Chapter One: The “Lucky” Interview

“Unlucky, unlucky, unlucky…” Qi Chen unconsciously tightened his grip on the transparent folder holding his résumé, his eyes fixed intently on the elevator’s display, which stubbornly showed upward movement. The elevator had been crawling from the seventeenth floor to the eighteenth for ten minutes already.

After a heroic act had inadvertently brought him to this fog-shrouded world, he’d struggled for a week just to land an interview. Now, of all times, he was trapped in this elevator. He truly only wanted to attend the interview—how else was he supposed to survive in this place?

“Why isn’t maintenance here yet?” someone else grumbled, the complaint tinged with frustration and barely suppressed fear. Besides Qi Chen, there were two men and two women in the elevator, each as “lucky” as he. The speaker was a thin, frail-looking man in glasses, who had voiced this complaint several times already.

“This is unbearable! If this keeps up, I’m definitely getting docked pay. That miserly boss won’t miss a chance to mess with me!” barked a burly man, anger plain on his face as he jabbed the emergency call button once more.

Beeep… beeep…

The ringing echoed through the cramped space, everyone instinctively holding their breath, longing for a voice of hope to break the silence over the intercom. But, as before, there was no answer.

“Could it be… something uncanny?” a girl’s trembling voice broke the hush. The two women, huddled together in the elevator’s left corner since the malfunction started, were beginning to lose control of their nerves.

The moment her words ended, the emergency bell abruptly stopped. The elevator sank into a deathly silence.

Qi Chen could almost hear the dull thud of his own heartbeat, his face flushed and tense.

The uncanny… Since arriving in this world, he’d heard a few rumors about such indescribable existences—creatures akin to the evil spirits of his own world. But his knowledge was limited to hearsay picked up on the streets of Third City over the past week, and if he hadn’t spent nearly all his time outside, he might not have even known that much.

Tap, tap, tap!

Suddenly, a series of sharp clicks rang out in the cramped elevator, like someone in high heels stomping impatiently.

“Cut it out!” the burly man snapped, glaring at the two girls. “You think this isn’t nerve-wracking enough?”

His outburst silenced the sharp tapping at once. He snorted, turning his attention back to the still-climbing floor indicator.

But Qi Chen, standing quietly in the right corner, felt a chill run down his spine. From the corner of his eye, he’d noticed both girls were wearing sneakers.

That sound hadn’t come from them at all.

“It’s changed! It’s changed!” the man in glasses suddenly shouted, pointing at the elevator display. The floor, stuck on seventeen for over ten minutes, now read eighteen!

Clang!

The ancient elevator jolted violently, eliciting cries of alarm before coming to a complete stop.

“Why won’t the doors open?” the burly man growled, face twisted in frustration. He slammed a fist against the doors, then, in a fit of desperation, tried prying them open with his bare hands.

“Forget it, man… You’re not prying open elevator doors,” the man in glasses muttered wearily. He glanced to the side, then suddenly shrieked, “Neither of them are wearing high heels!”

His shout snapped everyone to attention. Apart from Qi Chen, who’d noticed earlier, the other four stared at each other in shock, a chill creeping up their spines.

“It can’t be, it really can’t be something uncanny…” the girl with blunt bangs whimpered, her voice on the verge of tears.

Tap, tap, tap!

The sound of high heels striking the floor returned, making several faces blanch noticeably.

“Didn’t someone say there was a serial killer in this building?” the ponytailed girl stammered. “I heard… the killer only targeted women in high heels.”

“What if the victims turned into something uncanny…”

Except for Qi Chen, who had come for the interview, the others were regular workers in the building. They’d all heard the rumors the ponytailed girl mentioned—a string of killings that had become the hottest topic in the area, fodder for gossip from street corners to alleyways. Even after the fog descended, such bizarre cases were rare.

In fact, the burly man could even be considered a witness to the crime; he had discovered one of the victims in the building.

“Don’t talk nonsense! Our district has the lowest incident rate in Third City—there’s no way there’s anything uncanny!” he barked, but his bluster failed to reassure the others, his own voice betraying more bravado than conviction. He resumed his efforts to force the doors open.

“Shh!” For the first time, Qi Chen stepped from the corner, placing a hand on the burly man’s shoulder, signaling for silence.

The man scowled, about to retort, but Qi Chen clapped a hand over his mouth.

“There’s something outside the door,” Qi Chen murmured in a low, serious tone. The tension in the elevator thickened; no one dared question him.

The only one who might have spoken was the burly man, but Qi Chen kept his hand firmly over his mouth.

“Mmm… mmm…” After ten seconds of uneasy silence, the burly man, detecting nothing, grew restless and reached for Qi Chen.

Tap!

A crisp sound echoed from outside the elevator, halting the man’s movement.

Tap!

Another, clearer step sounded from beyond the doors. The burly man pressed his face to the crack, eyes wide, trying to peer out. The corridor was dim, the sliver of sight through the doors even narrower. He saw nothing, but the approaching footsteps left little doubt that something—or someone—was drawing near.

Ding!

The elevator chimed, indicating it had reached a floor. Under their stunned gazes, the doors slid open with a crash.

Qi Chen released the burly man, fists clenched at his sides, and stared into a nearly pitch-black corridor. Only the elevator’s feeble light illuminated the threshold: a withered potted plant, abandoned by someone; a few neon signs on the wall, most of their bulbs burnt out, casting weak, shifting colors and vaguely revealing a product ambassador on one of the ads.

Yet Qi Chen couldn’t shake the feeling that the person in the ad was watching them.

Click!

Suddenly, the elevator lights went out.

Screams erupted from the girls and the man in glasses, but in a moment, the lights flickered back on.

Qi Chen’s expression remained grim as his gaze dropped to the floor.

There, just beyond the elevator doors, stood a pair of dazzling high heels, as if painted with fresh blood.

…