Chapter 7: Quiet Please, The Show is About to Begin

I was angry as soon as I reached the bottom of the stairs. It was those stupid fucking folding chairs, everywhere. A massive room filled end to end with the chairs, with barely enough room to walk between them.

The already dim lights barely did anything as they were hung so far above the ground. The lights were vaguely similar to stage lights, but they were turned to minimum brightness. Why even bother using stage lights if they are just going to sit on minimum power like that. Just use incandescent bulbs, or even energy efficient LED lights. The power cost of this must be insane.

I scout the room for any immediate danger, but I don't see anything that looks like it will try and kill me. Whatever the monster on this floor is, I do know that sound attracts it. What it does after it gets attracted to the noise, I'm not sure, but it probably involves my death.

I start my walk through the lines of chairs towards the other side of the large room. This room was easily full of tens of thousands of chairs. More than I think I've seen in a room before, not counting large stadiums as a room, that is.

I was constantly being mindful of where every part of me was. I was making sure to not even touch the chairs with my feet. I had long ago tied all the straps on the bag so they didn't hang or flop around. I wasn't going to have a strap catch a chair at the perfect angle to knock it over.

Once I make it to the other side of the room, there is an issue that I face immediately. The chairs line up perfectly wall to wall, with no path through to the other rows of chairs. This wouldn't be an issue if the door to leave wasn't three rows down.

I could do this a few ways, but the safest would be to pick up the chair calmly and move it to the space between rows away from the wall, giving me space to walk through the side. I would normally try to walk over them, but if I knock one over, or it breaks when I step on it, that's a lot of noise.

I ended up just moving the chairs quietly out of the way. I was doing my best to make as little noise as possible, as I wasn't sure if the monster attracted by sound had a range on it, or even what it looked like.

I made it to the door, only to find a nearly identical room. Rows on rows of folding chairs, but this room had a stage on one side. The stage lights were full blast on the stage, casting odd shadows along the rows of chairs. I was able to see a bit better thanks to this, but it was a rather bright distraction, one I wanted to go and take a look at, but I was in danger of knocking over chairs if I hit any of them by mistake.

Before doing anything else, I closed the door behind me quietly, then opened it again to find a different room. So it was another random floor. Something I should probably come to expect rather than be surprised at every time I see it. I wonder if the stairs were randomized too, but it was impossible to tell since there were no ways to have anything leave my sight.

Against my better judgment, I decided to go and take a look at the stage. Using the same method as before, I traveled along the wall until I made it to the bottom of the stage. The stage reminded me of what I had in the high school I went to. I easily climbed onto the stage, having lots of climbing practice from the previous floor.

The stage lights were all focused on a single podium in the middle of the stage. I walked over to it to see if there was anything on it. There was a playbook, but it was flipped to the last page. There were only a few words printed in bold and large text.

[END OF ACT ONE]

I tried reading through the rest of the stapled booklet, but it was in a language that was unrecognizable. The words were unreadable, but why did they seem so familiar? The last pages of the booklet were nearly empty, and looked abruptly squiggled on right before leaving a few blank pages.

Why was there an almost finished play written on the podium under the spotlight? Was it a distraction to get my attention, cause if so, it worked. I checked my surroundings, not seeing anything different or dangerous. It was only me, sitting on stage in the spotlight, and a bunch of empty chairs.

Like I was the act they put on during an intermission. It was a funny comparison to me. I had never been on a stage like this before, and if I wasn't worried about a monster that would be attracted by sound, I would definitely try something stupid. I left the booklet on the podium, not interested in the extra weight for no practical gain.

The bright lights had started to hurt my eyes, so I quietly got off the stage and walked back through the path of chairs along the wall. I lined myself up with the door on the other side of the room and started walking carefully between the chairs.

Once I had made it to the door, it was slightly different than the first. It was a normal looking door handle with a round knob. The door opened easily, and quietly. The other side was somewhat surprising to me, as it was a massive auditorium. There weren't any folding chairs, but instead, modern theater chairs.

There were easy walkways around, but it was probably ten times the size of a normal auditorium. I was on the top floor of a multi-tiered room. Stairs were immediately visible to get down to the door that was to the left of the stage.

However, I noticed the outline of something human looking behind the curtain covering the stage. It was being illuminated directly from behind the curtain, causing its outline to be very defined. It looked almost identical to a normal person, but there was something handing down to its stomach from its chin. With how bright the light behind it was, I highly doubted that it was a beard.

