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Chapter Two: Town of Collected Silence
I was staring at the skull perfectly decorated, like a personal collection or a hobby. Now this made me certain that something was here, more terrifying and intelegent enough to do this. I stood up and took two steps back from the doorway. I was safe but for how long ? I didn't know what was happening in world two. I moved with the screaming instinct of running away. As I moved. My eyes were drawn to something hanging on the door of the next house. Distance and shadow obscured it. "I can't see clearly what that thing is" My gaze dropped first to the threshold—a scrap of wool, torn from clothing. A fellow victim. "A piece of cloth ? There were more chosen ones." I remembered that one person was already dead in 7 of us, which leaves only 6 people alive, including me. It was till now until another thought took its place. "Wait—it could be possible that we were not the only six. It should be a long time before this phenomenon happens. Is it possible any of them survived ?" This thought was obviously circling around my mind before Then I stepped closer, and the shape on the door resolved into clarity. "It was a wreath of skin, stretched and pinned. At its center, finger bones were tied with glowing root-filaments to form a clapper. It was a sick parody of a bell, painted not with color, but with wet, crimson life. The blood wasn't dry; it welled and dripped with a slow, rhythmic plink onto the stones below. And I instantly realized that I was in danger. My legs couldn't move. I was shocked, flabbergasted and I felt nauseous. It was a disgusting scene: the bones dropping drops of blood. My heart said to leave, but my feet didn't move. Before I could react, I suddenly heard muttering from someone in the air. It was a human voice.
"Someone is here, did I find someone alive?" I tried my best to move my feet, and they finally moved, and then I went toward the voice and what I saw was a man in his late 30s. He was muttering· "The well is not for drinking," he whispered, eyes fixed on a point behind me. "It's for listening. It sings the last notes. He's adding to the collection... he needs the right pair of ears." And he added another chilling word "You think the ribbon is a map?" A wet, hiccuping laugh. "It's a receipt. We've been purchased."
I spoke in a low tone, a whisper. I was scared to speak loudly. "What are you doing here, what happened to another person?" Hearing my voice, the man flinched slightly. He looked at me, but instead of relief, he saw another hopeless person trying to find a way to go back home. "You—you are also one of the chosen ones. We are going to die by that thing....that thing killed another person. He is terrifying. This world is terrifying. Don't go to the well, don't go to the well" and he started chanting the same thing. I was confused, but looking at his face I felt that he was waiting.... waiting for something that would kill him ? I didn't want to leave this guy alone, but he had gone insane. I tried asking him, "Come with me, we will survive and ascend to world 3." But all the response I got was "We won't survive, it's the end for us. We can never escape the eleven-layered world. This world two is already terrifying. I don't want to go to the next world, I don't want to." I was speechless. A part of me understood him. The peace of giving up. To stop being a rat in this cosmic maze. But the ribbon on my wrist pulsed—a cold, silver heartbeat. 贰. It was a command. Move or be moved. Die or be deleted. I looked at this broken man. He was already a ghost in World 2. Carrying him would only get us both killed. The cruel calculus of this place became clear: compassion was ballast. I took a step back.
I had taken no more than ten steps when the muttering behind me stopped. A new sound replaced it: a soft, wet scraping, like bone on stone. I didn't look back. I knew what was happening. The town's silence was beginning to digest him. I broke into a run.My steps hesitated for a moment, a hint of worry tinted on my face, the man I had left behind could probably die. I wanted to help him, but I knew that he was now already paranoid. After a while, I stopped near a room and quickly shut it down. As I turned, I saw something on the ground. It was a small, metallic object. A locket. Its clasp was broken, as if torn from someone's neck. I pocketed it without a word, a piece of evidence from a prior victim. The weight of the locket and his sanity were a new burden in my pocket.
