of sick place is this? Mason's really gone, man. Shouldn't we be calling the police?"

Number four erupted in rage. He and number seven beat Walter until his face was black and blue, finally making him give up the lamp.

"Fine, take it! When you need light at a critical moment and don't have any, you'll regret this."

You could tell these three had a real bond.

I sat in the corner, observing their movements.

The oil lamp wasn't real—it was just an ordinary small flashlight shaped like a lamp. The light was weak and would only last five minutes.

Number four carefully turned on the lamp, shining it on number eleven's body.

Everyone's attention was drawn to it.