Ava jolted awake, trembling, her lungs burning as if she’d been drowning. Her hand shot to her chest. Nothing. No blood. No torn flesh. Just skin—whole and intact. Her heart slammed in her chest, refusing to slow, and the room tilted with every ragged breath. This was the second time she’d lost a life. She wasn’t used to it. Not at all.

And then it hit her.

A baby. Crying. Hunting. Killing. Roaming the building.

The image burned behind her eyes. She wouldn’t step outside before sunrise, not again. Not with that thing loose in the dark. She would wait. She would listen. Tomorrow, she would gather information from the other students.

This time, she was a university student. Classes did not matter to players, at least in this level. She would spend the day lingering, watching, fishing for fragments of truth.

Looking at the picture of the arm again, she applied a filter, muting the colors until the image looked dull and lifeless. The arm was tiny. Too tiny. Not even close to the size of a baby’s. This was most definitely a fetus.

It was short and padded, the skin folded in soft creases that made it look unfinished. The hand was small, fingers blunt and slightly curled, as if they had never learned to open properly. The edge was not torn. It looked pressed, irregular, wrong, as though it had never truly belonged to anything whole.

Did one of the girls on this floor… have a miscarriage here? It can’t be possible to terminate a pregnancy when the fetus is that big… it can only be a miscarriage. But then… then why is it here? Is it… looking for the mother? Did it mistake me for her? Does it want me… to be a ghost too?

Something this big—the news of a student having a miscarriage in the dorm—will definitely be going around. Discovering the outline of the story… shouldn’t be much of a problem.

She lay on the bed, staring at the ceiling till sunrise.

The lullaby drifted by, soft and uneven, every now and then. The sliding echoed faintly in the corridor, up and down the stairs, carrying a sense of movement from somewhere above and below. 

Then… the cry. Terrifying, distant, but unmistakable. She heard it twice, coming from another floor, sharp and sudden, cutting through the lullaby like a warning she couldn’t ignore. 

When her roommate finally woke, she noticed Ava’s red eyes and stiff posture and frowned.

“Did you even sleep?” her roommate asked, sitting up and squinting at her. “You look awful.”

“A little,” Ava said. “The noise… kept waking me up.”

“You should’ve used earplugs,” the girl said softly. “They are going to get tired after a while.”

Ava didn’t answer right away.

The girl tilted her head. “You didn’t go out, did you?”

“No,” Ava said quickly. “I’m not that dumb.”

Even if I’m not dumb, I’ll have to do it anyway. This level won’t be passed by staying inside.

“You should stay in the room this morning, then. You don’t have classes anyway. What about your job?”

“I’m not working today.”

When she realized she wouldn’t sleep, Ava used the time for something useful instead of wasting what little time she had. She scrolled through her phone. A calendar filled the screen; classes and part-time shifts packed tightly together. The student she was now portraying worked two part-time jobs. That explained why she had come back late the night before.

She checked the messages next. No friends, just class group chats filled with schedule changes and reminders about attendance. The only personal conversation was with her roommate. Ava had found her ID earlier on the desk when she got up to listen at the door, trying to trace the source of the baby’s cry. Her name was Mia.

“I’ll grab you breakfast before I head out,” Mia said, pulling on her shoes. “We’ll meet at lunch and I’ll get the new key from you.”

“Okay,” Ava said.

After her roommate left, the room fell quiet. For the first time since the night before, Ava let herself sleep.

She woke to knocking.

Her heart jumped before she forced herself upright and approached the door. An old man stood there, a warm smile on his face. “Locksmith,” he said politely.

“Can I see your identification?” Ava asked, her voice tight.

He handed over a set of documents, and she studied them carefully before nodding.

Once inside, he worked quickly. The sharp clink of metal and the scraping of tools filled the small room. While changing the lock, he spoke in a calm, almost casual tone. “Girls need to be more cautious,” he said. “Trusting the wrong people can be dangerous. Safety always comes first.”

When he finished, he handed her the new keys. Moments later, he was gone, leaving the room sealed and silent once more.

With more than an hour left before lunch, she decided to look for clues. Walking around the third floor, nothing seemed out of place, no trace of her blood from yesterday, no sign of the arm on the ground.

Not wanting to risk being caught in the boys’ dormitories on the fourth or fifth floor, getting thrown out of campus, and failing the level, she quietly headed down to the second floor, where the female Honors Program students lived.

The moment she stepped off the stairs, she felt the difference. The floor held a tension that lingered in the air, heavier than the third floor. Silence pressed against her ears, and even the faint hum of lights seemed subdued, as if the entire floor was holding its breath. She moved carefully through the hallway, searching for anything unusual, but found no clue, no fragment was triggered either.

Frustrated and restless, she decided to try the first floor instead. She made her way down and sank into a chair in the lounge, absently holding a random book. The room was quiet, but she soon caught the sound of whispering. A few boys were huddled near the corner, talking in low voices.

One of them stood out. He sat a little apart from the group, clearly straining to catch what the others were saying. Ava listened carefully.

“…did you hear it? The lullaby?” one of the boys whispered.

“…and the baby cry…” another muttered.

The lone student stiffened, then suddenly stood and hurried out of the building.

One of the boys leaned closer, whispering, “Is any of you the one doing this… play?”

“No, not me,” another said quickly. “I don’t have time to study, let alone pull some pranks.”

“Or do you know who is doing it?” someone else asked, voice tense.

“Even the staff couldn’t catch them,” another muttered. “After what happened… It's not funny. It’s like laughing at someone’s loss.”

They think it’s a joke? It sure didn’t look like one when my HEART was RIPPED out of my body, she thought grimly. And… what did he mean by “laughing at someone’s loss”? Does he think someone is making fun of the girl’s miscarriage?

Deep in thought, a bright sign caught her attention—a label hovering above someone’s head: Player 2. The player was leaving the dormitory.

A mysterious smile appeared on her face as she stood, slipping the book aside. Without hesitation, she followed.

She caught up to her and draped her left arm casually over her shoulder. “Well, hello there. Remember me?” she said, her voice low.

Then she stretched out her injured right hand for the player to see, letting it linger in view.

The player stiffened when Ava’s arm draped over her shoulder, a shiver running down her spine. “I… I’m sorry,” she whispered again, stepping back, trying to pull away.

Ava didn’t let her go. Her voice dropped, low and sharp. “An apology isn’t going to fix this. How about you answer some questions?“

“Or,” she continued lightly, “you can choose to let me break… mm… let’s say the foot you used to injure me. Fair, isn’t it?”

Her eyes slowly drifted down to the player’s legs, calculating. “Which one was it again? Do you remember? No? Then I’ll just choose.”

The player’s whole body shook. Her voice came out in broken whispers, stuttering with fear. “I… I… I’ll… I’ll answer… if… if I… know… the answer…”

Her eyes darted nervously to Ava’s hand, then back to her face, pleading without words, desperate for any sign that surrendering might save her.