No Way Out Vol. XI

**MrBallen** (0:00)
Today's podcast will feature three stories that all involve people who were trapped with No Way Out. The audio from all three of these stories has been pulled from our main YouTube channel and has been remastered for today's episode. The links to the original YouTube videos are in the description. The first story you'll hear is called Escalation, and after you hear the story, you'll likely never feel safe on an escalator again. The second story you'll hear is called Volunteer, and it's about a swimmer who mysteriously goes missing in a lake, which prompts a local man to come in to help.
The third and final story you'll hear is called The Messiest Place, and it's about a disappearance inside of a hospital that nobody can explain. But before we get into that story, if you're a fan of the Strange, Dark and Mysterious, delivered in story format, and you come to the right place because that's all we do, and we upload four times a week, Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Fridays. So if that's of interest to you, please replace all of the Follow Buttons toilet paper with duct tape.
Okay, let's get into our first story called Escalation.

**SPEAKER_2** (1:21)
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**MrBallen** (1:51)
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Around 10 a.m. on July 26, 2015, a 31-year-old mom named Xiang Luzhuang and her husband chased their 2-year-old son around a brand new indoor playground. This playground was on the 6th floor of a mall in Jingzhou City, which is in central China. And so Xiang and her husband had come to this mall today, just so their son could basically enjoy this playground. And currently, he was running around in circles and laughing hysterically. He thought it was great.
Xiang caught up to her son and scooped him up, and then placed him at the top of a slide, and he happily slid down to the bottom, and when he reached the bottom, Xiang was waiting for him, and the son, he just stopped and looked past her and pointed and started saying, Ride! Ride! And so Xiang, she turned around, and she saw right behind them were these two escalators, one going up and one going down. And so Xiang realized her son clearly thought these escalators were maybe a part of this playground, and so he wanted to go use them. They were a fun attraction. And so Xiang smiled and took her son's hand, and then told her husband they're gonna go ride the ride, you know, the escalators, and then they began walking over.
Once Xiang and her son actually reached the escalator, suddenly her son was not as keen to hop on board. He was nervous. But Xiang, who had ridden escalators many times before, you know, told her son it's totally safe, and she kind of coaxed him to do it, and eventually he stepped on right alongside her, holding her hand, and about halfway up the escalator, when she was confident her son would be okay, Xiang turned around and looked up towards the top of the escalator, the seventh floor where they were going, and she saw three mall employees at the top of the escalator on the seventh floor where they were going, and they were clearly looking at Xiang with a very serious look on their faces, and they were gesturing at something towards the top of the escalator. It seemed like they could be warning her about something or simply pointing something out, she wasn't really sure, and so she looked up at them like, what's going on here? But the three mall employees just didn't do a good job communicating whatever was going on or whatever issue they were dealing with. And so as a result, Xiang and her son just continued riding up the escalator, and as they got closer and closer, these mall employees continued to gesture at something happening on the seventh floor, just beyond the escalator, and Xiang still totally confused. And then finally, when Xiang and her son reached the top and stepped off, Xiang suddenly understood what these employees were referencing. But by now, it was too late.