The day my biological parents finally "reclaimed" me from my middle-class life, they didn't throw a homecoming party. Instead, they packed me up like a piece of unwanted cargo and tossed me straight into a high-stakes horror trial—all to serve as a human shield for their precious, adopted daughter. My birth parents had spent a small fortune on a rare soul-binding artifact. It linked my life force to Tiffany’s, ensuring that any physical harm meant for her would instantly transfer to me. To make sure nothing went wrong, my older brother, Wayne, even volunteered to enter the arena with her, acting as her personal guardian. I stood there in my cheap, pretty dress, clutching the fabric so hard my knuckles turned white. My eyes burned with hot, humiliating tears. "Please," I whispered, my voice trembling. "I don't want to die." But they only looked at me with deep, chilling distaste. "A useless thing like you, who does nothing but cry, is just a drain on resources anyway," my biological father sneered. "Consider it your civic duty," my mother added, her tone utterly detached. "Taking Tiffany’s place is the only way you'll ever be of any use to this family." Beside them, Tiffany smirked, tossing her perfectly curled hair. "They don't have crybabies in the Trials, sweetie," she whispered, leaning in close. "A delicate little flower like you? I give you twenty-four hours, max. Just try not to break my expensive artifact too quickly." Then came the blinding flash of white light, and the world dissolved. But before the terror could fully sink in, before I could even let out a sob, I froze. We were standing in front of a sprawling, gothic manor. Sure, the sky was a bruised, unnatural violet, and the air smelled of ozone and ancient stone. But... wasn't this my adoptive parents' house? The very house I had walked out of this morning, where my sweet, eccentric mom and dad had kissed my forehead and tearfully begged me to visit them often? When on earth did my childhood home become an S-Class horror dungeon? And more importantly... did that make my parents the final bosses? … The sky above was stained a violent, bleeding crimson, and a flock of ravens circled the dark spires of the manor. Even the vast rose gardens flanking the driveway seemed to drip with deep, arterial red. If it weren't for the two stone lions guarding the front gates—the exact ones I had ordered online last summer—I would have convinced myself I was hallucinating. But I had lived here for eighteen years. Not once had my adoptive parents mentioned that our cozy, gothic-revival estate was actually a designated murder-zone for the System. Before I could wrap my head around it, a sharp, white-hot agony flared in my left wrist. The pain was so sudden, so intense, that I gasped, tears instantly spilling over my cheeks. Right beside me, Tiffany let out a thrilled, breathless laugh. "Wayne, look! It actually works! I didn't feel a thing!" She triumphantly raised her pale, unblemished arm. In her other hand, she held a silver dagger, its tip dripping with fresh blood. I looked down at my own left wrist. A jagged, angry laceration had split the skin, crimson pooling and spilling onto the dirt. Growing up, my adoptive parents had shielded me from everything. I was so sheltered that they literally chased mosquitoes away from me. I had never even scraped a knee, let alone seen my own blood flow like water. The ground tilted. The crimson sky spun. The sheer shock of the pain sent my vision black, and I collapsed onto the damp grass. Through the haze, I heard Tiffany’s annoyed groan. "Seriously? She faints at the sight of blood?" "If the soul-binding artifact didn't require a direct blood relative, I would never have agreed to bring this useless charity case along," she grumbled. "If I knew she was this pathetic, I would've told Mom and Dad to leave her in the gutter where they found her." My biological brother, Wayne, stepped forward, gently smoothing her hair. "Mom and Dad only brought her home so she could die for you, Tiff," he said, his voice dripping with a warmth he had never once shown me. "You’re the only sister I care about. The only daughter of the Whitmore house. As for her... she’s not walking out of this place alive." He turned, his shadow falling over my shivering form. He looked down at me, his eyes colder than the stone lions behind him. "Hey. Wake up. Get your head straight and don't think for a second that sharing our DNA gives you any leverage over me. I have one sister, and her name is Tiffany." I squeezed my eyes shut, my entire body trembling. I was too weak, too