685 His Nightmare

 

Han Fei stood inside Room 444. His gaze slowly moved away from Yan Yue and examined this strange room. He moved to explore the room further.

“Don’t stray from the group!” Brain reminded Han Fei when Han Fei had already moved into the bedroom. One would feel extremely fearful and panicked inside the cursed room. The words were like twisted faces, squeezing into one’s line of sight. “Four means death. I believe many bad things have happened around here, but I can’t remember anything.”

Han Fei followed the trail of bloody handprints, and he found something inside the bedroom. A folding bed was placed on the ground. The leg was tied to a shackle. It was used to detain the person in bed. There was a paper box under the bed. The box was filled with tapes. Han Fei grabbed a random tape. He frowned when he saw the words on the cover. The tapes recorded the last period of a person’s life, taking down their last despair. They were literal death recordings. On the other side of the bed was the video player. The monitor was placed in such a way that the person in bed could see the recording.

“The person detained in bed has to watch these despairing tapes every night?”

Han Fei pushed the tape inside the player to verify his suspicion. The player blinked, and it made this strange sound. It sounded like many worms crawling.

“Stop that! Dream can use recordings to influence reality and drag us into nightmares.” The middle-aged man walked over to stop Han Fei.

“Leave me here alone. If I sink into a nightmare, open the door and run. Leave me be.” Han Fei planned to watch the videos alone. He stopped others from coming closer. The middle-aged man didn’t know whether to be impressed or not.

Han Fei sat on the single bed and looked at the video. All the videos started with a colorful butterfly flying over from a distance. Its pattern was gorgeous, like it had collected all the beauty in the darkness. The butterfly appeared suddenly and disappeared suddenly. After it disappeared, the video officially started.

The first victim was Yan Yue’s neighbor. He was a child of a single parent. No one wanted him. Gradually, he also thought his existence was a mistake. With the guidance of Butterfly and Yan Yue’s mother, the boy ended his short life. Yan Yue didn’t appear in the video, but there was a high possibility that she was the cameraperson recording these horrifying stories.

Nine of the victims died, and many survivors suffered from mental problems. Everyone languished in their customized despair. They were like lost children, helpless, fearful and confused. These emotions would affect the viewer, but Han Fei was unfazed. He watched everything silently. He also had no idea why he didn’t have any reaction. Perhaps it was because he had seen worse things. Han Fei sped through all the tapes, and he noticed something strange. With each tape, the butterfly at the start would fly closer to the screen. When he played the last video, the butterfly had almost landed on the monitor.

“I want to smack it to death.” Han Fei continued to watch. The main character of the last tape was the boss of the tape rental shop. He accidentally saw Yan Yue’s recordings and felt connected to them. One night, he decided to watch through all the tapes, just like Han Fei. He reached the last tape around midnight. By then, the man was dominated by some kind of emotion. His expression turned ghastly. He was reminded of many things in life. He took out a cleaver from the kitchen and knocked on his neighbor’s door. The last image was of the boss and his neighbor lying in a pool of blood. The neighbor was terrified, but the boss looked relieved and satisfied with his death. As he died, a colorful butterfly flew out of the boss’ head. It flapped its wing and approached the screen. It flew closer and closer until it appeared to fly out of the screen. Han Fei stared at the butterfly with alertness. However, when he reacted, the colorful butterfly had already appeared in his mind. Han Fei’s mind had nothing but the black curtain. The butterfly tried its best to spread the dust of nightmare, but it couldn’t weave any dream. It was unwilling to retreat just like that. It landed on the biggest crack on the curtain. It wanted to dig out Han Fei’s best memory and then destroy it.

“Only by knowing one’s past could it create the most horrifying nightmare, I can understand that.” Han Fei hugged the doll and lay in bed. A normal person would be so afraid. After all, a scary thing had flown into one’s brain. Nine people committed suicide because of it. However, Han Fei was very calm, like he had planned this beforehand. Han Fei had no idea where he found this courage. To crawl into the gap, the butterfly’s wings were stained with blood. It swore to drag Han Fei into the scariest nightmare. The red doll opened her eyes. Han Fei shook his head. He didn’t even want the doll to stop the butterfly.

“I can predict death. This small butterfly doesn’t evoke a bit of fear in me.” Han Fei found a more comfortable posture. “Seeing how confused the butterfly was, it was not Dream who wiped out my memory. If I really did clear the game before this, then it should be another manager who eliminated my memory. They are Dream’s enemies.”

One’s brain was the core of one’s personality. It was the home of one’s soul. However, Han Fei allowed anyone to enter it. He was using an enemy’s attack to loosen the lock left behind by another enemy.

“I’m feeling sleepy.” A rustling sound came from his brain. Han Fei tied himself to the doll with the red thread. He bit on his tongue to stop himself from sleeping. The colorful butterfly finally crawled through the gap. After a moment’s silence, the crack on the curtain expanded. Suffocating despair oozed out. If other people’s despair was an enclosed room, then Han Fei’s despair was an endless ocean. He didn’t trap himself in despair but wanted to use his despair to flood everything!

