Chapter 28: Facing Fear
This novel is translated and hosted on bcatranslation
“Are we going to remain hidden in this spot?”
“Yes, let’s hide in this closet. It’s surprisingly spacious.” The young boy, exerting effort, shifted a heap of clothes that had been burying him, his skin underneath visibly irritated with angry, red rashes. “Don’t worry, I won’t harm you. This closet is large enough to conceal many people.”
From somewhere behind the boy, the closet emitted faint, distressing noises reminiscent of stifled pleas for help. Zhu Miao Miao’s heart sank with fear, haunted by the thought that if she dared to open the closet’s other door, she might uncover the contorted forms of her missing colleagues.
“My parents will return shortly, and they are in a particularly foul temper. You should get in here as quickly as possible,” whispered the boy, his voice barely above a hush, as if he feared being overheard. “If they discover you, they’ll brutally dismember you.”
Hearing such gruesome words from a child’s mouth was almost beyond Zhu Miao Miao’s comprehension. She gripped her fire axe even tighter, it being the only thing that gave her a semblance of security in that moment.
“My parents are ruthless. They have a penchant for destruction and relish in the idea of killing in the most barbaric ways possible,” the boy continued, his arms flailing as he painted a vivid picture of them. “They’re both giants, nearly three meters tall. My father possesses supernatural strength, and my mother frequently wields lethal weapons. They despise each other but are grotesquely fused together, unable to separate.”
As she listened to the boy’s description, Zhu Miao Miao couldn’t shake off the mental image of a monstrous duo: A towering, muscular man and a woman armed with deadly blades, their bodies grotesquely intertwined, prowling the corridors in search of their colleagues.
These terrifying thoughts were interrupted by the sound of heavy footsteps echoing in the hallway.
“Shhhh! My parents are coming!”
The boy clamped a hand over his mouth, and Zhu Miao Miao, too, was overcome with anxiety, barely allowing herself to breathe audibly.
The approaching footsteps intensified, soon accompanied by the voices of a man and a woman engaged in a heated, vulgar argument.
“You damned bitch! I’ll strangle you!”
“Am I wrong, though? You’re nothing but a coward, always throwing your weight around at home. Thank goodness our son isn’t yours.”
“I swear, I’ll kill you!”
The vulgarity of their exchange was so extreme that Zhu Miao Miao, despite being an adult, found it deeply unsettling. She could only imagine the emotional toll it must take on their child.
Footsteps crunched over scattered glass; fingernails scratched along the wall. Then, suddenly, the cacophony ceased right outside Zhu Miao Miao’s hiding place.
With her palms slick with sweat, Zhu Miao Miao looked up, her heart pounding as if the monstrous figures were just beyond the door. A decorative window set into the door was violently forced open as strands of hair spilled into the closet. Zhu Miao Miao’s face drained of color, and she nearly stumbled in fright when suddenly, the sound of a door unlocking resonated down the hallway, causing the hairs to withdraw slowly. It seemed the monstrous figures had moved on.
Zhu Miao Miao hesitated, her hand hovering over the doorknob, but ultimately, she decided against opening it. Instead, she carefully set down her fire axe and extracted her phone. With deliberate caution, she positioned its camera lens at the tiny window built into the door frame.
Balancing precariously on her tiptoes, she peered anxiously at the phone’s screen, her heart pounding with a mix of fear and anticipation at the unfolding scene.
Through the grainy feed of her phone’s camera, a harrowing sight unfolded. She could discern a grotesquely deformed man, about three meters in height, unnaturally clinging to the wall just across from her hiding spot. His arms were disproportionately large, several times the size of an ordinary human’s. Entangled with him was a woman, their bodies bizarrely fused together, creating a singular, monstrous entity. The four eyes shared between them were fixed in a menacing glare directed towards the source of the disturbance, emanating an almost palpable sense of malevolence.
“Monster!” Zhu Miao Miao muttered in horror, the creature before her eerily mirroring the terrifying image she had conjured in her mind earlier.
She bit down hard on her lip, struggling to maintain her silence despite the cold sweat beading on her forehead. She had known when she joined the Bureau that encounters with such nightmarish beings were possible, but she hadn’t anticipated confronting one so soon, nor so abruptly.
Her neck muscles stood out taut with tension as she remained motionless, gripped by a paralyzing fear.
An oppressive silence filled the hallway.
This novel is translated and hosted on bcatranslation
Meanwhile, the inhabitants of the room across the hall, mistakenly believing the creature had departed, decided to investigate. The door handle turned slowly, the creak of the old apartment door breaking the heavy silence.
Oblivious to the lurking danger, the people inside were about to step out. Zhu Miao Miao’s heart lurched to her throat, dread tightening its grip at the sight.
“It seems safe now,” murmured a familiar voice from within the room, likely another rookie investigator.
As the door gradually opened, a colleague’s face became visible. Simultaneously, the monstrous couple reacted. The deformed man’s fist tightened menacingly, while the woman, armed with a sharp blade, poised herself to strike.
The lethal glint of the knife loomed dangerously close to the unsuspecting colleague’s face.
