Chapter 1: Chapter1
Chapter 1
In the scorching heat of the July sun, Duan Village was abuzz with the hustle and bustle of the residents within. In a place like this which was secluded from the outside world, the denizens only had themselves to interact with. So it wasn't uncommon to see neighbours chatting with each other by the benches, or children running around playing on the fields, or youths lazing about and flirting.
Such a scene portrayed the typical village lifestyle a city-dweller might come to expect from a rural area. It was a calm and simple place without much going for it in terms of momentous occasions.
In such an atmosphere, where most would be out getting tanned by the sunlight, one oddity stood by her window looking out into the lively world with lifeless eyes.
The figure was just another village girl of average height and unremarkable features, but much fairer in complexion due to a lack of exposure to the sun. Other than that though, she was as ordinary as they could come, in terms of appearance at least.
As for personality, the difference between herself and her peers couldn't be any wider. Frankly, it was the difference between heaven and earth! She wasn't the type to enjoy other's company, nor was she the type to play sports. She wasn't a person to gossip or to talk about her ideal partner with her friends. In fact, she wasn't the type to have any friends at all.
As a result, the girl spent most of her time indoors, under the shielding of her thick curtains and sturdy bedroom walls. This was how she regularly lived her life and it wasn't any different on the 10th of July. She had gone to bed with expectation of facing the same reality the very next day. Little did she know that her entire life would be turned upside down in the following hours.
*****
In a rural place like the village, everyone was usually up by the crack of dawn. This was something that was almost drilled into all the villager's heads. They wouldn't get a moment more or a moment less of sleep, even if the sky fell over.
On this day, however, the regular pattern was broken, and a loud crashing noise in the dead of the night signified an early awakening for everyone. A car had crashed into a building, and many villagers in the vicinity were awoken. A certain girl, who had just gone to sleep, included.
The girl was none other than the one from yesterday. Mild in appearance, but very dark and brooding in personality. She was Zhou Lingxin. She had a simple pair of clothes on and still had some dark circles under her eyes from being awoken so abruptly. She was used to sleeping late, so she hadn't really gotten any sleep when the sounds from earlier had woken her.
She walked towards her window, opened her curtains, and peaked out into the world to try and ascertain just what exactly was going on. This was a very bizarre phenomenon after all, since it wasn't everyday that such loud noises would be heard. Even the girl who had a calm and generally tranquil heart felt somewhat curious as to what could've caused all the commotion.
It was then that she saw a huge crowd of people. At first, she didn't believe her eyes when she saw that nearly the whole village awake. Some people were screaming in fear as they pointed at things beyond her field of vision. Others were trying to start-up their cars as quickly as possible, only to realize that their engines wouldn't start. And even though everyone was awake, not a single light was turned on. Even if this was a village, it still had electricity to power up a lot of lights. At present, however, the outside world resembled the inside of an ill-lit cave.
Even on the darkest days, there would be a few lights left on by some of the more paranoid, superstitious villagers.
Today, however, there was only darkness. Perhaps foreboding to the terrors that were to come.
Before she could rub her eyes to check if she was still dreaming, a scream erupted from the bottom of her house. It was her mother's voice!
Even though she didn't appreciate this mother of hers very much, what with her having divorced her biological father and marrying some other man, Zhou Lingxin still bolted out to check up on her.
She kicked open her door and hurtled down the stairs at record speed. Just as she neared the kitchen counter, which usually smelled of delicious goodies, the pungent scent of blood overwhelmed her.
Right then and right there, a small, blue, grotesque-looking fish-like being entered her line of sight. In its hands, or rather in its pointed fins, was her mother's neck, slowly being squeezed and strangled. Her arteries on the verge of exploding.
In that moment of life and death, the mother, who had already seemed to have lost all sense of vitality in her eyes, looked over her way for one last moment. A little, inaudible word forming in her mouth as their eyes made contact.
"Sor…"
Before she could get all her emotions out, her head was sent rolling down to the bottom of the fridge, leaving her headless corpse just standing there for a moment, before hitting the ground in a lifeless thud.
"Mom... "
Zhou Lingxin couldn't at all register what had just happened. Her mother whom she had hated to the bone, but spent bittersweet memories with, was now nothing more than an emaciated head and a puddle of blood. Creatures from story books were gnawing on her quickly disappearing flesh, and the scene in front of her made no sense.
In this moment, she was very emotional, and had unknowingly let out a whimper of low volume, getting two pairs of fish eyes to turn her way.
Letting out a low shriek, one of the creatures made a lunge for her.
Seeing the still-bloodstained claws coming for her, an overpowering, instinctual fear paralsyzed her body. If not for feeling her hand unconsciously slip over a metal object, and have it's cool texture awaken her, she would've probably ended up as food in the monster's belly.
With closed eyes, she mustered all of her courage to lift the thing and use it to whack away the incoming threat. Without waiting for another second, she turned and bolted up the stairs, the sounds of footsteps hot on her trail.
By the time she got to her room, she slammed it close with more power than a punch from a professional boxer, and immediately piled up what little possessions she had in front of it. Down went her table, chair and wardrobe, all in an attempt to block the door from opening and giving access to her room to the despicable beings outside.
She then collapsed onto the floor rather harshly and panted as she tried to regain her strength. All the while, miniscule knocking sounds continued to hit her now seemingly fragile door, which was also her last line of defence. She wasn't religious, but she prayed viciously for her safety at this moment, to the extent that even she was somewhat surprised at how insecure she felt. As her adrenaline rush began to die down, she could finally think somewhat rationally. Immediately, she clutched her head in shock.
What the hell had just happened!
Slowly the knocking sounds diminished before they abruptly came to a stop. She then sat upright before hugging her knees close to her chest. Her eyes were wider than they had ever been. Hundreds of thoughts flashed by her at rapid speed, and none of them seemed to make any sense.
