A rustling sound of clothes came from the darkness. Liu Yanlei quickly plugged his ears with homemade earplugs, then grabbed the hands of the people sitting on either side of him—they had agreed to hold hands as much as possible.
Holding Yu Long's hand in his left and Chen Xin'ai's in his right, he noticed their hands were cold, damp, and trembling slightly.
The room, already dark, suddenly felt even more intense, a darkness that silently seeped in and enveloped everything.
Time slipped by slowly and visibly, the murky sound of the sea surging slowly drifting in through the ship's deck.
*Whoosh—whoosh—*
The sound seemed distant and desolate, hollow and lifeless.
Emptiness and darkness blurred the boundaries of time; it seemed neither long nor short. *
Creak, creak, creak.*
From the narrow passageway outside the room, the sound of something pressing against the wooden floor gradually grew louder and closer.
*Creak, creak, creak.*
The sound stopped outside the door.
The darkness was deathly silent, as if something stood quietly at the doorway, sensing the twelve vulnerable humans inside.
Liu Yanlei sensed something was wrong.
He had plugged his ears, so why could he still hear clearly?
—Pluging his ears wouldn't help!
Liu Yanlei was startled, but forcing himself to remain calm, he tentatively called out in a very low voice to his right, "Xin'ai?"
"Yan...Yanlei..." Chen Xin'ai's voice trembled with extreme fear, "I...I...I'm scared...scared..."
"Shh...It's okay...It's okay...Don't move...Just don't move..." Liu Yanlei comforted her, and also comforted himself. He held Chen Xin'ai's cold, trembling hand tightly, telling himself that he loved her very much. Maybe not before, but from now on, she would definitely be the person he loved most. He would protect her, he would believe in her, just like the male protagonist in every heroic movie, willing to risk his life to protect her.
Chen Xin'ai gripped his hand tightly, but her trembling intensified, causing the words she was trying to suppress to spill out: "No...no...there's something...no, no, no...Yan Yan Yan Lei...Yan Lei! Yan Lei! Something! Something! Ah—ah—"
Chen Xin'ai screamed, her voice like flesh being cleaved by a sharp axe, shrill and distorted: "Help—no—ah—ah—Yan Lei—save me—ah!!!!!"
Liu Yan Lei's already taut nerves, on the verge of snapping, were instantly shattered by Chen Xin'ai's almost inhuman scream; he felt an electric shock. Liu Yanlei instinctively withdrew his hand from Chen Xin'ai's, then tried to reach for it again, only to hear Chen Xin'ai frantically pounding her body in the darkness, her screams sounding like her throat was being ripped open: "Ah—ah—no—no—help me—leeches—leeches—so many leeches—they've burrowed into my flesh—they've burrowed into my flesh—ah—Yanlei—help me—ahhhhhh—"
Liu Yanlei was terrified. His hand, which had been desperately trying to reach Chen Xin'ai in the darkness, instinctively recoiled again, and he stumbled back several meters—leeches?! Where would leeches come from in the vast ocean?! Was it an illusion?
As Liu Yanlei frantically analyzed the situation in his mind, he suddenly heard a series of gasps from the room—a woman's scream and a man's deep shout. Each sound was filled with terror and despair. Everyone was in chaos; there were sounds of people slapping themselves, rolling on the floor, and even banging against the wall. Mixed in with these chaotic sounds was a chilling, slithering sound, like snakes and insects wriggling.
Liu Yanlei was stunned. He could no longer tell if what he was hearing was a hallucination. He could only keep moving backward to avoid being stepped on or bumped into by others.
The room wasn't large, and after only a few steps back, his back was against the wall. Unexpectedly, the hand he used to support himself pressed against a clump of sticky, fine threads in the corner. Liu Yanlei frantically tried to shake it off, but he couldn't get rid of them at all. In fact, the more he shook, the more threads stuck to his hand
—what was this?!
Liu Yanlei panicked. He tried to rub the threads with his other hand. The threads were light and sticky, and they almost disappeared when he rubbed them between his fingers.
—Spider, spider silk?!
—There's a spider web in the corner!
Liu Yanlei felt a chill run down his spine, goosebumps rising all over his body from head to toe.
His greatest
fear and disgust was spiders. This fear wasn't like the fear of ghosts or death; it was a physiological aversion, unrelated to gender. Many people have things they can't stand, things that make them shudder at the sight of them—for example, some are afraid of rats, some of snakes, some of insects, some of toads.
Liu Yanlei was terrified of spiders, regardless of size. Whenever he saw these creatures, with their long, thin legs moving swiftly, he felt as if their entire body was being crawled over by their long legs, and where they crawled, countless tiny red bumps would appear, each bump sprouting a white tip, from which pus would ooze, and then from these broken bumps would crawl strings of tiny spiders…
Whenever he saw a spider, he couldn't help but imagine this, making himself feel utterly disgusted and nauseous.
He couldn't help but imagine the scene again, and hurriedly swerved to the side, frantically rubbing his hands against his clothes to remove the spider silk and any spiders that might be clinging to them.
