Nightmare Despair

Chapter 12 Paper Man
The downward staircase stretched out into complete darkness.

Stepping on it, you feel a sticky sensation under your feet, like stepping into half-rotten moss, and you even sink slightly, as if you are stepping on a thin layer of flesh.

As the oil lamp drew closer, a dark brown fungal carpet covered the wall. Under the light, the tiny spores seemed to undulate slightly, as if they were breathing.

Zhou Kai almost thought he had crawled into the intestines of some giant monster.

He poked at it with the handle of his axe, and the fungal carpet was easily scraped away, revealing the normal brick and stone structure underneath. He breathed a sigh of relief.

The stairs were much deeper than they looked, and it took him more than two minutes to finally step onto flat ground.

dark.

The light from the oil lamp seemed to have struck an invisible black wall, extending forward less than half a meter before being completely swallowed up.

The surroundings were deathly silent; even the sound of breathing seemed to have been sucked away.

A feeling of weightlessness and dizziness struck at the same time, and he couldn't even distinguish up from down from left from right.

Zhou Kai took a deep breath, forcing himself to calm down, and focused his gaze on the only thing he could make out in the distance.

It was a wooden door, with a faint red light shining through the cracks.

"Alright, the fireplace gave me an extra life. Consider dying once as tuition, but I wonder what I'll learn..."

He tried to look back, but the stairs behind him had disappeared into the darkness, leaving him with nowhere to retreat.

The panic that had just subsided in my heart resurfaced.

But he quickly suppressed that emotion.

This house is truly eerie, dangerous in every way...

But it's safer than outside.

If you can't even handle the monsters in the starting village, how can you talk about getting rid of the nightmare?
tui!

Zhou Kai spat on the gleaming axe blade.

He wiped his face forcefully with the corner of his clothes, and the panic in his eyes, reflected in the axe blade, was forcibly suppressed, leaving only a cold and ruthless look.

Gripping the axe handle tightly, Zhou Kai tiptoed toward the red door.

……

Ding Dong…Ding Dong…

"La la la~ la la la~"

"Lovely Evelyn~ The moon is watching you~ La la la..."

"Come with me to the forest, don't go home..."

"Oh, Evelyn, you are the luckiest child."

"Come home with me, don't stay outside the mountains..."

A brass sign hangs on the wooden door.

【001】

The closer Zhou Kai got, the clearer the music and singing became from behind the door.

The music seemed to be coming from a rusty music box, each note carrying the rough, metallic feel of friction.

The singing voice was high-pitched and thin, like those castrated boys in a medieval choir, and the transitions in the notes were particularly eerie, sending chills down one's spine.

The song is about a girl named "Evelyn," and the lyrics are disjointed and incoherent.

Zhou Kai felt a chill run down his spine as he listened.

The oil lamp in my hand seemed to be penetrated by the cold air; the flame struggled for a moment, then went out silently.

His Adam's apple bobbed, and he swallowed.

Zhou Kai placed the extinguished oil lamp at his feet, reached out, and grasped the cold doorknob.

"Zheng!"

The sound of the piano stopped suddenly.

Dead silence.

Thump, thump.

Each heartbeat sounded noisy, like a roar in my ears.

It was as if someone had slammed their hand down on the piano keys with all their might, brutally silencing all sound.

Zhou Kai's hand, which was gripping the doorknob, froze instantly.

Silence... a silence that felt as long as a century.

The deathly silence was suddenly shattered in the next instant!
"La la la~"

"Naughty Evelyn, you'll always be brought back~"

The singing started again, this time with the piano and vocals amplified several times, even carrying a hollow echo, as if coming from a huge cave.

Zhou Kai's heart was pounding.

Without further hesitation, he abruptly turned the doorknob and slipped inside.

Once his eyes adjusted to the red light inside the door, he could finally see the scene before him clearly.

This basement turned out to be a hidden world, divided into two levels.

The upper level is a circular corridor, and every few meters, a blood-red veil hangs down from the ceiling.

These tulle curtains fall onto the corridor railings and continue downwards, eventually converging at the center of the lower space.

In mid-air, all the red gauze was bound together into a huge, still slightly wriggling cocoon.

Zhou Kai gripped the axe with both hands, turned sideways, and stared intently at the red silk cocoon...

Or rather, it's located directly below the cocoon.