What could it be?

It most likely wasn't another living person, perhaps it was another corpse. That train of thought left the proverbial station once it turned. I could feel it looking towards me, when it didn't move after turning to look at me, I got a little worried.

I would have to walk towards whatever that was to get to the door. Is that the creature that follows loud noises? If so, I would have to start being a whole lot quieter than I was already. I was hoping that it couldn't see me behind the curtain.

I wanted nothing to do with this situation, I would just use the randomness of the floor and reset the room. Try for something a bit easier. Unfortunately, it seems that if something was controlling this place, it would be mocking me right now. The door had locked behind me and there was no quiet way to open it.

Knowing my luck, even if I did decide to try and break down the door, it was unbreakable, I would hurt myself and the monster would be attracted by the sound I made trying to break the door. Lovely, so I needed to find a way to get past whatever this creature was.

I also noticed that I didn't find a guide book on this floor either. I wonder if I used up all my luck finding that corpse clinging to that book. It gave me basic information, which made this place unhappy enough to intentionally hide the books from me.

Oh well, no sense worrying about that now when I had something a bit more pressing to deal with. I checked over the edge again, and whatever was behind the curtain hadn't moved yet. Which gave me some time to think of a plan.

A glaring issue I was facing was that I knew nothing about the monster, so I would have to plan for a few different outcomes. First, its eyes don't work and I can just sneak past it without making any noise. Second, its eyes don't work, but it can hear me breathing when I am close to it. Third, it can see me, and it can hear me breathing.

I think for the first, I just walk straight past it while remaining as calm as possible and minimizing the amount of noise I make. It should work in the first scenario, I hope. The only way I can see it failing is if the carpet down there is hard so my boots hitting the ground would be loud.

The second would be hard. I had to find a way to distract it with sound, and there wasn't anything I could see between me and the monster that I would be able to use as a distraction. I could always throw an empty bottle if I drank the water in it. I don't think that would work, actually, there wouldn't be enough weight in the bottle to throw it a meaningful distance without making a lot of noise myself.

As for the third case, I'd probably die. I could only hope that I run faster than it, and then try to loop it around the room and escape. There's not much else I can do about it if it can see me and follows loud sounds. I think that would be a little too challenging if it was like that.

I will play it by option two, three is unnecessarily challenging, and one just doesn't feel right. I need something to distract it, and that's when something rather immoral comes to mind. I quietly open my bag and pull out an almost empty bottle of 'Clear Water'.

I drank the rest of the bottle, and prepared myself mentally. I knew the bottle would be too light to throw if it was empty, so I did something that I had never expected I would have to do in my life. I filled the bottle with urine.

It was fairly unsanitary, but I had no choice. Filling it without making sound was a test of patience and skill that was so unique I would rather avoid the experience forever if I can help it. It felt wrong to fill a bottle with urine to use as a distraction for a sound based monster, but I did what needed to be done.

I held the bottle by the lid, the quietest part to hold a bottle, and walked down the stairs towards the bottom area that had the stage. I was breathing as quietly as possible and walking while keeping my torso as still as possible to minimize shaking and bouncing from my bag.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

In the dead silent room, I could hear a faint hum of bright lights, and my quiet breathing. Let's hope this monster doesn't get angry at just that. I was almost praying with how hard I was hoping this monster would stay behind the curtain as I neared the stage from the left side, where the door was.

Now close enough, I could see that the door was a fire door, and read in clear text 'Hold for three seconds to sound the alarm, will open after five more seconds.' A security fire door. Just my luck, eight seconds to open a door, five of which, there will be an alarm going off from who knows where, and I could only hope that it wasn't the door itself.

I wandered close to the door while I kept an eye on the silhouette of the monster. Once I got within a few paces of the stage, it turned towards me and started moving. I hesitated once I saw that it seemingly walked through the curtain, as if it was a poorly programmed game.

The monster wasn't fast, but it moved with a purpose, and that purpose was clearly me. The monster looked like what you could describe as the perfectly average guy, nothing great, but nothing bad, just average. However, his jaw extended unnaturally past his stomach, drool leaking out of its mouth constantly.

I threw the bottle filled with a liquid to the other side of the room away from me. I threw it so it would hopefully land on the stage with a loud noise. Thankfully, my aim was true and the bottle made a few liquid sloshing noises and plastic crinkling.