"The owner of this locket must have died already," I thought as I stared at its star shape. I sat down at the door thinking about my life, and how it became miserable two days ago. I was just a normal university student, and now I'm an anonymous person suffering between horrible worlds. "I want to go back, I have to survive. It doesn't matter whether anybody came back from the world. I couldn't care less about what other things I have a family." I was hopelessly looking around the room until my eyes saw a mirror. Besides that mirror, I saw something written there. I stood up. My movement made no sound, as if my own fear of getting seen was taking over me. There was written: "The Ribbon lies. It counts the worlds but not the loops. I have been here 4 times. And I'll come again. There is no way to escape. It remembers. The collector takes the will. Do not listen to the Well's song." — K Beneath this, in a different, shakier hand: "K is gone. The well took him. It sings with his voice now." Besides that, there was another note: "Is it Cycle 3? In this hell-town. My name is Li. The man I came with, Wen, is gone. He said the well was calling him with my voice. He walked in. The liquid didn't drown him. It... absorbed him. Now I hear our shared childhood lullaby from the well. I found a box in the antique district. It feels alive. It's the only thing that doesn't change when the world resets. I have to—" The sentence cuts off. A single, long streak marks the wall, as if the writer was dragged away. As I read it I was horrified, I didn't know what to do anymore. I read the notes again and what i finally discovered was that. "It won't end even if we die," I said in a low tone. My words came out stuttered. My gaze shifted to the mirror.
"WHAT IN THE?" I stared in the mirror. There was no reflection on it. I knew this world was nonsensical, but if only World 2 would this absurd survive in future worlds ? I couldn't even imagine. Suddenly, I felt something coming out of the door. My gaze went upon the ground. I saw two eyes with nobody. They were trying to blink but couldn't. Now this makes me certain, whoever this collector is, now knows my location. "Damn it, I can't stay here any longer. I first have to get out of this shelter." I cautiously moved to the doorway and when I opened it, I finally realized what a mistake I had made. The Yon gu was standing outside the door and one thought came to my mind: "How.... How didn't it have a boundary? He couldn't come inside, right ?" I quickly shut the door. My breathing got heavier, my eyes looking around, and I found a window decorated with human teeth. I opened it and rushed outside. I didn't want to be fodder for that Yon Gu. As I went outside, the whole town came into view. The town was not built; it was curated. It existed not as a habitat, but as a museum of terminated lives, a gallery where the final, terrified moments of its subjects were frozen in tableau.
The streets were laid out not for travel, but for observation—narrow channels that funneled the eye toward "exhibits." The stone of the buildings wasn't weathered by time, but textured by intent, carved with faint, repeating patterns that matched the symbols on Yan Gu's bones. The ever-present, pulsating roots didn't invade the structures; they framed them, glowing veins tracing doorways and windowsills like highlights on a painting. Silence here wasn't an absence. It was a preserved specimen. It had weight and texture, muffling Mo Fei's footsteps into nothingness, making his own breath sound like a trespass. The air smelled of damp stone, iron, and beneath it, a cloying, sweet note—like flowers left to rot in a sealed room. This was no refuge. It was the Collector's studio. And every bone on the sill, every flesh-wreath on the door, was a finished work.
Mo Fei wasn't a visitor. He was a potential medium. A cold, crystalline understanding pierced through my fear, sharper than any bone needle. This isn't a town. It's a stomach. And it's digesting us. The horror wasn't in the gore—it was in the purpose. The paranoid man I'd left behind wasn't just insane; he was a piece undergoing preparation. The Collector wasn't a mindless predator. It was a connoisseur. My eyes, now analytical in my terror, scanned the street. The arranged bones by the doorstep weren't tossed; they were posed. That skull on the windowsill wasn't staring blankly—its empty sockets were deliberately aligned to watch the well in the square. It was all a composition. My hand closed around the locket in my pocket. Its star shape wasn't random. I'd seen it before—etched into the wooden box in the shop window. A connection. A clue left not by accident, but perhaps... by design? Was the Collector leaving breadcrumbs for the "living exhibits" to follow, to make their final moments of realization more flavorful? The thought made my blood freeze. I wasn't just hiding from a monster. I was performing for an audience of one, in a theater where the finale was his own transformation into a permanent, silent sculpture. The frozen blood has now started to heat. I felt my every vein starting to react to this thought. I looked at the ribbon, the symbol 贰 was still glowing same. This world was a playground for whoever the master of slaves was. I'd have to learn from it if I want to escape.
