The corridor back to the residential wing was too empty.
Lin Yue noticed it in stages, the way he noticed most things, not all at once, but gathered piece by piece until the shape of the wrongness became undeniable. First, the absence of other players. The Game Hall's residential corridors were rarely crowded at this hour, but they were never this quiet either; there was usually some murmur bleeding through a door, some distant laugh, the shuffle of someone's slippers against tile. Tonight there was nothing. Just his own footsteps, even and unhurried, swallowed by walls that seemed to be listening rather than simply standing there.
He walked another twenty paces before the second thing registered.
His footsteps were arriving twice.
