deformed bone

Red Deer opened his eyes, and after a brief moment of confusion, he realized that he was in a dream.

This is the interior of an old house... not so much an old house as a castle (especially by modern standards).

But it is precisely because of its appearance that Red Deer can be so sure that he is not in reality.

Because the old house that appeared in front of him had already been burned in a fire, and the arsonist was himself.

Before being burned into a pile of dilapidated rubble and black ashes, the old house was already very old—old, but still magnificent. Hundreds of years gave it a unique ancient beauty, as if those old nobles The ghosts and blood still stay here and never leave.

This is where Red Deer was born and where he grew up.

He never thought that one day he would come back here, even though it was in the form of a dream.

"This is really interesting."

Red Deer looked around him indifferently. The dark but gorgeous living room was as spacious as he remembered, and there was a faint trace of gilding on the thick oak wall panels.The dark green wallpaper is a pattern of thorny vines that repeatedly curl and intertwine.

The light steals in from the wrought-iron railings near the ceiling and the breathable windows of carved glass, and falls on the brown-red parquet floor.After so many years, the oil in the thick oak has penetrated, and after waxing by the servants, it still looks oily and gentle, and even the mother-of-pearl inlaid on the edge is still shining.

A huge branch-shaped lamp hangs heavily in the center of the living room. It may have been 100 years since it was last lit-in that era, people still used expensive candles for lighting, but modern humans rely more on electricity.

There was a dull, dusty smell in the air, mingled with the subtle aroma of ambergris that had been daubed on the walls a hundred years ago.

A faint sound came from somewhere on the second floor.

The red deer walked up the stairs without hesitation.

At the end of the stairs, he saw a boy.

The boy was only about thirteen or fourteen years old, his brown hair was combed back meticulously, revealing the boy's pale and expressionless face, his emerald green eyes were like a cat's, and the irises appeared in the dim light. Faint reflections.

He was wearing a stuffy white shirt that was slightly outdated for modern children, with knee-length suit shorts and white socks underneath.

He should have had a pair of leather shoes on his feet, made of good calfskin, without a brand - on a few fixed dates every year, the shoemakers with their own ancestral storefronts in London's oldest streets would fly with their suitcases. Come here to order leather shoes for the owner of the house and his children.

But at this moment, those expensive and well-crafted leather shoes were taken off.

The boy hooked his shoes with two fingers and walked softly along the ancient corridor without making a sound.

The moment he saw the boy, Red Deer's pupils shrank suddenly.

He followed closely behind the boy, step by step towards the room at the end of the corridor.

The voice he heard before came from that room.

The slender corridor is as dark and narrow as ever, and the portrait oil paintings hanging on the walls look more like the sets in horror movies. When you pass them, you can't help but feel that the dead people who have long passed away are viciously Peeping at the people below.

But Red Deer clearly knew that the cold sweat that gradually oozed from the forehead of the boy was not because he was afraid of those portraits.

"Well……"

The closer you got to that room, to the half-hidden door, the louder the sound became.

It was a low moan mixed with pain and joy, as well as some indescribable, creepy, shrill laughter.

The cold air of the ancient mansion gradually seeped into the ominous hotness and turbidity, and the boy had already arrived at the door at this time. He held his breath, moved his eyes to the crack of the door cautiously, and then looked inside. look away.

Red Deer's breathing became faster and faster.

【Do not--】

He reached out his hand almost subconsciously to stop the boy, but his hand passed directly through the boy's body.

The boy still saw everything in the room.

A woman was lying on a black bed, her skin was covered with bright red blood.

A huge oak cross was nailed to the head of the bed behind the woman, but unlike normal crosses, that one was hung upside down on the wall.

Beside her bed, several men were naked like her, clothed in blood.

The freshly chopped deer head, the internal organs that cannot be seen, and some other things were placed in white bone trays and placed beside the woman's bed.

The flame of the candle illuminated everything in the room, and as the candle flame danced, the thick shadows in the room twisted and danced as if they had their own vitality.

The room smelled strongly of alcohol, blood and something else.

And that woman was constantly rolling and twitching on the bed, she rolled her eyes, white foam overflowed from the corner of her mouth, that kind of weird laughter came from her body.

The men danced around her in a strange rhythm, and they raised their heads, staring at something hanging from the ceiling and moaning.

...that was a corpse.

The chest cavity of the headless deer carcass was opened, and it was suspended in mid-air by iron chains.

It was obviously just killed, and the dead muscles were still twitching slightly.

Blood trickled out of its throat, and every once in a while someone would step up to drink the warm and bright red liquid.

The boy stood there calmly observing everything in the room.

Suddenly, he turned his head towards the other end of the corridor.

Immediately afterwards, like a nimble kitten, he quickly shrank to the corner next to the door, grabbed a corner of a wall panel, and then gently pulled it out, and appeared behind the wall panel A small space - there are always such secret rooms or passages hidden in corners in ancient castles and mansions.

The boy slipped in without hesitation, and closed the wainscoting.

