Chapter Two: Town of Collected Silence

  I was staring at the skull, perfectly decorated, like a personal collection or a hobby. Now this made me certain that something was here, more terrifying and intelligent enough to do this. I stood up and took two steps back from the doorway, taking a safe distance of two feet, but for how long?

  I didn't know what was happening in world two. I moved with the screaming instinct to run away. As I moved, my eyes were drawn to something hanging on the door of the next house. Distance and shadow obscured it. "I can't see clearly what that thing is." My gaze dropped first to the threshold-a scrap of wool, torn from clothing. A fellow victim.

  "A piece of cloth? There were more chosen ones." I remembered that one person was already dead in our group of seven, which left only six people alive, including me. It was until now that another thought took its place. "Wait-it could be possible that we were not the only six. It should be a long time before this phenomenon happens. Is it possible any of them survived?"

  This thought was obviously circling around my mind before I stepped closer, and the shape on the door resolved into clarity. "It was a wreath of skin, stretched and pinned. At its center, finger bones were tied with glowing root filaments to form a clapper. It was flesh of a human who had been murdered recently, the flesh dropping crimson, viscous blood with a pungent scent. A sinister face of brutality and a visceral feeling of danger circled my mind like a wheel.

  My legs lumbered as I took two steps back; my stomach wanted to pour out the nauseous feeling: the bones dropping drops of blood. My heart was dying to run away, but where? Was there even any place? My hysteria took over with a step. I got ready to run, but then, I suddenly heard muttering from someone in the air. It was a human voice. A voice that was repetitive as if someone had gone paranoid.

  "Someone is here, did I find someone alive?"

  I ran toward the voice on tiptoe ; it was a hope that was giving me strength to find another living person among these grotesque sights of horror. In a corner was a man in his thirties , buzz haircut, and bandages covering his head and ears filled with sticky blood-his lips twitching as he muttered words repeatedly. All I could hear was-

  "The well is not for drinking," his sharp blue eyes locked on a place . When my gaze shifted there, it was a delicate piece of paper. Black outlines showed something was written. The man said something again about the well.

  "It's a museum-a collection of arts. H-He's adding humans to his collection... He took my ears but threw them in the garbage-he needs the right pair of ears." His voice muffled with a hint of a cry, and he added another chilling word, "You think the ribbon is a map?" A wet, hiccuping laugh. "It's a sickness-a path of madness." "Everyone will die."

  My steps stopped in front of him; I stared into his eyes. Then a soft voice escaped in a whisper. I was scared to speak loudly. "What are you doing here ? What happened?" Hearing my voice, the man flinched slightly. He looked at me, but instead of relief, he saw another hopeless person trying to find a way to go back home.

  "You-you are also one of the chosen ones, aren't you? We are going to die by that thing... that thing killed another person. He is terrifying. This world is terrifying. Don't go to the well, don't go to the well," and he started chanting the same thing once again.

  I was confused, but looking at his face, I felt that he was waiting... waiting for something that would kill him? I didn't want to leave this guy alone, but he had gone insane. One last time I tried asking him ; I tried to keep a reassuring tone. "Come with me ; we will survive and ascend to world 3." But all the response I got was-

  "We won't survive ; it's the end for us. We can never escape the eleven-layered world. This world two is already terrifying. I don't want to go to the next world ; I don't want to." After this guttural tone, he started holding his head ; yes, he had lost himself. I was speechless; his will was broken.

  A part of me understood him -the peace of giving up. To stop being a rat in this maze of cosmic rattrap. But the ribbon on my wrist pulsed-like a heartbeat. It was a command. Move or be moved. Die or be deleted. I looked at this insane , broken man. He was already a ghost in World 2. Carrying him would only get us both killed. The cruel calculus of this place became clear: compassion was ballast. I took halting steps back; his sick face and bandages stopped me from leaving, but I had no option: "survival means cruelty."

  I had taken no more than ten steps when the muttering behind me stopped. A new sound replaced it: a soft, wet scraping, like bone on stone. I didn't look back; a heavy realization hit me like a train. I broke into a run. My steps hesitated for a moment when the fresh memory of that man blinked, a hint of worry tinted on my face . The man I had left behind could probably die. I wanted to help him, but he was paranoid ; we would both die if I took him with me.

  Time passed; the footsteps behind me were long gone. I stopped near a room and with both hands pushed the door quickly, shutting it hard. My body backed against the door, and on the ground was a small, metallic object. A locket. Its clasp was broken, as if torn from someone's neck. I pocketed it without a word, a piece of evidence from a prior victim. The weight of the locket and my sanity were a new burden in my pocket.

