American Horror Story, Starting from Falls Town

Chapter 380 Beach
While Nidi's game continued, Roy, riding Claudia, arrived at the abandoned subway station.

The scene still shows the charred subway car and the electrical equipment surrounding it.

The initial design here was a one-off project, but to create such a big commotion, the cost must have been considerable.

Finding traces of Nidi and Ashley in this environment would obviously be difficult, but Roy had a simple method.

"Claulia, scan the scene."

“Yes, Mr. Blake.”

The headlights of the blue Harley-Davidson Buell Firebolt motorcycle emitted a blue scanning beam, meticulously sweeping across the dark subway car.

A moment later, Claudia gave her report.

"A downward passage was discovered, but no remains of any carbon-based organisms were found."

Since there were no bodies, Neddy and Ashley should still be safe.

Although Roy believed that Nidy, who had angelic blood, would be alright, concern can cloud judgment, and it was best to be sure that both of them were safe.

At that moment, the sound of a railcar could be heard in the distance. The regular subway would never come here; it was probably people from the dark web.

They are most likely dark web cleaners who came to remove traces.

"Perfect, let's vent our anger on these guys first!"

Everyone was so scared that they crouched down, thinking that the laser was about to be activated, but in the end nothing happened.

At this point, the bald man was still halfway to the vault door, and he had already used up all the timer's clues.

There were only about four minutes left.

Suddenly, the ground beneath his feet sank, startling the bald man so much that he closed his eyes. He only slowly opened them after realizing he felt no pain.

It turned out that the white floor tile underfoot was indeed some kind of mechanism, but stepping on it only revealed a piece of text.

"Hey guys! I've got a saying here! It goes like this: 'Money makes the world go round, don't stop, or it's over!' What the hell does that mean?"

Baldy looked at Nidi, knowing that the person most skilled at solving puzzles at the scene was this female student with black-rimmed glasses.

Everyone stood up, and at that moment Ashley noticed that a large safe had been opened over the area where the black woman and the round-faced woman were.

"Look at that safe!"

At Ashley's prompting, the Black woman quickly checked the open safe and came to a conclusion.

"Damn it! There's another safe inside the safe! And it's one of those old-fashioned combination lock safes. We need a three-digit combination now!"

Is this a set of matryoshka dolls?

These old-fashioned combination lock safes require you to turn the dial in one direction to get one combination, then turn it in the other direction to get another combination, and finally adjust the direction once more. You need to get the correct combination three times in a row before you can open the lock.

That's why the Black woman said she needed a three-digit password.

The Black woman and the round-faced woman immediately began searching for clues on the nearby filing shelves, while the priest suggested a possibility.

Does this mean we should just keep following this route?

Upon hearing this, the bald man felt a real urge to give it a try.

"How about I try?"

Nidi quickly spoke up to stop this guy from having such a suicidal idea.

"Wait a minute, everyone calm down! Whether it's checking information or going straight, these are clearly distractions and a waste of our time!"

The Black woman and the round-faced woman put down their documents, looking somewhat bewildered.

"Then what should we do?"

"Think calmly! We have about three minutes left. The most important thing now is not to panic! Think carefully about that clue and that safe!"

Everyone tried to calm their minds and figure out the true meaning of the clue.

Unfortunately, most people find it very difficult to remain calm in highly stressful situations, and they just wasted two minutes.

Ashley suddenly spoke up at this moment.

"The guys who design games seem to really enjoy playing word games, using puns or allusions. Is there some other meaning behind this sentence?"

This reminded Nidi that the game designers had played a lot of word games from the very first level, including the hint about blood money.

"Hey! Go check that safe again, just turn the keypad!"

Reminded by Nidi, the black woman, who was probably the second most intelligent person present, also realized what was going on and quickly rotated the combination lock on the safe. It turned out that by rotating it, the combination lock and the roller behind it could be removed.

The Black woman hurriedly disassembled the roller, revealing a transparent plastic film with some red squares on it, which was clearly the route map for the second half of the journey.