utterly drained by the phantom blood loss, to even muster a reply. Before the silence could stretch, another flash of light illuminated the courtyard. Three men materialized near the gates. There was a hulking, muscular man, a scruffy guy with a thick beard, and a lean man wearing wire-rimmed glasses. Each of them carried heavy, menacing gear. They radiated a hard, desperate edge. The muscular one, Rex, stepped forward, his eyes scanning our group. "Newbies?" his gaze lingered on Tiffany's glowing wrist. "And you've got an aura-disguising decoy artifact. Fancy." He gestured subtly to his two companions before turning back to us with a cold, predatory smile. "We're veterans. Cleaned out three S-Class runs already. We could probably carry you through this hellhole." He paused, his eyes sliding over to me, shivering on the grass. "But... we’re going to need your little decoy to clear the traps first." Tiffany's eyes lit up as she looked at their heavy weaponry. Without a second thought, she blurted out, "Deal! Take her. Use the useless bitch however you want." "If you get me out of here alive, my family will wire you thirty million dollars the second we hit the real world." The three veterans exchanged glances, their lips curling into dark, satisfied grins. Satisfied with the arrangement, Wayne marched over and kicked my ribs. Not hard enough to break them, but enough to send a sickening jolt of pain through my abdomen. "Are you deaf?" he snarled. "Get up. Get to the front and start walking." I clutched my stomach, stumbling to my feet. My face was entirely drained of color as I took the lead, stepping onto the gravel path. But as I walked closer to the massive double doors, a strange, desperate warmth began to bloom in my chest. My adoptive father’s parting words echoed in my mind. On the morning I left, he had hugged me tightly, his voice low and vibrating with a strange, dark intensity: 'If those people ever hurt you, sweetheart, you tell us. I will make them beg for the release of death.' I was almost home. With my real parents inside, no one could touch me. My steps grew lighter, more urgent. Tears welled in my eyes, but I blinked them back, swallowing the urge to sob. I didn't want them to see me looking like a crybaby the second I got back. But the moment I pushed open the heavy oak doors, the atmosphere shifted. The interior of the manor was structurally identical to the home I had left, but the lights were dead. Only a few thick, black wax candles flickered along the grand hallway, throwing long, distorted shadows against the walls. In the center of the foyer stood a tall, slender silhouette. Seeing the familiar, crisp lines of his tailcoat, I let out a shaky breath of pure relief. It was Thomas, our butler. He had practically raised me, slipping me extra sweets when my parents weren't looking. He would put these awful people in their place. I wiped the tears from my cheeks and rushed forward, a fragile smile breaking across my face. "Thomas—" The butler turned to face me. Under the flickering candlelight, his warm, familiar eyes dissolved into twin pools of liquid crimson. His jaw unhinged with a sickening wet click, tearing all the way back to his earlobes to reveal rows of needle-sharp, glistening fangs. I froze, my breath catching in my throat. In the reflection of his polished spectacles, I saw myself. Except... it wasn't my face. Thanks to Tiffany's soul-binding decoy artifact, my appearance and life-force signature had been completely overwritten to match hers. To Thomas, I looked exactly like the spoiled stranger standing behind me. My blood ran ice-cold. He doesn't recognize me. I instinctively lowered my head, my heart hammering against my ribs like a trapped bird. Thomas’s terrifying, blood-red gaze swept past me, locking onto the five people who had just stepped through the door. His voice was a horrible, grating rasp, like rusty nails grinding against stone. "You are precisely one second late." "The Master demands absolute punctuality. As a minor warning... one of you must pay the penalty." The System’s rules for the manor suddenly flashed in the air in glowing, crimson letters: Rule 1: Servants must obey the Masters unconditionally. Rule 2: Servants must perform their duties diligently. No slacking. Rule 3: The Masters value time above all else. Do not be late. Rule 4: Servants have no names. You are only numbers. To survive: Live through three days and secure the master key. Cold sweat beaded on the foreheads of the veterans behind me. In an S-Class dungeon, violating a rule usually meant a swift, excruciating