My House of Horrors

“When did this get there?” The middle-aged man held the medical history, and his eyes were bulging—he had no memory of this at all.

“I…” The boy was deathly afraid of his father, so he cowered behind his mother.

“Why aren’t you speaking now? It’s time for you to speak, but you choose to be silent‽” The middle-aged man yanked the boy out from behind his mother. He grabbed the boy’s shirt and shook him. “When was this stuck there? Where were we at the time? What did the person who left this look like?”

“On the first floor, when we passed one of the sickrooms, the door was left half ajar. I saw a hand reach out and place the paper on your back.” It was unclear whether the boy was more afraid of his father or more afraid of that hand. “I wanted to tell you at the time, but then a face showed up behind the door. His skin was ashen, and he whispered to me to not reveal the secret because this was supposed to be a fair game of hide-and-seek.”

“When have you ever been so obedient? He told you not to say anything, so you didn’t say anything?” The middle-aged man raised his arm and was close to slapping his boy’s face. “Trash, all of you! You’re as useless as your mother. One day, I’ll die because of both of you!”

He stared at the paper that he was holding, and the uneven handwriting on it made his hair stand on end.

“It’s my turn to come and find you? Only an idiot would follow that order!” The middle-aged man crumpled the medical history into a ball and tossed it on the ground. Perhaps it was a coincidence, but the picture of the patient poked out from the ball, and it happened to stare right at the middle-aged man.

“So damn unlucky.” He stomped angrily on the ball of the paper. The middle-aged man glanced down the corridor. “The monster from the road didn’t chase us into this place—it should have given up already. We should venture deeper into the building. When we ran in here, I remember seeing a backdoor on the other side of the building.”

After hearing what his boy had to say, there was no way the middle-aged man was going to retake the route that they had taken earlier. He looked at the sickrooms that lined the corridor on both sides, and his palms were sweating.

“Aren’t we going to find that big brother?” asked the boy cautiously as he raised his head.

“Find him? Do you want to die that much? The most urgent thing we need to do now is leave this godforsaken place.” The middle-aged man grabbed his wife’s shoulders roughly. “Look after him carefully and don’t let him wander off. The people inside the ghost apartment have two different attitudes dealing with adults and children…”

As he spoke, he moved forward, but the edge of his pants were pulled back by the boy. “What is it this time?”

“Daddy, he’s playing hide-and-seek with us.”

“F*ck, of course, I know that.” The middle-aged man kicked the boy back. “Do you really plan on playing hide-and-seek with a ghost in this ghost-ridden place?”

“But if we didn’t go and find him, he’ll come to find us instead.” The boy used a serious tone to explain the game’s rule. However, his innocent voice transmuted into an indescribable sense of terror when it fell into his father’s ears.

“The ghost… will come and find us?” Based on the rules, there was indeed a chance of that happening. The middle-aged man’s face fell immediately. Whether it was looking for the ghost or being looked for by the ghost, both of these things were something hard to accept for him.

“No, this has to be a trap. Even if we find the ghost, after the role changes, it will still come and find us! We need to leave this place! We cannot stand here anymore.” The middle-aged man picked up the boy, called after his wife, and raced down the safety corridor.

…

Holding the sharp scissors in his hands, the ‘murderer’ who called himself Scissors stood alone on the first floor of the city hospital.

“Weak animals move in a herd; only a beast moves alone. Therefore, a murderer is always alone.” The backs of Scissors’ hands were pulsing with veins, which showed how nervous he was. “A small city covered in blood fog, this is completely different from the entry in my big brother’s diary. Did he get the description wrong, or did I get off at the wrong station?”

Scissors touched his face. When his fingers brushed against the wound, he grimaced from the pain. When the man was alone, he acted completely different from how he had when he was on the bus.

“To not become the prey, one has to act like the hunter. I cannot make the same mistake my elder brother did.” Scissors walked forward several steps. The hospital at night was much scarier than it was in daylight. And if the lights were not turned on, the terror factor would multiply several more times.

“I can’t panic. The most dangerous place should be the safest place. Going against the grain is my only option of survival.” That was what he told himself, but he found it difficult to even move his feet. His body was resisting this instinctually. “Do not be afraid, the more scared you are at those things, the higher the probability for them to come and haunt you. Along the way, people’s screams and wails kept coming from other directions, but I personally have not run into anything, so this is proof enough that my theory is correct.”

He gripped the scissors in his hand tightly. After giving himself some words of encouragement, he took another step into the long corridor on his left. After taking a step, two types of footsteps echoed in the lobby. One was his, and the other was the sound of high heels landing on the ground.

“That is just my imagination. There is nothing behind me, nothing behind him…” He repeated this again and again. Scissors was hypnotizing himself—he felt like he was almost getting used to the presence of this sound already. “I’m too nervous. The sound will naturally disappear once I leave this place. There’s only five to six hours until daybreak, so I only need to hold on until then.”

Scissors was definitely a heavy-storied person. He suddenly stopped and raised his hand to slap himself on his face. “You came to find your elder brother; how can you only think about yourself at a time like this?”

His older brother’s image flashed across his mind, and Scissors burnished with determination. “I’ve prepared for five months for today. I still have so many trump cards up my sleeves, so there is no reason for me to panic.”

He forced himself to stop being afraid. He held the scissors in his left hand and the bag that had already stopped leaking in his right hand.

“My whole appearance looks unapproachable. There was a passenger on the bus earlier who looked similar to me—he should be someone with a story as well—but his preparation is not as complete as mine is.” Scissors had great, and some might say unfounded, confidence in himself. He ignored the echoing footsteps behind him and walked down the hospital corridor.

The hospital was not big, and there were not that many sickrooms. Scissors walked for a while before he heard a strange noise coming from the second floor.

“That seems to have come from the safety corridor. Who could that be?” Licking his lips, Scissors thought back to the classical demeanor of crazed murderers that he had seen on the movies and slithered his way up to the second floor.

There was a draft in the corridor, and the doors for a few of the sickrooms had been left half-open. Since there was no light, all the rooms were dark, and standing outside, there was no way of telling what was inside.

“Is someone here?”

Scissors was cautious with every step. When he passed one of the sickrooms, he suddenly noticed something. The footsteps that had been following him had disappeared.

“Why did the sound stop?”

Now that it was gone, he felt weirdly uncomfortable. Turning back to look, he realized that someone had stuck a piece of paper on his shoulder.

“Come and find me?”