Chapter 3 Prologue 1 Man-eating swimming pool

Pattaya at night is filled with a quiet movement. Michai sat behind the counter, flipping through the calendar notebook a little anxiously; he clenched the pen holder with his right hand, relaxed, and clenched it again. It has been a month since I came to this hotel called Royal Land to work.Thirty days allowed him to gradually get used to this kind of work that seemed very boring to outsiders, but in order to support himself and enjoy life, he had to find fun on his own.As an ordinary, poor person with no special skills, after graduating from high school, he has to bear the burden of financial pressure and endure the helplessness of having no choice.

He circled a certain date on the notepad, but after a moment, crossed it again, and sighed. It was just a day to arrange a trip with Mary, and he was so handsome. The vacation time of the two of them really couldn’t match. It’s rare to want to take a trip to Bangkok together to experience the city’s style. Such a wish seems to be quite difficult to achieve . Just when he was thinking about the possibility of changing the time, the phone at the counter rang, and before Michai answered the phone, a deep, hasty voice came from the other end of the microphone: "Quick, come help ...I...he came...to...kill...kill...kill me..."

"What happened?" Michai straightened up, and the notebook was pushed to the floor by his elbow. "Fire, flames... the room is all..." He pricked up his ears to listen, but only heard the panting of the other party, and the sense of oppression enveloped the receiver. "Excuse me……" Before he could say the complete question, the phone was disconnected. Michai stared blankly at the communication devices at the counter. It was the call from Room 7 on the tenth floor.According to colleagues before the shift change, a strange arson incident also occurred in that room yesterday.It seems that a male passenger who stayed in the hotel yesterday afternoon came back to the room after going out to eat, but found that the bed sheet was on fire, so he hurriedly used a fire extinguisher to put out the fire, and complained to the counter staff about the hotel's environmental safety.

What exactly is going on? He frowned and glanced at the clock behind him. Five clocks hung in a straight line on the wall, marking the time in Beijing, London, Bangkok, New York, and Sydney respectively.It's three o'clock in the morning Bangkok time. Michai left the counter, hesitating whether to call the night guard, but finally thought it over, and went up to check the situation first, maybe there was nothing serious at all.I don't know why, sometimes when people encounter an emergency, they will have a kind of inertia, and they don't want to face anything that may happen.

After stepping into the elevator in the lobby and pressing the button for the tenth floor, the heart began to beat wildly in the enclosed space; suddenly the air felt quite suffocated. Royal Land is a hotel where major sightseeing tour groups often come to stay. Although it is not the peak tourist season recently, several groups have come here these days; he secretly prays in his heart that nothing will happen. If it affects his work, then he and his wife may have no future. Think too far!Sure enough, when people are nervous, their thoughts will be like a wild horse, and they will not be controlled by rationality at all.

As soon as the elevator door opened, Michai walked out quickly; aware that he might be wasting too much time, he stepped on the long corridor quickly and walked towards Room 7. When he came to the door, he gently knocked on the door with the back of his hand. After a few seconds of silence, a low moan came from inside. Because the voice was extremely low, if it wasn't for the very quiet corridor, it might be hard to hear. It was a suppressed roar.Then there was the crashing sound of objects falling to the floor. He frowned, and subconsciously shouted in a slightly higher tone: "I'm going in!" He turned the doorknob and pushed the door back.

——What he realized was the light, a bit dazzling light, he thought it was the lamp in the room at first, but after blinking his eyes and taking a closer look, he took a deep breath.He couldn't believe what he saw. The light in the room was off, and since it was off, logically speaking, it should be completely dark, but light greedily entered and exited from the fire.fire?No, he wasn't sure if it was fire, because the flames were blue and blue!Will-o'-the-wisps! The blue flame burned a low wall of fire from about half of the length of the room, cutting the room horizontally and dividing it into two; it spread from the seat on the left to the bed sheet in the middle, and then burned to the bed on the right.On closer inspection, the sheets seemed to be pulled over the chairs, hanging down like a crumbling castle bathed in flames.Seats, sheets, and beds are connected in a line, blocking the way forward.

