Chapter 115 The Battle of Exorcism and Spirit Communication
"This is a dream."
No hotel corridor stretches like a tunnel, and no portrait can arbitrarily change to your face.
You can't understand Rose language at all, and—you lower your head, because you ran in such a hurry you weren't wearing shoes.
When you arrive, you'll notice that the elderly lady at the front desk, though kind and friendly, is quite stingy; the heating in the lobby is only on the lowest setting. You can't possibly run here barefoot in the middle of the night and not feel cold.
“She’s scaring me,” you murmur. “She wants me to run away by myself.”
What's outside the door?
You thought of a scene from a horror story you had seen before.
As long as the candle remains lit, the ghost cannot approach; no matter how the ghost tries to tempt him, the protagonist holds tightly to the burning candle. He overcomes the ordeal, and a year later, at his birthday party, surrounded by all his relatives and friends, he blows out the birthday candles.
He was still on that night when he was haunted by a vengeful ghost, and the candle had just been blown out by him.
The door here is your "candle".
Almost all instances of the game have an unwritten rule: nighttime is dangerous, so don't wander aimlessly through the streets.
Even in a dream, once you run outside, your real body might be guided to actually rush out of the hotel—that's the "entrance" she's waiting for.
You stand in the darkness of the hotel lobby. Outside the window, all is dark; in your dream, you are the only person left in the world.
You can feel a pair of eyes watching the subtle rise and fall of your chest as you breathe.
I crouched down and gently touched the floor with my fingers—it wasn't cold at all, it was even a little soft. It felt like the ground beneath my feet wasn't solid, but a dream built from layers of edited footage.
She wants you to go outside, like the protagonist in all horror movies who is lured out of the house, and plunge headlong into the "reality" she has created.
Take a deep breath and close your eyes.
You are the master of the dream; you adapt to and guide the following scene.
A strong sense of heaviness pulls you into a deeper dream.
Open your eyes.
You are sitting in a familiar yet eerie "live broadcast room".
The lighting is perfect, the angle is precise, and you're wearing your favorite fluffy pajamas at home.
In front of me is a camera that doesn't look like it's started yet. On the table are photos, all of you.
But you didn't take the picture.
It was taken by someone else.
There are photos of you turning away unintentionally, of you biting into bread at a convenience store window, of you wearing pajamas and sporting dark circles under your eyes while throwing out the trash… Each photo has a sticky note attached, which reads:
"She's wearing red socks today, so cute."
“I touched her bag in her left hand once.”
"She doesn't need to work at all; just being alive is the perfect thing."
You rubbed your hair.
"Do you like it?" Her voice echoed throughout the room, like it was reverberating.
Turn around.
She stands by the door, wearing the exact same clothes as you, but her face is thinner, her eyes are softer and more charming, and her smile is more sorrowful. She is like the editing model that is most likely to touch the "heartache" nerve on all short video platforms.
As she walked over, she spread the photos at your feet:
“I knew it from the first time I saw you—you deserve to be liked by more people.”
"So I edited you, recorded you, imitated you, and replaced you—"
"You're living too roughly, let me help you tidy up your life."
You simply asked, "Who exactly are you?"
She paused for a moment, then laughed as if she were about to cry, panting, "I'm not anyone, I'm just... someone who has always watched you and loved you."
"But I've never shown my face." You pick up these photos from your phone's album, edited to resemble a memoir.
She smiled.
“Your videos are so well-edited, so powerful and emotional. Watching them and imagining how you think about the content late at night makes me feel so sorry for you.” Her face flushed.
"I was there when you cried, and I was there when you laughed. I backed up the blogs you deleted, and when you said something wrong during a live stream and got attacked by the whole internet, I wrote long essays to defend you and used VPNs to access other platforms to support you." Her words became increasingly outrageous.
"No, wait, you're having delusions, aren't you?" Her cheek twitched slightly as she raised one corner of her mouth.
“You’re cold to others because they don’t understand you. But I do.” She said to herself.
She walks up to you and whispers in your ear, "I understand you better than you understand yourself."
"Because I love you, I admire your strength, and I... will support you until the very end—"
"Get out of here." You pushed her away, your face full of disgust. "Go get treatment if you're sick."