He moved silently, tiptoeing. Moving…

Zhou Kai's gaze pierced through the layers of red gauze, finally revealing the scene in the center of the lower level.

dong dong!

His heart felt like it had been squeezed twice.

The singing continued to echo, and a huge grand piano stood in the center, its black and white keys rising and falling on their own, producing eerie and sinister music.

"...No monsters?"

Zhou Kai let out a long breath, only then realizing that his palms, which were gripping the axe handle, were already soaked with cold sweat.

We need to go down and take a look.

Zhou Kai lifted a red veil, and sure enough, there was a spiral staircase leading downstairs on the inside of the corridor.

He decided to go and take a look at the self-playing piano first.

……

Tread.

The footsteps sounded particularly heavy in the empty space.

As Zhou Kai descended the stairs, he marveled at the echoing effect.

This reverb is such a waste not to use it for concerts.

Could it be that the previous owner of this house was a musician who converted the basement into a private concert hall?
With each step he took, the echoes resonated perfectly in time with the rhythm of the piano music, creating an eerie harmony.

The footsteps sounded a bit off.

Zhou Kai's face turned deathly pale.

He stopped.

But the footsteps didn't stop immediately!
It sounded twice, as if there was an echo, before stopping!
No, that's not right... This isn't an echo at all...

Zhou Kai instantly got goosebumps and turned around sharply to look up!

The "thing" following behind him lowered its head in perfect unison.

Two faces, one facing forward and one backward, were less than half a meter apart, facing each other directly.

A face hung upside down, staring at him in bewilderment.

White paper. Red crayon. A wide smile.

That smile looked like it had been painted over with an entire red crayon, thick as a clot of congealed blood.

"La la la~"

The soaring chanting exploded in his ears.

It was a deafening revelation, a world-shaking event.

Zhou Kai's body inexplicably lost control, falling straight backward into the embrace of the black and red paper figure.

He tried desperately to swing the axe, but the blade passed right through the paper figure's body, as if cutting into fog, without any sense of force.

The axe missed its target; instead, due to inertia, the handle grazed his nose, causing a burning pain.

The smiling face drawn with crayons grew larger and larger in his field of vision.

The strength in my body was being rapidly drained away, and a bone-chilling cold instantly enveloped my entire body.

Every pore on my skin contracted due to the cold, and goosebumps covered my entire body.

In an instant, Zhou Kai felt as if he had fallen into an ice cave.

However, at that moment, he suddenly felt a warm sensation in the pocket on his side.

Zhou Kai subconsciously released the axe and reached into his pocket.

It was the seed that was in the sample bag!
Under the dim red light, the green buds looked exceptionally vibrant.

The moment Zhou Kai saw the green sprouts, he felt most of the chill in his body subside.

next moment.

Zhou Kai's brows furrowed, and a fierce look flashed in his eyes!
"I don't care what kind of demons or monsters you are, just die!"

He ripped open the sample bag, clenched the ball of paper with sprouting green shoots tightly in his fist, turned around, locked the paper figure in his hand, and punched it repeatedly with all his might!

laugh!laugh!laugh!
The fist gripping the grass sprout fell, and the paper figure's illusory body could no longer be maintained.

A few punches later, several transparent holes were punched into its body.

"what!!!!"

The thick, blood-red crayon-like smile suddenly split open, emitting a sharp roar that could pierce eardrums.

Zhou Kai was so shocked by the sound wave that he felt dizzy and his thoughts stopped.

Fortunately, before consciousness completely fades away.

He abandoned his fight with the monster on the stairs and instead threw himself into the paper figure's arms, using his last bit of strength to hug it and tumble down the stair railing!
It crashed straight to the ground!

boom!
For some reason, the distance and height of the fall changed strangely.

Originally less than a meter from the ground, it now looked as if it had fallen from a height of more than ten meters, and precisely at the center below.

Zhou Kai subconsciously used the throwing technique Chen Ping had taught him, locking the paper figure's neck tightly and pinning it beneath him.

Under the suppression of the tender buds' scent, the paper figure's movements also became sluggish.

A person and a piece of paper fell to the ground with a thud.

Together they smashed the grand piano to pieces!
rustling...

Black smoke dissipated, and a red light flashed violently!
Everything fell silent.

(End of this chapter)