  "The owner of this locket must have died already," a thought that was obvious ; the star shape in the locket was not just a shape. The broken piece was a memory of horror the person had faced. I sat down at the door, many thoughts running one after another about my life and how it had become miserable two days ago. I was just a normal university student, and now I was an anonymous person suffering between horrible worlds.

  "I want to go back; I have to survive. It doesn't matter whether anybody came back from the world. I couldn't care less about what others think. I have a family."

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  I was hopelessly looking around the room until my eyes saw a mirror. Beside that mirror, something was written there; someone had etched it by scratching the wall with a sharp object. I stood up to see what was there. My movement made no sound, as if my own fear of being seen was taking over me. There was written: "The Ribbon lies. It counts the worlds but not the loops. I have been here four times. And I'll come again. There is no way to escape. It remembers. The collector takes the will. Do not listen to the voice of Well." - K

  Beneath this, in a different, shakier hand: "K is gone. The well took him. It stole his voice and speaks with his voice now."

  Besides that, yet another note: "Is it Cycle 3? In this hell-town. My name is Shang. The man I came with, Wen, is gone. He said the well was calling him with my voice. He walked in. The liquid didn't drown him. It... absorbed him. Now I hear our shared childhood lullaby from the well. I found a box in the Shiphara district of the world. It feels alive. It's the only thing that doesn't change in every loop. I have to-"

  The sentence cuts off. A single, long streak marks the wall, as if the writer was dragged away. As I read it, my expression turned grim; I didn't know what to do anymore. I read the notes again, and what I finally discovered was that, "So it will not end even if we die," I said in a low tone. My words came out in a staccato whisper. My gaze shifted to the mirror.

  "WHAT IN THE - ?" My eyes widened at the scene in front of me; there was no shadow or reflection of me in the mirror. I knew this world was nonsensical, but if only World 2 was this absurd, would I survive in future worlds? A thought beyond my imagination. Suddenly, a sound of something rolling inside the room came.

  My gaze went to the ground.

  Two eyes rolled over on the ground with no host. They were trying to blink but couldn't. Now this made me certain: whoever this collector is now knew my location. "Damn it! Staying here only means getting eaten by those disgusting creatures. I have to escape the shelter." With cautious steps, I reached for the handle of the doorway, and when I opened it, the realization of what a mistake I had made filled my horrified face the fear made my eyes dilated.

  The Yan Gu was standing outside the door, crouching . My thoughts at this moment were: "How... how didn't it have a boundary? It couldn't come inside, right?" With a quick reflex, I shut the door. My breathing became heavier; my eyes darkened in panic, scanning the room for a way out.

  In the center of the room, a window was decorated with human teeth - a disturbing mindset of how this collector loves decorating his collection . Each tooth was embedded in a grotesque manner; yet it was an elegant sight for this collector.

  But I didn't want to be fodder for that Yan Gu. My hand hit the teeth, feeling like hard rock, and I jumped outside; it was barely four feet tall. Outside, the whole town came into view. The town was not built; it was curated. It was a place of disgusting art . It existed as a museum of terminated lives, a gallery where the final, terrified moments of its collection were scattered like Christmas decorations.

  The streets were laid out not for entertainment purposes; a playground, and the game was tag; the player was emotion. The stone of the buildings wasn't weathered by time but textured intentionally and carved with faint, repeating patterns that matched the symbols on Yan Gu's bones.

  The ever-present, pulsating roots didn't invade the structures; they framed them, glowing veins tracing doorways and windowsills like highlights on a painting.

  Silence here wasn't an absence. It was a preserved specimen. It had weight; Mo Fei's footsteps dissolved, getting eaten by the silence.

  The whole place was filled with a scent of damp stone, an acrid smell taking over. This was no refuge. It was the collector's personal creation. And every bone on the sill, every flesh-wreath on the door, was a finished work. Mo Fei wasn't a traveller. He was a potential medium.

  A cold understanding pierced through my fear, sharper than any needle. This isn't a town; it's a stomach. And it's digesting us. The horror wasn't just the collector; it was the harsh truth of fatality and cruelty. The paranoid man I'd left behind wasn't just insane; his will to survive was taken away, and his thoughts turned chaotic. The collector wasn't mindless.

  It was no longer a fight for survival but to keep my will.

  My eyes narrowed and scanned the street. The arranged bones by the doorstep were mild . That skull on the window sill was like staring deeper into the side of a well. The empty eyes of the skull formed an empty abyss. It was all a composition.