She felt as if she had been slapped in the face.
But she continued to pounce on him, acting like a madwoman: "Then why are you alive? You try so hard, you protect yourself so diligently, and you don't even show your face, isn't it all so that I would go to such lengths to find you and fall in love with you?"
She raised her hand, her fingers like strips of duct tape, pulling frames of images from the air:
These photos, taken from your album and casually snapped at various times, have been compiled into a video clip.
"Don't you want to be seen?" she said in your voice. "Then wouldn't it be better for me to see you?"
“This is my own photo,” you said. “It has nothing to do with you.”
She was taken aback: "Your own? But you edited the videos, created the persona, posted pictures and text, deleted comments—you were performing at every step."
"You became a blogger just to gain my love! You're doing this just for my sake!"
She moves closer and reaches out to touch your face.
You slapped her hand away.
She suddenly screamed, "You shouldn't have hit me!! I've taken so much for you! You have no idea how much dirt I deleted about you!"
"I've argued with you so many times! I've even written articles for you!"
She screamed and started tearing at her hair. The hair ripped open like a mask, revealing comment boxes, trending topics, translated subtitles...
It turns out she wasn't even one of those digital tourists who had devoured Anna before.
She is the sum of all those who "like you," the collection of all those who "fantasize about you," and the product of countless eyes that "think they understand you."
You slowly back away and stand in front of the photo wall.
You calm down and say softly, "You don't really like me. You just want to control me."
"You say you love me, but what you fear most is that I will no longer let you see me."
She was stunned.
You continue, "You're not a fan. You're a virus, an addiction, a filter stained with voyeurism."
You raise your hand and tear the handful of photos to shreds.
She let out a low growl, and the entire room collapsed.
Her figure began to disintegrate, her mouth gaping open and her eyes dripping blood, like a mannequin melting in fire.
The entire "live stream room" completely collapsed.
You returned to your room.
Is it over?
You feel an itch on your face. Something is scratching your skin, bit by bit.
A creaking and groaning sound came from the ceiling.
You raise your head.
Like a human figure woven from a ball of netting, she dripped ink-like liquid while making a cracking sound.
It wasn't a scream.
Instead, it's the sound of you failing to record a video—you say, "Uh... hello everyone... today we..." and then you get stuck halfway through, the sound of swallowing, the cracking sound of laughing, the dryness in your eyes as you blink...
These videos that you still have on your phone and haven't deleted have been piled up by her into a lament.
You grit your teeth, take a step back, and walk to the mirror.
You look at yourself in the mirror—at least for now, you are still "yourself".
But the figure behind you looks more and more like you. Her lips gradually overlap with the reflection in the mirror. Her face is pale and her eyes are drooping, as if some kind of special effect has been turned up to the extreme.
"Stop pretending." She spoke from above your head. "You need me, you can't live without me."
Her tone suddenly changed: "I know, you think everyone only likes the glamorous version of you, right?"
"I'll help you be your 'real self' again."
She raised her hand, her fingertips like stripped cables, touching you bit by bit.
You suddenly grabbed the kettle on the vanity and smashed it against her face.
She didn't dodge; her face was smashed apart, and what flowed out wasn't blood, but pixelated "you"—smiling, crying, collapsing, calm... Your face was torn out one by one from her face.
You pull a pair of scissors from the mirror cabinet—dreams will give you the tools you desire.
She pounced again.
You did not back down.
You stabbed her in the chest.
"What are you muttering about?" you snapped. "If you can't understand human language, then don't listen to me. Stop projecting your own delusions onto me."
She struggled, letting out shrill screams of distorted data. The expressions on her face kept changing, like someone frantically clicking "filters" in an editing program.
You see the angry you, the coquettish you, the silly you, the you crying for attention—but this is not you at all.
That's not how you are. You don't care what others think of you.
You pin her to the floor, press your whole body against her, and grab her by the neck.
"You try to mimic me, even control me, by spying on me, and maybe you even want to become me. But you can't, because all you have are 'fragments' stolen from my photo album."
Her neck began to disintegrate, turning into white noise circles like a spinning fan.
She gasped for breath, uttering fragmented audio snippets: "...Like...Follow...I edited so many videos for you...How could you...abandon me..."
