Chapter 2: Abandoned Camp (2)
He put his strength into pushing the fence.
Gaa──--
Another piercing screech, like a sharp blade scraping across glass, unbearable to hear.
Xiao Hei was the first to protest, saying, "Hey, this won't work! Wait until the day after tomorrow when everyone is here, then we can have them try together. This section of the fence must be rusted and stuck; the four of us can't move it."
I nodded in agreement with Xiao Hei's view, after all, the four of us are not four bulldozers; how could we possibly move such a heavy iron fence?
A-Ming also sided with Xiao Hei: "Yeah, let's just give up and go back to the car." He still only wanted to return to the car.
"Forget it, let's climb the fence and take a look." Jianzi said, finishing his words, nimbly climbing over the fence.
Seeing that he had already entered the camp, I had no choice but to follow and climb over as well. As soon as my feet hit the ground, I suddenly felt a cold chill beneath my feet, as if my body had plunged into bone-chilling icy water, making me shiver involuntarily.
After a while, Xiao Hei also jumped down next to me, leaving only A-Ming still standing outside the camp.
A-Ming was clumsy with his hands and feet, and nervously yelled to us, "Wait for me! Don't leave me behind."
"Hurry up." Jianzi shouted impatiently.
A-Ming struggled to climb over the iron fence and nearly fell as he jumped in front of me. He stood up from the ground and brushed the dust off his hands.
The four of us stood side by side, looking at the wide open ground ahead. This place looked like a parking lot, but also like a playground used for flag-raising and training. On the left side of the playground were the two dormitory buildings we had seen from outside the fence, and on the right was a large hill overgrown with weeds.
Jianzi suggested to us, "Let's go over to the dormitories and take a look." As he spoke, he walked ahead with a flashlight.
In a short moment, he had pulled far ahead of the three of us standing in place.
Seeing that we three hadn't moved, Jianzi turned to us and said, "Hey, come on."
His flashlight inadvertently shone toward me, and in an instant, my eyes were dazzled by the sudden light, causing my vision to blur. Squinting, my vague vision made me see two figures in Jianzi's direction, which sent a shiver down my spine in an instant. Jianzi was standing there alone, so where did the two figures come from?I hurriedly blinked my eyes. At that moment, the shadow beside Jianzi disappeared again, as if he had been standing there alone all along, and the second shadow I had just seen was merely an illusion caused by the dazzling light. I let out a sigh of relief; luckily, it was just an illusion. Xiao Hei nudged me with his elbow: 'Let's go.'
'Oh.' I looked at Xiao Hei, then at Amin. Both of them were by my side, so the second shadow I had just seen definitely wasn't them. Even though I tried to convince myself it was only an illusion, that image still planted a thorn in my heart.
We walked to the front of the first dormitory. There were no stairs to get to the second floor; the only way inside was a door locked with a heavy chain.
Jianzi went to the door and habitually tried to push it with brute force. The door made a thudding sound, but after two strong hits, it remained firmly shut. Seeing this, Jianzi said to us, 'It's locked. We can't get in without the key.'
Amin said again, 'Then let's go back to the car.'
Jianzi glanced at Amin, 'Don't be so hasty. Let's check the next dorm.'
'We're still going?' Amin asked reluctantly.
'Don't worry, it's fine.' I put my arm around Amin's shoulder to calm him.
Xiao Hei, however, was skilled at stirring trouble. He said intentionally or unintentionally, 'Whether there's something or not, we'll know soon enough.'
'Hey.' I glared at Xiao Hei, hoping he would sensibly shut his mouth.
Xiao Hei quieted down. The four of us walked in a two-front, two-back formation, with Jianzi and Xiao Hei in front, and Amin and me behind.
The camp was unusually quiet, making our footsteps sound particularly loud. At that moment, listening to the four of us walking, I recalled the shadow that had been standing next to Jianzi. If there were others in this abandoned camp, I should have been able to hear their footsteps, but I heard nothing else. Does this mean that besides us, there's no one else here?
I didn't know whether to feel relieved or fearful about this conclusion.
Walking in the quiet night wasn't the first time, but the atmosphere surrounding us was something I had never experienced in my twenty-four years of life.The word that instinctively came to my mind was "demonic stirrings," a term used to describe the hyakki yagyo—the night parade of a hundred demons—in ancient Japan. Even though it was a quiet night, it gave one the feeling that something restless lurked in the shadows, as if in the darkest corners there were pairs of eyes filled with ill intent watching me.\I could only pray that it was all illusion, yet the sensation was so intense that I even dared not glance casually to the sides, fearing that a careless look might reveal a second, a third… shadow that didn't belong to us.\After a few minutes of walking, we arrived in front of the second dormitory.\Xiao Hei looked back toward the playground and asked us strangely, “Hey, don't you feel that this camp area is very different?”\“Different how?” A Ming responded with intent. I looked at A Ming, not understanding why he wasn't scared of Xiao Hei—why he always foolishly responded, giving Xiao Hei more room to elaborate.\“Well…” Xiao Hei began, but Jian Zi interrupted him.\“It feels particularly desolate, right? It's because this is an abandoned camp,” Jian Zi said coldly.\“That's not what I meant. Look at the playground—don't you think it's strange? The road outside the camp is overgrown with weeds, some as tall as the waist, yet the playground within the camp isn't paved with asphalt nor gravel; why hasn't a single blade of grass grown there?” Xiao Hei shone his flashlight on the playground, and as he described, it was completely barren, with only a few scraggly tufts of grass and no other plants or creatures visible.\“Can we not discuss this? We're neither geologists nor botanists; let's leave these matters for environmentalists to worry about. Chapter 2: Abandoned Camp (2)\” Jian Zi didn't want to discuss it; he strode toward the main door of the second dormitory.\The door was slightly ajar, revealing a black gap, like a malicious smile. I didn't understand why such an association formed in my mind, yet a strong sense of unease arose, feeling as if once we entered this door, we would be swallowed by the building ahead and never see the light of day again.\“Great, the door isn't locked,” Jian Zi said happily, pushing the door open. The heavy door scraped against the ground with a rough sound, clattering as if it were chewing on something."Do we go in?" I frowned and asked, which was a rare instance of me voicing opposition. "Why not go in? At least check if there's water and electricity inside, otherwise how are we going to report to the boss tomorrow," Jianzi said as he already stepped in. The dimness of the room swallowed half of his body, and in the shadow, he looked like a wreckage with half of his body blown apart.
This hallucination made me instinctively pull Jianzi out of the dormitory, "Let's check it tomorrow. We better go back to the car."
Jianzi didn't understand my action and asked me in confusion, "What's wrong? What's going on? Why are you suddenly talking like Amin?"
"I... I also think we should go back to the car," Amin murmured.
Tonight, Jianzi seemed especially restless. He shook his head and stubbornly said, "We've come all this way; just going in to take a look won't take much time. You're not going to chicken out now after coming this far, are you? If you want to go back, I'll go in by myself. I won't force you. You can wait in the car for me."
"Hey." I called out to Jianzi.