My House of Horrors

A strange sound came from somewhere of the room. It sounded like a small bug crawling past one’s ear.

Chen Ge blinked. Drifting in and out of sleep, he saw a white glow coming from the screen of the black phone. He had received a new message. He did not click it open because he could only see the beginning of the message.

“Warning! An unexpected change has been triggered in the Left Oculus mission! Four-star scenario School of the Afterlife…”

His brain was heavy like something heavy was pressing on him. Chen Ge wished to move his body to touch his phone, but when he lifted his head, he saw a ‘door’ standing between the two sick beds. Five fingers were dangling on the doorknob. As the fingers closed with force, the door that looked so normal started to open. A figure crawled out from underneath the bed; he merely did a forward leaning motion, and his whole body was pulled inside the ‘door’.

“Chang Gu?” Chen Ge’s body could not move like some invisible force was pressing him into place. He could hear unfamiliar voices coming from inside the door; someone was calling his name again and again. At the same time, he could hear different voices from his shadow calling his name. It sounded like they were trying to wake him.

“Am I dreaming?” Waking up in the middle of the night to realize that a door was situated next to the bed and that it was slowly moving closer, anyone would have panicked in that situation. Chen Ge wanted to scream for help, but he soon realized that he was powerless to do anything—he could not even bite his own tongue.

He lay there and watched the door approach. Several hands reached out from inside the door to grab his head and neck. At the last minute, a scream elicited from Chen Ge’s shadow, and his body regained some strength.

Chen Ge, who was too weak to do anything, pressed his fingers over the black phone. Then, he was dragged into the world behind the door that he could see clearly even with the Yin Yang Vision.

The door slowly closed. The last thing that Chen Ge saw was the backpack, which he had placed next to himself in bed, and Chang Wenyu, who was standing next to his bedside. She reached her hand into Chen Ge’s backpack and pulled out the diary that Chen Ge had taken from Nightmare Academy’s basement.

The pale fingers turned to the last page, and the pair of hollow eyes stared at the empty pages blankly. There was no expression on her face; she was like a mannequin who had lost her soul. The last shred of light disappeared as the door fully closed.

…

“Xiao Lin? Lin Sisi! Stop sleeping! The teacher is coming!” Someone patted his shoulders. Chen Ge slowly opened his eyes. He was currently lying on top of a table. Without saying anything, the first thing that Chen Ge did was bite his tongue. The iron taste of blood circulated in his mouth and the pain shocked his brain awake.

Am I really not dreaming?

Maintaining his current posture, Chen Ge moved his head slowly. He narrowed his eyes and looked around. He was inside a rather old-looking classroom. It was slightly smaller than a normal classroom. The paint on the tables and chairs was peeling, and various words were carving into the furniture.

The fan above his head turned, and it creaked noisily like it could fall at any moment. The deep blue curtains were thick, and when they were pulled shut, one could not see the scenery beyond the window at all.

More than ten students were seated in the room, but it was worth noting that the students came from various age groups. Some of them looked so young like they had just begun primary school, but some looked like they were already over thirty.

“Xiao Lin? Have you still not woken up?” The voice came from the seat next to Chen Ge. It was a normal-looking boy who spoke. His voice was thin like he was in a perpetually panicked state. After some time, Chen Ge finally turned to his deskmate. His dark pupils were darting inside his eyes, and his gaze was scary.

“What did you call me earlier?”

“Xiao Lin, what’s wrong with you? Didn’t you say, since Lin Sisi sounds too much like a girl’s name, I should call you Xiao Lin?”

Xiao Lin… Chen Ge had recently encountered this name somewhere else—inside the toilet at Nightmare Academy, the poor class prankster who was ganged up on by the rest of his friends was also called Xiao Lin.

Every scenario at Nightmare Academy was a replication of a scenario in the diary. Chen Ge had not gotten a chance to go through the diary taken from the basement thoroughly. Perhaps the name Xiao Lin was already present, and Qu Changlin merely made use of it.

Could it be the same person? Many possibilities appeared in Chen Ge’s mind. Shang Guan Qing Hong bought the diary from a mother. Her son is the real owner of the diary. Now that I think about, the fact that her son woke up from a deep coma and died mysteriously after mentioning the diary is rather similar to Chang Wenyu’s situation. They were both probably students at the School of the Afterlife, but while Chang Wenyu brought out a left eye, he brought out a diary.

The School of the Afterlife was definitely not a good place. After the male student brought out the diary, he had soon died. Chang Wenyu’s story was even sadder; her body had been taken over by the left eye, and her soul had gone missing.

The deskmate is calling me Xiao Lin. Have I taken over the role of the diary’s main character?

There were too few clues to go around. Chen Ge could only run over the various possibilities in his mind to provide himself with some direction. Leaning on the table, Chen Ge did not act strangely and did not ask further questions to arouse suspicion.

Now, everything around him was an unknown. It was best not to attract unnecessary attention.

This… does not appear to be a dream.

Chen Ge clearly remembered staying overnight inside Chang Wenyu’s room. He wanted to help Chang Gu explore the door that only the left eye could see, but some kind of accident had probably happened. The door that the left eye could see did appear, but after the man under the bed pushed the door open, everything went out of control.

He could not fully regain his consciousness, and his ears had picked up two voices simultaneously. One had come from inside the door and the other from his shadow. One had wanted to pull him into the door, and the other had wanted to wake him.

Now I understand why the black phone gave a warning about the Left Oculus’ mission. There are way too many unforeseeable changes.

As the thought of the black phone crossed his mind, Chen Ge quickly looked through his pockets, but to his surprise, the black phone that he had been holding in his palm had disappeared!

He only found an old flip phone in his pocket, and this phone had a password lock. Before he knew the password, the phone was useless. A bucket of cold water was splashed over him. Chen Ge lay down on the table. Throughout the whole process, he did not show any anomalies, but his heart was already raging with emotions.

The things inside my backpack and the diary are all outside the door, and the black phone is now missing. What should I do next?

There were too many uncertainties. Chen Ge could not even tell whether he was inside Chang Wenyu’s dream or the four-star scenario, School of the Afterlife.