You put the scissors to her face, right against your own.
Her lips trembled as she spoke:
"I really...like you so much..."
You replied softly, "Then just enjoy it quietly."
One snip.
The dream flashed, like a hard drive collapsing before it self-destructs.
The black mist beneath you disintegrated, transforming into a torn "subscription interface," which drifted and dissipated into the air.
Cut it again.
She completely collapsed into dust.
Open your eyes.
You sit up, breathing heavily, and it takes you a while to realize that you are back.
The hot water in the heating pipes was gurgling, and the whole room was dark, but it felt very reassuring.
You get up and look in the mirror.
You only see yourself in the mirror.
She looked real, haggard, and had a sour face from not having slept well.
You glance down at your phone; Tamara has texted you: "Are you still there? I'm going to sleep if you don't reply soon. That thing's gone. What did you do?"
You coolly reply with two words: "Killed."
A few seconds later, Tamara sent another message: "Wow."
After chatting with her for a while, you feel completely relaxed, your head sinks into the pillow, and you quickly fall asleep.
At six o'clock in the morning, when the sky was just beginning to lighten, there was a gentle knock on your door.
"Thump...thump...thump thump."
You wake up instantly.
What's wrong now?
The person outside spoke, using flower language in a broken, unaccented way.
It's that old lady at the hotel reception.
You opened the door and saw her wearing a dark blue headscarf, a coarse cloth apron, and carrying a wooden bucket wrapped in white cloth.
She glanced at you, said nothing, but nodded slightly, signaling you to step back.
You stepped aside, puzzled.
She walked straight in, skillfully closed the door, drew the curtains, placed the wooden bucket in the center of the floor, and lifted the cloth.
You smell a mixture of mugwort, tar, beeswax, yogurt, and hay, along with a faint, musty but not nauseating earthy scent.
She pulled a string of old prayer beads from her apron, and in her other hand she held a bundle of dry birch branches.
She muttered to herself, and later told you she was saying, "You're full of pain. You have to get rid of it."
You were about to ask her something, but she glared at you, her eyes cloudy yet sharp: "You can't speak." She used the flower's symbolism intentionally.
You better shut up.
She began to slowly circle around you, muttering incantations. It was impossible to tell if it was a prayer or a spell; it sounded like a mixture of religious hymns from the Kingdom of Los and the local dialect of a mountain village.
With each circle she walks, you feel the air grow heavier.
On the fourth lap, she suddenly slapped the bundle of birch branches hard on your shoulder.
Snap!
Your shoulder trembled violently.
However, you saw a wisp of black mist rise from the back of your neck, hover and struggle for a moment, but it was shattered by the old woman's loud shout and scattered into ink spots.
ah?
You begin to feel something churning restlessly inside your body, like a swarm of parasites hiding within you.
The old lady recited even faster, her voice beginning to take on a rhythmic quality of humming and coughing.
Her birch branch patted you on the head again.
Suddenly everything went black before your eyes, and you couldn't even stand up straight.
—And then you saw them.
Countless shadows.
Like ghosts sculpted from peat, they crawl out one by one from your chest, behind your ears, waist, and knees.
It was cold and sticky, like years of accumulated bad luck.
You were trembling all over, as if you were being skinned alive.
The old woman finally shouted, "Get out of my eyes, get out of my soul!"
She swept birch branches heavily across your entire body.
You hear the bones creaking.
All the shadows seemed to be struck by lightning, exploding into flying mud, turning into charcoal dust, and dissipating into dust amidst coughs.
You kneel on the ground, panting heavily.
The old woman scattered the contents of the wooden bucket all over the ground: charred pine branches and dried wax bark.
She gently pressed your head down, so that your forehead touched the ground.
You hear her whisper, "Now, you're all alone. All by yourself."
When you open your eyes, the floor is warm, and light shines in through the gaps in the curtains.
For the first time, you felt the whole room was bright and cheerful.
My body felt as if years of bone inflammation had finally been cured.
Wow, you actually maintained your previous state throughout the entire dungeon?
"I'll make you a pot of tea with honey, good boy." The old lady patted your head and smiled.
You nodded and sat down at the small coffee table.
Now, it's really solved.
-----------------------
Author's note: Hehe
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
