13 Mink Street

Chapter 3 Sitting Up

This isn't reality...

After waking up two weeks ago, Karen spent almost a week trying to accept and verify that she had traveled to another "real world," not just a dream or a fantasy.

But now,

What she faced was

definitely not reality!

She should... no, she was definitely still in the basement of the Inmerles family's house.

All these strange changes began when she tried to pry Jeff's head off.

Add to that the huge red high heels and the woman's face before her—this product and environment, so utterly unrealistic and beyond rational thought, could only mean one thing: she had been "hypnotized."

The word "hypnosis" has many meanings, but in this case, it means being torn from her physical body and simultaneously trapped in a spiritual one.

A vague interpretation: she was... dreaming.

The radio continued to hum with the sound of snowflakes.

And above,

the woman's mouth began to slowly open.

After stretching to the maximum curvature possible for a normal face, it continued to open, and a distinct rustling sound, like the rustling of a zipper, could be heard.

Until the mouth completely bisected her face horizontally. The once tightly packed teeth, stretched wider, began to appear vastly spaced apart, while the giant, nimble tongue drooped downward with an even more bizarre and agile gesture!

Like a gecko about to devour the tiny mosquito.

"Buzz!"

Karen felt a damp, warm embrace envelop her entire body, and then she was lifted and lifted.

Being lifted high, or more generally, being moved rapidly, feels a thrilling "ticklish" sensation, similar to riding a pirate ship or a pendulum.

When this sensation reaches a certain intensity, it can easily lead to disorientation and even fainting.

This is a dream, this is a dream...

Karen muttered to himself. What he needed to do now was to "wake up" quickly.

He didn't actually understand the reason for his current situation, but that didn't stop him from dragging the unknown into his familiar and expert areas to solve it.

It's like solving a puzzle: instead of sitting there scratching his head, it's better to try to gradually substitute the known formulas, even if it means... forcing them.

In fact, the human mind has always been an extremely mysterious "place."

Normal people will naturally wake up after a certain period of dreaming. However, there is a very low chance that someone may realize it's a dream but be unable to wake up for a while. This is also known as "sleep paralysis."

For those who are curious, this is called "lucid dreaming." Through certain training and self-suggestion techniques, one can increase their chances of achieving a lucid dream.

Most people, after initially being drawn to it, often end up avoiding it. Each time they force themselves to awaken, the feeling of despair, like a drowning person emerging from the depths of an abyss, is enough to drive them mad and leave them utterly terrified.

For those whose minds are regularly exercised due to real-life work, this can easily lead them to fabricate their "dreams" to seem even more realistic, effectively trapping themselves in a cocoon.

Even more seriously, dreams can be layered, with the subconscious mind "working" to deceive you through dreams, causing you to "wake up" only to "wake up" to a new dream layer, thereby reducing your resistance to the dream. This is called "true self-deception."

If the average person's "sleep paralysis" is simply surfacing from the abyss, then this kind of experience is like a winter swimmer surfacing and discovering a thick layer of ice above their head.

What are the consequences of not waking up from a dream...? It's impossible to define, as there's no "died in a dream" checkbox on a death certificate. Even those who "survive a dream" will have their death dismissed as a mere dream, with no real physical harm.

The wind whipped fiercely past his ears. The tongue's resilience was so strong that Karen was swept up and thrust into his mouth at breakneck speed.

Then,

there was a dense, unceasing sound of chewing and sucking.

Those sounds, those lingering sounds,

relentlessly entered Karen's ears.

You are being eaten, you are being torn apart, you are being swallowed...

You are dying... You are dying... You are dying... You are dying... You... are dead!

Karen knew that if he didn't wake up, his fate would be dire.

Those who have died once often don't take life and death lightly... Instead, they cherish the beauty of life all the more. Karen was like that.

He didn't want to die!

In this environment, one must bolster sufficient faith and courage to break through the barriers of this "dream," returning consciousness to the body and reality.

