When I woke up, it was already evening.
Lu Xiu wasn’t across from me, and I didn’t know where he had gone.
Rubbing my eyes and yawning, I stepped onto the cold floor with my small feet and walked toward the refrigerator.
Click.
I opened the refrigerator.
A blast of cold air hit me, making me shiver uncontrollably.
I looked at the items stored inside.
Eggs, green vegetables, carrots.
Tofu, chili peppers, tomatoes.
Huh?
Where were my apples?
Why were my apples gone?
“Haicao Tuan—”
I called out for Lu Xiu, wanting to ask him for food.
But I didn’t hear his voice.
“Haicao Tuan?”
Still nothing; the house was deathly silent.
The cold light from the refrigerator reflected on the side of my face, unable to pierce through the darkness of the kitchen.
I couldn’t help but look at the Five-Colored Bracelet on my wrist; there was still only a single crack on it.
Click—
The refrigerator door closed, and I walked out of the kitchen to search for Lu Xiu.
He wasn’t on the first floor, so the second floor…
I walked up the stairs, my octopus slippers making a plapping sound that seemed especially loud in the silent night.
Tap, tap, tap.
Walking up the stairs, the air still held a damp smell, the scent emanating from the bathroom.
“Lu Xiu?”
Still no response.
The entire second floor was also shrouded in darkness.
Inside the bathroom, water droplets fell from the faucet. The drip-drop sound echoed in a monotonous yet rhythmic pattern.
The droplets splashed in the sink, scattering into countless finer water trails before slowly merging into the open drain at the bottom, flowing into the pipes.
My gaze fell upon that mirror.
The mirror was reflecting the scene outside the window—a window where there was no light.
Yet, looking through the actual window, the outside was brightly lit, filled with brilliant, flowing lights.
This mirror did not reflect the light.
I couldn’t help but swallow hard, and bad impressions flashed through my mind.
Lu Xiu had once said that mirrors were related to things like Demons. If a mirror was abnormal, it certainly meant some kind of change was occurring…
I took a step back and turned around instantly, but suddenly froze.
In front of me, a disc had stopped.
It just hung there quietly in the air, like the rudder of a rotting shipwreck from the deep sea.
But what composed the rudder were not pieces of decayed wood, but arms—propping, rotting arms; dried arms turned to bone; swollen, oozing arms…
They radiated from the center as an axis, and at the end of each arm, something round seemed to be grasped.
Outside the window, car headlights slowly passed by, shining into the room, and I finally saw clearly the handles growing at the ends of the spokes—
They were heads pierced through by hands.
One head was currently facing me. Its eyeballs had been forced out, hanging on its cheeks by a mere thread of nerve, swinging like a pendulum as the rudder turned.
Another head had maggots growing on half of its cheek. The white insects kept falling from its mouth, wriggling on the floor.
Staring, bleeding, carbonized, eyeless, weeping, smiling…
My heads.
All of them were rotating slowly with the rudder, rotating silently in the air.
One after another, they watched me.
As if weeping, as if laughing, as if inviting.
It was as if I, too, had become one of the heads upon it—pierced, killed, mocked, watched, watching the me who was about to be buried in death.
At this moment, in the center of the disc, the circles of dots engraved with tiny characters began to crawl slowly.
■Died of hunger; consciousness annihilated; ate herself; —–
Those tiny characters twisted, eventually turning into eerie script.
Then, the center dot finally opened.
It opened its eyes.
They were a pair of pitch-black eyes, without pupils or focus, staring back at me.
In an instant, my head felt as if it were being torn apart. Sanity, logic, emotion, self… all vanished, leaving only the infinite, eternal, repeating… death.
I saw Lu Xiu stab me to death with a sword.
I saw myself eat a bomb and get blown into mincemeat.
I saw myself burn to ashes in a raging fire.
I saw myself turn into a twisted ball of flesh.
I saw that after devouring everything, I began to devour myself…
Countless… Countless…
Me. Me. Me. Me!
Who am I? Am I the charred one? Or the drowned one?
Am I eating me, or am I killing me?
I’m going to die.
I’m going to die…
Die die die die die—
Crack—
Instantly, a slight but extremely loud cracking sound reached my ears, snapping my collapsing nerves awake.
I gasped for air violently. The rapid movement of my emptied lungs made me cough uncontrollably.
So nauseating, so dizzy, I wanted to throw up…
It felt as if all the strength had been drained from my body. I fell powerlessly to the floor, and my wrist suddenly felt lighter.
Amidst the pain, I looked at my wrist.
That Five-Colored Bracelet had shattered completely.
And in front of me, there was nothing—only the pitch-black hallway, dim and lightless.
I couldn’t hold it back any longer, dry-heaving, but nothing came out.
Drip, drop, drip, drop…
The sound of water droplets continued. The mirror reflected the light from outside the window, allowing me to see in the darkness.
Perhaps five minutes later, I managed to crawl up. Catching a glimpse of the mirror, I noticed red marks on my neck as if I had been strangled.
I had to find Lu Xiu.
That was the only thought left in my head.
Clutching the shattered beads in my palm, I ran outside.
“Bitlt……”
My voice was dry and weak, accompanied by a stinging pain.
“Bitlt……”
No one answered me.
I burst open the bedroom door and finally found the person I was looking for on that bed.
But he was just lying there quietly, without any movement.
It was just like…
Just like that time in the park.
“Ugh… Wake up…”
I shook his body, but I was too weak.
What should I do?
What should I do?
I looked at him, my palm stinging from the shards.
“Right, don’t take off that string of prayer beads on your wrist. I went to great lengths to get them to protect your little life.”
This was for protection.
With trembling hands, I stuffed them all into Big Mouth.
A containment object…… can it turn into a life-saving containment object?
I didn’t know, but this was all I could do.
Waiting was agonizing.
I reached my hand into Big Mouth, digging around forcefully.
“Come out…… quickly come out…”
I dug until Big Mouth gagged, until my own head spun.
Until I finally touched something hard.
Big Mouth took the opportunity to spit out my hand, its tongue lolling out, looking withered and spiritless.
I looked at the bead in my hand that merged the five colors. Without time to wipe it, I shoved it directly into Lu Xiu’s mouth.
Then I slumped onto the floor, staring at him blankly.
Waiting.
One second…… two seconds…
Suddenly.
“Cough, cough, cough—”
The person on the bed began to cough violently. I lunged toward him, rushing to his side.
Before Lu Xiu could finish his sentence, he was hugged by a small figure.
“Sui?”
“Waaa… Lu Xiu… I was so scared…”
Then, a hand gently patted my back.
“It’s okay now… It’s okay…”
“I’m sorry…”
“I… broke my word.”