Death Trap

Whee whoo! Click. A tanned hand turned off the switch to the siren before its owner stepped out of the police car. Shutting the car door behind him, the officer took a glance at the variety of vehicles parked on the street nearby. This lowered his vigilance a bit so he confidently gave a wave towards his male partner on the other side of the car before they jogged towards the nearby old apartment building to get out of the rain.

Entering the building, the two officers brushed off some of the water staining their clothes to the best of their abilities while the tanned officer complained softly, "Man, it's raining cats and dogs out there, and we are still so unlucky to get a case all the way out in this remote place. I'm surprised there are actually so many people living out here."

His companion, a middle-aged American male with a goatee, replied helplessly, "We got paid for it and we still have to do our duty in the end. Just blame the one who made the call."

"Urgg ... according to the operator, it seems to be a criminal on the loose? Man, I really hope I don't encounter a dangerous one. I hope it's just a dud. The city is already chaotic enough recently, we don't need another murderer on the loose," the tanned officer uttered in frustration.

"Hey, it's not confirmed yet. After all, it may just be a prank call as there was no evidence. Perhaps the one who called in was just skeptical of his neighbor or something. It's not the first time we had to deal with overly suspicious folks like them," his companion replied mockingly.

After a bit of chattering, the duo strolled towards the elevator. Noticing the shoddy signs, the two shrugged at each other before walking off to find the stairway entrance. Although they had doubts regarding the authenticity of the signs, they would rather not test it with their own lives unless necessary.

Following the signs, they arrived at the stairway door. A shoddy 'Toilet Wonderland' sign, that felt like it was going to fall off at any moment, greeted them. The duo's mouth twitched as they didn't have any good feeling about this shoddy place.

Pulling open the door and stepping in, they were greeted by a lady's cheerful voice, "Hai~ Welcome to Toilet Wonderland! Did you come to try out the haunted house as well?"

Glancing over, the duo noticed a young lady with a bob-hair cut sitting behind a wooden cabinet. Her excited greeting confused them a bit, unlike someone that actually needed help.

The tanned officer couldn't help but ask, "Miss, were you the one that called the police regarding a suspected criminal on the loose?"

"Huh?" the young lady cutely tilted her head and blankly stared back at the two officers in confusion.

Placing one finger on her lips in thought, the young lady couldn't help but softly mutter, "Could it be master?"

"What's that?" the tanned officer asked for a clarification because he could barely hear her muttering.

"Hmm~ Nothing~ there probably was a call? Maybe? Oh, yes, so do you want to try out our new haunted house?" the young lady somehow changed the topic back to the haunted house after a half-ass answer, causing the two officers to frown.

"Miss, we aren't here to play around. Please be serious. Did you or anyone you know call for the police regarding a suspected murderer," the officer with a goatee questioned in a serious tone.

"Moee~" the young lady pouted in frustration as she glared at the two officers before she picked up a plushy doll that was sitting on her laps.

Facing the doll, the young lady gently commanded, "Ali, tell your dolls to go alert master that we have visitors."

The officers then watched in shock as the doll nodded back towards the young lady, but then they thought it was their misconception as they saw it become still once more. However, their eyes shrunk when they saw the doll flap its hand up and down.

The young lady then giggled as she whispered, "As expected of master~ Master is always paying attention to Alice and already knows we had visitors."

The two officers glanced at each as they felt that something strange was going on, but before they can confirm anything, they watched in shock as the young lady disappear into thin air in front of them!

"W-what?! Where did she go?!" the goatee officer exclaimed as he glanced around vigilantly.

The tanned officer frowned as a drop of sweat rolled down his face. He recalled the many strange cases that had popped up all around the city recently as his heart thumped in fear.

"L-Let's get out of here. This may have to do with those strange cases of disappearances, it's not something we can handle. Go back and report it to the station," the tanned officer commanded as he turned around and pulled open the stairway door.

The duo swiftly jogged through the door and down the hallway. Suddenly, the goatee officer froze in confusion as he stopped his companion.

"Wait. Is there supposed to be an elevator facing the stairway? I thought we had to walk around in order to reach the stairs?"

With his companion's reminder, the tanned officer felt his heart sink. He honestly did not discover anything wrong until this moment. It was like there was some unknown power confusing him! Just when the tanned officer wanted to respond to his companion, a lady's creepy giggle interrupted him.

"Hehehe~"

In the tanner officer's eyes, he saw the familiar young lady from earlier running out from the wall of the hallway and across the hallway in the distance. The tanned officer's eyes shrunk as his heart thumped.

"G-Ghost! Ahhh!" The tanned officer screamed in fear as he backed away in fear.

"H-Huh? What?" his companion watched the tanned officer run away in fear with a bit of confusion.

Glancing at the empty, gloomy hallway, the companion didn't see anything unusual; however, he still decided to chase after his companion.

"Hey, Jake, wait for me!" the goatee officer hollered as he watched his companion run back into the stairway and disappearing out of sight.

The goatee officer dashed after him, but just when he was about to reach the stairway door, he found his surroundings distort. In the blink of an eye, he found himself on the other end of the hallway.

The goatee officer's eyes shrunk as he pulled out his gun and gripped it tightly in his hand. He knew that something was very wrong. This isn't a case of normal murderer, but it might be related to one of those strange incidents that he saw on the news.

Glaring around vigilantly, the goatee officer growled with false bravado, "Come out whoever you are! I-I'm not scared of you!"

However, what answered him was the uncomfortable silence. A faint pressure pressed down upon the officer as he felt that there was something peeking at him. A drop of sweat rolled down his face as he could feel a chill down his spine.