The monster immediately turned towards the bottle, forgetting my existence. This time I didn't hesitate and went for the door quietly, I didn't want to re-earn the monster's attention. I made it to the door and just went for it, I depressed the handle and waited.

I looked towards the monster as it neared the bottle, but suddenly, my mind was telling me to look away. It was almost natural to me to not look at this monster. I heard an unnaturally loud sound, similar to slurping the bottom of a drink that was empty. My brain continued to tell me that it was only natural to not look at the monster while it ate.

I knew something was wrong, but I couldn't stop myself from looking straight at the door I was trying to open. Then, the alarm started going off. It was so loud, I almost let go of the door handle, and the feeling I had felt that told me to look away from the monster had ended.

I looked towards it to find it had started walking towards me, and I wasn't going to find out personally how it ate. The door sounded like it was the thing making the noise, so I chanced it and let go of the door. I started moving away quickly, the sound of the alarm masking my footsteps.

The monster had continued on to the door, completely ignoring me making distance from it. It was only interested in the sound the door was making. As I was watching it near the door, there was a voice in my head telling me that I didn't want to look. Forcing me to look away.

I couldn't resist the compulsion and looked the other way as a horrid slurping noise. The sound of the alarm was getting quieter as if it was fading into the distance, until all I could hear was the slurping. Then even the slurping ended, along with the compulsion.

I had backed off quite far, so when I turned around to see the door just completely gone, I was more than a little frightened. Did that thing just eat the door because it was making noise? That is some horrifying stuff. I checked the stage to see if my improvised liquid sound device was there, and it was gone too.

So, this monster goes for the loudest sound, and it will change targets if something louder happens nearby. I do seem to be stuck once again though. The door is now wide open and I can see more folding chairs in the room ahead, but the monster is just standing dead still in front of the door.

Actually, I never noticed the creature get down from the stage. Did it jump down, did it float, or did it just instantly fix itself to the ground like an old game. I hated this creature, it was awfully designed and whoever made it should be ashamed of themselves, be it evolution or design. Don't care, please never create anything again.

I had to find a way to make the monster move away from the door so I could get through. It didn't have that large of a range for quiet sounds, based on how it wasn't chasing me from here, so I just had to lure it to near the other side of the stage.

I walked to the other side of the room from the door, and looked at the theater chairs. It was the kind of chair where the seat was straight up and putting pressure on it made it go down so you could sit on it. Was it spring loaded?

I lightly pushed on the seat, and it provided resistance. I already had a plan in my head, but it was a shame I didn't think of this before I resorted to filling a bottle with urine. I felt kind of stupid, there was a much easier solution right in front of me, and I ignored it.

Either way, I pushed the seat all the way to the bottom, and let it spring all the way back up. It wasn't as loud as a bottle full of liquid hitting the stage, but it was enough to draw the attention of the monster. I walked the long way around the theater chairs while the monster did whatever it did and ate the chair.

I was already looking away, but the weird compulsion forced me to stay turned away. I wonder what was so special about the way it eats that it forces me to look away. I guess it doesn't matter too much, as it gave me the chance to get away and through the empty door frame.

I quickly went into the new room and scouted for the door to the next, to put as much distance from the monster as I could, as with the door completely gone, the room wouldn't randomize. I just walked along the path of folding chairs quietly, not hearing the monster following me, I was happy.

I made it to the next door, opened it and went through, closing the door behind me. I was now safe, at least until I found another one, if there was another one. Until then I was safe to explore and make slightly more noise, realizing how slow the monsters were, I don't think they would catch me off guard.

Escaping them isn't even that hard, just make a louder noise than yourself, somewhere else. Honestly, there were a lot of ways to make a distant sound. Throwing, setting something off, I wonder if just screaming and then moving away from that spot quietly would be a good enough, if dangerous way to make things happen.

I wouldn't try screaming, just in case I pulled aggro and then couldn't get rid of it because I was too loud. That would just be a horrible decision, worse than the bottle. If anyone ever learns about that, I'm sure it's going to be the end of me. If anyone asks about this floor, I'll just say that I used the theater seats.

I walk through a few rooms until I make it to another door with another handle, I hesitate slightly as I reach for the handle. Was I ready to deal with another of the sound hunting monsters? Yeah, I think I was.

