The Decaying Dream of America: I Assemble Corpses and Confront Madness

It was just after nightfall.

The raindrops no longer made a pattering sound.

They turned into knocking.

Cold, hard, and malicious tapping.

Lin Zheng curled up on the only chair in the room, his hands tightly covering his ears.

But the sound didn't come from outside the window; it exploded directly inside his skull.

Click.

Click.

Click click click.

At first, there was only a single sound of bone cracking, but soon, more sounds joined in.

The nauseating hiss of the chainsaw cutting through his sternum, the friction of metal against bone, the high-frequency screams almost ripped his eardrums apart.

The dull, dragging sound of flesh rubbing against the concrete floor as the butchers dragged the body parts was wet and sticky.

And those hateful roars.

They are the collective of all the silent cries of "Gundam" before their death.

The voice was filled with the rage of betrayal, the despair of being tortured, and the deepest curse upon the entire world.

"fraud……"

"...They all have to die..."

"...It's so cold..."

Broken words pierced his mind from all directions.

The darkness in the room began to flow, and the shadows in the corners came to life, wriggling and stretching out twisted tentacles, slowly enveloping him.

He could smell the strong stench of blood mixed with formaldehyde, a hundred times stronger than in the morgue.

My stomach cramped violently, and a wave of acid rushed up my throat.

He knew it was an illusion.

The boundaries of reality were dissolving, and he felt himself being dragged into an abyss of corpses and hatred.

We can't just let ourselves be swallowed up like this.

Absolutely not.

His eyes searched frantically in the darkness, looking for an "anchor" that would allow him to stay still.

The walls are melting, and the floor is tilting.

Only the black tool bag on the table remained in its original form.

Tool kit.

His hand trembled as he reached for the table, his fingertips touching the leather.

This is it.

He abruptly unzipped the zipper, and the metal tools inside reflected the pale sunlight from the window, radiating a cold and rational glow.

He grabbed a scalpel.

The weight and feel of the knife handle momentarily brought his chaotic thoughts to a standstill.

not enough.

The hallucinatory screams grew louder, mocking his death throes.

Dark tentacles had already wrapped around his ankles, and the numbness began to spread upwards.

Without the slightest hesitation, he pointed the sharp tip of the knife at his left forearm.

Then, he closed his eyes and paddled down with all his might.

excruciating pain.

The real pain in my arm instantly overwhelmed all the false auditory and visual hallucinations.

The roar of the chainsaw and the hateful curses in my mind temporarily subsided.

The dark tentacles disappeared.

The room returned to that cramped, shabby rental space.

Lin Zheng was panting heavily, his back soaked with cold sweat.

He looked down at the bleeding wound on his arm, the pain making him feel more lucid than ever before.

This is only temporary.

He knew that once the pain began to subside, those things would come back.

He must regain control of his mind before they return.

He didn't treat the wound, letting the blood drip onto the floor.

He dumped everything from his toolbox onto the table.

Scalpels, bone shears, tissue forceps, probes... a dozen or so gleaming metal tools were scattered about.

This is his battlefield.

He picked up a clean velvet cloth, dipped it in conditioner, and began to wipe the first scalpel.

This is a ceremony.

He forced himself to focus all his attention and willpower on this simple, repetitive task that required extreme concentration, triggering a mental recalibration.

His fingers traced the anti-slip grooves on the hilt of the knife.

He could feel every tiny bump and hollow.

His gaze followed the velvet cloth as it wiped away the unseen dust from the knife, leaving a thin film of oil.

He could see his own bloodshot eyes reflected in the metal surface.

Deep within my mind, those suppressed noises began to stir again.

He ignored it.

He was completely absorbed in the sensations at his fingertips and the scene before him.

Wipe the knife handle.

Wipe the blade.

Finally, there's the Blade.

His movements were extremely slow and gentle; he was treating a masterpiece of art.

He could feel his heartbeat gradually calming down, and his breathing becoming long and steady.

He won back an inch of ground.

He picked up the second tool, a pair of tissue forceps.

Repeat the actions you just performed.

This time, he started counting silently in his mind.

First, wipe the jaws of the pliers.

Second, wipe the joints.

Third, wipe the handle.

Numbers are a symbol of order and a cornerstone of rationality.

He used this most primitive method to rebuild a logical coordinate system in his chaotic mental world.

The distant drumbeats gradually faded away.

Those vicious curses turned into an indistinguishable buzzing sound.

He felt he was building a mental safe house, using focus and repetition as bricks to completely isolate himself from the madness of the outside world.

One handful after another.

Time has lost its meaning.

The icy rain outside the window continued to pound against the world, but in this small room, on his desk, only the soft scraping of metal against velvet could be heard.

When he finished wiping the last probe, the whole world fell silent.

All the noise in my mind subsided, and finally, there was peace.

He won.

He leaned back in his chair, his body trembling slightly from exhaustion, but his mind had reached an unprecedented state of clarity.

The wound on his arm had stopped bleeding; the congealed blood and sharp pain became his medals of victory.

He sat quietly for a long time, enjoying this hard-won tranquility.

At this moment, in this moment of perfect clarity, his ears caught the continued sound of rain outside the window and a faint knocking sound.