chapter 5

The Bathroom door was tightly shut.

I twisted the handle, but it wouldn’t open.

It was locked.

This only confirmed my suspicion-there was definitely something wrong here!

The Bedroom being locked, the Storage Room being locked, those were fairly normal.

-But who would ever lock the Bathroom?

I felt I was one step closer to the truth, so I quickly pressed my ear to the door to listen.

There was a faint sound, barely audible.

“Is anyone there?” I asked softly.

The sound inside seemed to vanish again.

I crouched down and examined the keyhole carefully; it was an old-fashioned lock.

I quickly took the clip from my hair, straightened it into a wire, and slid it into the keyhole.

When reading scripts before, I’d seen characters who could pick locks with a wire, and I’d been curious enough to learn the skill myself. I never expected it would come in handy here.

The lock clicked open.

I clenched my teeth, steeled myself, and opened the door.

The scene I’d expected didn’t appear.

The space was small, and empty-just a perfectly ordinary Bathroom.

Directly opposite the door was the sink and mirror, the shower was on the left, and the toilet on the right.

Clinging to my last hope, I ran my hands over the Bathroom walls and the mirror again, but found no hidden mechanisms.

It really was just a perfectly ordinary Bathroom.

What on earth was going on?

I was pondering this when my heart suddenly skipped a beat.

I heard a sound-not from inside, but from outside-

In the Living Room outside, someone was coming down the stairs!