In the very middle of the street, a beautiful young girl slowly opened her eyes and stared blankly around her.
*Where am I?*
The road before her stretched into the distance, paved with one weathered bluestone slab after another. Ancient wooden buildings lined both sides. Lanterns hung at even intervals along the street, swaying gently in the night breeze and giving off an eerie, feeble red glow.
Everything about this place was unlike the modern city she knew. It looked more like an enormous, exquisitely crafted set that belonged in a period television drama or film.
*Where are the crew and actors? Why did I come here? Wait… who am I? Why can’t I remember my own name?*
She scratched her head in frustration, but her mind yielded no useful information. It was as if all her earlier memories had inexplicably vanished.
“Is anyone here?”
She shouted as loudly as she could, but no one answered.
*Hmm… Maybe I should walk farther ahead. I ought to run into the film crew eventually.*
The night here was unnaturally still. Not a sound stirred, as though this were an empty city. The sky overhead was pitch-black, without a single star or moon; the neatly arranged lanterns on either side of the road provided the only light.
With her head full of questions, the girl slowly walked along the orderly bluestone pavement. The farther she went, the more frightened she became.
A set this enormous and elaborate had to be for some blockbuster. Yet she had walked such a long way without encountering a single staff member or filming prop—not even a sign. It was exactly like an ancient city abandoned by time.
*And why did I come here? Where was I before this?*
At that moment, she caught sight of a mirror shop on the left side of the road. It was called a mirror shop, but every mirror inside was an ancient bronze one, polished to an exceptionally smooth shine. Candleholders mounted on the walls provided extra light.
*Right… What do I look like, anyway? Maybe looking in a mirror will help me remember something.*
With that thought, she stepped up to the largest standing bronze mirror in the shop.
Her smooth, shoulder-length hair was tied into two short ponytails that hung over her chest. Beneath her side-swept bangs was a delicately rounded oval face, exquisite and captivating. Her large eyes gleamed like stars, and her soft lips were as tender and tempting as June strawberries. Yet the dark, long woolen sweater and skinny jeans she wore clashed sharply with the antique surroundings.
“Oh! So this is what I look like? I’m actually this pretty!”
Everyone loved beauty, and the girl was no exception. She leaned close to the mirror and indulged in a little self-admiration.
But her expression quickly changed to terror. Mouth open, she backed away several steps.
Why were there other people in the mirror?
On the street reflected in the bronze mirror, pedestrians in all kinds of period clothing streamed back and forth. Some were tall, some short; some were men, some women; some were old, some young. It was a bustling, noisy marketplace.
But when the girl turned around, the street remained utterly deserted. Not a single person could be seen. When she turned back to the mirror, the street was bustling again.
*Why…? Why is the scene in the mirror different from what I see?*
At that very moment, a tall figure that had appeared from nowhere entered the shop in the mirror and slowly approached from behind her.
“Who is that?”
She spun around, but still couldn’t see a soul.
Panicked, the girl tried to bolt through the doorway, only to crash into something invisible and be knocked flat. Stars burst across her vision, and she rubbed her aching head.
When she raised her head again, an unnaturally tall man in a rough cloth robe was standing abruptly in front of her. A broad, conical hat covered half his face. The exposed half was utterly bloodless, so deathly pale that it hurt to look at.
Her heart began pounding for no reason. Trembling, she got to her feet.
“S-Sir? Are you filming a movie here? Could you tell me where the exit is?”
The tall man’s lips stretched into a stiff, horrifying grin, and a bizarre, manic laugh rumbled from his throat. As he laughed, one of his eyeballs was somehow pulled loose and dropped from its socket, landing right at the tips of the girl’s shoes.
She pointed with a trembling finger at the man’s pitch-black, empty eye socket and kept backing away. The man, however, calmly picked up the eyeball and shoved it back into place. Both eyes were stark white, with no pupils at all.
Perhaps drawn by the laughter, a huge crowd of pedestrians suddenly appeared on the previously empty street. Following the sound, they crowded into the mirror shop and completely surrounded the girl.
By the weak candlelight, she could make out their faces. Every one of them had eyes that were nothing but whites and sharp, conical teeth. Milky saliva dripped nonstop between those teeth, while a jumble of hoarse, rasping voices floated through the room.
“A living person… A living person actually came here…”
“Hungry… I’m so hungry… It’s been so long since I’ve eaten a human…”
“Such fair, delicate little hands… I want them… I want to gnaw them slowly… suck every knuckle again and again…”
“Eat… eat… eat…”
The circle tightened. Arms wrapped in rotting flesh reached for her from every direction, and soon they had torn her sweater away. The stench of decay flooded her nostrils, while grotesque, drooling faces closed in until they blocked out her entire field of vision.
“Ding-a-ling-ling-ling-ling…”
Just as the girl was about to be swallowed by the monsters, a clear ringing sounded from the far end of the street.
The bell was not loud, but it possessed some strange power. The things surrounding the girl suddenly froze as though struck by an immobilizing spell. They couldn’t move; only their white eyes spun wildly in their sockets.
Her survival instincts took over. Taking advantage of the opening, she broke out of the encirclement and sprinted toward the ringing.
*Run! Run! They absolutely cannot catch me!*
The bell’s power, however, did not seem to be absolute. Before long, the girl clearly saw several tall shadows slowly catching up with and overtaking the shadow she cast ahead of her, like beasts chasing prey.
On the bluestone lane, the only sound was the crisp tap-tap-tap of her footsteps. Behind her, those grotesque, uneven shadows continued their relentless pursuit.
