CH 5

Under normal circumstances, people cannot hear the sound of “opening the door”.

Someone was standing in the center of the small square of the commercial street on Saturday

afternoon. The fountain in the center of the small square is playing music, pedestrians come and go around, and there are people playing violins on the street.

The man couldn’t hear the door openings around him. Although there are people walking in and

out of shops and houses, some people walk out of coffee shops, some people open windows on the second floor to breathe, some people stop their cars and open their doors. But under normal

circumstances, people will not pay special attention to this kind of sound, not Pay attention to which door is opened when and where. Only when the “door” is open for you then only you can hear it and feel it.

For example, pushing open the door of your own house, such as opening the window for ventilation, such as having guests visiting, such as entering a quiet classroom, such as the enemy parking on the other side of the alley, opening the car door, and approaching you through the darkness.

For Laird, everything in the everyday environment amounts to a “noisy high street”.

Normally, he doesn’t feel which door opens and closes when. Unlike others, when he was in a

trance, almost fainted, and surrounded by pain, he would forget everything around him and perceive the trajectory of the door opening and closing.

He has studied the reasons for this, but there is no firm conclusion yet.

He thought that maybe it was because of his childhood experiences…not when he was ten years old, but once before. Since then, whenever he goes through similar pain again, his perception becomes extremely sharp and only focused on things outside the world.

A burst of intense pain exploded from his abdomen, and he crouched and fell on top of someone in convulsions.

He opened his eyes briefly, closed them quickly, and began to grope slowly in the darkness.

That door is closing. The door opened briefly, then for a moment. The crack of the door opened a palm width, and then immediately closed again.

Before the door closed, someone…or something was running towards the door.

His footsteps ranged from far to near, although eager, the sound was very soft, as imperceptible as the sound of a heartbeat.

Thirty meters, ten meters, the last two steps… He can jump into the gate in no time and pass through the barrier in front of him.

Just two steps away… just a little bit of distance. The door closed before his eyes.

He failed to stop and slammed into the door that had disappeared.

The pursuers were behind him, and now he had nowhere to run.

The movement of the pursuers was very loud. The footsteps of the fleeing man were very light,

but the pursuer was a heavy behemoth.

When it stepped on the ground, there was a slight tremor on the ground, and every time there

was a rustling sound, it meant that it was clasping the ground with its sharp claws, tensing its body, moving its steps, and preparing to pounce on its prey.

Next, the pursuer and the fugitive are gone.

After the door is completely closed, the space behind it will gradually disappear, and after the

space disappears, the things inside it will also go away.

In the end, Laird captured only the tiniest bit of a voice…like a man’s voice. He sighed and said

a word.

His voice was slurred, it sounded vague and distant… Laird wanted to hear it, but his

concentration was starting to get distracted.

He couldn’t tell who the voice belonged to. Is it the creature that fled in a hurry, or the hunter

who followed closely behind.

The pain gradually diminished, but not completely gone. Laird’s body gradually relaxed, his

brows stretched, he opened his eyes, and brushed off the hand covering his face…

He found himself sitting on the carpet, leaning against Levi Karadze’s arms. Levi was also

sitting on the ground, leaning on the sofa, frowning down at him.

Laird groaned in pain: “Ah… how is it you…”

“What do you mean?” Levi asked.

“Why did you hit me… Didn’t I let that kid hit me… And how did you hit me in the stomach…”

“Doesn’t it work? Did I hit hard enough?”

“No, no…” Laird tried to sit up, but failed, “I…I feel like…a long sword pierced my body and nailed me to you…”

Levi raised his eyebrows, dragged him up, and laid him flat on the sofa in his grunting protest.

From the moment when Levi punched him, Jerry and Sean didn’t dare to say a word.

They sat neatly side by side opposite each other, exchanging views with each other’s eyes.

After a while, Laird was still lying and humming, and Levi sat beside him as if nothing had

happened. Jerry finally couldn’t help but ask, “That… Mr. Karadzer? Do you know Laird?”

“Yeah,” Levi said, nothing to hide, “I’ve been helping the producer run around, checking all kinds of supernatural-related topics, and your brother studies those too, so I’ve had a few fights with him.

I didn’t know his name was Laird at the time, and I didn’t know his past, and I was a little surprised to see him suddenly today. It was such a coincidence.”

Laird crouched on his side and interjected, “Jerry…don’t get me wrong…today is the first time

I’ve been beaten by him…before…we didn’t…”

“Don’t talk for now, take a good rest.” Levi moved to the side, just to block Laird’s head, “We’d like to hear from you later how the ‘spell’ works.”

Laird wriggled for a long time, and finally gave up and simply lay on his side and began to tell

what he had just felt.

