The footsteps outside the bathroom stopped, but we knew that the soldiers hadn't disappeared; they were still waiting outside for us.\ My body trembled uncontrollably; I was shivering all over. Jianzi quietly led us out of the bathroom, and then the four of us casually found a room to hide in.\ The room seemed like a storage room, filled with iron cabinets of all sizes, chaotically crammed into the corners.\ The four of us huddled together. Amin hadn't yet recovered from the shock; he curled up into a ball, unable to speak a complete sentence.\ Xiao Hei quietly asked Jianzi, 'What do we do now?'\ 'I don't know, I've never encountered something like this. Aren't you usually the talkative one? Think of something.' Jianzi asked in return.\ Xiao Hei was at a loss for words, and finally, he turned to me, 'Do you have any ideas?'\ 'I... how could I have any ideas!' I was anxious too. After thinking for a moment, I said, 'Let's wait until daylight. As long as the sun comes up, it should be fine.'\ 'Yeah, just like playing a ghost wall, nothing will happen once daylight comes,' Xiao Hei continued.\ The four of us didn't dare to move rashly, leaning against the iron cabinets to rest, but our nerves were tense. I kept imagining in my mind, if the soldiers outside burst in, how would we fight back?\ Halfway through the thought, a sudden sound of footsteps came from outside the door. My whole body instantly stiffened, cold sweat ran down my forehead, and my breathing became rapid and difficult.\ They had come.\ Jianzi slightly leaned forward, ready to spring into action, and I guessed he was already prepared for a fight. As soon as the soldiers opened the storage room door, Jianzi would definitely pounce and wrestle with them.\ Xiao Hei shrank back, retreating further inside. Although he was usually sharp-mouthed, in this bizarre situation, he couldn't do anything.\ The footsteps gradually approached, finally stopping in front of our door. Just when we were at a loss, the footsteps slowly moved away again.\ Listening to the sounds outside, it seemed the soldiers were patrolling, searching the hospital for our whereabouts.\ I looked at Jianzi with my eyes, and Jianzi made a shushing gesture; he wanted us to stay calm and observe the situation a little longer.\I don't know how much time had passed, but the footsteps outside had completely quieted down. It sounded like that group of soldiers had left, yet we still didn't dare to relax and remained with our lips tightly pressed together, afraid to speak.\After a long time, Jianzi spoke first. In a barely audible voice, he said, "Hiding here isn't a solution. If they haven't given up looking for us, we will surely be found. Also, there are more of them than us; we would just be at their mercy."\"What do you plan to do?" I asked Jianzi.\"I think... we should look for another way to leave," Jianzi said.\"That's impossible. That's too risky," Xiao Hei quickly interrupted. "What if we run into them as soon as we step out of the storage room?"\"Do you mean we should just wait here to die?" Jianzi, slightly angry, argued with Xiao Hei.\"Stop arguing, keep your voice down," I interrupted their conversation.\After a while, I suddenly realized that Amin hadn't said anything, so I turned to check on him. I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw Amin's lips turning purple. He looked like he was about to faint, his body convulsing, and his eyes rolling upwards.\"Amin." I shook him urgently; he absolutely couldn't collapse now.\Amin looked at me weakly and slurred, "W-we won't be in trouble, right?"\"It's fine. Those soldiers are gone," I reassured Amin.\Amin nodded and held my wrist, saying, "Don't lie to me."\"I'm not lying to you." I patted the back of Amin's hand, hoping he would trust me.\Amin took a breath and managed to sit upright.\Seeing that Amin's condition was not good, Jianzi turned to Xiao Hei and said, "We can't let Amin go on like this; we must get out of here as soon as possible."\"We can't leave through the main door. The soldiers might still be lying in wait outside. Besides, we don't know the hospital layout, so how can we escape?" Xiao Hei became upset, still unwilling to step out of the storage room.\"I just took a look at the surroundings. Do you remember the last ward on the right corridor?" Jianzi asked us.\We nodded. It was the one with over eighty hospital beds.\"What about it?" I asked Jianzi.\"That ward has a window.If I'm not mistaken, the last room in the left corridor should have the same layout. There are probably windows there too. We can climb out through the window when the time comes. In short, we should leave the hospital first, then find a place to hide, or look for a chance to get over the camp's fence and get back to the car," Jianzi shared his thoughts.
"What if there are no windows there?" Xiao Hei said pessimistically.
"Doesn't matter. In the current situation, what's the difference between hiding there and hiding here?" Jianzi countered. What he said actually makes sense. It doesn't matter which room we hide in. If the soldiers are searching for us room by room, it's the same wherever we are.
"Alright, let's give it a try," I said.
With my agreement, Jianzi ignored Xiao Hei's objection and moved toward the door. Then he asked us to turn off all the flashlight beams. Once he confirmed that the room was completely dark inside, he gently turned the doorknob. The latch made a soft click, causing my heartbeat to skip a beat.
The door opened just a crack, and Jianzi watched the situation outside. After a moment, he opened the door completely and whispered to us, "Come out quickly, this way."
Despite being opposed, Xiao Hei was the first to follow. I held onto A Ming and trailed behind slowly. By now our eyes had adjusted to the dark. Although we couldn't move freely, we could make out the outlines of objects well enough not to bump into the walls.
The hospital returned to a dead silence. The footsteps we had heard and the soldier apparitions we had seen moments ago seemed like illusions.
Jianzi led us to the last room in the left corridor. It took him a while to open the door, and his movements were awkward. I could sense that he was actually quite nervous inside. But when the door opened, what appeared before us wasn't another hospital room, but a staircase leading downward. We four were stunned.
