Fear soaked Xie Xishu’s back with cold sweat.
If the space under the desk had been a fantasy refuge he created for himself with the last bit of his willpower, he had now been unavoidably dragged into the crimson hell by “Teacher Li’s” long, wet fingers.
Nanming Third High, Class 1 of Grade 12.
This should have been the classroom he was familiar with, but now it felt more like the stomach of a demon.
“Teacher Li’s” eating habits were evidently poor. As Xie Xishu staggered to his feet from the blood-soaked, slippery floor, a few intestines were still hanging from the ceiling fan blades.
Meanwhile, the main body of “Teacher Li” remained standing behind the podium, though the ghastly head was now dangling in front of Xie Xishu, swaying slightly.
The monster’s bloodshot eyes met Xie Xishu’s with venomous malice. Its voice, now shrill and almost buzzing, asked:
“…Everyone else got it wrong, so it’s your turn, Xie Xishu. Where did we leave off last lesson?”
As it spoke, “Teacher Li’s” mouth slowly stretched open, revealing rows of sharp, needle-like teeth. Saliva streamed continuously from the gaps between its lips. There were still many half-digested human remains stuck in its throat, causing the blob of mucus swinging from its chin to appear a murky, foul-smelling deep red.
Xie Xishu gasped.
He was just one second away from having his head bitten off like the others when, suddenly, in that blood-soaked classroom, Xie Xishu’s trembling voice broke the silence.
“Unit 4, Astronomy—the science of the stars,” Xie Xishu paused, then added, “You had just reached Section B, the vocabulary and grammar part.”
“Teacher Li’s” movement froze mid-air.
Xie Xishu locked eyes with it, not daring to blink, and held his breath deep in his chest.
Time seemed to stretch into an eternity, as if some cruel god had extended the moment for a century…
Finally, “Teacher Li” retracted its head slightly.
“Very good.”
It muttered with a trace of reluctance.
“Seems like you were paying attention in class after all.”
Only at that moment did Xie Xishu finally manage to take a difficult breath.
But the rush of air filled with the stench of blood almost made him retch.
Then, Xie Xishu heard the monster’s sibilant laughter again.
“…But why do you keep skipping class?”
“Teacher Li’s” mutated body rustled and slithered as it crept closer to Xie Xishu.
“You must have been feeling pretty proud just now, right? Getting the lesson progress correct. But don’t think I didn’t notice. Every time I was teaching, you were doing something else, weren’t you? Later, you even started skipping class entirely. You dared to skip my class… You think there’s nothing I can do about it, right? Xie Xishu. I’m a new teacher, someone you all think you can easily manipulate. So you deliberately skipped my class.”
The malice in the monster’s words was almost tangible, as if it could drip down like venom along with its saliva.
A strong sense of foreboding seized Xie Xishu, his heart pounded furiously, and his whole body nearly trembled from the tension.
But he still lifted his head, forcing himself to smile at “Teacher Li”—as if the massacre earlier had never occurred, as if the creature before him was not a nightmare-born monster, but the earnest and enthusiastic new teacher she had once been.
And as if he were still the well-behaved, diligent student he used to be.
“Teacher Li, you’ve misunderstood me. If I weren’t sick, I would never miss class for any reason. This time, I only went to get medicine, not to skip class. I already asked for leave from the homeroom teacher. My health has been poor for a while now; I already missed school because of a fever, and I didn’t dare push myself too hard this time, so I quickly went to get my medication.”
Xie Xishu spoke each word carefully.
“Heh, is that so?”
“Teacher Li” twisted its body, tilting its head. The eyeballs on the stalks wobbled in different directions, yet its gaze stayed firmly fixed on Xie Xishu.
Every muscle in Xie Xishu’s body tensed to the extreme.
“Really, I’m not lying to you.”
His voice at that moment was devoid of the earlier tremble, sounding entirely sincere, gentle, with even a hint of grievance.
“Look, here’s the note the homeroom teacher gave me for leave.”
Then, Xie Xishu raised his hand towards “Teacher Li”—
Only what appeared before her was not the fabricated leave note.
But a small knife.
The same knife that had easily severed another monster’s tongue. Its sharpness was undeniable.
At that moment, the blade gleamed with a cold light.
“Thud.”
Before “Teacher Li” could react, Xie Xishu had already fiercely and precisely plunged the knife, hilt and all, into the monster’s eye socket.
Because flexible eye stalks had grown where the eyes should have been, the skin in that area was soft and loose.
“I’m sorry… I’m sorry, Teacher Li… I’m so sorry…”
Tears or blood, it was impossible to tell what soaked Xie Xishu’s cheeks.
His mind went blank as he felt the knife in his hand plunge into a soft, sticky mass. Through his tear-choked whispers, he twisted his wrist, scraping the blade harshly against the inside of the monster’s skull. When he pulled his hand out, the knife brought with it a string of deep red, grape-like tumors.
“Teacher Li” let out a furious howl.
The creature’s body convulsed like a writhing worm, coiling up in pain.
