Wu Yiliu lay on the couch, listening to the faint breathing of his companions in the room, his palms slick with cold sweat. It was as if he was held down by some force, unable to move or speak.
The face looked like Cuining's, yet it was not.
He was all too familiar with that look. The original features still belonged to Cuining, but the entire face seemed like soft wax heated up. He couldn't pinpoint where it had become misshapen and distorted; it seemed like if he were to reach out and touch it, the waxy face would slowly slip off the bones.
Abby had already groped her way into the room in the dark, something that looked like Cuining closely following behind, and she had not noticed anything out of the ordinary. He held his breath for a while after they both entered the room, but other than the rustling of the bed covers, he didn't hear a scream.
If that really wasn't Cuining, how could Abby not have noticed something was wrong?
By now, the posthuman's eyes had adjusted to the darkness; she had ample opportunity to face that thing as they both went into the room and climbed into bed. Abby should have realized by now that it wasn't Cuining, right?
Since she was so calm, there was only one explanation, and it was the one he least wanted to think about.
Wu Yiliu exhaled as quietly as possible, feeling heat at the corner of his eyes. He wanted to curl up, he wanted to run from this pocket dimension, he wanted to hide in a place where nobody was around. To hell with the pocket dimension test. He had been running for so many years; no matter how lonely and difficult it became, he had always maintained a distance from others. Had he still not escaped after all?
Compared to other post-apocalyptic worlds, this made no sense. He had left that place, how could he still...
When Abby went into the room, he almost shouted but managed to swallow the warning. Yes, what was following Abby might be the unwelcome creature warned of in the pocket dimension, but there was a bigger, worse possibility. What was wrong might not be Cuining but himself.
Wu Yiliu lay in the deep darkness of the night, knowing that no one was asleep. The other three would never imagine that the seemingly most reliable, best-reputed member of this mission was standing on the edge of doubt and fear, at risk of falling with no hope of rescue. The faint breathing of everyone formed a weak, muddled warmth that dissipated upon meeting the cool, icy night.
Pale light from the window shone in, falling on the wall clock. The black hands moved one tick at a time in the dimly lit face. A stretch of moonlight fell on the floor in front of the fireplace, shadows of branches gently swaying in the white glow.
He steadied his breath, forcing himself to calm down a bit. Nightmares from his birthplace had weighed on him for years; he thought he had become accustomed to them, knew how to coexist with them, but a mere illusion had triggered his fear, paralyzing him on the couch for a long time.
Now was not the time for a panic attack; he had to focus on dealing with this pocket dimension.
He lay on the sofa, his half-closed eyes glancing at the TV on the mantle. Along with the lights in the room, the TV had appropriately dimmed, and the cartoon figure had frozen in the dark blue. Apart from the crudely drawn, stiff-smiled figure, there were no rules or text instructions. Even for those specifically trained for pocket dimensions, this type was the most feared.
Sometimes, to paralyze a person, it was better not to tell them what was allowed rather than what was forbidden. For instance, now, the four pocket dimension reconnoiters in this camping cabin hadn't spoken since they began resting because no one knew if speaking counted as resting.
It seemed that, for now, he could only lie stiffly on this somewhat short two-seater sofa... perhaps nervously like this until tomorrow morning.
Wu Yiliu looked at his feet propped on the armrest of the sofa and began to ponder the possible setup and conditions of this pocket dimension—although the rules were not stated on the television, they were not entirely untraceable. For example, they were now in a mountain cabin, so was this a survival-type pocket dimension? What was the connection between the two parts of the term "pocket dimension"?
He pondered so deeply that he gradually forgot he was pretending to rest, his eyes growing wider and wider. When he realized he had unconsciously shifted from lying on his back to leaning, he was taken aback—but the cartoon character on the television, although facing him, remained silent this time, as if it didn't care about the correctness of his resting position, as long as he didn't speak.
Why?
What was the purpose in making them lie in the dark in silence?
Wu Yiliu's train of thought suddenly stopped. He stared fixedly at a patch of white moonlight cast on the floor in front of the fireplace. Now, under the shadow of the branches, there was an additional oval shadow. The round shadow remained still, seemingly pressed against the window, staring straight inside. No matter how you looked at it, it seemed like a human head.
Wu Yiliu slowly turned his gaze towards the living room window.
He had mentally prepared himself to see a face, yet to his surprise, there was still nothing outside the glass window but the dark night sky and an even more somber forest. He saw nothing.
Wu Yiliu took a soft breath and glanced at the shadow on the ground with the corner of his eye. The shadow of the head was not only still there, but it seemed to know it had been discovered, and it shrank back slightly before abruptly turning and disappearing. Wu Yiliu quickly twisted his head, but the outside of the window remained as quiet and empty as before, as if nothing had happened.
He could no longer pretend, and leaped up from the sofa, vaulting over it towards the cabin door—in the direction where the shadow had turned and vanished, right towards the entrance of the camping cabin.
Wu Yiliu "banged" into the door with his shoulder, using his strength to brace it—only to wait a few seconds to find the door still and quiet, without a trace of being touched. Listening closely, the outside was as silent as before. His noise alarmed the people inside the house. Pence, seeming afraid to speak loudly, asked in a breathless voice, "What's going on? What happened?"
"I don't know, it seems like something outside wants to come in," Wu Yiliu replied in a low voice. "Are the windows in your rooms closed?"
"I'm... I'm going to close them now," came Cuining's hurried voice from another room. Wu Yiliu's heart sank. Cuining seemed fine; the problem was indeed with him.
"What is it?" Abby's voice asked tensely. "Did you see it?"
"No, I only saw a shadow." Seeing that the cartoon character on the TV remained silent, Wu Yiliu's volume gradually returned to normal. He heard the rustling footsteps from the bedrooms and turned to see that several people had come out. Now that he was used to the darkness, he could clearly see by the moonlight outside that Abby, Cuining, and Pence all looked perfectly normal, with no faces like molten wax.
Wu Yiliu was about to speak when he suddenly stopped. He glanced at the feet of the three, then at his own. None of them had planned to rest, and in this pocket dimension where no one knew what was going on, they were all ready to respond at any moment, so no one had taken off their shoes when going to bed.
So, whose shoes was Abby referring to when she reminded them, "There's a pair of shoes here. Don't trip over them."?