Chapter 85: Chapter 60: Mai Mingle: Starting Point

The last two times Mai Mingle had pulled the door, she had only opened it a narrow crack before stopping.

To her, this made perfect sense. If she opened the door too wide, the woman touching up her makeup might realize someone was in the stall. She had to be careful.

...So she had always believed that opening the door just a sliver was her own decision.

The narrow gap was the result of her own deliberation, of her arm muscles obeying her brain’s command.

It was only when Mai Mingle tried to open the door a little wider—to get a look at the mirror across from the woman—that she realized she was wrong.

It turned out the door could only be opened a hair’s breadth. No matter how hard she pulled, it wouldn’t budge any further, as if it had been sealed with molten steel.

’How can this be? Is the door broken?’

Mai Mingle stood frozen in place. Knowing it was impossible, she still glanced at the space beneath the door. The tiled floor on the other side was completely empty; there were no feet standing there.

So, no one was pulling on the door from the other side, holding it shut.

’This is so strange. Did someone loop a rope around the handle and pull it shut from the outside?’

The back of the woman touching up her makeup, visible through the crack, still stood silently by the sink, a heavy presence in Mai Mingle’s sliver of a view.

She listened as her breathing quickened, forcing herself to slowly let out a long exhale. Exhaling longer than you inhale helps calm the nerves; she’d forgotten where she’d heard that.

Next, steeling herself, Mai Mingle slowly slid her hand out through the crack.

Soon, she could only see the heel of her hand. Her fingers wrapped around the door’s edge and vanished into the unseen space beyond. It felt like dipping them in cold water, as if the moment they left her sight, they no longer belonged to her.

If something outside were to suddenly grab her hand, she would just have to accept her bad luck, having run into a dead end on her very first attempt to explore.

However, after fumbling around the handle for a few moments and finding no rope, she finally pulled her hand back in, whole and intact. Thankfully, it was still her normal hand.

Now, she was truly at a loss.

The gap under the door was quite high, reaching halfway up her calf. A person could crawl out...

She had to get out of this stall. But Mai Mingle wasn’t sure if crawling out from under the door was a good idea.

’Even a Nest has to follow some kind of logic, right? No matter how terrifying something is, shouldn’t it have rules of operation? "After using the toilet, please proceed to squirm out from under the door"—what kind of sense does that make?’

’Is it calling me a maggot?’

Despite these thoughts, after a moment’s hesitation, Mai Mingle still crouched down.

She wouldn’t crawl out just yet; it was better to get low and assess the situation first. After all, this was the only way out, and she was out of other ideas for the moment.

As she crouched, her view remained limited, revealing only the same patch of empty tile.

Mai Mingle went a step further, kneeling on the floor. With her hands pressed against the cold tiles, she sat back on her heels. Before looking out, she nervously glanced upward.

Below the ceiling, on the stall walls to either side, everything was normal. No face peered down at her.

’Okay, nothing. No one’s there.’

Comforting herself, she lowered her body. Now, to look outside—

Mai Mingle’s gaze landed on the back of a woman.

The person was crouched on the restroom floor outside, wearing the same ZARA outfit from the Morgan Family. She was kneeling, hands on the ground, sitting back on her heels, showing Mai Mingle the soles of her shoes.

As if sensing the gaze from behind, the person lifted the back of her head, revealing unevenly cut hair. After a pause, she abruptly shifted one knee backward.

Then, on all fours, she began to scuttle backward toward Mai Mingle at high speed.

Mai Mingle shot to her feet. In her frantic scramble, her back slammed into the toilet paper dispenser with a dull THUD. The sound exploded like thunder in her mind, blasting a layer of hot and cold sweat onto her skin.

Panic, like shrapnel from an explosion, whirled through her mind. Her feet were right in the path of the backward-crawling figure. Almost instinctively, Mai Mingle scrambled onto the toilet seat, her eyes fixed on the gap beneath the door.

Several seconds passed. The patch of tile outside the door was empty again. Contrary to her fears, another Mai Mingle did not come crawling backward into the stall.

The noise didn’t seem to have startled the woman touching up her makeup, either. Through the crack in the door, the back of the figure in the slim-fitting suit remained perfectly still.

’That back on the floor just now... that was me, wasn’t it?’

The posture, movements, and clothing had been identical to her own, but the moment she’d jumped up, the floor outside had become empty again.

Mustering her courage, she looked down again. Still just an empty patch of tile.

’This won’t work... I don’t understand what’s happening, but crawling out from under the door is no longer an option.’

’Good thing I’m young again,’ Mai Mingle thought, her heart still pounding. ’Otherwise, that scare would have given me a stroke.’

She sat perched on the toilet lid. It wasn’t very big, so she had to brace one hand against the wall to keep her balance.

Fortunately, the toilet had a concealed tank built into the wall, creating a small ledge above it. It was probably meant for placing personal items, but right now it was a convenient handhold.

’...Or a foothold, maybe?’

Once she caught her breath, Mai Mingle eyed the ledge, then glanced up at the partition wall.

’If I stand on the ledge and grab the top of the partition, I can flip over into the next stall...’

’I wonder if the door in the next stall will open?’

’It’s worth a try, at least. Better than being trapped here like an idiot.’

’Well, isn’t this something. Ever since I got stuck in this stall, I’ve been terrified of a face peering at me from over the partition. Turns out, I’m the one who’s about to be that face, peering in on someone else.’

As Mai Mingle mused on how unpredictable life was—’the older you get, the more you respect fate and the less you believe in your own strength’—she carefully stood up straight on the toilet.