The butterfly tried to escape. Its pretty wings were torn. Han Fei’s memory fragments were like sharp glass, piercing into its body. The butterfly swayed. The sharp memory fragments tore open the gap. Han Fei saw some memories related to the butterfly. He had killed Butterfly before!

The fragments that stabbed into the butterfly all had to do with Butterfly. Han Fei saw the scene of Butterfly’s death. There was a blood-red orphanage deep inside Han Fei’s brain. There was a laughing Han Fei who used his hands to pinch the Butterfly to death.

This red memory triggered a chain effect. Blood vessels crawled over the black curtain. The tears opened wider. At the same time, Han Fei’s despair leaked out of the gaps.

The butterfly wanted to use Han Fei’s despair to weave a nightmare, but Han Fei’s despair and pain were far deeper than it had imagined. The nightmare had gotten out of control. The colorful butterfly failed to escape from Han Fei’s brain. It was torn apart by the nightmare and became part of it.

The despair in Han Fei’s brain gushed forward. Many scary illusions appeared around him. Among them were a giant tree formed from endless arms; a male teacher with no eyes but three mouths; and a barely discernible song.

“Notification for Player 0000. You’ve reached Stage Eight!”

The butterfly sparked the flame and created a nightmare that consumed it. A tear of blood flowed out of Han Fei’s eye. His temples pounded. He now understood the pain of Brain. It was not easy to resist the nightmare. However, he had it easier than Brain. His nightmare was out of control. Not only was he affected, but the people around him were also impacted as well. Since the butterfly had died inside his dream, his nightmare was spreading.

“Who would have thought this disgusting creature could trigger my memory.” Han Fei turned to the living room. Brain painted the maze tattoo on Yan Yue’s stomach. The thing inside Yan Yue was now right underneath the maze tattoo. After the colorful butterfly died, there was a scream from Yan Yue’s stomach. The maze tattoo started to spread.

“It’s already 11.30 pm. Why isn’t Yan Yue’s mother here yet?” Lee Guo Er, who guarded the door, was losing her patience. She kept checking the time.

“I don’t know.” The man sat at the corner. The blood in his eyes was dry. Two terrifying trails of blood dried on his face.

“Since Yan Yue’s mother loves her that much, if we threaten Yan Yue’s safety, we can force her to appear.” Lee Guo Er pulled out her knife. “This room is too strange. We need to summon her out and then leave.”

“If you do that, you’ll antagonize Yan Yue’s mother. She’ll never work with you and tell you about the past.” The man knew his wife very well.

“Then, how much longer do we have to wait?” Lee Guo Er was under a lot of pressure since she had to protect two children.

“Resentment will explode at midnight. Her mother will appear then.” Once he said that the curses inside the room moved. An oppressive presence appeared. “Has my wife become so scary?”

Han Fei coughed and walked out of the bedroom. He wiped away the tear from his face and looked at the previous Brain. “There is a colorful butterfly in the death tapes left behind by your wife and daughter.”

“That is one of Dream’s forms. That is the shape he takes when he enters people’s dreams.” The man glanced at Han Fei and asked in confusion, “Why are your eyes bleeding too?”

“I have one good news and one bad news.” Han Fei said, “The good news is Dream’s butterfly died in my mind. It was crushed by the nightmare it weaved.”

“That’s impossible. Dream has never been killed. No one can possess a constitution that can defend against his attack.” The man shook his head. “Never mind that. What is the bad news?”

“The bad news is the nightmare in my brain has gone totally out of control after it died. The despair has enveloped all of you. Later you’ll see the horror I’ve experienced, and you might need to share my pain too.” At that moment, a wispy song echoed in everyone’s ears. Yan Yue, who was tied to the chair, suddenly screamed. She had never been this anxious before. The young face turned dark. Her bones cracked. The other soul in her body felt the threat and wanted to take over her body.

Brain, who thought Han Fei was joking, also stopped talking. He realized he couldn’t escape from the song no matter what.

“What kind of monsters you’ve been dealing with in the past?” The man climbed up from the ground. He went to close his daughter’s ears.

“I don’t know. I’ve lost my memory.” Han Fei’s neck crawled with goosebumps when he heard the song. While everyone was trying to figure out what the song meant, the shrill siren temporarily overwhelmed it. Han Fei opened the door and looked out. A black taxi and a long trail of police cruisers drove into the neighborhood. “Has Xiao Jia defected?”

The song, cries, and siren mixed together. As more people entered the neighborhood, the pain on Han Fei lessened. The rampaging nightmare dragged everyone into it. They would be affected by Han Fei’s despair. Gradually, they would lose the distinction between reality and illusion.

“Things are going to get chaotic.” Han Fei looked down the distance. There were a few vans behind the last police cruiser. The vans circled around the neighborhood before they entered from the back door.