CH 11

“XueYingying?” It did not immediately occur to QiLeren what had happened, thinking that XueYingying had just walked away for a bit. He called out again. And again. And again.

There was no trace of her in the eerily empty corridor.

“QiLeren,” Dr Lu stopped him, face pale, “quit it. We’ll be heard.”

Be heard? Wasn’t letting XueYingying hear them the whole point of this? It took QiLeren several moments to understand that the recipient Dr Lu referred to wasn’t XueYingying.

“I don’t believe she’s…here anymore.” SuHe strode to the place XueYingying once stood. There were no forks in the path she could’ve gone down, nor could she have run back the way they came in such a short time – something must’ve happened while their backs were turned.

The disappearance of a party member weighed down the three remaining survivors with an indescribable sense of pressure. How could XueYingying, who had been standing mere metres away, have vanished into thin air right under their noses?

QiLeren felt a lump rise into his throat. “Let’s search around here,” he croaked, “maybe she just stepped away for a bit…”

His words sounded like lies to even his own ears, but Dr Lu and SuHe both nodded in agreement in this bizarre moment.

“Is that fog?” QiLeren heard Dr Lu ask behind him.

Sure enough, thin webs of near-undetectable condensation hung in the air around them, and perhaps had been since they overlooked the lobby – it wasn’t thick, but a sinister form of foreboding was brought with it nonetheless.

“Did the fog outside leak into the building?” SuHe guessed in a low voice. “This is not good…”

He certainly had a point – what if the ghostly shadows outside could make their way into the building alongside the fog?

What could the event at four thirty possible be?

The trio found no trace of XueYingying after hunting around in the near vicinity, deciding to circle back to search for clues at the fishbowl. Upon stepping out of the corridor and into the room with the fishbowl, QiLeren’s gaze was drawn to the splattered remains of the goldfish on the ground.

All two of them.

His pupil retracted in a moment of incomprehensible blankness, glued to the place he knew the third goldfish was at. The floor there was smooth and clean, as if there had never been anything there.

He whipped around, meeting the incredulous eyes of SuHe who had come to the same conclusion. They shared a split second of wordless communication before turning to Dr Lu, but it was already too late – he was nowhere to be seen.

A slimy feeling of dreadful coldness seeped into their body from the ground up and coated their organs in a film of ice. Only the fear in their minds ran unhampered by sluggish senses, dampened by the suffocating fog.

“Dr Lu?” QiLeren called softly, backing up a few steps.

There was no response from the empty corridor, only his trembling voice fading into nothing.

SuHe silently observed the two goldfish on the ground, thinking deeply. “There were four fish at the beginning.”

His words grounded QiLeren in reality. In the eerie lighting, SuHe’s face gave off a shadowy kind of ethereality. “When XueYingying disappeared, there were three,” he continued, “and then it was Dr Lu.”

“You mean the number of goldfish reflects ours?”

SuHe shook his head. “I don’t know. Perhaps I’ll disappear after we walk around here again.”

QiLeren couldn’t even manage a grim smile. “Or maybe it’ll be me.”

What happened to those who disappeared? Were they still alive? Where were they now? QiLeren felt his reasonably resilient mental state degrade as time went on in this place, threatening to snap at any moment. It was getting harder and harder to not jump at every shadow they passed.

“What if,” SuHe mused, gaze still on the goldfish, “we were the ones who disappeared?”

“Then… What should we do now?” QiLeren was at a loss.

SuHe thrust out his hand after a moment of consideration. “Let’s hold hands so we don’t lose each other.”

Their hands linked without a second thought. QiLeren raised an eyebrow when their hands came into contact; SuHe’s hands were quite long and slender for a man, but QiLeren could feel thin layers of callouses along his palm and on the pads of his fingers.

“What’s wrong?” asked SuHe amusedly.

“I’m a bit surprised you have callouses on your hands. I mean, you look like the type to spend your days in an office. Either that or be an actor or model or something,” said QiLeren.

“Really? I’m actually a programmer,” SuHe replied with a smile.

“What?! You don’t look it at all!”

“But before then I lived through a pretty tough period of my life.”

“…” He should’ve just gone to be an actor, QiLeren thought. Even as a side character he’d be a pretty damn good side character, and would earn more than a programmer would.

Times were dire, however, so the two did not dwell on the topic for long and opted for meaningless small talk. They decided to walk around the block again, hands linked so as to prevent spontaneous disappearances.

The time of four thirty on the screen remained unchanged as they walked passed it, hanging above their heads like a guillotine.

Despite it being warm enough for short sleeves during the day, the temperature around them plummeted after dusk. Even long sleeves wouldn’t do much to protect against the cold, and QiLeren could feel his feet growing numb even though they had been walking the entire time.

“Are you afraid?” SuHe asked, breaking the silence. “Your hand is very cold.”

QiLeren blinked a few times. “Is it? I feel like yours is colder.” His heart gave an anxious beat.

Why would SuHe say that his hand was cold? His was clearly colder – holding it felt like holding block of ice. If his hand was already so cold, shouldn’t QiLeren’s hand feel warm to him?

QiLeren at this time was walking half a step in front of SuHe. He peeked at their joined hands out of the corner of his eye.

The hand in his was very slender, like a woman’s, and completely devoid of colour.

It wasn’t SuHe’s hand.

“Hmm, we’re almost at the fishbowl! I wonder how many fish are left, hehe.” Not-SuHe spoke once again with his voice, but this time the tone was unmistakably feminine.

QiLeren forced himself to face forward and not rip his hand away from the unidentifiable creature he had linked hands with. Her words pressed their sharp, glistening edge into the back of his neck.

He had to buy time to come up with a plan. As they walked past a window, however, QiLeren couldn’t help but sneak a look-

The owner of the hand in his wore a bloodstained white dress. Her savagely severed head was hanging from what remained of her neck with only a thin shred of skin like a flower with a snapped stem.

The severed head turned to face the mirror and met QiLeren’s eyes with a smile, the number carved into her face unravelling in petals of flesh and blood – 4.

Her grin widened. She offered no words, but to QiLeren she did not need to.

You know who I am, and for what I came.