Before the narration, he repeatedly asked Jerry and Sean if they believed him, because many

people didn’t trust the psychic, but they had to ask the psychic a lot of questions. After the psychic answered seriously, they felt that these things were all spiritual meditation. 

Jerry said he absolutely trusted him, but Sean said, “I don’t know if I believe it or not, after all

you haven’t said anything.”

Laird smiled: “You’re more honest. By the way, the missing student is a man and a woman,

right?”

“Yes,” Sean said, “Roy and Ashley.”

“Where did Roy come from? Do you know what his first native language was?”

“He’s a Squirrel Town native, as are his parents.”

Laird hugged the sofa cushion and looked at the ceiling. It seemed that the voice was not Roy’s.

Levi looked back at Laird, keenly aware of the question’s meaning: “Did you hear something?”

Laird started with the perception of “closing the door” and described every detail of what he

felt.

Talk about the “door” gradually moving away, and talk about the last sound you hear.

It was a human voice, a man’s voice, and his pronunciation was vague and eccentric, maybe a

strange spell, maybe some foreign language. Laird imitated the pronunciation, but it didn’t quite

resemble it, and the other three couldn’t tell what it meant.

Having said this, Jerry asked him, “That’s it?”

“What else do you want?”

“Uh, I just thought…” Jerry scratched his hair and looked at the storage room, “I thought you’d

see something scarier…”

“There are impossible passages in the house, impossible voices, and people went missing outside the toilet… How much more terrifying do you want?”

Jerry said, “I just don’t understand that. You’re a psychic, and I thought you could see ghosts,

communicate with other-dimensional things or something.”

Laird turned over and faced the back of the sofa: “Alas…you are so happy.”

“What do you mean by that?”

Laird turned his back to Jerry, and Jerry couldn’t see his expression. However, Levi was condescending and could see half of Laird.

Laird frowned slightly, closed his eyes, and took a deep breath before saying, “It’s nothing…just, that door is actually scary, really. You haven’t experienced it, which is a good thing.”

Jerry pouted in disapproval. He knew what happened to Laird when he was ten, but he couldn’t figure out what was so scary about it. Just as he was about to continue asking, his cell phone rang.

He ran out the door to answer the phone, leaving Sean facing two strange strangers.

Laird finally got up from the sofa when Sean lowered his head to play with his phone: “Hey

Sean, I have a suggestion…”

Sean looked up. Laird whispered, “I suggest that you try not to come to the Cates house in the

future.”

“What’s the meaning?”

“I’m not telling you to break ties up with Jerry, but… from now on, you’d better come to this house less. Don’t come if you can.”

“Why?” Sean glanced at the storage room involuntarily, “Is it haunted and will haunt me?”

Laird got up and resumed his sitting position: “No, it’s not haunted here, but I’m still worried

that you’ll be entangled in ‘something’. Let’s just say… I’ve been researching all kinds of paranormal phenomena for years, about I have also come into contact with this strange ‘door’ indirectly several times. Although I still don’t understand its principle, I have also vaguely figured out some rules… For example, once the ‘door’ appears somewhere , there is a high possibility that it will continue to appear. It may appear for a long time or a short time, it may last for a long time, and it is difficult to ignore; I have also seen some other cases, which basically prove a rule: in every case, someone will disappear. Some people disappear at the beginning, and some people do not enter when they see the ‘door’ for the first time. After the first sighting, he’d chose to walk in with fear…and never come out.”

Sean glanced at the storage room and smiled reluctantly: “Do you all like to scare people like

psychics?”

“It’s not to scare you,” Laird’s expression was quite serious, even more serious than when he

was beaten, “let me tell you a real case, which happened last year. The person involved is a novelist living in Canada. He has repeatedly Talked about the weird ‘door’ on social networks, but everyone thought he was a spoof. Finally, he left a blog post saying he wanted to end this, he wanted to take a look and come back…waiting for his friends. He had been missing for several weeks when I started paying attention to this blog post. You can search the account ‘Black Knight No. 3342’, and the book “Ms Heather”. The author of the book is what I call the missing author, that the account is his private number.”

Sean grabbed the phone and wanted to search for it now, but he held back. He asked casually,

“You have seen the ‘door’ more than once, so why didn’t you run in?”

Laird lowered his eyes, thought for a while, and didn’t answer right away.

Sean suddenly panicked: “Wait…don’t tell me you actually went in…”

Laird shook his head with a smile, and said, “I know you don’t quite believe me, it’s okay, these

are just suggestions, it’s better to tell you than not to tell you. It’s not bad for you, and it’s not difficult to do, you obey and pay attention, there is no loss for you.”

Sean wrinkled his nose, not knowing how to respond.

Levi folded his arms on the sofa, never interrupting, just looking at Laird thoughtfully.