Suddenly, a furry thing landed on his forehead. Liu Yanlei reflexively reached out to brush it away, only to find a spider the size of his palm. He couldn't help but yell and jump up, shaking his head frantically.
In that instant, Liu Yanlei felt himself descending into madness, just like everyone else. The screams and shouts around him were constantly affecting his emotions, disrupting his reason and composure. The large spider on his head was firmly gripping his skin, covering most of his face. Liu Yanlei could even feel its mandibles poised to strike his mouth and nose.
He recalled a book he'd read about a spider with a human face, a story that had left a deep psychological scar. If a person were injected with venom by this spider, their muscles would spasm, rendering them immobile. Then, the spider would inject a digestive fluid, liquefying the flesh beneath the skin. During this process, the person would remain alive, retaining all sensations, but unable to move, helplessly watching themselves being dissolved and consumed by the spider.
—Whether true or not, Liu Yanlei was terrified of spiders. He feared ending up in that situation. The spider on his face now, its eight long legs seeming to grip his face tighter and tighter. Liu Yanlei dared not touch it, only desperately shaking his head, but he couldn't shake it off. Liu Yanlei screamed wildly, like everyone else around him, screaming incessantly, frantically, hysterically.
He was going insane. In the instant of his complete nervous breakdown, he heard someone screaming and stumbling as they rushed out of the room, followed by a second, then a third, their footsteps echoing as they surged toward the door. Everyone
was rushing out. Liu Yanlei panicked. He was afraid of being abandoned, afraid they would leave him there alone to die a miserable death. Unwilling to fall behind, he untied the ropes binding him, struggling fiercely and desperately pushing forward, shoving aside the two or three people in front of him, and successfully reached the door.
A strong, fishy smell of the sea instantly filled his nostrils.
Liu Yanlei wondered, where did the spider come from?
And leeches… Right, Chen Xin'ai is terrified of leeches. Those fat, ugly, and terrifying insects burrow into a person's flesh and suck their blood. When it burrows into the flesh, you absolutely mustn't try to pull it out with your hands. If you pull it, its body will break off, and even if you pull one half out, the other half will continue to burrow into your flesh. You can only use the sole of your shoe to pat the flesh next to it, slowly patting it out bit by bit.
I've heard that after leeches burrow into the flesh, they not only suck a person's blood, but they also lay eggs in the blood. Once clusters of baby leeches are born, they will continue to suck blood and lay eggs inside the body…
Liu Yanlei doesn't know if this is true; he's only heard Chen Xin'ai say this. Because she's afraid of leeches, just like he's afraid of spiders, she never hesitates to exaggerate and horrify them.
But where do spiders and leeches come from?
Are they illusions?
What did they say before darkness fell?
No matter what happens, don't leave the place.
But why are they all running towards the door?
Liu Yanlei remembered the herd mentality he'd learned about in his job training.
When everyone is afraid, he's afraid too; when everyone is screaming, he can't help but scream too; when everyone is running towards the door, he… he ran out without thinking…
Liu Yanlei raised his hand in a daze and touched his face.
The spider on it was gone; all he touched was a hand full of seawater.
...
When Ke Xun turned on his phone's flashlight to illuminate the room, everyone was in a sorry state, sprawled on the floor in disarray. Some were covered in sweat, some in tears, and some had wet themselves...
After confirming that Mu Yiran and his companions were alright, Ke Xun pulled his leg out of Luo Jin's arms: "What the hell is wrong with you? You peed again?!"
"Brother, I was so scared..." Luo Jin slumped to the ground, pale-faced, "Let me catch my breath..."
"Count the number of people." Mu Yiran's calm voice rang out, and Ke Xun quickly used his phone to illuminate the entire room.
"Six, seven, eight, nine..." Ke Xun paused, "Liu Yanlei is missing."
Chen Xin'ai collapsed to the ground, sobbing uncontrollably.
A moment of silence fell over the group, then Shao Ling said, "Let's go to the deck first."
The morning sea breeze carried a strong, salty, and putrid stench. The sky was overcast, the sea dark and still, with no large waves, just the unchanging, endless ripples stretching to the horizon, as if the only thing in the world was this stagnant sea and the eleven people on the ship.
The group exchanged glances, noticing that most looked quite haggard, as if they had suffered great mental anguish.
"Now, tell me about your experiences last night," Shao Ling said, unfolding the bamboo slips he had used for recording the previous night and picking up a pen. "Let me start with myself. Last night was still pitch black; I couldn't see anything, but I could hear sounds and feel things. What I felt was... well, I hope this won't make you uncomfortable—I felt cockroach eggs, probably hundreds, even thousands, constantly falling out of my hair and clothes, then bursting open, spraying countless tiny cockroaches onto my body..."
"Ugh—" Wei Dong and Luo Yi vomited together.
"So, last night's hallucinations were each of our most disgusting things?" Zhu Haowen said coldly.
"What were Haowen's hallucinations?" Qin Ci asked casually.
"Touching the faces of locusts and mantises," Zhu Haowen replied expressionlessly.
Qin Ci: "..." What kind of weirdly disgusting thing is this?