THE END OF THE TEN DAYS

Chapter 1: The Empty Room

An old tungsten filament bulb hung from a black wire in the center of the room, flickering with dim light. The silence spread through the room like ink diffusing into clear water, slowly expanding in all directions. In the very center of the room stood a large, weathered round table, worn and scarred by time. At its heart was a small ornate clock, ticking softly with intricate patterns carved into its surface.

Around the table sat ten people, each in different attire. Their clothes appeared somewhat tattered, and their faces bore traces of dust. Some lay slumped over the table; others leaned back in their chairs, all deep in sleep.

Beside them stood a man, silent and still, dressed in a black suit and wearing a goat-headed mask. His gaze, intense and unyielding, watched them with interest through the cracked eyes of the mask. (Note: Goat masks, representing one of the twelve animals in the Chinese zodiac, have symbolic meanings in Chinese culture.)

The clock on the table chimed, its minute and hour hands meeting at twelve. From a distant place outside the room, a low, resonant bell tolled faintly.

At that precise moment, the ten men and women around the table began to stir, slowly awakening. As they regained consciousness, they first looked around in confusion, then turned to each other with puzzled expressions.

It seemed no one remembered why they were there.

“Good morning, my nine guests,” the man in the goat mask spoke first. “It’s a pleasure to meet you all here. You’ve been asleep in my presence for twelve hours.”

The man’s bizarre attire startled everyone in the dim light. His mask seemed crafted from a real goat’s head; much of the fur had yellowed and clumped together in tangled tufts. The eyes of the goat mask had hollowed-out holes, through which his cunning eyes gleamed. The faint scent of decay and the distinct musk of a goat radiated from his every movement.

A man with tattooed arms blinked, taking a few seconds to process the absurdity of the situation before finally asking, with hesitation, “Who... are you?”

“I imagine you’re all wondering the same thing,” the man in the goat mask said, waving his hands in delight, as if he’d long prepared for this moment.

A young man named Zachary Qian sat farthest from the goat-masked man, observing the room’s details with a quick, sharp eye. His expression soon grew serious. There was something wrong with this room. It had no doors; all four walls were solid. The floor, walls, and ceiling were all sealed, with only the table at the room’s center standing out as odd. How had they arrived here? Had the walls been constructed around them after they were brought in?

Zachary scanned the area again, noticing the intersecting grid lines covering the floors, walls, and ceiling, dividing them into neat, large squares. And then, he focused on something peculiar the goat-masked man had said: “nine guests.”

Counting those seated around the round table, there were clearly ten people, plus the goat-masked man himself, making eleven in total. So, what did “nine guests” mean?

He reached for his pocket, only to find his phone had been taken.

“No need to explain anything to us,” a woman with a cool, detached voice interjected. She turned to the goat-masked man and said, “I advise you to stop this game. I suspect you’ve held us here for over twenty-four hours already, which counts as ‘illegal detention.’ Every word you say is being mentally recorded and could be used as evidence against you.”

As she spoke, she brushed the dust off her arms with visible disdain, as if her biggest irritation was not the captivity itself, but the dirt it brought.

The woman’s words snapped everyone back to reality. Whoever this person was, the mere fact that he’d kidnapped ten people at once meant he’d already crossed a serious line.

“Wait…” A middle-aged man in a white coat interrupted, his gaze shifting to the cold woman. “We all just woke up. How do you know we’ve been detained for twenty-four hours?”

His calm yet piercing tone demanded answers.

Without missing a beat, the woman pointed to the clock on the table. “The clock points to twelve. I have a habit of staying up late. The last time I checked my own clock, it was also twelve. That suggests we’ve been held here for at least twelve hours.”

She then gestured to the walls. “And if you observe, there are no doors. Clearly, he went to great lengths to bring us here. He said we’ve been asleep for twelve hours, and now the clock points to twelve again. That’s two full rotations, meaning I suspect it’s been ‘over twenty-four hours.’ Any problem with that?”

The man in the white coat shot her a cold glance, doubt lingering in his eyes. This woman was unusually calm, almost unsettlingly so, for a situation as dire as this. Who could maintain such composure in the face of a kidnapping?

At that moment, a muscular young man in a black T-shirt turned to the man in the goat mask. “Why do you say there are nine people here when there are clearly ten?”

The man in the goat mask remained silent, not answering immediately.

“Damn it,” the tattooed man cursed, pushing on the table to stand, only to find his legs weak and unresponsive. Frustrated, he pointed at the goat-masked man and snarled, “Listen, I’m warning you, you have no idea what consequences you’re facing by messing with me. I could kill you myself.”

The tension in the room heightened as the men exchanged glances, their expressions growing increasingly serious. They were in dire need of a leader, someone who could rally them to confront the man in the goat mask. But, to their dismay, their legs were as useless as lead, leaving them unable to stand.

Left with no option but verbal threats, the tattooed man continued his tirade, his voice rising in frustration.

Zachary stayed silent, his hand resting thoughtfully on his chin as he watched the clock on the table, lost in contemplation. Things were more complex than they seemed. He knew the goat-masked man was referring to “nine participants,” which meant that if there were ten people present, one of them was not a participant.

So, who was the odd one out?

There were six men and four women seated at the table. Could it be that one of them was “the captor”?

Without a word, the goat-masked man moved slowly, approaching Zachary and standing behind a young man. The others followed his gaze and noticed that the young man, unlike the rest, wore a faint, unsettling smile, though his face was smeared with dirt.

The goat-masked man raised his hand and placed it on the back of the young man’s head. The young man’s grin grew wider, his eyes gleaming with a knowing look, as if he’d anticipated this all along.

Then, with a single, swift motion, the goat-masked man smashed the young man’s head against the table. A splatter of pinkish-white substance spread across the table like spilled paint, and everyone’s faces were speckled with blood.

The young man’s skull had been shattered upon impact with the table.

From beyond the walls, the distant sound of a bell chimed once more.

Sitting closest to the now-dead man, Zachary felt a warm, sticky piece of something land on his face. Although he prided himself on his resilience, he couldn’t suppress the shiver that ran through him.

A woman seated to the right of the dead man sat frozen for three seconds before her face twisted in horror, and she let out a piercing scream, shattering the psychological defenses of everyone in the room.

To be able to crush a human skull against a table with just his hand—could the Goat Mask even be considered “human”?

How could his frail-looking body hold such immense strength?

The man in the goat mask slowly broke the silence. “The reason there are ten of you is simple: I needed one of you to show the rest how to stay quiet.”