My House of Horrors

His raised leg lowered. It was a simple action, but that was quite taxing for Chen Ge. He felt lightheaded, like many things were pressed on his body, and there was this force that was trying to pull him back. Chen Ge did not know what was hiding in the dark, and he had no idea whether there were any ghosts around him. But sometimes, not seeing was better because that would not affect his emotions. It took him several minutes to move from the seventeenth floor to the eighteenth floor. When Chen Ge successfully reached the eighteenth floor, he almost tripped.

I feel so cold and dizzy.

Chen Ge was very tired, and it was a mental exhaustion like he had been working at a stressful job for more than ten hours.

I should be on the top floor already.

Chen Ge’s fingers held the wall. He had not opened his eyes. For the sake of security, he bent over and used his hands to seek out the wall and floor, leaving no stone unturned. After experiencing so much, he would not fail at the final hurdle. When Chen Ge was searching around, there came a sudden door opening sound from downstairs, and it rang out quite clearly in the quiet stairwell. The iron door was slowly opened, and two footsteps appeared in the stairwell.

Is someone coming up? Chen Ge instantly became nervous. The sound of the door probably came from the fourteenth or fifteenth floors. Could it be the neighbors?

The footsteps sounded urgent as they approached the stairwell. It was as if they were forcing Chen Ge to open his eyes to end the mission.

The sound has reached the sixteenth floor.

Chen Ge’s forehead was breaking out in cold sweat. He leaned against the wall and was panicking slightly.

Should I open my eyes? Theoretically, I’ve reached the top floor, and I can’t find any stairs to take me further up.

While he hesitated, the footsteps already reached the seventeenth floor. Chen Ge stood at the corner, facing the stairwell, and his eyes were closed. The footsteps were coming quickly. They appeared at the landing between seventeenth and eighteenth floor, so they should have seen Chen Ge already.

I’ve been discovered, but the footsteps didn’t stop, so I’m probably not that their target.

A familiar laughter appeared in his ears, and soon, those footsteps walked past Chen Ge, and one of the doors on eighteenth floor was opened!

Wind caressed Chen Ge’s face, and the tiredness that he felt slowly disappeared, like the things that had been hanging on to him had left.

Is it over?

He wanted to open his eyes, but the sound of footsteps and children laughing were still there. The laughter gave him an indescribable feeling. He could not sense any joy from the laughter. It was very hollow. He sought his way to the open door blindly. Chen Ge stood at the door, and a child’s voice came from the other side of the door.

“Uncle, I just had a dream. In the dream, there is a red city floating in a black sea. Everyone in the city is walking around with blades to cut their own bodies and bury their memories.”

“Uncle, human beings exist due to their memories, but if human beings have forgotten them, will the memories get angry?”

“Uncle, are you listening to me?”

The child’s voice was near Chen Ge. Chen Ge even felt that the child was talking to him. He was about to speak when an unfamiliar male voice answered.

“I am.” The man’s voice did not carry any emotion. It was detached and cold like a machine. “The memories will not be angry. When they appear, they are destined to be forgotten. That is their ending.”

“Destined to be forgotten?”

“Yes, just like you.” After the man saying that, the child laughed again.

“Why do you like to laugh so much?” There was annoyance in the man’s voice.

“Because I’m happy. My father told me everything I saw is a nightmare, and those scary things are all in my dreams. They will disappear when I wake up. Shouldn’t I be happy about that?” The child’s voice had an innocence to it.

“A nightmare?” The man’s tone turned icier. “One day, if you realize that it’s not a nightmare and is all real, will you still laugh like this?”

“I don’t know, perhaps.”

“If you one day realize that you have been abandoned in that red city and have no way of return, will you still laugh?”

“I…”

“You will never laugh again. You will curse the world madly, like the memories that have been abandoned by their owner, enveloped by negative emotion, sinking deeper and deeper into that dark ocean.” There was an excitement in the man’s voice. Beneath his detached tone hid a twisted soul.

“No, I won’t.” The child’s innocent voice belied a maturity beyond his years. He took a long time to consider before saying, “If I am really forgotten in my nightmare one day, I will paint a window on that black sea and open all the doors in the red city so that all the eyes that have gotten used to the darkness will get the chance to see the light.”

When the child ended the sentence, Chen Ge was struck by a sense of déjà vu, like he had personally said that before. His eyelids twitched. Chen Ge took one involuntarily step forward. He instinctively wanted to reach out to grab that voice.

“With light comes darkness. If you wish for darkness to see the light, the light will turn into darkness.” The man appeared to have grabbed hold of the child.

“Let me go!”

“You’re the one who should let go. Do not come back again!”

“Let go! Help! Help!”

“You will ultimately be forgotten, so don’t worry and die!”

When the man said that, Chen Ge’s body froze. A voice was calling from the bottom of his heart. “Help!”

His eyes flew open, and Chen Ge saw at the edge of the roof, a doctor in white coat was pushing his young self off the edge of the building!

He rushed to the edge, but when he reached out, everything disappeared. His energy deserted him, and Chen Ge crumbled to the ground. His clothes were soaked in cold sweat.

“When I did the nightmare mission at the tunnel, I also saw my young self being killed. This is the second time already. The killer has the same appearance from the back, so they should be the same person. He wore a doctor’s garb, so he should be the doctor from Xin Hai. But why would he kill me? What is the meaning of their conversation?”

A headache was killing him. After closing his eyes for so long, Chen Ge was still getting used to the light.

He was curled up at the wall, and he rubbed his eyes. When his vision returned to normal, he turned and tried to grab the white cat. But his head was only half turned when his body froze. Two dried hands touched his face, and a blood red shirt almost brushed past the tip of Chen Ge’s nose. A Red Specter was holding onto Chen Ge’s shoulder, hanging by his back!

“It was you who left the half open door at Jiang Yuan Apartments, wasn’t it?” A child’s voice appeared from behind Chen Ge.

“I can’t remember.” Only then did Chen Ge see the white cat almost crying on his shoulder. The cat did not dare budge; those who did not know would think it was a science specimen. The white cat had always been there, but it did not warn him. That could only mean that the Red Specter had shown up when he first closed his eyes.

The white cat was lying on his left shoulder, so the Red Specter was hanging on his right shoulder?