My House of Horrors

Chen Ge yanked open the second cubicle; there was a thin, male mannequin inside. One of his legs was distorted as he curled up inside the cubicle with dirt and trash thrown haphazardly around him.

“This mannequin bears a resemblance to Wang Yicheng.” The mannequin in the cubicle wore the same pair of blue running shoes as Wang Yicheng on Chen Ge’s back, so the mannequin should refer to Wang Yicheng. Chen Ge raised the phone at the second cubicle, and the picture on screen was heart wrenching. The faceless child was forced by a group of people into the cubicle, and they tossed various trash on him. The boy inside the picture did not resist and allowed them to bully him.

The mannequin in the third cubicle wore a pair of glasses, and his body was covered in red paint. He stood dumbly facing the wall. This mannequin looked similar to the thin, tall boy whom Chen Ge had encountered in Room 413. With his previous experience, Chen Ge aimed the phone at the cubicle directly.

A faceless boy appeared on-screen. He stood inside the cubicle alone, and around him were people who kept pouring paint into the cubicle. His clean clothes were made dirty, and the paint slid down the creases of his shirt and shorts. The boy kept his head lowered, making no sound.

“These bullies have gained a mob mentality.” Chen Ge pushed open the door of the fourth cubicle. The mannequin inside was shirtless. The wet shirt was abandoned next to the toilet. Chen Ge took out the phone and aimed it inside the cubicle. On the screen, the faceless boy slowly removed the shirt dirtied with paint while someone dumped a bottle of water on him.

Fifth cubicle, sixth cubicle…

Each cubicle presented a story that was harrowing. When people were carried away by madness, they had no idea how crazy they were acting, and they would stop at nothing to unload their negative emotions on others.

When he opened the first cubicle, Chen Ge had merely wanted to uncover the truth. He had nothing to do with events that transpired there. He was merely a passing visitor, a victim who wanted to leave. But after he witnessed the events inside the six cubicles, his heart was already changing. His face was drawn. If people who knew him had seen him then, they would have been surprised because he rarely had an expression like that. Facial expressions represented the internal emotion. If it showed on the face, one’s internal thoughts could be told, and the weakness would be exposed. Thus, when Chen Ge conducted the black phone’s mission, he always remained calm.

Are these students or demons?

Raising his head, Chen Ge looked at the seventh cubicle. This was the only cubicle without a mannequin and also the only cubicle without a door. The door had been taken off the hinges with brute force. The connecting spot still had broken wooden chips. It was hanging by a single hinge. The door was missing, and the inside of the cubicle was crawling with the blood vessel-like things. To be precise, the blood vessels inside the toilet crawled out from inside this cubicle. The seventh cubicle could be said to be the source of everything.

“Was Lin Sis trapped inside this cubicle?”

The black red blood vessels were like wilted veins. They crawled all over the cubicle’s walls like they were covering something. Chen Ge took out Lin Sisi’s phone, adjusted the brightness to the maximum, and aimed it at the cubicle.

The faceless boy was hugging his own shirt and pants. Dirty water and paint slid down his body. The colors were like a monster that was plunging its claws into the boy’s body.

The cubicle door appeared to be blocked from the outside. The boy had his head lowered, hugging his clothes. He rammed against the door. He had no face, so Chen Ge could not see his expression and could not hear his voice. He had no idea whether the boy was crying or screaming for help. Chen Ge could only see that the boy was ramming his body against the door until the door blasted open. He stood at the entrance of the cubicle barefooted, holding the dirty clothes. His arms dangled by his side, cut open by the wooden chips from when he rammed them against the door. Blood leaked out the open wounds, but paint seeped back into the wounds.

Pressured, uneasy, struggling to breathe, he twisted his head. The faceless boy scanned the empty toilet. The bullies had already left, but their venomous words lingered in the toilet. The boy stood at the cubicle entrance for a long time. He slowly took up his hands and put the wet clothes back on one by one.

Other than his arms, he was not injured, but his body kept shaking from pain. The middle of his pants was slit open, and there was a large hole on the back of his shirt. The boy put on all the clothes, and a poor monster was reflected in the water that puddled on the ground. He wiped his face and tried to walk toward the toilet door. The light from the corridor filtered into the toilet. The entrance was bright, bright enough to cast a clear shine on the boy’s current appearance, bright to the point that he had nowhere to hide.

He pulled his feet back. He wore the dirty clothes and walked back into the seventh cubicle. Leaning against the wall, the boy’s body slowly slid down the wall. He was curled up in the corner. The faceless face looked at the toilet entrance; he appeared to be waiting for the lights to go out.

The image did not end there. The boy looked for a long time before lifting his head. The faceless face looked at Chen Ge like he knew someone was watching him.

“Would you like to be my friend?” This question drifted into Chen Ge’s ears. He heard it clearly, but when he turned to the source, there was nothing there.

“Did it come from the phone? That’s impossible.” The video stopped at the last frame. The faceless boy was curled up in the corner of the cubicle with his face turned to Chen Ge like he was waiting for Chen Ge’s answer.

“I am willing to be your friend. Even though what you said sounded like a curse.” Chen Ge did not mind a curse; his whole life started with a cursed love letter. Without that letter, during his first mission, he would have died at Wang Qi’s hand.

Chen Ge gave his promise, but the boy in the phone retained his posture. Looking away from the phone, there was nothing inside the seventh cubicle, but the phone could capture the faceless boy so clearly.

“Can you hear me?” Chen Ge tried to communicate with the boy, but there was no reply. He waited for a long time before the image on the phone-started to change again.

The door of the seventh cubicle was pulled open, and a blood red hand reached in. The hand touched the faceless boy lightly. He seemed to communicate with the boy, and the faceless boy nodded lightly. Then the faceless boy was led away by the hand toward the other side of the door and disappeared.

“The bloody hand came from inside the door? What did he tell the boy?” Chen Ge was suddenly reminded of the question that he had heard.

“Did the owner of the hand tell the boy what I heard? Would you like to be my friend?

“The faceless boy agreed and then disappeared?”

Chen Ge tried to analyze the situation. The faceless boy was Lin Sisi. He did not push open a door; that bloody hand had reached out from inside the door. In other words, there was a door inside the toilet cubicle. The hand’s owner had invited Lin Sisi, and the latter had accepted. In that case, the bloody hand was the real door-pusher.