death. Thomas’s head tilted at an unnatural angle, his smile stretching wider. "Let us see... who will be our unfortunate soul tonight?" "For a first offense, we shall keep it light. Just a finger." Hearing that it wasn't an immediate death sentence, the group let out a collective, ragged sigh of relief. Tiffany even let out a small, arrogant scoff. The terrifying S-Class boss suddenly seemed much less intimidating if his only punishment was a missing finger. But Rex, the muscle-bound veteran, remained tense. He nudged Tiffany sharply. "Miss Whitmore. Time to use your decoy." Tiffany smirked, casting a sideways glance at me. "If this clumsy idiot hadn't dragged her feet outside, we wouldn't have been late in the first place," she hissed. "Losing a finger is too good for her." She stepped forward, thrusting her hand toward the butler with a sickeningly sweet smile. "Take her! She’s my servant. I choose her!" My heart plummeted. Tiffany didn't just want me to take her physical damage. She wanted to throw me to the wolves for every minor infraction, using me as social currency to buy favor with the veterans. Desperate, I opened my mouth to scream my real name to Thomas. "Thomas, it’s me! I’m Mai—" The words died in my throat. Rule 4: Servants have no names. What would happen if I broke a system rule right in front of him? Would the game force him to execute me before he even realized who I was? I bit my lip so hard I tasted copper, tears spilling over. Thomas stared at Tiffany, his crimson eyes gleaming with a malicious, knowing light. With a flick of his wrist, a pair of massive, tarnished iron shears materialized in his hand. I closed my eyes, braced for the agonizing tear of my flesh. Snip. A wet, heavy thud echoed on the hardwood floor. Then, a blood-curdling shriek shattered the silence. I opened my eyes, frantically checking my hands. Both of them were perfectly intact. Instead, Harvey—the glasses-wearing veteran—was on his knees, clutching his left hand where his pinky finger had been cleanly severed. Blood sprayed between his knuckles. Tiffany gasped, her eyes wide with shock and confusion as she stared at the screaming man. "How... how is this possible? I chose her! The artifact is active!" Thomas casually wiped a drop of dark blood from his silver shears, his smile cold and mocking. "Did I ever say... you were the one who got to choose?" The foyer fell into a suffocating, dead silence. No one dared to breathe. They realized, with absolute certainty, that a single wrong word would result in their heads rolling across the floor next. Thomas nodded, seemingly satisfied with the sudden obedience. He pointed a long, pale finger toward the dark, yawning corridor at the end of the hall. "Your quarters are at the end of the hall. Your uniforms are waiting inside. The room numbers correspond to your designated designations." "Numbers One through Six. Choose wisely." "And remember... never, ever sleep in the wrong room." With that cryptic warning, his form dissolved into the shadows, leaving us in pitch darkness. Rex and his bearded companion didn't waste a second. They grabbed the bleeding Harvey and bolted down the hallway. Wayne grabbed Tiffany's arm, dragging her along as they scrambled to claim the safest rooms. But they were too late. Rooms One through Three were already claimed, their heavy wooden doors slammed shut. Only Rooms Four, Five, and Six remained. But Room Four had a fresh, wet-looking red handprint smeared across the center of the door. It radiated a heavy, malevolent aura. Wayne took one look at it and instantly made his decision. "You take Room Four," he barked, shoving me toward the door with the bloody handprint. "Tiffany takes Five. I'll take Six." "Tiffany is in the middle, so you’ll be flanked. If anything tries to get to her, you throw yourself in front of it." He leaned in, his voice dropping to a harsh, threatening whisper. "If a single hair on Tiffany’s head is harmed, you won't survive the night anyway. Remember that." I looked at the number '6' on his door, my throat tightening. I knew that room. "Don't go into Room Six..." I whispered, trying to warn him. But Wayne only scoffed, grabbing my injured left wrist and violently throwing me into Room Four. "In this place, you do exactly what I tell you." Tiffany leaned against the doorframe of Room Five, crossing her arms with a sneer. "The decoy gets the death room. Poetic justice, really." "Sweet dreams." The heavy oak door slammed shut, and the lock clicked into place. I clutched my bleeding wrist, tears finally spilling over. If Wayne didn't view me as