Chapter 6: Do Not Look Back (1)

Chapter 6: Do Not Look Back (1)\For the first time, I felt so fearful and helpless about the future.\"The wards here are never simple. From the beginning with the morgue, and just now with the man-eating ghost… I suspect there are evil spirits hidden in every ward. This isn't something we can handle," I said.\Jianzai nodded and asked me, "Are your injuries okay?"\"No problem, just a minor wound," I replied, trying to be brave.\"Do you mean we shouldn't look for an exit?" Amin asked, his attitude rather extreme.\"That's not what I mean. I'm just saying there are evil ghosts in these wards, and if we have to open each one, I'm afraid something might happen," I explained patiently to Amin.\Amin didn't want to listen; he rebutted me harshly, "So should we just wait to die?"\"I already told you that's not what I meant." The sharp pain from my wound made me lose patience, and my tone unconsciously worsened.\Amin walked ahead on his own. When he reached the second ward, he complained, "Since you all are too scared to open it, I'll do it myself."\With that, he immediately pulled open the door.\Amin shone his flashlight inside. Taking the opportunity, the rest of us walked up beside him. Even though Amin's attitude was terrible, we couldn't just leave him behind.\There was nothing abnormal in this ward; it was just especially large, so large that the flashlight's beam couldn't reach the end. The straight beam of yellow light was swallowed by the darkness, engulfed in the black tide inside the room.\"So big," Xiao Hei said, his voice echoing in the room.\"Shall we go in?" I asked Jianzai.\Jianzai shook his head, opposing the idea. I looked at Xiao Hei, who only raised his eyebrows and shrugged.\While the four of us hesitated, suddenly a door sound rang from behind us. A tingling ran down my spine, as if hundreds of ants were crawling up my back. Instinctively, I thought—could it be the man-eating ghost from the previous ward coming after us?\"It's the man-eating ghost!" Amin and I had the same thought. He shouted and rushed into the huge ward in front of us.\Seeing him so panicked, Jianzai, Xiao Hei, and I also became extremely tense. To dodge the man-eating ghost's pursuit, we hurried into the ward in front of us to hide.Seeing that we had all entered the ward, Amin immediately closed the door, leaned against the door, and used his body to block the door to prevent anyone from entering. He turned his body slightly, pressing his ear against the door to listen for the sounds outside. After a while, we heard the sound of metal mopping the floor. It sounded dull but extremely harsh, like someone dragging a sharp blade across the ground, leaving a long cracking sound. Hearing this sound, my breathing grew rapid, but I didn't dare to breathe, afraid they would notice we were hiding inside the room. A thought flashed through my mind: the ogre I had encountered earlier had no weapons, so the enemy outside wasn't the ogre but the new hunter, and we were the prized prey in the hunter's eyes. Thinking of this, cold sweat broke out on my back in an instant.
Xiao Hei whispered, "That sound...... Is it the sound of an axe dragging the floor?"
With his question, we couldn't imagine it even more. If the other party were holding the axe, would we still have a chance to escape? After a moment, the sound of a blade dragging the ground was like a broken string zither, abruptly stopping. Our fear didn't disappear; instead, it only grew stronger, because at least just now we could know the enemy's location, but now we had no trace of the enemy's whereabouts.
In panic, Amin, leaning against the door panel, let out a few whimpers. He seemed to have something to say, but the syllables stuck in his throat, unable to get out of his mouth.
"Ah...... Hmm... Amin's lips trembled. The three of us stared at Amin, not understanding what he meant. Xiao Hei wanted to ask, but feared that speaking would invite murderous intent. His arm hovered in midair, looking like he wanted to gesture but didn't know where to start. After a while, Amin showed a pained expression, then looked down at his abdomen. Our gaze shifted with him, and we also looked at his abdomen. Originally, his abdomen was normal, but under our gaze, blood suddenly gushed from Amin's belly. The bright red bloomed on his clothes like a glaring red flower, the bud growing even more brilliant. We felt our scalps tingle as we watched, because a blade was right before our eyes, piercing through Amin's belly and his clothes. The blade slowly thrust out, pointing straight at us.At that moment, we finally understood why the mopping sound disappeared. It was because the other party raised the blade and pierced straight through the door, piercing right into Amin, who was leaning against it, and then pierced his belly. The blade stopped moving, resting on Amin's belly. But the four of us didn't dare move, only staring at the blade in shock. The air froze in an instant, time seemed to stand still, everyone's movements froze, and my mind went blank. Suddenly, the blade slashed downward, slicing open Amin's abdomen. He swiftly withdrew the blade, and just as we were caught off guard, blood sprayed out. Hot blood splattered onto my cheek, like a few drops of scalding, hot oil, making me instinctively bounce back. "Ah—!" The scream choked in Amin's throat finally burst in our ears. Thick, brown liquid and Amin's intestines kept dripping out of his abdomen. Instinctively, Amin reached out to cup, trying to catch his intestines and organs, but his hands couldn't hold so many of the organs, causing the intestines to still spill all over the floor. I wanted to help, but didn't have the courage to take a step closer. I could only watch as his belly was split open with two blood-red gashes—white intestines, brown bodily fluids, and bright red blood mixed together, splattering everywhere on the ground. A disgusting smell wafted out—the stench of feces, the fishy smell of blood, and some sour, rotten smells that were hard to describe. Amin's body slowly slid down, and he no longer had the strength to stand up. With a bang, he fell onto his organs, pressing down heavily on them. With a loud slap, those organs turned into an indistinguishable puddle of flesh. The scene was truly terrifying, and Amin's consciousness