But the Red Deer knew that through the small holes and gaps in the decorative reliefs on the wainscoting, the boy could still see clearly.

Almost at the same time that the boy was hiding, there was the sound of crying and struggling that also belonged to a child from the other side of the corridor.

Men in black robes walked towards the room holding a boy tightly.

The very wicked and strange ritual in the room was thus interrupted.

The woman on the big bed slowly got up from the bed, her body was softer than ordinary people, and her movements were more like animals.

And when she opened her eyes, those emerald green eyes seemed to come from a beast or a devil.

【"Did you catch them?"】

The woman spoke—her voice was extremely sweet, hoarse, and her tone was particularly viscous.

It was as if each word could wriggle in the air alone.

【"Madam, there is only one, your eldest son is missing, he ran away beforehand—"】

The man in the black robe replied with fear.

"Woooooo... let me go! Let me go!"

And in their hands, the boy who was caught screamed.

Red Deer's gaze stayed on him, and then froze for a short while.

The boy had exactly the same face as the boy before him.

Same black curly hair, same green eyes, same pale complexion.

The only difference was that the boy's face was contorted with intense fear.

【"Well, what a pity..."】

The woman stood up from the bed, she whispered, and walked in front of the boy step by step, swinging her alluring waist.

"Mother……"

Meeting the woman's gaze, the boy trembled even more.

【"This is not the best sacrifice, we should have sacrificed my eldest son today."】

The woman stretched out her fingers with bright red nail polish and stroked the boy's face, she murmured.

【"But we can add an extra liver and a heart to make up for it..."】

Red Deer slowly closed his eyes.

He felt a shudder, a faint taste of rust on the tip of his tongue.

He doesn't need to watch to know everything after that, because all this is the past and not the present for him.

He can even remember how the boy who looked exactly like himself was dragged to the black bed, and how their mother, the woman, cut off his brother's head with a silver knife, and then...

After a long time, the room filled with a strong smell of blood fell silent.

The light became dimmer.

There was silence all around.

The panel moved slightly, and the boy who had been hiding before crept out of the secret room.

He looked at the room silently for a while, then turned his head and walked to the other end of the corridor.

Red Deer followed.

Then, even more shocked than the boy, he looked at the door at the end of the corridor——

A red, elegant, but very old door with a smooth brass handle.

And he didn't even have any impression of this door.

"What the hell is this……"

Red Deer clearly remembered that there was only a long corridor opposite the sinful room, and at the end was a long and narrow window. The white gauze curtains fluttered like ancient ghosts or ghosts.

But there is absolutely no such door there.

At least Red Deer never remembered seeing a "door" at such a young age.

But no matter how complicated Red Deer's mood is now, the boy who belonged to the past still approached the red door step by step.He appeared very cautious, suspicious, full of confusion.

He touched the door handle tentatively.

"crunch-"

In the silent mansion, the friction sound of the door shaft was extremely loud.

The red door opened smoothly in front of the boy.

The inside of the door was pitch black.

The young red deer retreated almost instinctively, but it was too late.

Something—you could say they were hair, or mist, or tentacles, gushed out of the door, dragging the boy into the door—

"Do not--"

The boy who had been extremely silent all this time, the red deer from the past finally let out a scream.

Half of his body had been pulled into the door frame, and he grabbed the railing on the side of the corridor with all his strength, but his fingers were gradually slipping off.

And at the moment when he gradually couldn't hold on anymore.

From very far away, came a cry.

Red Deer suddenly opened his eyes wide, and he clearly saw a ray of light piercing through the world behind the door.

He saw himself crawling out of that weird door, then staggered a few steps on the ground, and finally passed out unbearably.

And the door stayed in place for a few seconds or so.It seems to be like an invisible time accelerator.The door was old and decayed at a speed visible to the naked eye, and finally collapsed into ashes.

The only evidence of the door's existence was the black substance wrapped around the boy's arms.

They rolled and twitched, and finally penetrated into the boy's skin bit by bit, and finally disappeared.

At the same time, in the real world, the room where the tragedy happened was pushed away silently.

"They ate me."

A ghostly voice sounded from behind Red Deer.

The red deer turned its head slowly, and a familiar figure stood in the interior of the room, the part below the ankle was soaked in a pool of blood.

The red deer saw in the blood the floating corpses of the mother and the men, each charred and mummified.

"And you're just watching."

The man raised his face exactly like the red deer's and whispered softly in the red deer's voice.

"That's why my mother was very angry... She said that the original sacrifice should be you, brother, it should be you."

……

Red Deer opened his eyes.

He woke up so suddenly that the man who was wiping him was taken aback.

"Oh, my God—Reed?"

Calvin's voice made Red Deer's soul and body quickly fit together. He adjusted his breathing and found that he was indeed fully awake.

Then he sat up slowly, with Calvin sitting on the edge of his bed, a wet towel in his hand.

Red Deer's skin still vaguely remembered the touch of that towel before he was fully awake—rough, dry, and made of very cheap fabric.

He looked around and found himself lying in a simple guest room.