human, let alone his sister, then I owed him nothing. I wouldn't warn him again. What they didn't know was that the brass numbers on Rooms Six and Nine had been inverted years ago. When I was in elementary school, I had accidentally screwed the number '9' upside down while playing with a screwdriver. Room Six was actually Room Nine. Wayne had just locked himself inside the most dangerous, unstable room in the house. And the terrifying Room Four? It was my childhood art studio. The 'bloody handprint' on the door was just some red acrylic paint I had gotten on my hands during an art session three weeks ago. My adoptive mother had found it endearing and refused to let the maid wash it off. Inside, my easel, canvases, and paints were exactly where I had left them. A sudden spark of hope flared in my chest. I couldn't say my name without breaking the rules, but I could paint. I grabbed a sheet of heavy watercolor paper and a brush. Tomorrow, when Thomas came to check on us, he would see my painting. He would know it was me. Clutching the wet painting to my chest, I climbed onto the plush daybed and fell into a deep, dreamless sleep. The next morning, I was violently jolted awake by a bucket of ice-cold water drenched over my head. I sat up gasping, my first instinct to shield my painting from the water. Tiffany stood over me, her face contorted in an ugly, hysterical rage. "You did this!" she shrieked, pointing a trembling finger at my face. "You cursed Wayne last night! And you—you were sleeping like a dead pig while he was being tortured!" I checked the corner of my painting. Only a tiny smudged edge. I let out a soft sigh of relief. Then, I looked up at Tiffany, keeping my voice quiet and steady. "You were sleeping right next door to him. Why didn't you go save him?" Tiffany choked on her own breath, her face turning a mottled red. At around one in the morning, a frantic, desperate pounding had echoed through the hallway. It had come from Wayne’s door. “Hehehe... this is my room...” a wet, gurgling voice had whispered through the floorboards. Sometime later, she had heard the door creak open, followed by Wayne’s blood-curdling screams, before the entire floor fell dead silent. Tiffany had huddled under her blankets, shaking violently until dawn. It was only when the three veterans went to investigate Room Six that she had summoned the courage to slip out. Wayne wasn't dead, but his hair had turned entirely white, and he was staring blankly at the wall in a catatonic state of shock. Remembering my warning from the night before, Tiffany had immediately shifted the blame to me. "You knew!" she screamed, pulling a hunting knife from her boot, her eyes gleaming with absolute malice. "You knew something was wrong with that room! Why didn't you sleep there instead of him?" "Since you don't know how to use your mouth to warn people, maybe you don't need your ears either." Wayne stood just behind her, his face pale and hollow, his eyes entirely devoid of light. He didn't stop her. "Just don't kill her," he muttered, his voice flat. "We still need her to take the final blow for you." The three veterans leaned against the doorframe, watching the family drama unfold with cold, amused detachment. Tiffany stepped closer, the steel blade gleaming under the morning light. Just as the tip of the blade brushed against my earlobe, a deep, resonant chime echoed through the manor. Six o'clock. The start of the shift. The color drained from Tiffany’s face. She lowered the knife, casting one last venomous glare at me. "This isn't over," she hissed. They all turned and ran toward the foyer. The morning sun streamed through the high stained-glass windows, making the manor look almost normal. Even Thomas had returned to his immaculate, human form. He stood in the center of the hall, assigning our chores: Preparing breakfast, dusting the parlor, tending the gardens, playing with the family pets... Through the window, the roses in the garden seemed to bask in the warm sunlight, their petals unfurling. Wait. I squinted. Nestled within the velvet petals of the central rose were two tiny, dark, bead-like eyes. The rose was tilting its head, curiously peering through the glass at us. Rex noticed it too. "What in the actual hell..." he muttered under his breath. Tiffany and Wayne looked pale. They immediately worked together to dump the gardening duty onto me. The three veterans chose the indoor cleaning chores, knowing that the S-Class master key was far more likely to be hidden inside the manor. But they also knew the manor housed the two final bosses—the masters