was gradually fading. I could feel his gaze fading, but the fear in his heart hadn't faded. From the way he spoke, I could vaguely sense him murmuring: "I...... Save ...... Me...... Save me." "Ah..." I wanted to call out to him, but found I couldn't make a sound. I was so scared my throat was trembling, and my voice was broken and fragmented. "Amin." Jian Zai called out to him softly. A-Ming turned his head to look in Jian Zai's direction. His shoulders twitched unconsciously, and the next second, his eyes rolled upward as he collapsed into a pool of blood."A-Ming!" Jianzi cried out urgently again, but A-Ming did not respond. Looking at A-Ming's tragic state, we knew he died with his eyes open, his mouth slightly ajar, his eyes rolled back, and his hands clutching his stomach... I recalled a few hours earlier, when A-Ming didn't want to get off the car. Even after entering the camp, he kept asking us to leave quickly, but we ignored him. Thinking about this, I felt that the three of us were actually accomplices in A-Ming's death. Why didn't we turn back then? Why didn't we listen to A-Ming? Unfortunately, no matter how much regret we feel now, it's useless. Xiao Hei looked fearfully at that door. He didn't seem very sad, his attention was entirely on that door panel, not on A-Ming's corpse. Xiao Hei panted and said, "He killed A-Ming, and later he'll come for us." Upon hearing Xiao Hei's warning, I was stunned! Yes, now is not the time to grieve; it's time to think about self-preservation. I widened my eyes staring at that door—he has a samurai sword in hand. If he breaks the door and rushes in, do we even have a chance to survive? While still pondering this question, a different sound emerged from the large room. Hiss──hiss── Hiss... A numb sensation ran down the back of my neck. That sound was too familiar. As soon as I heard it, I knew someone was crawling on the ground, dragging their lower body with only their arms pushing forward. It was the sound of clothes scraping against the floor. Hiss…hiss… Something is approaching! Knowing that danger was coming for us, the three of us couldn't react. There were ghosts outside the door, monsters inside; whatever choice we made, our fate felt fragile like a candle in the wind. With the slightest breath, our lives could extinguish instantly. After a moment, Jianzi was the first to regain rationality from the terror. He hurriedly raised a flashlight toward the source of the sound. Seeing this, Xiao Hei and I immediately directed our lights toward the same place. If we could see the creature's appearance early, we could prepare ourselves in time, at least we wouldn't just stand there waiting for death. When the light shone, we were shocked to see a ***!"His scalp was completely gone, revealing a small cerebellum of a brown-yellow skull. One eyeball was already missing, leaving only a smashed eye socket, while the other eyeball, though still there, was covered by a layer of milky white film.\ At the sudden sight of ***, my heart skipped an uncontrollable beat, and I felt dizzy.\ *** moved very slowly but steadily approached us. His upper body was bare, with two small, blackened arms dragging his body toward us, while his lower body was wrapped in layers of bandages from the abdomen down, like a little mummy.\ The bandages around the lower body were black and dirty, several of them torn by friction with the ground, chaotically trailing beneath ***'s feet. Looking at these bandages dragged behind ***, I remembered Amin's death and reflexively felt as if those were intestines being dragged along by ***.\ Thinking of this made me feel nauseous, especially as the smell of feces and urine from Amin's abdomen grew stronger, which triggered waves of vomiting in my throat.\ "What is that?" Xiao Hei asked.\ "***, probably like the cannibal from before, a sort of zombie-type creature," I said, while thinking to myself that fortunately this time the opponent was ***, so it felt less dangerous; with the combined strength of the three of us, we should still be able to handle him.\ I had just finished this thought when more hissing scraping sounds came from nearby. My heart jolted, and I quickly moved the flashlight beam, only to discover that there was not just one ***! At least seven were surrounding us from all directions, and even more corpses of infants might still be stirring in the darkness.\ "Ah!" I instinctively shouted, not only because the number of *** was increasing, but also because their appearance was so horrifying.\ Most of their bodies were wrapped in thick bandages, which had turned black and moldy from absorbing blood, while their exposed skin was grey-black and covered with unevenly sized corpselike blotches, with unhealed wounds on top. Some *** even had their bones visible through their bodies, revealing the tragic nature of their death.\ "Ugh." I stifled a dry heave and covered my mouth with my hand, but the acidic water in my stomach kept churning in my throat, sending sharp, uncomfortable stings to the back of my tongue.This group of ** quickly crawled to our feet. Probably because they didn't seem threatening, the three of us didn't flee immediately, but instead watched them nervously.
A ** crawled to Jianzi's feet. Jian Zai was quite bold; he fiercely kicked the **'s stomach, and with a loud smack, the **'s body was sent flying. Seeing this, I couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief. It seemed that this group of ** in the room was even easier to deal with than the previous ogres before. Thinking of this, another half-rotted ** crawled toward my feet. His lips were already decayed, revealing a row of tiny teeth. I had planned to kick him away like Jianzi, but since I wasn't as brave as Jianzi, I instinctively called out and then jumped to the side. **** didn't attack me. He didn't bite my calf and wouldn't let go. Instead, unexpectedly, he ignored me and kept crawling forward. I looked at him in surprise. After a moment, I saw the ** crawl beside Amin's corpse. It looked as if it had been hungry for a long time, and actually reached out its small hand, grabbing the intestines that had flowed from Amin's abdominal wound, then stuffed them into his mouth and chewed heartily. His teeth couldn't hold the tough intestines, but he ate with great relish, making sucking sounds