"Quick! Throw the route map over here!"

The topographic map is on Nidi's side. This plastic film must be placed over the topographic map in order to read the correct route.

So, just like in the previous level, someone has to voluntarily stay until the very last moment to leave.

"I'll look at the map, you guys go first!"

The priest offered to stay and help the others look at the map.

But Nidyl refused, since she was already right next to the map and there was no need to waste time making the priest run over.

"Don't waste time, you guys go first!"

Ashley was very decisive; she believed that with Nydy's abilities, nothing unexpected would happen.

So, under Nidi's command, Baldy quickly figured out the remaining correct route and was the first to enter the vault.

Following closely behind, Ashley, the Black woman, and the round-faced woman also successfully passed through the black and white tiled area.

The only one who almost had an accident was the priest. I don't know if he was a little tipsy or too nervous, but he almost stepped on the wrong square when he was about to finish walking.

Fortunately, the round-faced woman was quick-witted and pulled the priest back, preventing him from making a mistake.

"Phew! Thank you!"

"Drink less in the future, alcohol can't solve all problems."

The priest clutched the metal bottle to his chest, still somewhat shaken.

"Perhaps you are right!"

After this little incident, Niddy had less than 15 seconds to leave. Fortunately, the first bald guy had already placed candy markers, so Niddy only needed to step on the tiles with candy marks to pass through the black and white tile area smoothly.

15 seconds is more than enough time!

Nidi nimbly flipped onto the counter, then carefully jumped onto the correct floor tile. Although her physical abilities had greatly increased after obtaining the blood of the angel, for some reason her balance had not improved at all.

This means that Nidi will still sometimes slip and fall while running, just less often than before she obtained the Angel's Blood.

So, Nidi controlled her walking speed and didn't walk too fast.

But in the last 10 seconds, the broadcast began a countdown, and dense laser beams started appearing from behind, gradually approaching Nidi's position.

The pressure of death made Nidi tense, and this tension made her movements prone to distortion.

Fortunately, although Nydy's posture was somewhat distorted in the final stretch before the finish line, she did not fall to the ground until she crawled into the vault door.

Behind the vault door was a dimly lit cave, where everyone else leaned against the wall, panting.

"My God! We've survived again!"

The priest sighed and instinctively reached into his clothes to grab the bottle, but then remembered what the round-faced woman had just said and pulled his hand back.

"It really wasn't easy!" The black woman looked at the vault door with lingering fear.

Nidi got up, her face showing a mixture of lingering fear and a hint of excitement.

"As long as we unite as one, we will definitely be able to pass the test together!"

Apart from Nidi and Ashley, everyone present was a second-time player who had survived the game once before, and no one was unaware of the importance of unity.

Because many of the games designed by jigsaw puzzle artists require cooperation to complete.

Just like the bank level in the game, if there was only one person, it would definitely not be enough time to solve the puzzle.

"Unity! Cooperation!"

The round-faced woman was the first to place her hands in front of her; having a military background, she had a deeper understanding of teamwork.

The others then placed their hands on top of the round-faced woman's hands, making the classic team hand-over gesture for encouragement.

"We can definitely do it!"

However, just after they finished encouraging each other, they noticed that the cave was shaking, as if it was about to collapse.

"Get out!"

The six people quickly ran out of the cave and found themselves on a beach shrouded in dark clouds.

There is a small lighthouse directly in front, a small wooden hut to the left that looks like a beach restaurant, and a damaged pier or wooden boardwalk structure to the right.

"What hell?"

Everyone looked completely bewildered, and the bald guy made a comment using some slang he couldn't place.

"Where the hell have we ended up? Is this still underground?"

(To be honest, this part of the original movie is quite sci-fi.)
Niddy, with her keen senses, observed for a while and finally came to a conclusion.

"The sky and the distance are probably part of the set; they're so far away that it's hard to tell what's real from what's fake. I guess the Dark Web probably discovered a huge natural cave beneath that abandoned subway station and then transformed it into what it looks like now, like a movie set."

