Chapter 81
Thick, viscous darkness shrouded the barren ground. The broken walls and ruins could no longer hold back the accumulated sand and it slowly ebbed outwards, glowing with a faint dark red, as it creeped across the ground as though it was alive.
Jagged branches of the withered trees were like thin ashen limbs stretching desperately towards the dark sky. The same red sand flowed under the dead branches, slowly piling up into small sand dunes.
The soft, euphonious singing voices of children floated in the air, their nursery rhymes penetrating eardrums and snaking into the seven orifices and four limbs of all listeners, leaving behind an uncomfortable chill in their wake.
Mo Yi held his breath. His pale blood-stained fingers were stiff and cold. He fixed his pair of deep black eyes in the direction of the singing.
Solid walls stood high in the flowing dark red quicksand, enveloping the centre of the room.
In the middle of that plot of blood-red land, behind the two black tombs, the soft soil seemingly moved twice then slowly began arching upwards.
Everyone stared at that land, their expressions tinged with horror. However, as though they were possessed by something, they stood rooted to the spot, unable to move an inch while their eyes remained glued to the terrifying scene.
The protruding arch of the blood-red soil grew higher, just as if there was something struggling to crawl out from below.
Meanwhile the singing voice grew clearer. The soft murmur of the children’s voices seemed to be right next to their ears, still humming those unknown tunes. Each melody was akin to an ashen hand, strangling their throats and tightening around their hearts, making them feel like they were suffocated and drowning in a sea of fear.
Only a slight rustle was heard before the bright red soil surged up like a wave, emanating a strong scent of rust as it overflowed outwards into the surrounding sandy soil.
It formed the last part of the array pattern on the land. The meandering dark red sand contrasted with the bright red soil, the tall walls dividing the whole pattern with lines, forming a distorted and complex image which connected with all the trees and trails on the whole piece of land to create a weird pattern.
The pattern which appeared in that empty tomb, and on the page tucked into the human skin book.
Mo Yi’s breathing sped up. His lips, pale from blood loss, were pressed into a tense line, and his dark eyes shone with a strange light.
The land behind the two tombstones had sunk deeply due to the surging soil, leaving only a thin layer of soil covering its surface.
Just then, two pairs of small ashen hands protruded out from the grave at the same time.
The singing became clearer, louder, mixing with youthful cheerful laughter.
Two small figures rose from behind the tombstone. Their movements were as rigid as that of puppets, stiff joints digging into the ground beside the tomb as they twisted their limbs and snapped up into an upright position.
This scene etched itself into the player’s eyes, its resolution as clear as that of a high-end horror movie.
The figures turned their heads slowly and peered straight at the players standing there. There was no expression on their pale faces. Their lips, dyed in such a bright blood-red that it looked as if the colour was painted on, parted to sing a new rhyme.
“What are little boys made of
Frogs and snails
And puppy-dogs’ tails,
What are little girls made of
Sugar and spice
And all that’s nice.”
That nursery rhyme was the one on the oil-stained paper with bloody handprints, which they’d found nailed to the kitchen counter. And now, that same tune sounded even more weird and distorted as in the voices of these two children who had been pieced together from countless corpses.
Mo Yi narrowed his eyes and surveyed them cautiously.
They looked exactly like the two children in the black-and-white photo in the pendant. The originally flat and blurred facial features had suddenly become three-dimensional and vivid. Their youthful faces were devoid of any colour and their navy eyes staring straight at them were emotionless. Only their small red mouths were moving, opening and closing as they repeated the short nursery rhyme.
And the most eye-catching part of their appearance were the two gaping blood-soaked holes on their slender legs, right where their knees were.
The gurgling blood oozed from the bloody hole and slowly trickled down the fair skin, soaking into their snow-white stockings and little black shoes before finally dripping onto the bright red ground under their feet.
That was the last human body part still missing from the seven sacrifices.
Terrified, everyone started slowly backing away, hoping to get as far away as possible from the two creepy children. However, the twisted house had already collapsed, leaving them with no shelter to hide in.
As one of the few people who knew the details of the sacrificial ritual, Yu Ran’s breathing was slightly disordered and her beautiful face was bloodless. Forcing herself to calm down, she leaned over to Mo Yi’s ear, lowered her voice, and asked tremblingly:
“This… Are they Erica and John?”
Mo Yi’s eyes darkened. He nodded, then shook his head. “Yes, and no.”