In the past, due to work and personal interests, Karen had encountered similar situations. While not as bizarre or terrifying as the current one, he had a practical plan for dealing with them.

Illusions must be pierced with truth;

Weakness must be reshaped with ideals;

Obstacles must be overcome with truth!

When you feel powerless, you can seek support.

So,

Karen began to sing,

Reaching out with all his heart and soul:

"Arise, slaves of hunger and cold, arise, the suffering of the world;

The blood in our hearts is boiling, let us fight for truth..."

At this moment, faith, belief, transformed into the most fervent will, is needed to free oneself from this spiritual quagmire. Furthermore, in a past life, Karen had been a staunch materialist.

As he sang,

the sound of his body being chewed gradually faded. Karen felt himself rising. He continued singing, slowly lowering his head.

He saw the woman's teeth, her tongue,

then her mouth,

her entire face,

Finally,

he saw the face between her legs, seemingly growing yet fused together...it was a deeply jarring sight.

And then,

the snowflake sound faded.

Then,

the male voice that had spoken earlier spoke with a hint of doubt:

"Huh...who are you?"

Then,

"Where...is this?"

Karen raised his head and

began to activate all his bodily senses.

Open his eyes,

Open his eyes,

Open his eyes!

...

"Buzz!"

Karen opened his eyes and

saw Aunt Mary squatting before him, looking at him anxiously.

“Hoo…Hoo…Hoo…”

Seeing Karen wake up, Aunt Mary sank to the floor, patting her chest repeatedly.

“I was so scared, so scared, Karen… Do you have any idea how terrifying it was when you suddenly fell and fainted just now?”

This nephew had recently fallen seriously ill and nearly died.

If anything happened now, Aunt Mary didn't know how she would explain it to her father-in-law, who had helped push the body down.

Karen took a deep breath,

forced a smile,

and said,

"It's okay, Auntie. I'm probably still a little weak."

Karen looked up and saw Jeff's face on the stretcher in front of her, straightened up.

"Meow..."

A cat's meow came from outside Aunt Mary's studio. The black cat, "Pall," poked its head out, seemingly observing the situation with curiosity.

Karen put his hands on the ground, trying to stand, but suddenly felt a pain in his face. Then, a warm current surged in his nose, and blood began to drip.

"I... I just patted you to wake you up," Aunt Mary explained.

Is this called... patting?

But what could Karen say? He could only continue:

"Thank you, Auntie."

"Go upstairs and rest. I'll call Mina to clean up for you. You're no longer needed here."

Aunt Mary didn't dare let her eldest nephew stay here any longer.

Karen nodded, stood up, and glanced at Jeff lying on the stretcher. He instinctively felt that his sudden dream was connected to the body. So, if he left his aunt alone to work, would she be in danger?

Just then,

From the basement revolving door came his cousin Lent's voice:

"Mom, Grandpa's back."

Grandpa was the undisputed head of the household in the Immels family. Normally, when he returned home, everyone, especially the women, would come to greet him, even if... you were at work.

Lent ran over. He also saw the body on the stretcher, but he wasn't too frightened.

Anything scary becomes insignificant after you've seen it so often in your home.

"Lent, take your brother to your sister to stop the bleeding with the medicine box," Mary instructed.

She was worried that she hadn't ruptured Karen's nose when she'd just slapped him. If the nosebleed wasn't treated, it might never stop.

"Oh, okay, Mom, brother, come."

Karen held his head high, one hand covering his nose, the other hand held by Lent as he walked out. As he passed the entrance, he felt someone standing in front of him.

The man wasn't very imposing, but standing there, he gave off a sense of stability, as if he could handle anything with ease.

Karen's restlessness suddenly eased.

"Grandpa," Lent called out.

"Grandpa," Karen called back.

In his memory, Grandpa Des Inmerles was a very serious man, but he often showed a tender side when it came to his "eldest grandson."

"Yeah."

Dis nodded and walked downstairs without saying anything, nor did he comment on Karen's nose.

