Ten Days of Doom

Ten Days to the End Volume One: I Heard You Chapter 1: The Empty Room An old tungsten filament bulb hung from the center of the room, suspended by a black wire, flickering with a dim, wavering glow. The silence spread like ink dropped into clear water, slowly diffusing through the space. At the very center of the room stood a large round table, its surface worn and mottled with age. Upon it rested a small ornate clock, its intricate engravings barely visible, ticking steadily in the gloom. Seated around the table were ten people, dressed in various styles. Their clothes were old and tattered, their faces smeared with dust. Some lay sprawled across the tabletop; others reclined limply in their chairs. All of them were fast asleep. Standing quietly among them was a man wearing a goat’s head mask and a black suit. From behind the battered mask, his gaze emerged—keen, curious, and fixed intently upon the ten sleepers. The clock chimed. Both the minute hand and the hour hand aligned at twelve. From somewhere far beyond the room came the low, distant toll of a bell. At that exact moment, the ten men and women seated around the table began to stir. As consciousness returned, they looked about in confusion—first at the room, then at one another. None of them remembered how they had come to be here. “Good morning, nine of you,” the Goat-Head said at last, breaking the silence. “It is a pleasure to finally meet you. You have been sleeping before me for twelve hours.” His appearance was so bizarre that it startled everyone beneath the dim light. The mask looked as though it had been made from a real goat’s head. Much of the fur had yellowed and darkened, clumping together in tangled knots. Two hollowed eye sockets revealed his eyes beneath—sharp, sly, and alert. With every movement, he gave off not only the musky stench peculiar to goats, but also a faint, unmistakable odor of decay. A man with tattooed arms froze for several seconds before finally realizing how wrong the situation was. Hesitantly, he asked, “You… who are you?” “I assume you are all wondering the same thing,” the Goat-Head replied cheerfully, spreading his arms as though he had long prepared this answer. A young man named Qi Xia sat farthest from him. He quickly surveyed the room, and moments later his expression grew grave. Something was deeply wrong. There was no door—only walls on all sides. In other words, the room was completely sealed: walls, ceiling, and floor alike. And yet, inexplicably, a table had been placed at its center. If that was the case, how had they arrived here? Had they been brought in first, only for the walls to be built afterward? Qi Xia looked again. The floor, the walls, even the ceiling were all covered in intersecting horizontal and vertical lines, dividing every surface into large square grids. Another detail troubled him even more—the Goat-Head had addressed them as nine. No matter how he counted, there were ten people seated around the table. Including the Goat-Head himself, that made eleven individuals in the room. What did nine mean? Qi Xia reached into his pocket. As expected, his phone was gone. “There’s no need to introduce yourself,” a woman with a cold voice said. “I advise you to stop what you’re doing immediately. I suspect you have detained us for more than twenty-four hours, which constitutes illegal confinement. Every word you say from now on will be recorded and used as evidence against you.” As she spoke, she brushed the dust from her arms with visible disgust—as though being dirty offended her more than being imprisoned. Her words sobered the group. Whoever this man was, abducting ten people alone had already crossed the legal line. “Wait,” a middle-aged man in a white lab coat interrupted calmly. He turned to the woman and asked, “We just woke up. How do you know we’ve been detained for twenty-four hours?” His voice was steady, his question precise. The woman pointed unhurriedly at the clock. “It’s twelve. I’m a night owl. The last time I checked the clock at home, it was already midnight. That means we’ve been here at least twelve hours.” She then gestured to the walls. “And you’ve surely noticed—there’s no door. Getting us into this room would have taken considerable effort. He said we slept for twelve hours, and now the clock points to twelve again. That means it’s gone around at least twice. So I suspect it’s been over twenty-four hours. Any objections?” The man in the lab coat regarded her coldly, suspicion lingering in his eyes. In an environment like this, her composure was unsettling. Would a normal person remain this calm after being kidn*pped? A muscular young man in a black T-shirt spoke up. “Goat-Head, why are there ten of us, but you keep saying nine?” The Goat-Head did not answer. “I don’t care how many there are,” the tattooed man cursed. He slammed his hands on the table and tried to stand, only to find his legs completely powerless. Unable to rise, he pointed at the Goat-Head and shouted, “You bastard. You have no idea who you’ve messed with. I will kill you.” The men around the table grew tense. At a moment like this, they needed someone to take the lead. If they could overpower the Goat-Head together, the situation might still be brought under control. But they soon realized something was wrong. Their legs were weak and numb, as though something had been injected into them. Unable to move, the tattooed man could only continue hurling verbal threats. Qi Xia remained silent. He lightly stroked his chin, his eyes fixed on the clock, deep in thought. This was not as simple as it appeared. He understood now what the Goat-Head meant by nine participants. If there were ten people present, then one of them was not a participant. So who was it? Six men and four women sat around the table. Was one of them the kidnapper? The Goat-Head moved at last. He walked slowly toward Qi Xia and stopped behind a young man. Everyone followed his gaze. That young man was different from the rest. Though his face was just as dirty, it wore a blissful, almost radiant smile. The Goat-Head slowly raised his hand and placed it on the back of the young man’s head. The smile grew even more unsettling. The young man glanced excitedly at the others, as though he already knew what was about to happen. A dull c***k echoed through the room. The Goat-Head slammed the young man’s head down onto the table. Pink and white matter burst across the tabletop like spilled paint, blood splattering onto the faces of those nearby. The young man’s skull had been crushed completely. Once again, a distant bell tolled outside the room. Qi Xia, seated closest to the corpse, felt something warm and sticky cling to his cheek. He had always believed his mental fortitude was strong—but now his body trembled uncontrollably. A woman seated beside the body froze for three seconds before her face twisted in horror and she screamed. The scream shattered everyone’s last psychological defense. To crush a human skull—the hardest part of the body—barehanded against a table… Was this Goat-Head even human? How could such a slender body unleash such terrifying strength? The Goat-Head spoke slowly: “The reason I prepared ten people… was to use one of them to make you quiet.”