Could this be a dream? What were those things outside? What were they doing in her kitchen? Was her mother really… gone?
Tormented by an endless plague of voices, she felt like screaming, but stopped at a small yelp as her consciousness kicked in and she heavily resisted the urge.
That's right. Now was not the time for panic. Only those who adapted, survived. And those who fell victim to things like fear… became food.
Those things outside, while many in number, were small and weak. They were nimble, but not very intelligent. They were easily distracted and outmaneuvered. And this was when spontaneous, haphazard plans were formed against them. If something like that were to be recreated again, but instead of doing things in the spur of the moment, and actually proceeding with a real plan, there was a good chance for survival
Besides, Zhou Lingxin knew that she wasn't alone. There was a whole village of people out there, and all she needed to do was to get out of this cursed house.
Okay. Calm down. Breathe!
Gathering her thoughts, the girl bit her teeth and rose. This seemingly simple action took a stupendous amount of willpower to muster, perhaps the most she had ever used instantaneously in her life.
In her hand was that very steel object that had saved her life a few moments earlier. Looking over to it, she realized that it was the pan that her mother had always used for making fried noodles. The very memory sent pangs of hurt rushing through her, threatening to cripple her rationality.
She clenched her fists and temporarily forget her fears, allowing the touch of the cool metal to once again overpower all other thoughts.
Though this pan had clashed head on with the fish creature's paws, it was still intact, showing just how useful of a weapon it would be in her upcoming battle. If she could somehow make use of it for an ambush, surviving this night would not actually be an impossibility.
The creatures had an acute sense of sound, and would chase anything they heard.
Remembering this, she once again took a deep breath and scurried over to her wardrobe, picking up some little trinkets and novelty items within. Once she had two whole handfuls of stuff, she tucked them in her pockets. She then slowly opened her door, in an impossibly stealthy manner, leaving it open by just a crack and giving her vision into the corridor. Based on what she saw, there were no creatures in sight.
She gathered even more guts than before and opened the door completely, then slowly headed outside. As she tip-toed over to the stairs, the smell of her mother's gore began to rattle her bravery.
Biting her lips hard, she snapped herself out of it and moved down the stairs, one small step at a time. Near the second last step, she finally saw one of those horrid blue things again. It was facing her, but not looking at her. If she were to move any further, it would definitely recognize her presence and pounce on her, which she absolutely did not want. Her plan to get out would not work if she engaged in direct confrontation with these things right now.
Who knew how many other creatures would be attracted by the sounds of fighting if she did?
Consequently, she had made a decision earlier. She would try her best to avoid full confrontation, and instead use a stealth approach. There were currently no lights turned on anywhere in the village, and in the middle of the night, only faint wisps of moonlight kept everything alight. But, everything was still pretty dark. If she could make use of the shadows and the enemy's blindspot, she could get out and get help just fine.
To get into someone's blindspot when they were facing you was pretty hard, especially for someone with no former experience in doing so like Zhou Lingxin. But what she had in place of experience being a ninja, was her sharp mind, that was very adept at avoiding people and social interaction at almost any time during the day. Zhou Lingxin was skilled at distracting people from focusing on her, so that she could always have her own peace and quiet, which she valued quite a bit. She always directed conversations she was forced into away from herself, and used the opportunities created from such tactics to silently leave.
As such, though the skills of misdirection and stealth were not completely related, they had some similarities which Zhou Lingxin thought to use to her advantage.
The first rule of being a loner: avoid attracting too much attention.
Applying this rule, Zhou Lingxin reached into her pockets and pulled out one of the trinkets she'd taken from the wardrobe earlier, a glass hair pin. It was something that her real father had given her a long time ago, but she no longer had any sentimental attachments to it.
What a joke! What was more important, her life or some trash item given to her by a missing man?
Obviously, it was the former. With this in mind, she pulled back her arm, angled it appropriately, and violently thrust it out in an arc. She used the forward momentum to propel the hair pin in her hand, letting it blaze through the living and down into the cellar. It eventually made a shattering sound, eliciting a surprised and a somewhat alert cry from the fish creature in front of her.
It quickly turned its head and moved in the direction of the sound, giving Zhou Lingxin a very opportune moment to change her position and get closer to the outside world.
In the creature's frenzied state, it was alert, but only selectively so. So it put all of it's mental reserves on focusing on what was in front of it, completely ignoring the little figure that was sneaking up behind it. After all, this was only a creature of limited intelligence and a very primitive behavioural pattern. Things like diversions or distractions were too complicated for it to understand, so it never tried to comprehend or consider them in the first place.
In the creature's head, every object that was capable of making noise, and smelled different from it, was an enemy. So it furiously picked at the shattered glass pin as if doing battle with an enemy that had killed its parents. Only a while later did it realize that the object was of no threat to it, reluctantly letting it go while offering it a parting glance.
During this time, Zhou Lingxin wasn't sitting idle. She was calculating the fish creature's every step and gesture, and the second it disappeared down the cellar, she had made her move.
Half-crouched in the shadows, a pan and some trinkets in hand, she was a sight to behold. Every time her feet came into contact with the rickety wooden floorboards, she would wince and look around in fear, as if feeling that a literal monster would attack her at any given moment.
Fortunately for her though, she was only being paranoid, and the slow crawl to the door was uneventful, which left her greatly pleased.
Perhaps overjoyed and a little blinded by her achievement, she had made the careless mistake of opening the door without first checking if there was anything outside.
What confronted her was the ugly face of another fish monster, not more than a few inches apparent from her nose.
"Gliiiiiiikkk!!"
CREATORS' THOUGHTS 
Kitani_Suko
Kitani_Suko Author’s Notes: Enjoy!
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