The Forbidden Chambers
All men love gods and buddhas—they adore their splendid robes, their resplendent halls of gold. With voices torn by longing, they smear their own blood upon the great sanctuaries, murmuring softly as
If heaven granted him another chance, perhaps Chen Qing would choose to flee far away, rather than appear here.
He was like a man out of place, at the wrong time, in the wrong location, meeting... the wrong person.
He stared at the pitch-black corridor before him; his legs were numb.
"I shouldn't have come... I shouldn't be here." His face was pale, and blood dripped from his sleeve onto the floor.
"Drip... drip..."
The blood poured like a spring, and the sound of droplets landing on the floor was so clear in the hallway.
Creatures of the night... those things. They wriggled closer to the end of the corridor.
Chen Qing lowered his eyes; several ghastly figures crawled onto the eaves in the darkness.
He could hear the sound of fabric scraping against the walls.
A rustling, right beside his ear...
Right beside his ear...
His heart beat wildly, but those pale faces—one familiar face—hung upside down, bodies sprawled on the eaves, necks dangling beneath the doorway curtain.
They grinned, and a frontal visage appeared on the inverted heads.
They looked at Chen Qing; their skin rippled in waves, and then the skin, like loose flesh on a thigh, slowly slid downward...
It slid to Chen Qing's feet, with eyeballs suspended in the skin staring at him.
They gazed at him, their slack jaws tearing into several chunks, opening and closing, swallowing their own blood.
They extended hands, stroking the boy's arm with fractured, sharp fingertips, then laug