“It hurts— it hurts so much ahhhh—”
The woman’s screams seemed to shatter glass.
Xie Xishu’s vision blacked out for a moment, and the next second, a stream of crimson, cool blood seeped from his nostrils and ears.
But he didn’t have time to wipe it away. In fact, he didn’t even look back at the monster. He jumped straight to the classroom window and forcefully smashed it with a desk.
Perhaps it was his good luck, or perhaps it was due to the adrenaline, but his strength was indeed greater than before. The classroom window shattered instantly.
As the glass broke, Xie Xishu threw himself out without hesitation.
*
Covered in blood, Xie Xishu started to sprint towards the school gate.
*
“Bad student scum, you’ve gone bad, gone bad, gone bad—”
“Teacher Li’s” screams were continuous, each one sharper and more piercing than the last.
The blood plasma mixed with yellow and white unknown substances gushed out from the eye sockets Xie Xishu had crushed, but soon, several swollen eyeballs pushed out the injured deep red sockets, replacing the shattered organs.
—The monster’s recovery ability far exceeded Xie Xishu’s expectations.
More sounds of breaking glass and creaking metal window frames emerged as Xie Xishu ran. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw “Teacher Li”—or rather, the entire “worm”—waving countless arms to push through the broken window frame, then rapidly advancing towards him like a giant centipede.
Xie Xishu was running for his life, but the stench from “Teacher Li” seemed to be closing in on the back of his neck in an instant.
Xie Xishu’s scalp felt like it was about to explode.
Having rarely engaged in physical exercise, it felt as if his internal organs were on fire. Every breath he took was tainted with the stench of blood.
He was on the verge of collapse.
Yet, faced with the monster, he could think of no other solution. The only thing he could do was to squeeze out the last bit of strength in his body and run… and run faster.
And just in the short time he had been trapped in the classroom, the haze outside the teaching building had thickened.
The fog that now enveloped the campus severely affected visibility. Thus, panicked Xie Xishu only realized when he was very close that there were many stumbling shadows lingering on the way to the school gate.
*
Upon seeing “them,” Xie Xishu, who was already on the brink of exhaustion, came to a complete stop.
Those shadows…
They might have once been students who spent their days aimlessly laughing and idling around the campus.
Or perhaps they were school workers casually cleaning the school.
Or even teachers who numbly lectured from the podium day after day.
…
But at this moment, they all shared a common identity.
[Monsters]
Thoroughly monstrous.
Mutated monsters, just like “Teacher Li.”
*
The smell of blood in the air continued to disperse in the mist.
Almost as soon as Xie Xishu stopped, the previously aimlessly wandering shadows also came to a halt.
Instead of the bloodthirsty beastly nature, a deeper, more irresistible hunger overwhelmed their chaotic minds.
Almost every “monster” suddenly abandoned its ongoing pursuit or the prey it was chewing.
They followed the surging call in their blood, stumbling toward the frail and desperate shadow in the fog… soon their seemingly slow and stumbling forms became quicker and more agile, with their reddish eyes filled with fierce light.
*
“Bad student—”
At this moment, Xie Xishu heard “Teacher Li’s” voice.
He had just stopped, and several withered, yellowish hands appeared on his shoulders.
“Teacher Li” let out a hoarse roar, and its jaw suddenly opened, ready to bite Xie Xishu’s neck—
“Whoosh.”
But the next second, it was violently thrown to the ground by a shadow that emerged from the fog.
The monster that tackled “Teacher Li” was hunched over like a kappa from rural legends, with a thin, childlike skeleton, and every muscle atrophied like a mummy, its dark green skin especially shriveled and wrinkled.
Yet its head had swollen to an entirely disproportionate size.
When Xie Xishu turned his head, he saw its head split open right from the center.
Beneath the shriveled skin was white skull bone, and then, the red gum tightly adhered to the inside of the skull, and dense rows of teeth.
The enormous head was fully opened like a peeled orange, the part that was once the brain now just a twitching mass of soft flesh. But on that flesh, eyes, nose, lips, some reddish skin, and a tangle of messy, wet hair were clearly visible.
The monster bowed its head, and the previously blooming skull suddenly fused together, swallowing most of “Teacher Li’s” body.
“Teacher Li’s” scream this time was very brief.
And it sounded especially muffled and indistinct.
A few seconds later, a flow of fresh blood accompanied by creaking noises kept spilling out from the new monster’s brain folds.
*
[Ah, it ate “Teacher Li.”]
Xie Xishu stared blankly at the scene before him, hearing a voice softly speaking in his ear.
[Yes, when the knife was pushed into Teacher Li’s eye socket, the wound on my hand must have also opened.]
The voice continued to analyze softly to Xie Xishu.
[So, “Teacher Li” got my blood on it, and my blood to these monsters… should be a huge temptation.]
