My House of Horrors

“Who is that? He looks familiar. Could he be one of the passengers from the bus?” The drunkard had just been saying seconds ago that the streets should be safer than the building, but before he even finished, he had been proven wrong. He suspected that there was a pair of eyes following him from a place that he could not see, observing his every move.

“Is he waving at me? With the fog, I can’t see his face, so he shouldn’t be able to see mine either. In such circumstances, a normal person wouldn’t proactively greet others.”

A person’s potential was often forced. After going through the experience earlier, the drunkard had become noticeably more cautious, and he had more to think about before making any move. The shape of the man in the fog became clearer—the person seemed to be walking toward him.

“No, I need to stay away from him.” The drunkard noticed the person pick up his speed. He did not dare to answer and turn to run away.

“If he’s a living human, he should have said something. Just standing there to wave and running toward me without saying a word is too suspicious.”

Even the streets were not safe, so the drunkard was feeling trapped. He did not know where to run to.

“The most important thing now is to meet up with the other passengers; it’s too dangerous for me to stay alone.” The drunkard jogged for a while, but the bus was nowhere to be seen. The more he ran, the more unsettled he felt. “F*ck, I think I’m really lost now. The buildings here all look almost the same, and the bus is my only frame of reference.”

He could still see the vague shadow behind him in the fog. The man who had waved at him was still behind him, maintaining a safe distance between them.

“And what the hell is this? Why is it following me?” The drunkard ran faster and did not stop until he reached the next junction. He still could not find the bus, and as he was hesitating over which route to take, he suddenly noticed the shadow that had appeared on the opposite side of the road. It was waving at him!

“When did the thing pass me‽ He should be way behind me!” Despair crawled into his heart like a stubborn vine. The drunkard was at a loss; it felt like wherever he went, he would run into this person.

“What should I do now?” Thirty years of life experience was unable to give him any aid. The man on the opposite side of the road was still waving at him. With the vague silhouette, the oscillating arms looked like the ticking hands of death’s clock.

“Even if I run down another path, the monster will still follow me. There’s no other option; I’ll have to fight it!” The drunkard gritted his teeth and tightly gripped the cleaver that he had brought out from the kitchen of the dog-man’s house. He had never even killed a chicken for cooking in his life, but at that moment, a cruel thought entered his mind.

“Calm down, there’s no need to panic!”

Staying too long in the blood fog would influence one. The drunkard had not noticed this himself. The corners of his eyes were red, filled with blood vessels. It looked like he had not slept for days, completely different from how he looked when he first got on the bus.

Since this was his first time, the drunkard’s heart raced at an impossible rate. He gripped the cleaver with both hands and used a strange posture as he walked across the road. The vague shape kept waving at him. As he got closer, the drunkard got a better look.

“He looks so familiar. I should have met him somewhere before, was he a passenger from the bus?”

The drunkard stopped in the middle of the road and yelled at the man, “Hey! What’s your name?”

There was no reply other than the fact that the angle of the waving dwindled, and suddenly, the man walked toward him. In the blood red city, on the empty street, the distance between the two closed. As the man slowly approached, the sense of familiarity in the drunkard’s heart grew.

“He feels too familiar; I swear I’ve seen him somewhere before.” The drunkard nudged forward and finally crossed the thick fog, standing before the man. The man was covered in blood, and his stomach was the most gruesome. The waist where the lower body and upper body should have been connected was replaced by a dark line. It felt like the man’s body had been halved but had then been reconnected.

Seeing the man’s appearance, the drunkard thought about retreating. However, other than fear, he could not shake the sense of familiarity. He was sure that he knew this person from somewhere.

“Who are you?” His brain was blank, and the drunkard could not really explain this question that slipped from his lips. His hand that gripped the cleaver was shaking.

“The road ahead splits—one for the living, the other for the dead.” The strange man slowly raised his head, and underneath his messy head of hair was a face similar to that of the drunkard. The pupils filled with fear, and hatred popped outward. With the broken spine supporting his body, he lunged toward the drunkard. His lips tore open, and a shrill voice different form the drunkard’s escaped from his throat. “I am you! You who have died a horrible death!”

When he saw that the monster looked like him, the last mental defense in the drunkard’s mind collapsed. Without any fight left in him, he held the cleaver, turned, and ran. This time, he wasn’t even paying attention to his direction. His every nerve was fraying, and he barely registered the legs that were carrying him forward. He had no idea where his destination was because he did not know where was safe. All he could do was run.

Pain coursed through his body, and his lungs felt like they were burning up. The world in his eyes faded away as the air was sucked out of his throat.

“I can’t run anymore…”

This was a world made from despair. The only choice for the living was to enter the building of their choice and opt for their preferred way to die.

“No one will be able to survive here. Everyone will die…” His consciousness falling, the drunkard used his last breath to run into the closest building. The main color scheme was white. This appeared to be the only private hospital in Li Wan City. It was not big, just a small three-story building.

…

“Daddy…”

“Shut the f*ck up.” The middle-aged was catching his breath. He hid inside the safety corridor and kept turning to look behind him. Several minutes later, when he could not hear the footsteps anymore, he leaned against the wall and slowly slid down to the ground. “I’ve seen uncooperative passengers being sent into a door inside the ghost apartment; the world behind the door is similar to this place, suffused with blood fog. This is not a place meant for the living; this is all that man’s fault! If there’s a chance, I’ll definitely repay this favor!”

The more he thought about it, the more angered he became, and that only got worse after he saw the woman and the boy cowering next to him. Without warning, he kicked the woman roughly on her leg. “Ever since I married you, I’ve never enjoyed a good day in my life! This is all your fault, you f*cking mute!”

The woman groaned incomprehensibly. She seemed to be deathly afraid of the man. Covering her legs, she moved backward and still made sure to shield the boy from his father’s vengeance.

“Daddy…”

“Stop calling me, you little f*cker! You’re sounding more and more like my debt collector!” The middle-aged man looked around and his face was drawn. “We were much too focused on running to notice we’ve ended up inside the hospital. This place is definitely cursed somehow. After that monster leaves, we’ll need to get away from this place.”

“Daddy…” Even though he had just been scolded, the boy kept calling his father. Finally, the middle-aged man noticed something was wrong. If this was normal, the boy would have apologized or gone quiet once his fire started to burn. The boy would never go against him.

“What‽”

“Earlier, there was a little big brother who stuck some paper on your back.” The boy pointed on the man’s back.

“On my back‽” The middle-aged man shivered involuntarily. He reached behind him and pulled off a patient’s record.

The record showed that the patient had died, but on the back of the paper, someone had written in uneven handwriting ‘It’s your turn to come and find me.’