I open the room and take a good look around. Sitting in one of the seats of the room was the monster, it was staring off into empty space. The room itself was a movie theater, but instead of theater chairs, it was the same folding chairs from previous rooms.

The door to the next room was almost directly behind the monster. Of course it would be in front of the door again, but this one should be a lot easier. I went to the other side of the room and went near the monster.

As soon as it started to stand up, I grabbed a folding chair and threw it as hard as I could towards where I entered the room. It hits a row of folding chairs and knocks them all over. The noise was incredibly loud, and the monster immediately started walking towards them, walking through the chairs instead of around them.

I used the chance to sneak towards the door. In my haste, I accidentally bumped into some chairs, it wasn't as loud as the crashing chairs, but I still managed to get the attention of the monster before it made it all the way across the room. The door was closer to me than the monsters, so I booked it.

I ran to the door, no longer caring for noise. I successfully made it to the door and almost leaped through, making more noise than I had on the entire floor so far, save for the alarm. I slammed the door shut while taking a look around the new room, and sure enough, there was another monster in this room.

This is a bad situation. The door slam was loud, so maybe it would go for the door? I moved away quietly as it walked this way, but as I moved away from the door, the monster kept turning towards me. This was bad, really bad.

I grabbed a folding chair and threw it close to the monster. It collided with a whole bunch of chairs near the monster, and it flinched. It peeled its eyes away from me and I was once again forced to look away.

While I was forced to look away, I put some much needed distance between me and the monster. By the time it was done eating the chairs, I was long gone, near the exit of the room. I made it to the door as the monster stood still, with no target left to hunt, as long as I kept quiet.

The next room looked like a conference room filled with folding chairs, it was rather small, and thankfully there wasn't a monster in here. On the table there was a metal basket filled with snacks with water beside it. Emphasis on the 'was' as I had stuffed all the snacks into my bag. I grabbed a bottle of water from the table as well.

I sat down in one of the chairs while drinking some water. I was getting some much needed rest now. Dealing with this floor is pretty stressful. One wrong move and I'm getting chased by a monster until I can figure out how to make a louder sound closer to the monster.

I didn't like this floor. Hopefully the ones after this weren't that bad, but I was already struggling to remember what the book had casually mentioned about the other floors. I think next was the ignorant city, then offices, then buildings, then the floor I had to mentally prepare myself for.

Ignorant city, I wonder what that means. Doesn't matter, I'll find out once I get there, I guess. It was time for me to keep moving, so I quietly got up and opened the door to the next room. I could see the exit to the next floor, but there was an issue.

There were five of the monsters staggered throughout the room. One was even walking around aimlessly. However, the room looked like a concert hall, but it was strangely absent of any chairs at all. Hey floor, at least be consistent with your theming, you're getting lazier as I get lower and lower.

On the stage were several instruments, the lights were all pointed at the stage, and it looked like everything was hooked up and ready to start a concert. I backed up through the still opened door into the meeting room and grabbed the empty snack basket.

I slowly walked back into the concert hall and made my way towards the stage. The roaming monster was right in front of the stage, and I was going to need some way to distract it so I could get on stage. I had some minor knowledge of audio equipment, and if it was all plugged in, like it looked like there was, I was going to have some fun, but I would also need to be quick.

Once I pulled the monster with just my breathing, I threw the metal basket, making a louder noise that pulled most of the monsters in the room. Not to plan, but it was fine. I hurried up onto the stage and did a quick inventory, when I found a playback device near a piano.

I quickly checked all the wires, and was happy when it was true that everything was plugged in. I pressed play on the playback device, just to see if it would play anything, and it did, really loudly as well. There were speakers on the ceiling spread through the room that lured the ire from the monsters in the room.

What I didn't expect was that what was playing was a song very familiar to me, it was a song that I had made with my friends back in high school. We thought we had lost it, as it was made in some random program we found on the internet, and then the laptop it was made on died and corrupted the hard drive.

Pushing the oddness out of my mind, I made my way quickly towards the exit to the floor. I knew it was such, because the door was slightly out of place, as it was a glass door with a pull handle on it. I walked through the door while the monsters stood below the ceiling mounted speakers, unable to reach them.

I was still able to hear the music through the door, so I decided to walk down the stairs first thing, instead of waiting at the top to rest and recoup. Not today, I'll rest halfway down the stairs.

I don't want to hear this song.