Horror Gym
944 Words
Liu Yuning furrowed her delicate brows and strode quickly toward the commotion. Ye Sha, feeling a vague sense of unease, naturally followed her out.
The gym was already in chaos. The front door had somehow been locked, leaving a crowd of panicked customers gathered at the entrance, shouting to be let out.
Despite their own fears, the coaches tried their best to calm everyone down.
"Don't panic! Tell me, what happened?"Liu Yuning, a strong-willed woman used to being in charge, spoke with calm authority, instantly bringing order to the scene.
Not far from the weightlifting area, two or three coaches exchanged uneasy glances and moved aside to reveal a horrifying sight.
On a bench press lay a male customer, crushed under a heavy barbell pressing against his chest. His face was pale, lifeless.
He had been suffocated to death under the weight!
"Who was his supervising coach?" Liu Yuning demanded sharply. Such a mistake was unacceptable—bench presses required someone to spot at all times.
“Boss, I went to the bathroom! But I clearly told him to wait for me before continuing! He didn’t listen!” A panicked middle-aged coach defended himself.
“You...” Liu Yuning was furious but had no way to determine the truth. She wasn't the police and couldn’t tell who was lying.
“Boss, why don’t we check the surveillance footage? Even if Coach Li wasn’t around, someone else must have seen what happened. How could a grown man just die like that without anyone noticing?” Ye Sha suggested, suspecting something unusual.
Liu Yuning nodded and gestured to the front desk assistant, Xiao Liu, who quickly ran to the monitor station and pulled up the footage on the gym’s large TV screen.
Ye Sha watched carefully. In the footage, Coach Li could be seen speaking to the customer before heading to the restroom. Suddenly, the customer seemed to lose all sense of reason. He lay on the bench, reached for the barbell, and attempted a lift. But his strength gave out almost instantly, and the barbell crashed onto his chest. His face turned red, his eyes bulged, yet he remained completely silent—no scream, no cry for help. Within seconds, he was dead. It wasn’t until Coach Li returned several minutes later that the body was discovered.
“It’s a paranormal entity!” Ye Sha’s heart pounded. This method of death bore all the hallmarks of something supernatural. Having encountered one last night, Ye Sha recognized the signs.
“Wherever there’s paranormal activity, it draws others.”
Recalling the motto he had seen on the paranormal forums, Ye Sha felt dread creep up. As someone with a semi-paranormal existence himself, it seemed that other entities were being drawn to him.
“Has anyone called the police?” Liu Yuning asked, rubbing her temples in frustration. She had only come to the gym on a whim to tease Ye Sha, but now she was embroiled in a mess.
“We did. The police said no one can leave the scene until they arrive for questioning,” Xiao Liu quickly replied.
“Quite a lively session today, isn’t it?”
Suddenly, an eerie voice crackled over the gym’s PA system. It was a man’s voice, hoarse and unsettling.
“Who’s there?”
The gym-goers frantically looked around, trying to locate the source of the voice.
Xiao Liu’s face went pale, and she began trembling. “Boss, there’s no one at the front desk!”
Only then did Liu Yuning remember that the PA system was operated from the front desk, used for announcements or music playback. If no one was there, who was speaking?
“Coach Li Guofeng, please perform a set of standard sit-ups!” The voice from the speakers suddenly issued a command.
“Who’s playing tricks?!”
Coach Li Guofeng, the middle-aged man supervising the deceased customer, was already shaken. Being the first one named only added to his panic.
“Coach Li, don’t argue. Just do as it says!” Ye Sha shouted urgently. This was no ordinary prank—disobeying a paranormal entity could have dire consequences.
Li Guofeng, who had a good relationship with Ye Sha, immediately complied, lying on the ground and performing sit-ups.
The other coaches and customers watched nervously. They weren’t fools; they too had realized something was terribly wrong.
“Well done. Let’s give him a round of applause!” The voice over the speakers sounded almost pleased.
However, the crowd, too stunned and terrified, failed to react.
“Applause!”
The voice suddenly turned sharp and enraged, piercing the air like needles. Everyone instinctively covered their ears.
Oddly enough, the sound didn’t seem to affect Ye Sha, who began clapping first. Liu Yuning quickly followed his lead.
Soon, applause filled the gym. The atmosphere, however, was heavy with dread and fear, like a twisted team-building exercise.
“Stop!”
Everyone immediately stopped clapping, fully obedient now.
“Someone dared to skip the session and tried to run away!” The voice drawled lazily before turning sinister again. “The coach’s punishment: death!”
From the crowd near the locked door emerged a young coach, his face pale with terror. His body moved stiffly, as if controlled by an invisible force, step by step toward the center of the gym.
“I only wanted to escape because the door wouldn’t unlock!” The coach, drenched in sweat, shouted, unable to move his head to look at anyone else.
The gym’s locks were electronic, designed to open with a simple press of a button. If the coach couldn’t open it, it was clear the entity had taken control.
- Writer