Rather than saying that they are Erica and John, it might be more accurate to say that they are monsters summoned by the sacrificial ritual, the combination of dismembered human body parts, or the failed product of the dreams and hopes of their relatives.
He had observed the tomb at close quarters and discerned that it was probably the place where the entire sacrifice ritual had started and ended. These two children were no longer Erica and John, but just a monster created from mutilated body parts which happened to have the same appearance as them.
Ivy was a pawn used by the devil. She desperately wanted to resurrect her child, but instead summoned an empty shell carrying a deadly disease into this world.
.
Yu Ran’s fingers twitched, and her nervousness visibly spread from her face to her tense body.
“So… the two of them are the monsters of this hour?”
While asking, she started analysing and contemplating the situation before them—since the sacrifice had not been completed yet, these two children had not gotten their kneecaps. So even if there were no shelters they could hide in, as long as these two do not resort to psychological tricks like the monster of the previous hour, it should be possible for these few healthy adult players to not get caught.
A faint trace of gloom flashed across Mo Yi’s countenance. He shook his head. “It would be better if they were.”
Beside him, Yu Ran was taken aback for a moment. She had obviously not expected Mo Yi to answer like this and couldn’t find an appropriate response in reply.
At this moment, a small glob of darkness slowly condensed in front of the two doll-like children.
And from it, a familiar figure emerged.
The limbs were distorted and deformed, scorched into a pitch black as if they had been once swallowed by a raging fire. Above the burnt body was a pale and beautiful face, with a pair of dark eyes staring fixedly at the youthful faces of the two children. The gaze held deep emotion, silent despair, and bottomless love.
Yu Ran was stunned, and she suddenly recalled what Mo Yi had said on the second floor.
【What if you were one of the seven sacrificed people? 】
So, in this hour, the one they had to face was—Ivy.
Yu Ran snapped her head around, staring unblinkingly at Mo Yi’s profile, and asked unsteadily:
“But didn’t you say that Ivy kept her will? So she shouldn’t be affected by the sacrificial ritual, right?”
Her voice grew more and more urgent, morphing her statement into a question by the end.
Mo Yi turned, taking a long look at her, and replied,
“I’d thought so too.”
Yu Ran clenched her hands. Her gaze remained fixed on Mo Yi, as if she was afraid of missing any word he said.
“…Then what about now?”
Mo Yi lowered his eyes, his long lashes casting deep shadows on his pale face. He did not answer Yu Ran’s question directly, but instead, spoke in a calm voice.
“As time went by, Ivy slowly lost her previous image of a ruthless ghost who burnt to death with her children in her arms. She became able to retain her human shape for longer and longer periods of time—
and also became more and more soft-hearted.”
Yu Ran was more surprised the more she heard. She turned to look at the blood-red land and saw that the moment the two children saw Ivy, their ashen and stiff little faces burst into a large smile. It was as if they had suddenly changed from lifeless puppets to two real children attached to their mothers.
They stopped singing, their bright red lips were curved into a smile, and their two pairs of big blue eyes were full of innocence.
A soft child’s voice sounded. “Mom.”
Ivy’s face seemed to be torn by some extreme emotion. Half of it appeared to be full of desire to hold her own flesh and blood in her arms, while the other was rationally admonishing herself to be sober. These were not her children.
‘Erica’ ??and ‘John’ took two steps towards Ivy. More blood flowed from their hollow knees, almost dyeing their little white socks into a pure blood red.
They wobbled, almost falling over.
Maternal instinct triumphed over reason.
Ivy rushed up to them, her scorched arms trembling as she pulled them into her arms. Her face was lowered, and her expression could not be clearly seen from Yu Ran’s angle.
The little girl’s muffled voice sounded from her embrace. The tone was one of innocence, carrying with it a hint of grievance, but it sounded like a devil’s whisper to the players.
“Mom, we miss you so much.”
Ivy’s scorched body trembled, as if she was fighting against her own reason.
The little boy spoke immediately after, his tone spoiled.
“Mom, we want to be with you forever.”
The scorched black parts on Ivy’s body peel off, falling onto the dark red soil and revealing her original clothes and skin colour underneath. She was wearing a faded grey long dress with specks of brown blood. The bright red and dark brown spots were layered, looking particularly startling.
She straightened up stiffly and turned around slowly, staring at everyone with a pair of dark and cold eyes.
She was no longer the great mother who sacrificed herself to prevent the spread of the plague.
—she’d returned to the murderer who did not hesitate to kill and dismember six people in order to resurrect her two children.
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