Suddenly, the man felt his stomach grumble. Clutching his stomach, the officer couldn't help but growled in confusion, "Why am I getting a stomachache now? Is it that spicy chicken taco from earlier?"

Creak. Hearing the door creaking open near him, the officer swiftly turned his head over in fright and aimed his gun in that direction vigilantly. Seeing nothing coming out of the room, he breathed a sigh of relief before clutching his stomach once more.

"Heck, is there a bathroom in here? I don't think I can hold this in. Even if I end up getting killed by the strange monster, I have to let this out first."

As if there was someone agreeing with his thoughts, the pressure around him seemed to have lighten up a bit. The officer than strolled through the nearby apartment doorway that had been opened for him. Ignoring the security uniforms laying silently on the desk, it didn't take long for him to find the small bathroom. Moments later, the groans of a middle-aged man came from the bathroom.

After a while, the groans of pain became softer and softer. The officer in the bathroom felt an unprecedented weakness after releasing the load inside of him. Due to his weakness, he couldn't even get off the toilet. Feeling drained of his vitality, his vision faded in and out while a headache assaulted him.

In the midst of his final moments, he saw a young man fade into existence in front of him. He couldn't really make out the details of the young man with his faded vision, but in his daze, he still realized his end was coming.

The last thing the officer heard before passing out was the chilling man's emotionless voice, "Don't worry, your companion will join you soon."

Glancing at the officer who had passed out of the toilet from blood loss, an evil grin appeared on Pro's face as he went to find Ali. Bringing her over, he watched another police officer plushy doll being added to Ali's kingdom.

Yes, this was not the first police officer doll being converted. Within the past couple of days, Pro had already burned most of the bridges for the normal civilian visitors. Besides the fact that some didn't come yet due to the rain, Pro had already harvested most of the civilians that were willing to come to his place.

Knowing that it wasn't enough, Pro even boldly called the police and reported himself. He also did his best to attract their attention in many ways, including throwing out fake facts about murderers, hit man, and disappearance clues. All of this was done just to get officers to come here.

Of course, it was obvious what happened to all the visitors who stepped into his death trap. Their souls will forever be trapped in his domain, and their vehicles served as decoration for the empty street. Of course, Pro manually drove the vehicles to their corresponding spots, and he hid the vehicles that stood out like the police cars behind the building to avoid arousing suspicion.

After a few days, Ali had already accumulated a total of 51 doll citizens. In this mix, there were at least 10 who were police officers dolls, and there will be two more soon!

Not only that, once Ali accumulated 50 doll citizens, she finally upgraded into a mid-level baleful spirit, regaining some of her former strength along with a new ability, Doll Network.

[Doll Network] All doll's created by Ali are bound to a mental network that allows them to communicate with each other mentally regardless of distance.

With this useful ability, Pro was able to implement a new alert mechanism using the dolls. By having Ali stay with Alice at the entrance, he could have Ali command one of her dolls to give him one of the many predetermined alert signals with different body movements.

With this, Pro didn't have to pay attention to the situation at the entrance full time. Before he implemented this, he had to check on the entrance once in a while with his domain perception, but now he can just wait for the alert before checking. With less distractions, this allowed him to focus more on planning an escape with less loopholes.

Of course, the points were still ramping up pretty quickly. Due to his all out effort, he had already earned 2100 life points in just a couple of days. After Alice is done harvesting fear from the officers that he let 'escape' into the stairway, he will also harvest him as well, bringing his total points up to 19150!

Unfortunately, there was no investigators stopping by so far. Perhaps due to the chaos in the rest of the city, the government may not have enough personnel to come investigate his situation anymore.

Pro was a bit disappointed with this, but he was glad that the police station was still dumbly sending police officers to this location after the rest disappeared. He didn't know if this was done on purpose or if it was negligence, but he won't complain.

Still, Pro was a bit short of the 25,000 points. After a couple days of calm, the first tickets that he booked for his escape was about to expire. Pro began to have thoughts of taking a bit of risk and invading the ninth floor in order to give his points a small boost.

"It's not necessary to harvest the whole floor. I just need to grab a couple then to bring me a bit closer, and I can collect the rest from humans. However, what I'm worried about is that they would damage my domain and prevent my promotion," Pro frowned a bit as he weighed the pros and cons in his mind.

Although he could eventually harvest enough points, Pro wanted to escape as soon as possible. Checking the news every day, he noticed the growing chaos outside as if a conspiracy was brewing, but he knew that the chaos will eventually be suppressed.

Recently, he began to see some news of some 'criminals' being apprehended or 'perished' during the capture at previously deemed 'haunted' locations. Maybe a normal person may not be able to tell, but Pro knew that those 'criminals' were most likely exorcised evil spirits or cultists.

Not only that, gang fights, gas explosions, and riots were reported to happen throughout the city. However, this was what was reported on the surface. This was probably done to hide the existence of mystics by covering up the traces of their battles with cultists.

"It seems the government has finally sent in support. The chaos will eventually calm down, and once it does, they may focus their attention over here. The chaotic situation will be the best time for me to mix in and escape. If I miss this opportunity, I may be locked onto and it will be much more difficult to hide my traces."

After gritting his teeth for a bit, Pro finally made the decision to take a risk. Even if he ends up capsizing, it's better than waiting for death. It's time to prepare for his final hunt, and hope that it will go as smoothly as 7-8-9.

"Ninth floor ... get your doors ready for the pro door smasher."