*No… I’m exhausted. I can’t breathe… But I can’t stop. I don’t want them to eat me…*
Her stubborn will to survive forced her to keep going for what felt like an eternity. At last, she reached the source of the ringing at the end of the street.
To her disappointment, there was no exit and no one waiting for her. All she found was a strangely shaped staff only half her height, with a bronze bell hanging from its top and swinging incessantly.
“Ding-a-ling-ling-ling-ling…”
At the very instant she stood there in a daze, a pitch-black arm shot out from behind, seized her calf, and dragged her to the ground. Countless hands covered in rotting flesh grabbed at every part of her body, while gaping maws closed in, ready to feast.
At the last possible moment, the fingertip of her upraised right hand happened to touch the bronze bell on the staff.
In an instant, countless memories surged through her mind like a bursting tide. The girl began muttering to herself.
“That’s right. My name is Jiang Chenxin. I’m eighteen years old, born in Beijiang City, Kaihua Province. I’m a freshman this year. Before this, I was on a plane returning to school…”
As she spoke, the scene around her rapidly froze into a single still image. Some of the sharp teeth had already touched her tender skin, but they too came to an abrupt halt, as if someone had just pressed the pause button on a television remote.
Then, accompanied by the delicate sound of cracking glass, cracks began spreading across the image. They widened, multiplied, and joined together…
The space before her shattered with a bang, leaving nothing but darkness. Yet a familiar announcement echoed beside her ear.
“Passengers, this flight will be arriving in Nan’an City shortly. Please fasten your seat belts…”
After roughly ten seconds, the darkness before her eyes finally faded, and light returned to the world.
She was in a perfectly ordinary airplane cabin. Passengers of all appearances and styles sat around her, every one of them calm and composed. The familiar roar of the engines filled her ears.
The girl looked out at the azure sky, patted her chest in lingering fear, then wiped the sweat from her face and neck. Her mind was filled with bewilderment.
*Was everything that had just happened only a dream? Why had it felt so real? And why was I sweating so much, as if I’d just finished a long-distance run…?*
A quarter of an hour later, the plane came to a stop and the cabin doors opened. The girl followed the crowd out, but she remained dazed and uneasy.
Suddenly, a slightly plump girl gave her shoulder a hard slap.
“Hey, Xiaoxin! What are you spacing out for? You don’t even recognize your best friend?”
Only then did Jiang Chenxin snap out of it. She smiled apologetically.
“Sorry, Yingying. I had a terrifying nightmare on the plane.”
“What kind of nightmare scared you this badly? Come on, tell me about it.”
“Mm… It was really scary. I don’t really want to talk about it…”
The girl who had just stepped off the plane was Jiang Chenxin. She was returning to school after spending winter break in her hometown. The girl who had come to meet her was her roommate and best friend, Zhou Ziying. After a semester together, the two had grown very fond of each other.
Well, fond of each other in the friendship sense.
When Zhou Ziying heard that Jiang Chenxin had brought a lot of luggage this time, she volunteered to come to the airport and pick her up.
“I’m telling you, Xiaoxin, your suitcase is ridiculously heavy. How much did your parents stuff into it?”
“Heh, they would have crammed everything in the house inside if they could. Sigh, I’m already eighteen, but they still treat me like a little kid…”
“Exactly, exactly! My parents are the same. If I get home even a little late, they interrogate me forever. It’s so annoying!”
While they chatted, the two girls reached the subway station. As luck would have it, a train was waiting there. Zhou Ziying immediately put all her strength into dragging the large suitcase aboard, then waved at Jiang Chenxin.
“Xiaoxin, what are you staring at? Hurry up and get in! The train’s about to leave!”
Jiang Chenxin, however, looked deeply unsettled. Her eyes were as wide and round as a startled fawn’s.
“Yingying, there’s… something beside you…”
Zhou Ziying glanced back and shook her head in confusion.
“Xiaoxin, what on earth are you talking about?”
Jiang Chenxin didn’t know how to describe it, but she could definitely see a blurry, semi-transparent humanoid floating beside Zhou Ziying.
“Yingying, get off the train… Quick!”
“What for?”
“Listen to me. Get off… There’s something beside you…”
“What’s with the mysterious act…?”
As they argued, it was time for the subway to depart, and the warning lights on the carriage doors began flashing. Since Zhou Ziying had come to help her, she couldn’t very well leave Jiang behind and depart alone. She had no choice but to haul the luggage back off the train and stamp her foot in exasperation.
“What on earth are you doing, Xiaoxin? Why do we have to wait another ten minutes?”
Jiang Chenxin was just about to explain when the translucent humanoid inside the carriage seemed to sense her. It turned its head, fixed a pair of pupil-less white eyes on her, bared its fangs, and lunged.
“Aaaaaah!”
Jiang Chenxin screamed and dropped to the floor, landing hard on her bottom in a thoroughly unladylike fashion. At that same moment, the carriage doors snapped shut, and the subway began to pull away. The translucent thing glared viciously at her through the window until the train receded into the distance and vanished.
Zhou Ziying helped her to her feet.
“What are you doing, Xiaoxin? You’re jumping at every little thing. Did you see a ghost in broad daylight or something?”
“I… I think I really saw a ghost…”
Jiang Chenxin’s face was deathly pale, and it took her a long while to recover.
“Pfft, stop teasing me. There are no ghosts in this world!”
Indeed, Zhou Ziying couldn’t see the thing. But why could Jiang Chenxin suddenly see it? And why had that dream on the plane been so bizarre?
With their minds full of worries, Jiang Chenxin and her best friend boarded the next subway train and eventually made their way back to campus.
What Jiang Chenxin didn’t know was that something even more terrifying was waiting for her there…