Before starting to climb the right-hand partition, she hesitated.

Standing this high, her line of sight was now just above the partition. If she just turned her head, she should be able to see the woman touching up her makeup and the mirror across from her—or at least the top part of the mirror. ’Should I take a look?’

’The human psyche is a strange thing.’

A moment ago, she’d been trying to pull the door open for the sole purpose of peeking at the woman’s reflection. She hadn’t been as nervous then, maybe because she’d had the door to shield her.

But now, with her head floating exposed above the partition, she was too scared to turn. In reality, wasn’t that flimsy barrier nothing more than a psychological crutch? 𝓯𝙧𝙚𝒆𝙬𝙚𝒃𝙣𝙤𝒗𝓮𝓵.𝙘𝙤𝙢

In the end, Mai Mingle slowly turned her head.

The woman’s face would be floating above the stall, watching her; or she would meet the reflection’s eyes in the mirror; or there would be no mirror at all... A hundred different scenarios flashed through Mai Mingle’s mind, but none of them came true.

She hadn’t expected that even standing on the toilet, she would still only be able to see the woman’s back. Logically, from this height, she should have had a clear view of the reflection in the mirror.

Yet when she looked, all she saw was the woman’s unmoving back.

It was as if the sinks were in a recessed alcove, the ceiling perfectly positioned to block her view of the mirror.

’Was the bathroom laid out like this when I looked through the door earlier?’

The spatial disorientation made Mai Mingle slightly dizzy.

She shook her head hard. Once her head cleared, she gripped the partition again, planted her foot on the ledge, and heaved herself up. As her upper body cleared the wall, her gaze fell into the stall next door.

In the stall to her right, the front-facing female model was sitting on the toilet lid. Her head was tilted back and she held a wine glass in one hand. As if she’d known all along that Mai Mingle would appear, she flashed a wide, red smile at her.

Startled, Mai Mingle’s first instinct was to flee, but she forgot she was hanging from the partition. Her foot slipped, and she tumbled off the toilet, the back of her head hitting the wall with a hard smack.

Amidst the terror and sharp pain, she choked back a scream, clamping a hand over her mouth and nose as she quickly peeked under the partition.

The floor in the stall to the right should have been empty a moment ago. But now, she saw a pair of woman’s legs and feet wearing black, lace-up, Ballet-style mid-heels. They had to belong to the front-facing model.

’How... How could the model from the ad suddenly be in the stall to my right?’

Mai Mingle pressed her back against the partition and held her breath, her body wracked with shivers. She stared at the pair of feet for a long moment.

The feet in the right-hand stall were also perfectly still.

As her panic slowly subsided, Mai Mingle got to her feet. Her legs felt rubbery, as if they’d been soaked in water.

As if guided by some unseen force, she also glanced at the gap beneath the stall to her left.

She saw the exact same pair of black, lace-up, Ballet-style mid-heels.

This time, when Mai Mingle worked up the nerve to climb the partition again and saw that the same front-facing model was indeed sitting in the left-hand stall, she at least managed not to fall off in fright.

At some point, the front-facing model had appeared in both the left and right stalls.

Mai Mingle held the left model’s gaze for a moment before slowly looking away. Her eyes landed on the model’s outstretched hand.

The model was holding a wine glass, her arm extended as if toasting someone.

And the one on the right... right, the model on the right was raising a wine glass to her lips.

Other than the models’ different poses, the layout and design of the left and right stalls were identical to her own. But what made Mai Mingle’s heart hammer in her chest was that the doors to both stalls were ajar—and open wide enough to get through.

Even if they couldn’t be opened all the way, she could easily slip out sideways.

Of course, that would mean climbing down from the partition, maneuvering around the model, and inching sideways out of the stall...

The stall wasn’t wide, and the model sat right in the middle on the toilet. Even if she—or should I say *it*?—didn’t move, Mai Mingle would probably brush against her. And that was without mentioning the fact that the model’s eyes were following her every move.

’Being watched by a thing like that is bad enough. How can I get right up next to it?’

’Does this mean I can’t go out through either side?’

’But the doors are open. It’s too frustrating to give up now... Besides, I have to get out of here one way or another.’

Mai Mingle peered into the left and right stalls a few more times. Two identical faces stared up at her. Though deeply unsettling, after a few more glances, she actually started to get used to it.

The structure and layout of both stalls were identical, as was the position of the models.

Both doors were ajar, and neither had an ad on the back—Mai Mingle couldn’t see the back of the right-hand door, so she had to stretch her arm out and pull it shut to confirm.

The model on the left was posed for a toast; the one on the right was drinking alone.

The left stall was closer to the woman touching up her makeup; the right stall was farther away.

Her own door was a no-go.

Mai Mingle sat back down on the toilet lid. Head in her hands, she stared blankly at the ad on the back of her own door, her mind a swirl of indecision.

This situation was a different kind of bizarre from her encounters with the residents.

The first possibility: the Nest had deliberately created this scenario with no deeper meaning, simply to torture her for its own amusement.

The second possibility: the current situation was a puzzle. It contained the clues to her escape, and if she wanted to leave, she had to solve it.

Mai Mingle immediately dismissed the first possibility—there was no point in considering it. If it were true, she was doomed no matter what, so why waste time thinking about it?

As for the second possibility, she needed to find the clue...

After staring at the ad for several minutes, Mai Mingle suddenly gasped, the words tumbling out of her mouth. "This stall... is the ’starting point’?"