The Relic Designer

Chapter 8 — Return of the Urban Legend

“You say this place is dangerous,” Ethan Cross said, his tone half-mocking, half-defiant. “But it’s just an ordinary apartment, isn’t it?”

His words made the disfigured investigator’s scar tighten with frustration.

“Room 2507’s previous tenant killed himself,” the man said sharply. “You should never have moved in, no matter how cheap the rent was.”

The investigator’s face was marred beyond recognition, his expression unreadable beneath the melted skin. Yet the urgency in his voice made it clear — something about this apartment was terribly wrong.

“Are you saying Mr. Zhao’s death wasn’t an accident? That someone murdered him?” Ethan pressed.

“Don’t ask why!” the investigator snapped. Sweat slid down the warped lines of his face. “If you don’t want to end up like me — leave now!”

Ethan could tell he knew more than he was willing to say. Which, naturally, only made him more curious.

“Then give me a reason,” Ethan said calmly.

The investigator exhaled through gritted teeth. “Not just you — everyone on this floor has to move out until we isolate the source. You think you’re brave because you stopped that killer in the rainstorm, but some dangers aren’t made of flesh and blood. Those things — they’re what caused all those murders in the old dock district.”

“Those things?” Ethan’s eyes narrowed. “What are you talking about?”

The investigator hesitated. “The more you know, the easier they find you. Everything I say, everything I do — it’s to protect you. Believe that, even if you don’t believe me.”

Neither Ethan nor Serena Black moved.

The investigator sighed. “You two won’t listen until the coffin lid shuts on you.”

Ethan tilted his head slightly. He wasn’t sure if he’d cry at the coffin — but Serena? She’d probably treat it like a sightseeing spot.

“Fine,” the investigator muttered. “If you won’t leave, then listen carefully. Replace everything that belonged to the deceased — furniture, clothes, utensils. And one more thing: never imitate what the dead man did while he was alive. Never repeat his emotions. Day or night.”

“Replace his belongings, sure. But what do you mean by ‘don’t imitate him’? If I feel what he felt — does that bring him back?”

The investigator didn’t answer. He turned away and climbed the stairs, vanishing into the dim hallway above.

Serena watched him leave, then stepped close behind Ethan. Her voice was a whisper brushing against his ear.“That man from Newford seems to know quite a lot. But now, no one will interrupt us.”

She closed the security door with a metallic click, the sound echoing like a lock sealing a crypt.

“Think of it this way,” she said softly. “Your games are where two worlds overlap — and you are the key that opens them. What we need to do is simple: in this dead man’s house, we become him. We live as he did, feel as he felt. His resentment, his grief, his pain — they’ll find their way back to us. Then the urban legend will awaken, centered on you.”

“That sounds awfully familiar,” Ethan muttered. The investigator’s warning still rang in his ears. “Are you sure this is a good idea?”

Serena blinked, taken aback for a heartbeat, then smiled faintly.“Urban-legend games are the most dangerous of all. Once they fully manifest, fear takes root in everyone who’s ever heard them — feeding on their minds until nothing human remains. We can’t fight that. The only way is to trigger them early, before they mature, and destroy them in their cradle.”

Her tone hardened. “It’s dangerous. People might die. But if we do nothing… a hundred times more will.”

Ethan said nothing. She wasn’t wrong. The corruption of a few harmless games had already thrown the city into chaos. If the true urban-legend games ever fused completely with reality, it would be catastrophic.

“Some things,” he said quietly, “can’t be avoided.”

He sat down in front of the mirror, following Serena’s instructions, holding one of her blank death portraits.

The lights went out. Four white candles flickered in the corners of the room.Rain pattered against the glass. Thunder rolled. Lightning sliced the dark.

Ethan closed his eyes and began to breathe deeply.He summoned the memory of the dead man — Zhao He, the previous tenant.

Zhao had been an orphan, found as a baby near a trash heap and raised by an elderly woman. He never went to school. The neighborhood kids bullied him, but he never fought back.

When he grew up, he worked at the docks, hauling cargo to pay for his younger siblings’ tuition.Always smiling, always helping others — the kind of man everyone liked but no one truly saw.

Then last year, an accident crippled his leg. The factory fired him.Jobless, uneducated, limping, and despised by the family he supported, Zhao began to crumble. His foster mother scolded him daily. His sister-in-law mocked him.

The man who’d spent his life trying to belong became invisible again.

His cheerfulness had been a mask — a desperate performance to earn the right to exist. Beneath it festered something raw and unbearable.

And when the pain turned inward, he began to hate himself.

The air in the room grew colder. Shadows thickened like fog.

Ethan’s breathing hitched. His throat constricted as if an invisible noose were tightening. The room darkened until no light remained. His reflection warped — the mirror rippling as if submerged underwater.

He wasn’t in the apartment anymore.He was there — in Zhao’s final night.

No escape. No door. Only the crushing sense of being forgotten by the world.

The shadows crawled up the walls, consuming the furniture. His body trembled, not from fear but from recognition. The weight of another man’s despair pressed into his soul.

Then —

Silence.

Every candle went out.

When Ethan opened his eyes, Room 2507 was swallowed in darkness.

He looked toward the mirror — and froze.

Inside it lay a twisted, upside-down version of his apartment.

Then came the sound.

THUD!

A deafening crash shook the building. Ethan rushed to the balcony.

Down in the courtyard, beside the stairwell of Building 2, a body lay sprawled in the rain — limbs contorted, neck bent at an impossible angle.

And even from five floors up, Ethan could tell the corpse was staring straight at him.