"FINE," I breathed, the sound swallowed by the silence. "You want a story ? I'll give you one, but mine doesn't end on your wall. It ends when I find out who built it and burns it to the ground." This gives me another reason to survive now. Not only do I want to go home, but I wanted to take revenge for every single terror I had and will face. My thoughts got interrupted by a soul-taking sound. My breath hitched as I saw it at the end of the street, its back turned—a silhouette of impossible proportions (too tall, too many limbs) bent over a new "project." I quickly ran again, when I looked back. It didn't chase me. It just... turns its crown of eyes to watch me flee, before returning to its work. Its indifference was more terrifying than aggression. My running slowed down as I remembered my strong words a few minutes ago. "Talking so high.....how am I going to fight these things? I'm not a warrior or something, I'm alone." I started taking steps forward, trying to find an isolated place to survive, but again the same thought came to my mind. The unanswered question: "What causes the trigger ? Sleep ?" I thought, If it's just sleeping, then am I dreaming? But everything was too real for just a nightmare. I thought of sleeping again before I felt something tightening around me. The root around my ankle wasn't pulling me. It was taking me to the spot, a living tether. A trap, not a guide. From the shadows of nearby doorways, more Yan Gu began to clatter into the street, drawn by my panic. Their whispers wove together: "Stay... stay... become quiet... become still..."
That's when I understood.
Sleep wasn't the only trigger here. Vulnerability was. World 1 lulled you to sleep. World 2 punished you for it. The moment you closed your eyes, the moment your will faltered, you became part of the collection. The paranoid man wasn't waiting to die; he was already still good enough to be created. The Collector wasn't just an artist—it was a taxidermist of the living. I couldn't sleep. Even if I hid, exhaustion would eventually force my body to shut down, and that momentary helplessness would be the end. The Yan Gu would inscribe me, or the roots would bind me, or the well would sing me into oblivion. K's and Li's graffiti blazed in my mind.
The ribbon lies. It counts the worlds but not the loops. The ribbon was a counter, not a guide. It didn't care how I moved forward, only that I did. A terrible, lucid calm settled over me. The cold calculus returned. "If sleep meant becoming art… And staying awake meant being hunted until I fell… Then the only way to win was to break the game." I wasn't certain what could happen to me if I took the risk. I knew it could be the end of my story. My eyes darted from the advancing Yan Gu to the silent, watching the silhouette of the Collector at the lane's end. It was observing, waiting for my fear to ripen into a final, beautiful panic. "You want a story?" I thought, my hand closing around the sharp, glass-like shard of stone at my feet. "Then let me write my own ending." This wasn't suicide. This was freedom or perhaps strategic withdrawal. With a shout that tore off the curated silence, I didn't charge the monsters or flee. I raised the shard high—not as a weapon against them, but as a statement. "You don't get my fear!" My voice echoed, raw and human in the unnatural quiet. "You got my REFUSAL! I refuse to die by that disgusting hand of YOURS!" And before the nearest Yan Gu could lunge, before the root could yank me off my feet, I made the most horrific choice. It was a win for me. I drove the glass spear into my own throat. The pain was instant—a shocking, wet gasp. But beneath it was a vicious, hollow triumph. The Collector's form jerked. A ripple of what looked like outrage disturbed its graceful lines. I had chosen a death outside its aesthetic. Messy. Uncontrolled. Unglamorous. And i saw that look of the collector, a look of waiting before my vision got blurred.
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