My House of Horrors

“The non-smilers have targeted these children, too. I have to work faster.” Chen Ge did not have to fight with the cursed hospital yet. What he wished for the most was for the ghost fetus to fight the cursed hospital so that he could reap the benefit in the middle, but the chances of that happening were very low.

Glancing at the phone for the time, Chen Ge did not wait too long at the child’s home. He took a cab and went to Fang Yu’s favorite park. The road was sealed, and the park was cordoned off by blue construction boards. From more than ten meters away, Chen Ge saw Fang Yu, who stand alone outside the park. “She has come here again.”

After paying the fare, Chen Ge walked toward Fang Yu. “What are you doing?”

Fang Yu turned blankly around. The gaze that fell on Chen Ge was somewhat surprised, like the owner had some impression of this face. “I’m sorry, but do you know…”

“Yes, I do know Fang Yu. I am his best friend. Tonight, I shall take you to meet him.” Chen Ge answered so fast that it startled Fang Yu. The girl might not have a good memory, but she was not dumb. She was a little suspicious of Chen Ge.

“Looks like you have forgotten me again.” He explained for a long time, but Fang Yu still did not trust Chen Ge. She gripped her fists and turned to run back to her home. Chen Ge was quite helpless, so he chased after her. He could see things from her perspective. For a person with memory loss, the world was strange and filled with uncertainty. When they reached Fang Yu’s residential area, the auntie who Chen Ge had met before saw him. She saw Chen Ge, who was following Fang Yu, and she walked over with a kind smile.

“Have you come to see Fang Yu again?” The way the aunty looked at Chen Ge was strange, like a mother assessing the boy her daughter had brought home.

“Auntie, I might disturb you again tonight.” Chen Ge carried the backpack and walked toward Fang Yu. “Through some investigation, I found a way that could evoke Fang Yu’s memory, and I want to test it out tonight.”

“What way is that?”

“I can’t tell you just yet, but I guarantee it will work.”

“Then that’s perfect. Come on, why are we standing here in the cold?” The auntie invited Chen Ge and Fang Yu into her home. Once indoors, Fang Yu hid inside her room. “Sigh, this girl. I’m afraid she will one day forget about herself.”

“She won’t.” Chen Ge was curious about Fang Yu’s illness. He wanted to know what Fang Yu’s world behind the door looked like. “Auntie, actually, I am a clinical therapist, and I will need your help with today’s session.”

“Just tell me anything you need.”

“Give me Fang Yu’s bedroom key, and the treatment will start at midnight.”

The auntie hesitated before she agreed. At midnight, all the lights were off. Chen Ge sneaked into Fang Yu’s bedroom, and he saw the blood door beside Fang Yu’s bed. Compared to Wu Sheng’s door, Fang Yu’s door was almost covered in red. It looked almost no different from a real blood door. Fang Yu was a light sleeper. After Chen Ge locked the door, he did not stop and headed straight for the blood door. When his hand closed over the doorknob, something unexpected happened.

The backpack started to leak blood, and he heard pages turning. To not wake up Fang Yu, Chen Ge did not hesitate and pushed the door open.

…

When he opened his eyes, Chen Ge felt a great pain from his brain, as if a pair of hands had reached into his brain to pull a chunk of it out. He grabbed his head and slowly squatted on the ground. He took a few minutes’ rest before he stood up again.

“Wait… is this the front door of Jiujiang’s Children’s Home?” Fang Yu’s world was different from all the worlds that Chen Ge had encountered before. It was monochromatic, only gray and white. There was no blackness or redness; it was like a still of a grayscale picture. Standing on the spot, Chen Ge opened the backpack and was surprised to find Zhang Ya’s bedtime story sitting atop everything else.

“I remember slipping this into the side compartment.” Chen Ge flipped through the book, and it only got more surprising. The blood characters on the book had disappeared. “How did this happen?”

Chen Ge checked everything else. It was all fine. Only Zhang Ya’s bedtime story was affected. “Is it because she is a Demon God? Has it caused the ghost fetus to be worried?”

Shaking his head, Chen Ge had no ide. He tried to communicate with Xu Yin and the other ghosts, and it was a long time before he got a reaction. This world behind the door was very stable, so that meant the limitation on Xu Yin and the rest was heavy. It would be hard for them to break through.

“This is only the third door that I’ve entered, and the situation is already so bad. Just how scary is the door where the real ghost fetus is hiding?”

Walking in the gray and white door, Chen Ge slowly noticed the difference of this world. The other worlds were laden with the lingering spirit and obsession of the door pusher, but this world was different. Everything in sight was faded, like a painting that was being brushed away. Everything was turning strange and blurry. The pedestrians on the street hurried away. They had no faces, and they wore the same outfit.

“Memory is the core of one’s existence. Without memories, the world will turn into something like this, huh? Pale, blurry, and dulling one’s sense in uncertainty and anxiety.”

There was another strange thing about this world. At the end of the alley, on the door of the convenient store, on the wall, there were placed many mirrors. Chen Ge knew mirrors represented a unique meaning behind the door. He stood before one to study it, and he saw the color on his body slowly fading as well. Chen Ge in the mirror was slowly being assimilated into this world.

“The colors might be my memory. When I become gray and white, perhaps I will forget even myself. Looks like I can’t stay here for too long.” Xu Yin and the rest’s help was temporarily unavailable to him, but Chen Ge knew Fang Yu’s story. He knew where to find her. “The monsters behind the door are projections of people and incidents in real life. Fang Yu has a horrible memory. All the people here have no faces. She has forgotten herself, so naturally, she won’t remember those horrible things.”

Without memories, there was no joy, and of course, there was no sadness. How could one be despaired when one was not given hope in the first place?

In a way, it was lucky. No one stopped Chen Ge because no one was interested in him. To them, Chen Ge was just a passing pedestrian, and they would forget about him after they turned the corner. That worked for Chen Ge. As time passed, perhaps after he made that one step, Chen Ge would forget what he was doing, where he was doing, and who he was.

He was thankful that he already knew of Fang Yu’s past before he entered this world. Without wasting time, he started to search for the place where Fang Yu most likely would be—the small house inside the forest by the dam.