“Be careful!” Zhu Miao Miao couldn’t stand idly by. In a split second, she burst through her own door, fire axe in hand, and cried out a warning: “The ghost is right at the door!”
Startled, the deformed couple swiftly turned their heads. Zhu Miao Miao’s legs trembled under the weight of her fear, her instinct screaming at her to flee.
The investigator in the opposite room reacted too, but it was already too late to close the door.
The deformed man, swaying as if intoxicated, aggressively pushed the door wide open, his movements reminiscent of a drunken stupor he might have exhibited in his former life, often witnessed by the child.
“I’ll hold it off! You guys run!” bellowed the voice of the burly driver-turned-investigator from within the rental apartment. This was followed by the alarming sounds of shattering glass and a heavy object tumbling to the ground. The reliable, muscular investigator appeared to have been thrown downstairs in the chaotic encounter.
However, the chaos created by the investigator’s sacrifice served a crucial purpose, providing a window of opportunity for the other rookie investigators and Bai Qiao to make their escape.
“Split up, find somewhere to hide! Look for clues, for any rules that might help us! Often, the key to escaping these strange events lies hidden within the events themselves!” Bai Qiao attempted to instill some sense of order, trying to guide the rookies, but her efforts were in vain. Consumed by panic, the rookies paid no heed to her instructions. The comprehensive training they had undergone at the Bureau was completely abandoned in their desperate rush to escape downstairs.
“Don’t stray from the anomaly’s location! If you venture out into the fog, you’ll become disoriented, lost forever!”
Despite Bai Qiao’s fervent warnings, they fell on deaf ears. The rookies, overwhelmed by a terror that had swiftly overridden their sense of reason, were single-mindedly focused on fleeing the scene as quickly as possible.
The building’s hallway echoed with frantic cries and the sounds of hurried footsteps, everyone scrambling towards the exit. In the midst of this chaos, the child who had been hiding in the closet earlier managed to slip out, blending seamlessly with the investigators in their frenzied dash for safety.
“Come back! Don’t let fear dominate you!”
Bai Qiao pursued them, her voice trailing off as she ran towards the building’s exterior, leaving Zhu Miao Miao feeling isolated within its confines.
“What should I do now?”
The Bureau’s training manual’s very first page emphasized that one should never succumb to panic in the midst of an anomalous event. To do so meant risking never finding one’s way back to safety.
The instructions were explicit, yet Zhu Miao Miao found herself grappling with uncertainty: Where could she possibly hide if not running away?
Looking despairingly across the hall, Zhu Miao Miao observed the monstrous creature in the opposite room. It rampaged like a deranged tyrant, violently overturning tables and wardrobes, indiscriminately destroying everything within its grasp.
As she watched, the deformed man, stepping through pools of fresh blood, slowly turned to face her. His gaze fixed upon Zhu Miao Miao.
A chilling sensation washed over her, making her feel as though she was the sole remaining person in the building. When the creature’s eyes met hers, a paralyzing fear surged through her body.
In her terror-stricken eyes, the creature appeared to swell in size, its distorted and horrifying form seemingly magnified by her fear.
This encounter transported Zhu Miao Miao back to a traumatic childhood memory – being surrounded by a raging inferno, her home consumed by leaping flames. She could almost feel the smoke and heat engulfing her again, the intense blaze scorching her face, her skin parched and cracking.
“Is anyone there… Help me…”
Clutching the fire axe with hands toughened by years of hard labor, Zhu Miao Miao stood defiantly, positioning the blade towards the looming monster.
“It’s over, there’s no escape now.”
The monstrous figure loomed over Zhu Miao Miao, its grotesque form dominating her entire field of view, instilling a sense of overwhelming despair in her heart. The fire axe, once a symbol of her determination and strength, now felt unbearably heavy in her hands. As her grip weakened, threatening to let the axe slip away, a sudden and unexpected sound pierced the tense atmosphere – the metallic clash of chains striking against metal railings resonated down the hallway.
Although the deformed creature’s face was alarmingly close to her own, the distinct, ringing sound seemed to wield an almost mystical power. It cut through the fog of Zhu Miao Miao’s terror, granting her a moment of much-needed lucidity. She turned her head towards the source of the sound.
In the shadowy corridor, an unfamiliar figure was rapidly approaching her. This young man was not clad in the typical uniform of the Investigation Bureau. His left hand was encased in dark, heavy chains, and his eyes blazed with a resolve devoid of any trace of fear.
With a swift and agile movement, he used the stained wall for leverage and launched himself at the monster, colliding forcefully with its back. Grasping the chains with both hands, he began to wrap them with a swift, practiced motion around the neck of the deformed behemoth.
“Don’t be afraid!”
The young man’s firm and reassuring voice instantly transported Zhu Miao Miao back to a pivotal moment in her childhood. She vividly recalled the time when she was six years old, trapped in a house engulfed by flames. A firefighter had burst through the door, fearlessly charging into the blazing inferno to save her.
It was as if the same words had been spoken to her then, a voice cutting through the chaos of fire and fear, offering a glimmer of hope and protection.