"Even if it's a natural cave, this is a huge undertaking! Why spend so much money on something else?"

Ashley couldn't help but complain. She came from an ordinary family; her mother, Samantha, was just a small-town sheriff who supported her and her brother Mike on a meager income.

Therefore, Ashley strongly disapproved of this extravagant behavior.

The female reporter standing nearby, a Black woman, said something.

"Even if rich people spend their money on trivial matters, they won't give a single penny to the poor! That's reality! The rich people's greatest asset is actually the poor!"

These words silenced the remaining players, especially the three second-time players who had already entered the workforce and had a deeper understanding of what the Black woman meant.

"Let's not talk about this anymore, let's think about how to get through this!"

Nidi clapped her hands, signaling everyone to tackle the immediate challenge first.

The group split up to look for clues, and soon the Black woman found a disposable Polaroid camera lying on the ground near the fence.

"Look, there's a camera here!"

The Black woman picked up the Polaroid camera and found a sentence written on it.

"There's a sentence written here: 'More durable'?"

Upon hearing this, the bald man couldn't help but crack a joke.

"Does this sound like an advertisement for men's products?"

There were four women present, and Ashley rolled her eyes at the inappropriate joke.

Ashley used to really like bald-headed, gangster-like guys, but ever since she met Roy, her tastes have changed, and now she likes guys like Roy.

"This isn't funny! How about we take a picture first?"

The Black woman pressed the button on the Polaroid camera, and a bright light flashed.

The lighting effect was comparable to military flares, and everyone felt as if they were being blinded.

When I opened my eyes again, I found that the sky over the beach had changed from a cloudy day to dusk, which seemed to mean that this level of the game had officially begun.

The Black woman took out the photos from the Polaroid camera and found that the scene in the photos was quite different from what they were seeing now.

There is a ship on the ocean in the photo, and there is a sentence on the back of the photo.

"Drop the anchor in Hourglass Bay."

"Hourglass Bay? We're right here at Hourglass Bay!"

The priest tapped a wooden plaque beside him, which had the name Hourglass Bay written on it.

"So, the goal of this level is for us to find a ship and an anchor?"

Based on the existing clues, the round-faced woman came to a conclusion.

"Then what are we waiting for? Let's split up and start searching!"

The very proactive bald guy suggested that everyone split up to find boats and anchors.

However, Ashley noticed that Niddy hadn't spoken for a while and had been frowning in thought.

"Nidi, what are you thinking about?"

"As soon as I came in, I was thinking about what kind of danger we would face in this level. Right after the photos were taken, I thought the mechanism was about to activate, but nothing happened. This is very abnormal!"

Nidi's words stunned the others who were about to take action.

Indeed, the first level starts by electrifying the subway car, and the second level also demonstrates the power of lasers at the beginning. How could it be safe by the third level?

Based on her own experience, the round-faced woman suggested a possibility.

"Could there be landmines buried in the beach?"

Baldy also thought of a whimsical possibility.

"It's also possible that the water was released and flooded us. I just saw a water outlet over there."

Needy shook her head.

"I think the answer lies in the name of this place: Hourglass Bay!"

The black woman immediately realized what was happening.

"An hourglass! So it's quicksand?"

The others immediately looked cautiously at the beach beneath their feet.

"This is just speculation, and I can't verify it yet, but it's better for everyone to be cautious!"

With Nydy's reminder, everyone became much more cautious. The priest even picked up ropes and lifebuoys on the beach in case anyone actually fell into the ground.

Later, the round-faced woman found an anchor mark at the door of the cabin, suggesting that the anchor was likely used to open the door.

Then the priest discovered a radio calling for help, while the Black woman found a small boat inside a bottle.

Next, Baldy saw an iron box, opened it and found it contained very strong-smelling salted crab claws, while Nidi noticed that there seemed to be a telescope on the top of the lighthouse.

Ultimately, Ashley found a small boat covered in debris beneath the damaged dock.

"I've found a ship! And there's a line written on the hull: Blind Love?"

(End of this chapter)