My House of Horrors

“A child that you can’t kill no matter what?” Chen Ge lifted his head, and his gaze passed through the gray foliage to look at the pale sky. Even if he was willing to be that kid’s friend, the kid would still have no friends because he was most likely that kid himself.

“I do not believe there is such a kid in this world. If he really exists, I will be his friend,” Chen Ge answered affirmatively. Then he turned to the girl. “By the way, how do you know he is unable to die no matter how he is killed?”

When Chen Ge asked that question, a very long crack appeared on the clear fishbowl, and the water inside started to leak out. It was worth noting that the clear water inside the fishbowl turned a murky gray color once it leaked out from the crack. The water level lowered, and the blood red goldfish struggled harder. Wounds started to appear on its body, dying the water in the bowl red.

“I have tried to kill him before.” The girl’s voice had completely changed. “I wanted to be him, but once I woke up from my dream, he once again returned.”

“Then, do you know how he managed to do that?” Chen Ge’s heart was racing, but his mind was getting blurry like he was forgetting something very important. However, the most dangerous thing was, he had no idea what he had forgotten.

“Yes…” The girl turned her head to look at Chen Ge.

By then, her face had completely faded away, and a new face was coming to replace it. “How did he manage to do that?”

The icy light fell on them. The two stood at the exit of the woods. The buildings around them were bleeding. On the left side where the girl was standing, the buildings were crawling with black threads that spoke of bad news, while on the right side where Chen Ge was standing, the buildings were dyed red as they crumbled. Fang Yu’s world was almost similar to a world behind a real door, but it still could not resist the destruction from more than ten Red Specters.

After he entered the door, Chen Ge had noticed how different this world was, so he ordered his employees to make their move as swiftly as they could. He knew about Fang Yu’s past, so he had no reason to take things slow. Reality had proved that he had made a wise decision.

“You are the lingering object the ghost fetus left behind this door, aren’t you?”

When Chen Ge first spotted Fang Yu, he had been suspicious of that. If Fang Yu behind the door had really given up all hope, like how this girl was reacting, then the Fang Yu outside the door would not have tattooed Zhang Yi’s name all over her body and waited in the park every night. The real Fang Yu had not given up. To test his suspicion further, Chen Ge had kept asking crucial questions, and his conclusion was that the girl before him was not Fang Yu.

In Fang Yu’s world, other than herself, the only ‘person’ that could speak and had a memory would be the ghost fetus. The girl probably knew that her disguise had been exposed a long time ago, but she did not care. “How can you be so sure that I am not the ghost fetus himself?”

“Even though this world is far more stable than the other worlds, it is still too fragile for a Demon God. It is similar to how you wouldn’t place a shark inside a normal fishbowl.”

Before Chen Ge entered Fang Yu’s world, he believed that he would not find the ghost fetus there. Zhang Yi had given him plenty of hints regarding that. Other than that, if he was the ghost fetus, he would find a normal person who did not have obvious deformity to possess.

The other eight children were all smoke bombs. Even if their worlds behind the door were destroyed, the ghost fetus had only lost part of his power. Only when the time of his birth arrived would the situation change. The girl’s original face had been wiped away, and a baby’s face slowly surfaced. His eyes were closed. His lips, ears, and nose were bleeding, but he did not seem to mind them, as if he could not feel pain.

This ‘ghost fetus’ was different from the ‘ghost fetus’ in the other worlds. He had his own consciousness. After he was discovered, he did not do much. His shirt did not even turn red. He stood quietly next to Chen Ge at the entrance of the woods, looking at the city that was being ravaged by black and red.

Slowly, the red overwhelmed the black. The black threads that represented the curse were being oppressed. The gray and white world was being cut with bloody wounds like the whole city was bleeding. With ten Red Specters working at their maximum power, they only managed to control the curse hidden behind the door. But seeing this, Chen Ge did not feel any energy to smile at all. Counting the door that Jia Ming and Bei Ye had entered, this was only the fourth door, but it already needed more than ten Red Specters to take it down.

When he entered the fifth door, he would need the help of all the Red Specters. If this reasoning was correct, he might not be safe with his entourage of Red Specters when he entered the sixth door. The gray and white city was covered in red. Chen Ge did not use any tricks but used the simplest and most direct method, which was brute force. This was the simplest, most effective, and safest method.

Bloody shadows appeared. The mirrors that littered the streets were shattered, and the city turned red.

“Just a little more, give me a little more time, and I will be able to keep you here forever.” The girl with baby face looked at Chen Ge. “I can’t kill you, but I can make you forget yourself and have them repeat what they did to you again and again.”

Both sides were buying time. Chen Ge was waiting for his Red Specters to break through the limitation this world had on them. The girl though knew some secrets, and she wished to use another method to ‘kill’ Chen Ge.

“What they did to me? Who are they?” Chen Ge asked.

“Why do you insist on looking for them? You already have everything I could ever wish for. Why do you want to give that up?” The girl’s body was turning blurry, like the color was leaking out from her. She was assimilating into this world. “Stay where you are and let me become you. Is that so hard?”

“Looking for them? Are you talking about my parents?” Chen Ge’s voice took on an urgent edge.

When he heard the word ‘parents’, the baby’s expression changed. Chen Ge seemed to hit the sore spot. He stopped conversing with Chen Ge. Suddenly, he reached into the fishbowl to grab at the goldfish inside it. “You are very lucky to have entered this most dangerous door before I have fully awakened. But certain things have already been written on the wall. You will never change it no matter how hard you try.”

“Fang Yu!” Chen Ge took out the hammer and swung at the girl. The girl’s finger touched the surface of the water, but the goldfish slipped through her fingers. The glass bowl slipped and shattered against the ground. The baby’s face grimaced. Her body was dissolving and spreading like the water from inside the fishbowl.

“I will wait for you behind the door, Chen Ge.”

The girl’s body and the water seeped into the gray and white world and disappeared. The only thing that left on the ground was a blood red goldfish and a normal looking glass marble. Chen Ge placed the goldfish on a larger piece of the broken glass where some muddied water still pooled inside. Then he reached toward the normal looking marble. When his finger touched the marble, a strange memory appeared in his mind.

At the third floor of the haunted house at midnight, a single bed was placed inside a warm-looking room. There was a handmade bedside lamp sitting on the table. The faded light shone on the bed. The young boy was already asleep when his shadow crawled out from the bed and started to play with the toys in the room.

The thin shadow sat among the many toys. He played with himself for a long time until midnight arrived, and he suddenly heard someone calling a name. The shadow turned to look at the sleeping boy, and then he slipped out from the room.