At this moment, even fear seemed to retreat from Xie Xishu’s body. He looked at “Teacher Li” who had lost its upper body—though the corpse still resembled a monster, Xie Xishu inexplicably felt like crying. No matter how he thought about it, he couldn’t understand why things had suddenly turned out this way. Just a short time ago, his life had been so monotonous, yet now his former classmates had become piles of corpses scattered throughout the classroom and campus, and the teacher who once taught him had turned into a completely inhuman monster… and then into a corpse.
And soon, perhaps even he himself would become a silent, shattered corpse.
Yes, “Teacher Li’s” exit did not improve Xie Xishu’s situation. In fact, he was more aware than ever that he was on the brink of doom.
Xie Xishu already had injuries on his hands, and when he escaped from the classroom, the broken window glass had cut numerous deep and shallow wounds on him.
Under extreme mental stress, Xie Xishu didn’t feel any pain. But the heavy activity and tension had accelerated his blood circulation, and the wounds on his body continued to ooze fresh blood.
At this moment, Xie Xishu could only gasp for breath, hopelessly watching the bizarre, twisted shadows slowly reveal their forms from the mist.
There were damp, fleshy lumps.
There were severed limbs that were completely shattered but held together by strange slime and could still move freely.
There were “orange segment” heads just like before.
There were “red people” with their bodies completely reversed from inside out, crawling with their internal organs exposed.
…
“Delicious…”
“Smells so good.”
“Hiss… so delicious…”
“Hiss hiss… hiss…”
Among the indistinct human voices were more dissonant hissing sounds.
And these sounds grew clearer as the figures approached.
*
[This is the end, isn’t it?]
Xie Xishu numbly observed everything around him.
[It will be a painful death, right?]
He thought.
Perhaps due to having his eyes open for too long, his eye sockets became extremely sore. A tear swayed in Xie Xishu’s reddened eye sockets and finally rolled down his bloodless cheek, gathering on his chin, not yet fallen.
*
“Sizzle—”
Then Xie Xishu suddenly heard a strange, wet scraping sound. The sound was very familiar, but before he could recall what it was, many slender, crimson tendrils emerged from the gray mist. They wriggled, covered with fine, tumor-like bumps, and through the translucent surface, faintly visible cyan and blue veins underneath. They looked so soft, so moist, yet so effortlessly attached to the surface of other monsters, then “sploosh,” burrowing into their bodies.
At this moment, every monster surrounding Xie Xishu looked so fierce and terrifying, but when those red “tendrils” pierced them, they seemed to have no strength to resist, only howling.
The stench of blood suddenly surged up. Even as monsters, beneath the torn skin were still light yellow fat and some red flesh lumps.
And after the pale bones shattered, fresh bone marrow was exposed inside.
Then, chunks of meat and blood fell like rain, scattering all over the ground.
*
It felt like seconds had passed, or perhaps tens of thousands of years…
The misty campus quieted down again after a brief commotion, only the sizzling sound of “tendrils” entangling and the slithering of mucus remained.
Then Xie Xishu heard footsteps.
The footsteps were somewhat awkward, almost as if they were made specifically for him to hear. Meanwhile, all the “tendrils” retracted from the monster’s corpse, dripping blood, and slowly entangled into a bright red human shape in the thin mist.
When the human shape finally arrived in front of Xie Xishu, his body… or rather, most of his body had already returned to its original smoothness.
Xie Xishu finally got a clear look at the face of the visitor.
It was Qi Wu.
*
“…”
Qi Wu carefully observed the obviously disoriented young man before him. Upon seeing the numerous deep and shallow cuts and blood on him, his brows furrowed.
He had almost returned to a human form, but at this moment, the part of Qi Wu’s body that approached Xie Xishu once again showed clear red marks.
The fresh, soft flesh on those red marks was restlessly wriggling in the unmistakable aroma in the air.
Qi Wu’s expression became somewhat gloomy as a result.
He stepped over a pile of meat wriggling on the ground and came to Xie Xishu, extending his hand.
“Come with me.”
He said.
Xie Xishu’s shoulders trembled slightly the moment Qi Wu raised his hand.
Seeing this, Qi Wu’s eyelids lowered, hiding the fleeting glint in his pitch-black pupils.
“…We need to leave quickly, or when those ‘things’ react, they’ll come over again.”
He continued.
“You don’t want to stay here alone and be… devoured from head to toe by those things, do you, Xie?”
*
Xie Xishu stared at Qi Wu’s hand, breathing rapidly.
Qi Wu’s arm and palm were still covered with deep red marks.
Upon sensing Xie Xishu’s breath, the moist tongue deep within the red marks seemed like a living creature, appearing and disappearing in the gaps, restless.
Xie Xishu remembered clearly that not long ago, these things had tightened around his limbs, leaving layers of sticky, stinking saliva on his skin…
To this day, he still felt that nauseating touch lingering on him.
However, after a very brief pause, Xie Xishu gritted his teeth and tightly grasped Qi Wu’s hand.
“Alright, I’ll go with you.”
He whispered hoarsely, speaking to the only “monster” before him that still resembled a human form.
___
Author’s Note:
Who exactly wants to devour someone from head to toe? Tsk tsk tsk.