The place where the room is on fire is not only the fire wall in the middle, but also small blue flames are burning on the bed and the papers on the table. The burning state is hazy rather than violent, and there is a floating and blurred feeling unique to ghost fire. Weird to describe! Farther away, separated from Michai by the fire wall, the male tenant writhed and staggered in front of the door leading to the balcony. Due to the blurred vision through the flames, Michai could only see that it was a man of medium build, wearing white long-sleeved pajamas; his face showed a crazy expression, his eyes were fixed on a certain point in the air, His hands were shaking; he moved his body slowly and cautiously but frantically, without moving his eyes, it seemed as if someone was confronting him in front of him, and both of them were ready to go.

Suddenly, the man let out a scream, and his whole body seemed to be hit hard by an invisible force. His body bounced back and fell to the ground; Caught it, flipped back again. Michai was stunned, and rationally told himself to quickly use the fire extinguisher by the door to put out the fire, but his feet seemed to be glued to the floor, motionless, and he could only watch dully as the man opposite him was fighting with an invisible enemy . The man pressed his chest with one hand, his face was tangled, rolled on the ground a few times, curled up by the corner of the wall, and disappeared from Michai's sight for a while.Just when Mi Cai was about to step forward, the man suddenly screamed and struggled to get up, and there were two blue fireballs on his arms!

The man grabbed the bath towel hanging on the hanger at the side, and threw it at the flame on his arm; after a few futile attempts, he threw away the bath towel, stumbled and ran to the balcony in great pain, and climbed up to the balcony at an extremely fast speed. Standing straight on the wall of the balcony; although facing Michai, his eyes are not looking at him, but still fixed on an invisible point in the air. Two flames burned in his arms, and his body trembled. "Don't come here!" This was the first and last time Michai heard the man speak. In the next moment, the man's eyes were protruding, his mouth was wide open, his upper body half-bent as if his abdomen had been hit hard, his whole body moved backwards, and then fell down.

First the feet, then the lower body, the upper body, and finally the astonished face, which disappeared behind the balcony wall in sequence. The man fell. A shrill scream tore through the silent night, Michai was so frightened that he fell back to the ground, and he found himself trembling. After the cry as long as the night, there was the sound of heavy objects falling into the water.thump!It seems as if you can see the high splash of water in front of your eyes! Michai was suppressed by astonishment for a moment, and finally jumped up from the ground. He quickly lifted the fire extinguisher in the closet by the door, pulled the safety latch, and attacked the fire wall in front of him as fast as he could. A large amount of foam sprayed from the fire extinguisher was like a violent flood, quickly covering the tongues of the flames; fortunately, the fire was not violent, but there were many places where it was on fire.Within a few minutes, the fire was completely extinguished. Panting, he dropped the fire extinguisher, ran to the balcony, pressed his hands against the wall, and leaned his upper body eagerly downstairs. A small circle of people had gathered by the swimming pool below. They pointed at the swimming pool, and several people looked up. Michai turned around and left the balcony, and ran towards the door. As soon as he came up to the corridor, someone poked his head out of the room at the far end and inquired with suspicious eyes.But Michai ignored him and rushed straight to the elevator. He later learned that the passengers drinking in the bar next to the swimming pool on the first floor heard screams, and then saw a human body with blue flames falling into the swimming pool, splashing amazing water; then the night guard and the passengers in the bar , The waiter immediately rushed to the pool to inspect, but nothing was seen on the water except for the unstoppable ripples. Just when a group of people were discussing whether to go into the water to have a look, Michai went downstairs and shouted that someone had fallen. He eagerly told what he had just witnessed, the strange situation made him almost incoherent! But there is nothing in the pool.First, someone went into the water to search, and then drained the water in the pool; when the water drained away bit by bit, there was nothing but some impurities at the bottom of the pool. Witnesses swore that after the man fell into the pool, no one left the pool until everyone surrounded the pool; that is to say, it was absolutely impossible for the man who fell to climb out of the pool. But the man disappeared. When Michai opened the newspaper the next day, the news appeared with the sensational headline "Man-eating Swimming Pool", with the subheading "Killing Willows", occupying the entire page, but he didn't want to read the headline designed by the reporter again. Eye. If the operation of the hotel deteriorates due to this incident, it will affect the salary... If there is no job, the trip to Bangkok with Mary will be even more distant. For Michai, his girlfriend is obviously much more important than the disappearing man. He put down the newspaper anxiously, and the strange picture of the incident of falling from the building and disappearing appeared in his mind unconsciously.