Lent seemed a little afraid of his grandfather, so he quickly took his brother's hand and went upstairs to find his sister.

The lights in the basement were dim.

As Dis walked downstairs, he saw the black cat "Pall" walking gracefully towards him.

Dis stopped, and

The black cat also stopped.

"Are you free today?" Dis asked.

"Meow..."

Pall wagged its tail and tilted its head, seemingly confused by Dis's words.

Dis waved, seemingly uninterested in talking to a cat, and went straight to his daughter-in-law, Mary's studio.

Mary was sitting there lighting a cigarette. She'd been a bit shaken by her nephew's condition, but she hadn't expected her father-in-law to arrive so soon, so she stubbed out the cigarette in shock.

The smoke that was supposed to puff out of her nostrils escaped a little, but it was retracted and swallowed.

"Cough... cough... cough..."

Mary coughed until tears came out of her eyes.

Dis didn't pay much attention to his daughter-in-law. Instead, his gaze fell on Jeff. He reached out, pried open Jeff's eyelids, and placed his palm on Jeff's chest.

Then Dis's gaze narrowed slightly.

Then,

He took another step back, seemingly surveying the studio, sniffing.

Mary said immediately:

"I'll never smoke in the studio again, never again..."

Mary was truly afraid of her father-in-law. It wasn't just because she and her husband were now "living under someone else's roof," but simply because he was... inexplicably terrifying, even though he was still the kindly priest at Mink Street Church.

Dis waved his hand and

asked:

"What just happened?"

"I... Karen suddenly fainted, and I broke his nose to wake him up. I..."

"Karen fainted?"

"Yes... yes."

"And then, Pall came in, didn't he?"

"Pall?" Mary was stunned for a moment before realizing it was the name of the family's black cat. She had always wondered why her father-in-law had given the cat such an unpleasant and difficult-to-pronounce name.

"It seems... I..." Mary tried to recall as best she could. "Karen woke up on her own. Pall, Pall, it didn't come in."

Mary hadn't noticed the black cat outside the studio earlier, but she was certain it hadn't appeared near her, at least, it hadn't come in.

"No?" Diss seemed to ponder. "Karen, did she wake up on her own?"

"Yes, Father."

"Where did he die?"

"Here's the welfare check, Father. He must have frozen to death on the side of the road last night."

"Welfare check? Call your husband back."

"Mason's gone to Huashuiwan Nursing Home..."

"Call him back."

"Yes, I understand, Father."

Even after living in this family for quite a while, Mary still felt a sense of pressure when facing her father-in-law. Many other daughters-in-law addressed their parents-in-law by their first names, but she would never dare.

For her, the term "father" held a certain religious connotation.

The daughter-in-law hurriedly left the studio.

Diss reached out and closed the door.

Then he walked over to the stretcher and sat down in the chair where Mary had been, looking at Jeff lying before him.

The studio fell silent, save for the occasional flicker of the light bulb, which flickered slightly due to the voltage.

Diss reached forward,

clasped his hands in front of him.

From beneath his feet,

black shadows began to spread, like wildly growing vines, quickly spreading across the tiles and surrounding walls, "enveloping" everything.

At this moment,

Diss spoke:

"Tell me, how did you die?"

It was absurd; he was actually asking a dead person a question.

But then, an even more absurd scene unfolded:

Jeff, long dead on the stretcher, actually slowly sat up on his own...

——

This "awakening" scene is based on my own real experience, and I'm not kidding. If you're struggling with the same thing, you can learn from the Internationale.

I originally planned to post the book at noon, but I couldn't resist the pressure, so I posted it right after midnight. I only gave three hours' notice, and yet many of you still stayed up all night to accompany me until midnight.

I was deeply moved.

As an author, this is a tremendous blessing and recognition.

A new journey has begun. I will continue to write this story to the best of my ability and with the utmost sincerity.

You are the stars above my head. Because of you, the night is no longer lonely.