  My hand closed around the locket in my pocket. My steps paced around until my eyes caught a feather , a black feather just like "Ji Yu," but empty, with no goals. A connection. A clue left not by accident, but perhaps... for false hope? Was the Collector leaving breadcrumbs for the "living exhibits" to follow, to make their final moments of realization more flavorful? The thought made my blood freeze.

  It was a chase of an insect caught in webs. I was performing for an audience of one, in a theater where the audience was a being that loved movies a little too much-realistic movies. The frozen blood had now started to heat. I felt every vein starting to react to this thought. I looked at the ribbon; the symbol 贰 was still glowing the same. This world was a playground for whoever the master of slaves was. I'd have to learn from it if I wanted to escape.

  "FINE," With a long sigh , a muffled voice came, quickly swallowed by the silence. "You want a story? I'll give you one, but mine doesn't end on your wall. It ends when I find out who built it and burns it to the ground." This gave me another reason to survive now. Not only did I want to go home, but I also wanted to take revenge for every single terror I had faced and would face.

  My thoughts were interrupted by a soul-shattering sound. My breath hitched as I saw " It" at the end of the street, its back turned-a silhouette of impossible proportions, too tall, too many limbs bent over, perhaps a new "project." I quickly ran again ; when I looked back , it didn't chase me. It just turned its crown of eyes to watch me flee before returning to its work.

  Its indifference was more terrifying than aggression -a rain that could turn into a flood. My running slowed as I remembered my strong words a few minutes ago. "Talking so high... how am I going to fight these things? I'm not a warrior or anything; I'm alone." I started taking steps forward, trying to find an isolated place to survive, but once again, the loneliness spread its roots of thought; the same notion came to my mind. The unanswered question: "What causes the trigger? Sleep?"

  If it's just sleeping, then am I dreaming? But everything was too real for just a nightmare. I thought of sleeping again before I felt something tightening around me. The roots around my ankle bound, covering my feet and pulling me. It was taking me to the spot, a living tether. A trap, a certitude that it wasn't going to guide me.

  From the shadows of nearby doorways, ephemeral Yan Gu began to clatter into the street, drawn by my panic. Their whispers wove together: "Stay... stay... become quiet... become still..."

  That's when I understood . I got the answer, but it was a gambit.

  Sleep wasn't the only trigger here. Vulnerability was. World 1 inactivated you to sleep. You would pay back in World 2 . The moment you closed your eyes, the moment you would falter, you became part of the collection. The Collector wasn't just an artist; it was a taxidermist of the living.

  I couldn't sleep. Even if I hid, exhaustion would eventually force my body to shut down, and that momentary helplessness would be the end. The Yan Gu would inscribe me, or the roots would bind me, or the well would take me into oblivion. K's and Li's graffiti blazed in my mind.

  "The ribbon lies. It counts the worlds but not the loops." The ribbon was nothing more than just a stamp to describe slavery. It didn't care how I moved forward, only that I did. A terrible, lucid calm settled over me. The cold calculus returned. "If sleep meant becoming art... and staying awake meant being hunted until I fell... then the only way is-" I wasn't certain what could happen to me if I took the risk. I knew it could be the end of my story.

  My eyes darted from the advancing Yan Gu to the silent, watching ephemeral figure of the Collector at the lane's end. It was observing, waiting for my fear to ripen into a final, beautiful panic . It wanted to hear my cry of desperation; it was a beautiful thing to him! "You want a story?" I thought, my hand closing around the sharp, glass-like shard of stone at my feet.

  "I'll give you one, but I WILL write my own ending." This wasn't suicide. This was freedom, or perhaps strategic withdrawal. With a shrill that tore off the curated silence, I didn't charge the monsters or flee. I raised the shard high- it was not a defensive tactic. "You don't get my fear!" My voice echoed like the ringing of a piano.

  "You got my REFUSAL! I refuse to die by that disgusting hand of YOURS!" And before the nearest Yan Gu could lunge, and without giving any chance for the root to yank me off my feet, I made the most horrific choice. It was a win for me.

  I drove the glass spear into my own throat. The pain was instant ; a wet gasp escaped from my lips-a hollow scream. The Collector's form jerked. A ripple of what looked like outrage disturbed its graceful lines. I had chosen death instead of becoming its aesthetic -messy, uncontrolled, an unglamorous piece of art. And I saw that look of the Collector , a look of waiting before my vision got blurred.