My House of Horrors

“A red outfit, is he the owner of this building?”

Inside this blood red city, the buildings were the most dangerous because no one knew what was hiding inside them. Each building was an unknown. The man in the doctor’s coat was very strong, but even as strong as he was, he did not dare to step into these buildings willy-nilly. The most extreme red was still a Red Specter, but the man knew that hiding in a corner of this city was a presence greater than a Red Specter.

He did not know how to describe it because he had not seen it before, but he could sense its presence. It was an overwhelming presence; every vein in his body felt like exploding, and his hair stood on end. At that moment, he even forgot that he had become a ghost. Before such a presence, human, ghost, Red Specter… there was no difference.

“Go back from whence you came, this is not a place for you.” The man who stood at the top floor of the building had his lips move. His voice echoed in the doctor’s ears.

The chains behind him dragged out the monsters from the shadow. The doctor did not heed the man’s warning. He watched the building quietly. He was not afraid of the Red Specter at the top of the building but the other unknown presence that might be inside the building. In the city, each building represented an enclosed world, a singular nightmare. Entering them was easy, but exiting them would be hard.

“I shouldn’t enter the buildings, but I am so hungry, and I smelled that familiar taste. I can feel my soul shivering. I think I know the owner of this smell. Perhaps after consuming him, I can remember why I ended up in this state.” The maddened speech slowed down. The doctor opened his red eyes to look at the man.

Without any warning, more chains slithered out from his back. The chains that seemed to be made from innumerable blood vessels charged at the building. The doctor climbed up the stairs, and his target was clear. He wanted to enter the thirteenth floor and then consume the man that was on the other side of the door.

This burnt building was the man with the red shirt’s territory. The strange door on the thirteenth floor should be related to him, so the chance was high that he was the door-pusher. The door-pusher could release twice the amount of power in the world that he had constructed, so when he saw the doctor charge into the building, he did not retreat.

The world behind the door was constructed via the door-pusher’s memory. Surrendering the nightmare meant betraying one’s past, handing over the memory to a stranger. Unless it was absolutely necessary, no door-pusher would abandon their own world and escape.

The doctor rushed toward the door on the thirteenth floor, and naturally, the man intended to stand in his way. He stood at the edge of the building and opened his arms. He leaped forward, and his body fell toward the doctor like a bullet.

As he fell, the edge of his shirt turned extremely sharp and frayed, which looked somewhat like knives but more like feathers. Underneath the red shirt, one could see scary scars. The man’s body had been seriously burned. Just from those scars, one could imagine how painful his death had been. The resentment on the man was strong. His eyes were sharp, filled with destruction.

He was similar to the doctor at the bottom of the building. They seemed to have slowly acclimatized to this blood red city after being there for so long. They had lost themselves and become out of control and maddened.

The man careened from above and aimed at the doctor. The edges of his lips tore open, but the doctor seemed to have expected this already. He saw the approaching man, and he not only did not panic, he even revealed a scary smile to the man.

“Are you so desperate to be my food? Are you so keen to be a part of my body? Okay, I shall fulfil your wish.” The doctor pulled open his coat to reveal the clot of red chains underneath. The scary man had been hiding his real ability.

Around half of his energy had been used to resist himself—this was a completely insane person. Blood oozed out of his body, and it formed snakes that seemed like they could never be satisfied. The snakes wrapped around the doctor’s body like they wanted to consume him as well.

As the man fell from above, the doctor released a maddened laugh. He removed the limitation that had been holding him back. Endless red chains swamped out of his back. There were so many of them that they could not be counted. Looking from afar, it seemed like a giant red man-eating tree had grown up by the side of the building.

Its roots were moving rapidly like they were trying to consume the entire building. The fight that was anticipated did not happen. The man was soon entangled by the many chains, and then he was dragged to the doctor’s back.

The two men stood with their backs to each other, and the doctor could clearly hear the man’s cries of desperation and despair. Torn apart by the red chains, the man’s body was slowly digested. Like nutrients, he was absorbed into the doctor’s body. Throughout the process, the man kept resisting, but he was no match for the thick curls of red chains.

When the man’s voice slowly disappeared, the doctor bit on his finger. With the blood, he drew a slash across his arm.

“That’s the fourth one. Soon… I can already feel something coming out from my body! That should be the new me, but before welcoming this new life, I still wish to find and understand my past.” The doctor touched the head in his embrace.

“Why do tears come whenever I look at her? What is this emotion? How did she die? Who killed me? And who took her body away and left me with just her head? What should I do? Should I seek revenge or help her welcome a new life with me?”

The doctor stopped at the thirteenth floor, and his gaze fell on that special door. His lips slowly returned to normal. He pulled back all the chains and stood by the door.

“This familiar smell, the person I’m looking for is just on the other side.” The man waved his arm, and the chains struck the door. He wanted to open the door, but he seemed to have angered the building. A horrible stench leaked out from every corner, and at the same time, the blood on the door was spreading. In a few seconds, this door would turn completely red.

…

Standing on the thirteenth floor of the building, Chen Ge held the hammer and looked at the three doors.

“The noise disappeared on this floor, so the water ghost should be hiding in one of these rooms. Should I break down all the doors to take a look?”

Before he decided what to do, the door on the leftmost side suddenly became colored with red veins. The normal-looking door slowly turned red.