The citrus scent lingered, settling into my nostrils as I inhaled.
A haze settled in my mind the moment I inhaled the scent.
I became even more certain of it.
The candles...
They were the reason this was happening. It wasn’t the food or anything else in the room. It was the candles. It had to be the candles!
Ta! Ta! Ta! Ta!
Moving with the dance, I began to sweat. The rhythm quickened, and with it, so did our steps.
"Keep dancing! Don’t stop! You mustn’t stop!"
A voice slithered through the air alongside our movements. I couldn’t tell where it came from, but it was unmistakably female. It was sharp, shrill, and dripping with a certain chill that made the hairs on my neck rise.
"Dance! Dance—!"
Our movements hastened.
I started to breathe more heavily.
’This is not sustainable.’
I could feel my stamina draining rapidly, even though I had been hitting the gym regularly lately. How long was this going to last?
I didn’t know. However, if there was one thing that I knew, it was that this couldn’t go on for much longer. Hastily looking around, my eyes settled on the candles.
’Should I go and extinguish all of them? There’s about... One, two... seven candles. Will I be able to extinguish all of them before the people in white get to me?’
I had to be careful not to use my powers. With cameras recording everyone present, the moment I did, I would be exposed. That was something I couldn’t allow.
Originally, I had intended to reveal my powers gradually, ’awakening’ to some random Decree, but I hadn’t reached that stage yet. Attempting it now would seem suspicious, and without my abilities, I wasn’t confident I could extinguish all the candles at once.
’What do I do...? What should I do?’
My mind scrambled to find a solution.
Ta! Ta! Ta!
"Faster! Faster!"
Especially when I noticed that the rhythm wasn’t slowing. We were moving faster in circles, dancing to the music as the woman frantically shouted the same words over and over again, her voice growing more and more shrill.
"Keep going!"
I didn’t know what would happen once this was all over, but seeing some of the members beginning to feel sick made it clear that I had to act quickly.
Loosening my hold of Joanna and Mia’s hands, I prepared myself to move when—
Swoosh!
Someone beat me to it.
Moving faster than my eyes could see, they dashed towards the nearest candle, grabbing it and tossing it away before rushing towards the next candle.
"Wha..."
I didn’t know who it was, but it didn’t matter.
Seeing them act quickly, I also dashed towards the other end, reaching for the candles that they hadn’t reached.
"What!? Stop—!"
It took a couple of seconds for the people in white to understand what we were doing, and the moment they did, a shrill voice echoed from behind us.
"You don’t know what you’re doing!? Stop this at once! You’re going to kill us all!!!"
The desperation behind that voice was all too clear, but I couldn’t care less at the moment. They were the last people I could trust. My priority now was to free everyone present from the brainwashing and help subdue the people in white.
Swoosh! Swoosh!
I tossed two candles aside, extinguishing them, and then stopped, realizing there were no more left. When I turned toward where the other figure had been, I finally caught sight of them, my brow rising in surprise.
"Sarah...?"
So the other person who had snapped out of the brainwashing was Sarah?
I was pleasantly surprised, but I didn’t have the luxury to wonder how she had done it. The woman’s voice tore through the air, a shriek so sharp it felt as if she had clawed the words from her own throat.
"Noooo!"
The air on my body rose, and when I turned my head, I finally caught sight of an elderly woman as she clung to her face with both hands, her nails digging into her own flesh as her eyes stood wide. So widely that it sent chills down my spine.
"You’ve ruined us! You’ve ruined us all!"
Her shrieks were deafening, overwhelming everything around us. By now, the dancing had stopped, and some people had even collapsed to the floor from sheer exhaustion.
But... If there was one thing that everyone shared, it was the fact that they were all looking at us.
I felt every hair on my body rise.
The music had stopped as well, leaving only the woman’s screams of madness echoing through the room as she clawed at her face.
"No! No! No! No! No! No!"
Her screams were so raw that they sent chills down my spine.
"You don’t understand...!! You don’t understand what you’ve done!!"
My lips quivered slightly, feeling a sinking feeling in my stomach as I looked around, seeing the other teams slowly starting to snap out of their daze, their gazes pulling away from us. I wanted to quickly help them recollect themselves, but before I had the chance to do that, the woman’s screams echoed once more.
Her words, however, made my entire body freeze on the spot.
"No, no, no... He’s going to come for us now. He’s going to come..."
He...?
Who was ’he’? What was she—
"Hiaaaaakk!"
A scream suddenly ripped through the room. My heart leapt into my throat as I turned to the elderly woman. Her eyes were unnaturally wide, so much so that it seemed something else had taken hold of her.
But when I focused on her, I realized she wasn’t just screaming, she was staring.
Her gaze was locked on something invisible, something that twisted the air around it, radiating a darkness that made her shrink back in pure terror.
I followed the direction where she was looking, but I didn’t see anything.
I could tell that she was looking at something. No, it wasn’t that I could tell. I could feel it with every once of my body as the hair on my body rose, and my heartbeat drummed loudly.
And then—
BANG!
Blood spurted. A head exploded.
"....!?"
Thump!
A body fell limply on the floor, sending chills down my body. Before I even had the time to properly assess the situation, another scream ripped through the hall.
"Haaaaaaa!"
It was just as raw as the one from the woman, his eyes turning white and his mouth opening widely.
Flick! Flick!
The chandelier above swayed, the light flickering in the process, as the doors of the room started to sway before suddenly smashing to a close.
BANG! BANG!
All noise appeared to strip away from the room, the men and women in white opening their mouths wide, all staring in a certain direction.
Ba... Thump! Ba... Thump!
Their mouths moved, shaping screams that never emerged. They just stood with their mouths wide open. I followed their gaze, but the room was still empty.
And yet...
I could still feel it.
The sinister presence that lingered in the room stared in our direction.
BANG!
Another head exploded, blood spurting onto the floor.
I took a step back, swallowing my saliva as I looked towards my team. Joanna and the others had started to recover and were staring at the people in white in horror. Despite it all, they still seemed to be rational as they looked at me.
I understood immediately as Joanna was the first one to speak up, her eyes darting towards Min.
"Go."
Min didn’t waste a second. The moment he heard Joanna’s words, he dashed towards the doors before smashing into them.
BANG!
The doors hastily opened, and he turned in our direction.
I didn’t waste a second and dashed out with the rest of the team.
"Get out quickly!"