Chapter 40: An Unexpected Encounter

Shi Rang lifted his head, locking eyes with the person standing before him.

In a state of shock, he froze, struggling to discern the faint white fabric visible on the stranger’s upper body and... the accompanying, overwhelming scent of blood.

“...Is it you?” the figure, who stood much taller than Shi Rang, asked. “The locator is beeping. Are you the one here to meet me?”

Shi Rang could not make sense of these words. He heard no “locator” sound, nor had he heard any footsteps as the figure approached—even though, in such a night, any sound should have been infinitely amplified.

Having adjusted to the circle of light cast by the headlights that separated them, he could now see more clearly. The person before him wore a tattered white coat and clutched a suitcase under his arm. His face, backlit and obscured, looked inexplicably familiar.

The stench of blood grew thicker...

It was like the atmosphere he had felt when he fell into a pile of corpses in Pingyuan City—a heavy, ominous, and dangerous aura that froze his limbs, making even his fear feel dull and indistinct. Having experienced this before, he tried desperately to move his body and retreat behind the gap, but his gaze was involuntarily drawn downward.

The person outside was over two meters tall. Outside the door, his full form was unclear; beneath the tattered coat, his lower body looked as if it were covered by a wide, dark blanket. The end of this blanket had already snaked into the narrow gap between them.

As if sensing Shi Rang’s gaze, that pile of “blanket” reared up like a living thing, crawling toward the tip of Shi Rang’s shoe.

Shi Rang recoiled from the doorway as if electrocuted.

The dark mass lost its support and fell back. He had retreated so abruptly that he nearly lost his balance. His heel struck the ground hard, and in a fit of lingering terror, he shook his foot, watching as several thread-like strands detached from his shoe and drifted softly to the floor.

Noise tore through the elements of the air, sweeping away the silence that had served as a shroud of safety. Fingers snaked through the crack and gripped the door panel.

“Why are you leaving?”

The hinges of the iron door groaned under the immense strain. Though it did not open even an inch, the iron plate near the fingers began to buckle inward.

“You promised me... as long as I brought the item...”

The face hovering high above bent down, squeezing through the gap.

“I am here already. I have brought the intelligence you wanted...”

The door leaf deformed bit by bit, shedding large flakes of rust from the bent metal. The dark “blanket” spilled through the gap, spreading across the wall, and the face slid slowly into the factory. It wore a fragile, near-supplicant expression, yet as it sank into the shadows, it appeared increasingly horrific.

Suddenly, the figure’s head twisted upward with a violent jerk, emitting a strange, heavy wheeze.

The light seeping through the gap still illuminated half of his face, and the look of supplication vanished in an instant.

***

Bjorn woke up.

It was as if he were surfacing from a long dream; he felt his eyes refocus, slowly regaining a clear perception of the world.

Where was this place?

He remembered he had been fleeing, heading to the rendezvous point. The place they had agreed on was... had he arrived?

Bjorn could clearly see a person not far away. The camera hanging around the person’s neck and the rigid face that looked like a mask were all within his view.

This guy was so short—only reaching his waist.

He wanted to speak, but his throat itched, and he couldn't catch his breath. Bjorn lifted the hand holding the locator. His arm revealed a string of exposed, blood-red meridians; beneath a thin, paper-like membrane of flesh, his muscles and internal organs were all fully exposed.

...What was this?

A strange image flashed through his memory.

After being struck by that temp worker, he had fallen into a semi-conscious state, lying flat on his back. Not long after, an arm with exposed blood vessels had grabbed his face, and then...

And then...

Bjorn suddenly realized that despite the lack of light sources or windows, he could see every detail on the person before him, even perceiving what looked like radiation wave patterns with his naked eye. This was not a visual capability humans should possess.

Using the industrial equipment nearby as a reference, he realized it wasn't that the person in front of him was too short, but that his own perspective had been elevated.

Bjorn lowered his head.

He stared blankly at the heavy “blanket” on his body. Thick, vein-like substances and surging flesh were crawling up his chest, covering his tattered coat and his neck. Soft nerves wove in and out of his arms, as if stitching a ragdoll together.

Long, thin black lines appeared in his field of vision, blurring his sight. They were burrowing into his eyes, interfering with his optic nerves.

It exhibited two characteristics familiar to Bjorn, both belonging to the containment objects of Facility 031.

It had disguised itself well, but Bjorn had seen through it.

He was the Deputy Director; compared to that old man, he was the one who understood the containment objects best.

He recognized it. And it, in turn, sensed this.

A blood vessel like a serpent wound around Bjorn’s throat, burrowing into the skin beneath his chin.

It no longer needed Bjorn.

“It is... ugh... ahhhhhhh—”

In the final moments of his life, Bjorn let out an incoherent wail.

Was it a plea for help? A warning? Or the inevitable terror before death arrived? No one would ever know the answer.

The final message he left behind jolted Shi Rang awake.

The hapless reporter tore his shoes—which felt as if they were glued to the floor—away and fled toward the rear.

His stiff legs were as difficult to bend as wood, but Shi Rang stumbled into a run nonetheless. He could not see the consumption occurring in the darkness, but he understood that something inexplicable to common sense was unfolding before his eyes.

He fled into the darkness he had been avoiding just moments ago, running headlong, running, running—until he tripped violently!

Shi Rang flipped over the back of a dilapidated sofa, his head striking the laid-out cardboard. He landed with one leg at an awkward angle, and his ankle snapped with a crisp, audible crack.

There was no pain; the leg simply went limp. When he tried to crawl up again, his outstretched right hand pressed into something soft.

Darkness obscured the pursuer’s form, its soft body undulating almost silently.

Shi Rang did not realize that in the dizzying aftermath of his fall, he had turned toward the direction from which he had fled.

Unknown matter instantly climbed onto his palm, swallowing Shi Rang’s arm into a bone-chilling cold. Ignoring his leg injury, he jumped up and fought back frantically in the opposite direction, trying to use brute force to pull his arm back, locked in a tug-of-war in the pitch-black darkness.

Suddenly, the resistance vanished.

Shi Rang fell backward, caught off guard. There was no time to hesitate; he began to run again, with no direction and no plan, wishing only to get as far away from that monster as possible.

He did not know that, without any reference points, he was running in an arc. Nor could he see that the monster had paused, its body surging; the limbs and face that once belonged to Bjorn were now dotted across its surface, and a new bulge was forming on its chest.

Shi Rang’s outstretched left hand hit a wall. Gritting his teeth, he groped to the side and found a door that could be opened. He dove inside and pressed his back hard against the panel.

Only then did he have the chance to check his arm, which he assumed was dislocated.

But he reached into nothingness.

The space where his right arm should have been was empty. Warm liquid trickled down his body, soaking his clothes.

Shi Rang suppressed the scream rising in his throat, trembling as he pulled out his phone and tapped the screen. His thumb smeared two red streaks across the LCD as he finally managed to toggle the flashlight option in the corner.

He had to keep running, he had to find rescue, he had to—

The light flickered on, illuminating an abandoned boiler room.

There were no other exits.