of the house—who had yet to make an appearance. Tiffany and Wayne, wanting to avoid the inner sanctum of the house, quickly opted for the final chore: playing with the pets. But... when did we ever have pets? Before I could think, Thomas finished his announcements and turned to head up the grand staircase. I clutched my painting and bolted after him. "Thomas! Wait—" A heavy hand clamped over my mouth from behind, dragging me backward. Wayne’s voice hissed in my ear, hot and furious: "Are you trying to get us all killed, you idiot?" Hearing the commotion, Thomas paused on the stairs, looking down at us with a polite, empty smile. "Number Four, Number Six. Your duties await." Wayne nodded frantically, dragging me by my bruised wrist and throwing me out the heavy front doors. The moment the doors slammed shut, he shoved me onto the gravel. "Have you lost your mind?" he snarled. "Provoking a boss like that... you’re going to get us slaughtered!" My painting slipped from my fingers, landing face-up on the grass. Tiffany snatched it up, took one look, and burst into a cruel, mocking laugh. "Oh, look at this. She’s completely lost her mind." "She drew a family portrait! What, did you think you could charm S-Class anomalies into letting you go by playing house?" "And look! She wrote 'Baby' over her own head. Do you honestly think the boss is going to treat you like a baby, you pathetic freak?" Wayne looked down at the paper. It was a drawing of a young girl riding on one of the stone lions, with three smiling adults standing around her. Above the girl's head, the word Baby was written in messy, colorful letters. A dark, twisted scowl crossed his face. To him, the three figures represented our biological parents and him. He grabbed the paper, tore it into shreds, and threw the pieces in my face. "Stop dreaming," he spat. "You will never, ever be a part of this family. You are nothing to us." But before the paper scraps could even settle on the dirt, a massive, velvety rose head slid over his shoulder. A small, giggling voice echoed from its petals. "Baby." Then, dozens of tiny eyes blinked open in the bushes. "It’s Baby..." "Baby... thirsty..." Wayne let out a terrified shriek, his face turning translucent. He grabbed Tiffany’s hand, and the two of them bolted toward the courtyard gates, leaving me behind. By the time I sat up, I was completely surrounded by a sea of undulating, walking roses. I had lived here my entire life, but I had never seen the roses sprout leafy little legs. Dozens of tiny, green bead-eyes stared at me with pure, desperate longing. I froze for a second, then realization dawned. They were just thirsty. I slowly walked over to the garden shed, turned on the automated sprinkler valves, and watched the mist settle over the garden. The roses let out tiny, satisfied sighs, stretched their stems, and curled up on the lawn to take a collective nap. The task was shockingly easy. All it took was a little patience and a hose. Meanwhile, Tiffany and Wayne were having a much harder time. The "pets" they were supposed to play with were the two massive stone lions at the gate. And the lions had come to life. The S-Class master key was nestled inside the heavy brass collar of the male lion. To get it, they had been forced to play a terrifying, high-stakes game of fetch with a massive iron ball for four hours straight. Their legs were shaking from sheer exhaustion. The moment the lions began to doze off, Wayne and Tiffany crept forward, successfully untying the brass key from the collar. But the click of the latch woke the male lion. With a deafening, earth-shattering roar, the beast lunged. It swiped its massive paw, pinning Wayne to the ground, its heavy jaws hovering inches from his face. In a desperate bid to save herself, Tiffany grabbed the heavy brass key and threw it directly into my lap as I sat by the rosebeds. "Stupid cat!" she screamed at the lion, her face twisted in a hideous grin. "She took your key! Go kill her!" I didn't even have time to stand before a massive, terrifying weight slammed into my chest, pinning me to the dirt. The stench of sulfur and ancient stone washed over me. Two massive, jagged fangs hovered right over my throat. Fear, cold and absolute, gripped my heart. But just as the beast opened its jaws to crush my neck, a collective shriek rose from the rose garden. "Baby!" The next instant, the entire estate began to violently shatter. Massive, writhing black tentacles burst from the manor windows, blotting out the morning sky. "Our baby is home!"
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