The windows are small and the curtains are polyester.The simmons of the bed had been used for a long time and the springs had started to age so that there was a noticeable dimple in the very center of the bed.The blanket covering him was quite airtight and smelled of a foul chemical cleaner.

Even though the child's scream was filtered through a glass window, it was still clear, which made the red deer who had just woken up a little restless.

"You finally woke up..."

Before the red deer finished its analysis, Calvin had already leaned over and hugged the red deer tightly.

Red Deer noticed that Calvin's face was very haggard, and that he had cut his hair short.

"Where is here... what happened..."

Red Deer's pupils darkened.

He was pretty sure he smelled the ointment on Calvin's body, and then on himself - he lifted the covers from himself, and sure enough, his legs were wrapped in a thick layer of gauze.

"Fogg did it."

Calvin followed the gaze of the red deer to his legs.

"Don't worry, the most important parts are not hurt - you and I are very lucky, all burns are superficial. Just put some ointment on and avoid strenuous exercise."

Calvin explained briskly.

Red Deer could easily tell that Calvin was very pleased with his sobriety.He soon knew the reason, and nearly half a month had passed since the day when he lost consciousness and control of his body without warning.

And before he knew it, Calvin had experienced a horrific explosion with him.

The Blue Diamond Crown Hotel was completely razed to the ground, and countless people lost their lives. As for Calvin and him, they even narrowly escaped death.

When they fled the chaotic area, both of them had burns of varying degrees.To make matters worse, he remained in a coma for the next week or so - no personality emerged and took over the body.

Luckily they still had Grian's lovely cash with them.

Calvin managed to steal a car, drove the red deer for a long time without sleep, and finally found a motel in this remote town some distance from the seashore.

"I told them you were in rehab"

Calvin explained.

"...you hurt your leg in a car accident, you lost your job and your girlfriend, you were so sad that you almost wanted to end your life. As a good friend, I chose to take you out of that damn big city to a small remote place to spend your life Take a vacation and change your mood again."

"Sounds like a miserable 'me'."

Reed couldn't help laughing.

Calvin glanced at him, and then they both laughed inexplicably.

"Thank you, Calvin." Red Deer said, "I must have caused you a lot of trouble."

Calvin crossed his arms and raised his eyebrows: "It's probably as troublesome as you took me away from the police and Adventists when I was in a coma—"

Under Reed's gradually calm and focused gaze, Calvin's pretended relaxed smile finally turned into a faint smile.

"I'm really glad you woke up."

Calvin said.

Otherwise he really doesn't know what to do.

He didn't say this to Reed—

In fact, it was a very difficult time.

The bombing of the Blue Diamond Crown Hotel shocked the entire United States, or rather, the entire world.

The tragedy with a death toll approaching four digits led to a massive inspection, and Calvin dared not contact Isaac again, because almost all calls would be monitored.

He then had to detour on various country roads to avoid police barricades and inspections, and for this reason Calvin had to abandon public transportation altogether.Worse was Reed's burns, and Calvin was afraid to go to an underground doctor, let alone seek medicine, lest he attract unnecessary attention.

Of course, the most fatal is Reed's coma.

Calvin has never been able to find the reason for Reed's coma, maybe it was hit by the masonry while escaping from Blue Diamond?Or was the high fever from the burns damaging Reed's brain?

During those nights, Calvin had to face his fears, and he found that he couldn't bear the consequences of Reed's permanent coma.

Fortunately, a week later, Fogg woke up.

By that time Calvin had found temporary shelter for himself and Reed in an outdoor campground.

There's free water and a bunch of bums who don't care about anything around them (well, some of them yell at Calvin for "fuck you assholes out"), and Calvin gets them from a couple of girls who say they're gypsies. Some fever reducers and burn ointment.

Reed's high fever finally subsided.

After Fogg sobered up, medication was no longer a problem.But considering physical problems, the only people who can do activities outside are Calvin, who is a bit too slender and graceful for an adult man, and who is suspected of being gay (after all, he and his "disabled boyfriend" always sticky together) once again caused a little trouble.

Fogg dealt with those people, but they also had to get out of there.

After a lot of tossing, Calvin and Fogg finally chose the town of Pietto as their temporary residence.

The religious atmosphere here is conservative and closed, which means that the influence of the Adventists here is very weak.And the locals are more focused on a baseball game with a neighboring town than a serious terrorist attack on a luxury hotel in a wealthy resort.

"And it used to be a very popular summer resort, but now it's only a place for fishing and camping in the woods that doesn't attract young people anymore. But there are still some regular old guests here, they come here every summer Last summer, and then go back to the city before the boring winter." Calvin shrugged, "There are not too many people here, and people's attitude towards outsiders is not warm, but they are not too defensive ... Fogg felt we should at least stay here until the injury fully healed."

Calvin talked a lot, but obviously, the focus of the other person in the room was not what Fogg said or what choices he made, but other things...

"Let me see your injury."

Reed stared at Calvin's increasingly thin face, and suddenly said.