Chapter 2: Uncanny

The uncanny horror surged in like a tide. A thick stench of blood saturated the air, needling straight into Ethan Greaves's brain and kicking his body into a blind, frantic flood of adrenaline. His hands and feet turned icy. It felt as if he had been dunked into a bath of ice, as if even the blood in his veins had congealed into slush. In that moment, Ethan thought he had fallen into hell. Yes, this was a world where martial arts flourished, where humans, demons, and monsters all existed side by side. But this was the first time he had ever truly come face-to-face with the uncanny things that lurked in it. Murders happened every day, in every corner of the world, but how many people actually witnessed one with their own eyes? Most of what he knew about demons and monsters came from the internet. Just then, a droplet splashed onto Ethan's forehead, reeking with a sharp, rotten funk. He clenched his fists. His arms trembled as he forced himself to lift his head. A crimson tongue unfurled above him like a vine. The rust-pocked metal roof looked like an ancient city wall, weathered by endless years. Then the tongue snapped down. Like a nimble snake, it coiled around Ethan's neck. Rank slime smeared across his skin like thick snot, and as the tongue tightened, a crushing suffocation clamped down on him. He jerked his arms up and grabbed the tongue with both hands, the way a man on the gallows clawed at the rope. Fear and despair opened their bloody jaws and swallowed him whole. In that lightning-flash of an instant, the girl with braids beside him suddenly tore the Dream Pool Essays in her hands to shreds. She pinched a single page between her index and middle fingers and flicked it forward. The fragile paper seemed to drink in some mysterious power. It sliced clean through the long, thin tongue. Ethan ripped the short length still wrapped around his neck away, but the severed tongue kept twitching in his palm, flopping like a fish thrown onto dry ground. "Hah… hah…" His chest heaved. Air rushed into his lungs, and he broke into violent coughing until tears streamed from his eyes. His limbs stayed ice-cold. That bone-deep chill crawled up his spine like a centipede, straight into his skull. "Xu Qingzhi! What the hell are you doing?!" A roar detonated by his ear like thunder. The voice sounded as if it had crawled up from the abyss. Ethan shuddered. The tremor came from somewhere deeper than flesh, as if his very soul had been grabbed and shaken. The woman with braids lifted her head and swept her gaze around the carriage, her expression unchanged. Then she turned and studied Ethan's deathly pale face. "Scared?" Ethan couldn't answer. Terror had packed his chest so full his throat felt plugged, and not a single word could squeeze out. He didn't know what this woman truly was, but compared to the warped, twisted horrors around them, she at least still looked… normal. And if she hadn't acted, he would have died. Right then, Ethan felt something pressed into his palm. It was cool to the touch. A gentle presence flowed up his arm and into his chest, and the cold inside him vanished in an instant. Even the panic was forced down, as if someone had hauled a boulder off his ribs. He lowered his head. A piece of jade lay in his hand, radiating a hazy white glow. "Hold it. If you want to leave here alive." Ethan stared at the girl with braids, disbelief written all over him. The clarity in her eyes steadied him, just a little. Like a drowning man thrashing in agony, only for a plank to drift within reach. "Head down." The girl with braids frowned and snapped the words out. Ethan's mind went blank. He couldn't even manage to react. Luckily, she shoved his head down with one hand. A cleaver in the middle-aged man's grip swept past right over them. Her two braids seemed to come alive. They whipped up high, their ends sharp as blades, and punched straight through the middle-aged man's throat. A cold, eerie smile still clung to his face. "Xu Qingzhi, you dare!" The depths of the carriage were nothing but darkness, and that voice came from inside it. "Xu Qingzhi, you're going to protect him?!" "Damn you! You deserve to die!" Curses poured in from all sides, shrill and venomous. Only then did Ethan realize her name was Xu Qingzhi. The little girl stared at Ethan with a sinister, creeping smile. She tore open her own belly, yanked out a coil of intestines, and kneaded and twisted them until they formed a rope. "Big brother, want to play jump rope?" Ethan's mouth twitched. He thought this atmosphere might have been better suited to some exorcism ritual. He tightened his grip around the jade, wiped at the blood spattered across his face, and stayed silent. "None of this is real…" "This is a hallucination…" "This is a dream…" "There is righteous qi in heaven and earth…" Ethan started muttering to himself. Xu Qingzhi looked at him with an expression that felt faintly insulting. Like she was watching an idiot. A crimson light washed over the entire carriage, as if everything had been draped in gauze. Those absurd, monstrous things twisted in sickening ways, baring frosty smiles at Ethan, like some ritual performed before a meal. A man in a jacket watched Xu Qingzhi with a detached, indifferent gaze. "You gave him the Spirit Jade. What will you do with yourself?" Xu Qingzhi lifted her chin at him. "I've been stuck in this place for twenty years. I'm sick of it." As she spoke, she rose slowly. Then she turned and glanced at Ethan beside her. "I waited here twenty years, hoping someone would show up who could solve this place. Instead, you showed up." Ethan heard the helplessness in Xu Qingzhi's voice. He opened his mouth, wanting to say something, but after wrestling with it, he stayed silent, his face drained of color. Apologize? That didn't feel right. He hadn't wanted to come to this hellhole either. Tell her not to bother with him? That was a lie. He wanted to live. And Xu Qingzhi was his only lifeline. It was selfish, in a way. But the will to survive was instinct. "Don't worry. I'll… do my best to get you out." Xu Qingzhi suddenly broke into a bright smile. Yet something in that smile left Ethan with a strange, lingering unease. As she spoke, the little girl's body hung upside down from the ceiling and scuttled along at terrifying speed. Blood still dripped from the intestines dangling out of her abdomen. Xu Qingzhi tipped her head back and glanced at her, disgust plain in her eyes. She sprang upward, grabbed the little girl, yanked her down, and threw her to the floor. Then she stomped her into a puddle of rotten meat. Another uncanny thing lunged at Xu Qingzhi and managed to tackle her to the ground. Ethan tried to rush over, but a tentacle lashed around his ankle. With a heavy thud, his face smashed into the seat in front of him. The world spun. Outside the windows, it had become night. Overhead, the crimson lights flickered, bright and dim, bright and dim. He clenched the Spirit Jade in his hand, grit his teeth, and stared at the tentacle around his foot. The black tentacle was as thick as an arm, slick with ooze. The slime spread across the floor like lava after a volcanic eruption. A powerful pull yanked at him, as if it wanted to drag him into the darkness. But the seats pinned his body in place, and the sharp, searing pain nearly knocked him unconscious.