A staircase to the basement? A sudden gust of wind blew from below, carrying the distinct scent of hospital disinfectant onto our faces.
"Let's go, we need to hide in the storage room quickly," Xiao Hei protested. "I've already said not to take risks."
As soon as he spoke, rapid footsteps suddenly echoed from all directions. The soldiers had heard us!I gasped; at this point, there was no room for regret. I immediately stepped onto the staircase and said to them, "Hurry up." \ Ken and Xiao Hei didn't hesitate either. They followed me into the staircase entrance, and the two of them, with perfect coordination, quickly closed the door, locking the four of us into pitch-black darkness. In that instant, I felt as if I had entered the underworld, and a sense of regret surged continuously. \ The door not only blocked out the light from the outside world but also sealed all sounds outside. We couldn't hear the movements of the soldiers; we could only hear the rapid heartbeats of the four of us. \ Xiao Hei was the first to turn on a flashlight. He shone it on us, ensuring we were all present before speaking, "What do we do now?" His tone sounded like he was complaining about Ken. \ "Let's go down; standing here isn't good. As soon as the soldiers open the door, they'll see us. At least we can go to the basement first and find a place to hide," I suggested, taking the initiative because I feared Ken and Xiao Hei might argue. \ Ken and Xiao Hei had no objections, while Ah Ming was still completely weak, and I had to support him to prevent him from falling. \ The four of us turned on our flashlights and shone them on the snake-like, winding stairs that descended before us. The stairs were unusually long, and perhaps it was just psychological, but I felt as though they were incredibly deep. \ The further we went down, the stronger the smell of disinfectant became, mixed with a faint yet unmistakable metallic stench. \ Breaking the silence, Xiao Hei said, "This... could it be the hospital's morgue?" \ That sentence immediately made us stop in our tracks. \ The four of us looked at each other, trapped in a dilemma. If the place below really was the morgue, would we face an even more terrifying group of evil spirits? But if we stayed here, there was no guarantee that the ghost soldiers wouldn't come after us. \ In this dilemma, Ken spoke: "Stop overthinking. If we keep scaring ourselves, we might have a heart attack before the ghosts catch us." After saying this, he bravely moved forward. \ I felt Ken's words made sense, so I chose to follow his steps. \ Xiao Hei quickly caught up to us again. He couldn't bear to be separated from the three of us and face his fear alone.This staircase was very long; it took us several minutes to reach the end. Based on my estimation, we should be standing three floors underground. Once we stepped onto the basement floor, we first used flashlights to look around. With that look, we realized the layout of this place was exactly the same as the first floor of the hospital, almost a complete copy. The place we stood was still at the very end of the left corridor. Amin muttered to himself, "How could they be exactly the same?" "This should be an underground hospital. The buildings above ground are used to deceive the enemy, so that during war, if the hospital upstairs gets bombed, the wounded and doctors can hide here." Jian Zai said. "Actually, we don't care about the purpose of this place; we just hope to quickly find a place where we can hide." The four of us walked forward, intuitively wanting to hide in the last hospital room, because human intuition always thinks the farther you are from the stairs, the slimmer the chance of being found. Jian Zai walked at the front, his steps quickening as we quickened our pace. In just over ten seconds, we reached the ward at the end of the ward. As long as we hid inside, we'd be fine by dawn. I convinced myself this in my heart. Standing in front of the ward, Jian Zai and Xiao Hei hurriedly pushed open the door. Instantly, a strong smell of disinfectant filled the air. The smell we had smelled earlier was actually from this very room. "Cough, cough." A-Ming couldn't stand the smell and turned away, coughing repeatedly. The four of us instinctively walked into the hospital room, wanting only to find a place to hide, but as soon as we entered, we realized something was off. I shone my flashlight toward the hospital bed, and seeing it made my scalp tingle. It felt like my whole body had been drained of blood, leaving me cold all over. This was a morgue, but the bodies weren't lying flat on the bed. Instead, they hung in midair like hanging pork. The bodies were covered all over, their slender necks tied with hemp rope and tied to the ceiling. There were both male and female bodies, all hanging in the morgue without distinction. Each had a drooping face, so I couldn't see their facial features clearly, but I could clearly see their pale, intact skin, creating a stark contrast with the terrifying scene."Ah, ah!" Xiao Hei shouted, unintentionally staggering back several steps, but accidentally bumped into the corpse behind him. The body swung like a pendulum a few times, as if it were still alive. Xiao Hei was even more frightened, flailing his hands uncontrollably: 'Go away, go away!' 'Xiao Hei!' I shouted at him, hoping he could calm down a bit. Ah Ming lost my support and knelt down completely, staring blankly at the shocking scene above him, looking dazed and stunned, his mind completely empty. After a moment, Xiao Hei gradually regained his composure. He was panting heavily, his expression still unpleasant. Jian Zi spat on the ground and said, 'That's so creepy.' 'Forget about that, let's leave here,' I said to the three of them. They had no objections. Jian Zi and Xiao Hei immediately withdrew from the room, leaving only Ah Ming kneeling on the ground, seemingly not hearing what I had just said. I anxiously walked up to Ah Ming, grabbing his arm to help him up, 'Ah Ming, let's go.' Ah… Ah Ming turned to look at me, and two lines of tears suddenly slid down his face, 'Save… save me.' 'It's okay, let's go, we need to leave here quickly,' I supported him and hurried out of the room. As soon as we stepped out, Jian Zi and Xiao Hei immediately shut the door tightly, gripping the doorknobs so tightly they wouldn't let go, afraid that the corpse inside might suddenly…
