My House of Horrors

The man ransacked through the cupboards. He could only see from one eye. The pain shot through his brain, and his actions became more rugged and rough. His arm was cut on something, forming a long, disgusting-looking wound.

Blood slid down his arm before dropping on the bright, clean tiles. The image of a woman in red appeared in the pool of blood. The blood started to change like someone was writing a blood letter.

“You are not going to find the way to the school with your method. You’ve failed. You lied to me. You are not able to give me freedom, and now your life is counting down because of it.”

Pain bent the man over. The stuff in the cupboard clattered to the floor. He closed his eyes, and the world fell into darkness. His body knocked into the furniture, and his arms flailed helplessly around. He looked like he was drowning. Medicine and various medical implements littered the ground. The bookshelf was tipped over, and several professional books related to the eye fell next to the man’s feet.

“The liquid in the eye is leaking, the wound at the edge is festering, the nerves are dying, and sensitivity to light is decreasing. It affects even my original eye. It feels like something is squeezing against it, and it’s getting harder and harder to open the eye!” The man’s eyes were screwed shut. He was the only one in the room, but he yelled at the top of his lungs like he was talking to someone else. “But don’t you worry, as long as I’m alive, there is a chance for improvement!”

Eyes were windows to the soul. When one’s eyes could not open, the world inside would become dark. The man was like a beast, venting the pain that ravaged his body until he collapsed from fatigue and fainted next to the dining table.

The lights in the room flickered and dimmed. The room seemed to be changing. The blood stains on the ground turned dark brown, looking like drying scabs. In the extreme silence, a woman in a red jacket materialized in the room.

She looked completely different to Wenyu but shared some similarities to Qiumei from Deskmate. The woman shuffled silently to stand between the man and Wenyu. She picked up a diary that had fallen from the bookshelf. The cover was stained by blood, and flipping over the cover, the first page had a name written in red—Qiumei.

The front half of the diary was written using black pen, but the later parts were all in red. The woman flipped it to the last few pages.

30th November: The woman in red kept disturbing the surgery, as if by changing the eye, she will disappear forever. Looks like Chang Gu hasn’t lied to me—I can finally escape this ghost’s torture.

1st December: The woman in red appeared again. A few years ago, it was she who dragged me into Wenyu’s body to have me become the next Wenyu. She is not my friend, even though she lives around me.

2nd December: The surgery is too risky, and that is not counting the supernatural disturbance. Like a mad woman, she kept trying to stop the surgery. It appears that Chang Gu’s method really can end all the pain.

3rd December: As long as the ghost is still there, the surgery cannot be conducted normally, so we can only trap her. I’ve not spoken to her for years already, so this time, I guess I’ll play a little game with her.

4th December: The surgery was successful. The evil red ghost that has been following me has disappeared, but I never expected it would be by this kind of method. After the surgery, I became the new red ghost.

5th December: The first time I trusted anyone other than granny, I lost my freedom and became a scapegoat; the second time I trusted another person, I lost even the husk where I could hide. What can I do now? Trust him the third time? Or…

The diary ended there. The woman in red put the book back. She leaned to the side and studied Chang Gu. His black hair lifted as if there was a breeze. The woman’s right eye was completely red, but the left eye was just a black hollow. Even if she became a real Red Specter, she would not have recovered her left eye.

The lights in the room dimmed further, and the sound of marbles bouncing came from the ceiling. The sound of water came from the bathroom, and the pen rolled on the ground. The fruit knife on the coffee table moved on its own. A pale hand reached out from underneath the red shirt, and the woman held the handle of the blade with two fingers.

She stood before the fainted man and dangled the blade above his head, aiming right at the man’s right eye, which was not protected by the bandage. Just as the woman was about to release her fingers, she suddenly stopped as if sensing something else in the room.

Her neck turned, and her hair parted away. The hollowness where her eye should be looked straight at the camera, like she was looking at the audience beyond the screen. A strange movie started in theater—there was a sound of approaching footsteps underlying the music.

Strange noises filled up the house on screen. It came from the deep end of the cupboard, under the bed, and behind the door. It was so incessant and constant that it created the impression that the same thing was happening in real life!

One’s ears could no longer discern whether the sound came from the screen or from behind oneself.

The lights flickered suddenly, and the woman neared the screen. She was not moving slowly. She looked as if she was standing still, but one minute later, as Chen Ge focused his eyes again, the distance between her and the screen closed further!

The strangeness inside the screen and outside the screen slowly overlapped, and it created a strange feeling among the audience. It felt like they were being drawn into the movie, becoming a part of it, or the scene in the movie was slowly becoming a part of real life and the ghost inside it was really coming out.

The music grew louder, and it felt like someone was blowing air into their ears.

The woman arrived at the edge of the screen, and the lights in the theater were the dimmest that they had ever been. The vacant eye socket stuck to the screen, and the emptiness stared straight at the audience beyond the screen.

The fruit knife that dripped with blood aimed outward, and a scent of blood dispersed through the enclosed theater. First, it was the overlapping of sound, then came the scent of blood. When the audience was confused by all those developments, the Red Specter stuck herself onto the screen.

Viscous blood slid down the screen and leaked out onto the stage beyond the screen. When the audience recovered, the scary face was already poking out of the screen!

The background music reached its climax, like an arrow being pulled taut. The scent of blood thickened, and the scariest scene in that theater finally arrived.

The ghost from the movie crawled out from the screen! The ghost story turned into reality!

His breathing turned heavier, and Chen Ge pressed on the armrest. The eye that was filled with blood vessels turned red almost instantly!

“The Red Specter from the movie is coming out!” He jumped, and at the same moment the Specter appeared, he screamed, “Get her! Don’t let her run back into the movie!”