Chapter Seven: Xu Na's Hunger: Putrid Secret Within the Satchel
2147 Words
Gray fog, thick as leaden walls, choked the world beyond the 307 window. Chen Mo slumped against the frigid metal door, the fresh carvings of the deformed avian claw and strangling vines etched into the wood like venomous barbs in his nerves. Each trace of his finger over the cold incisions felt like deciphering a suicide note left by an unseen hand, steeped in terror and desperation. His knuckles stood white from clenching, his body trembling between agitation and icy dread. Outside, the crimson sweep of alarm lights finally ceased; the broadcast’s shrill siren snapped into silence. A pall of stillness descended, a suffocating shroud draped over the vast prison.
Yet this silence vibrated now—tight as a bowstring drawn to breaking.
Thud… Thud… Thud…
Measured, heavy knocks—cold as an executioner’s mallet—shattered the stagnant air. They pierced the dense portal, instantly fracturing the tumult of fear and fury within Chen Mo’s mind.
Hu Qiang?!
Chen Mo’s body coiled instantly, pressing against the cold steel like a startled gecko. His heart plunged. He wasn’t finished?! The alarms ceased—did that mean “all clear”? Had Li Entai’s delegation departed? Was Hu Qiang here to collect his debt?
"Teacher Chen…" The voice beyond the door, incongruous against the brutal knocking, was faint, choked with suppressed sobs, breathless as suffocation. "It’s me… Xu Na…"
Xu Na?!
The name seared through the frost encasing Chen Mo’s thoughts. The skeletal girl, hiding food in the cafeteria—terrified! What was she doing here? In the dead of night? Alone?
Profound shock and wariness eclipsed fear. Chen Mo surged upright, pain flaring from his scrapes. He didn’t unlock the door immediately, pressing his ear against the narrow gap.
No footsteps echoed outside. An unnatural silence reigned, as if Xu Na had materialized before his threshold.
Only the faintest, choked whimpers—the sound of a dying kitling—filtered through the seam. A sob buried deep within the throat, throttled by an invisible fist, escaping as the merest tremor. It resonated with fathomless agony and marrow-deep terror.
Wrong. This was all wrong.
Chen Mo’s fingers hovered over the cold brass lock, knuckles taut. The unnatural quiet, broken only by Xu Na’s despair, felt infinitely more chilling than Hu Qiang’s roar. He shifted silently, rose on tiptoe, held his breath, and pressed his eye to the narrow, fisheye-like window set high in the door—a peephole glazed with milky, one-way glass.
Shapes distorted through the haze. Yet, discernible: a gaunt silhouette clad in a thin grey school uniform, hunched against the door in a grotesque posture. Xu Na. Her frame shuddered like the last autumn leaf clinging to a barren branch. Both hands clamped violently over her mouth, muffling despairing whimpers. Her head pressed against the steel at an unnatural angle, as if seeking to merge with the metal. Her eyes, stretched wide enough to tear the sockets, stared not inward, but transfixed upon the abyssal blackness shrouding the corridor's distant end. It seemed empty, yet to Xu Na, that profound dark held lurking horrors—her gaze petrified by unthinkable, inhuman dread.
What did she see? What did she fear?
An icy frisson exploded along Chen Mo’s spine, chilling his skull. He whipped his head around.
The room remained dim, furniture mere silhouettes in the feeble window light. The surveillance dome hovered in its corner—a cold, unblinking third eye. But its lens direction…
Chen Mo’s blood froze solid.
The spherical camera, previously aimed squarely at the bed and door, had shifted—subtly, yet unmistakably—to a new, oblique angle. Its dark lens, like a pupil subtly dilated, now focused precisely… upon the door? Upon Chen Mo peering out? Upon the terrified child quivering beyond?
A numbing cold paralysis washed from scalp to soles. Not illusion. Someone manipulated it. Someone watched. Here. Within this frozen silence. Invisible pressure crushed down like mountains.
"Mmph!" Outside, Xu Na’s muffled sob choked off—strangled. It transformed into a gasp of pure terror! Then came rapid, rasping breaths—a punctured bellows—accompanied by a rhythmic, dripping sound! Plink… Plink… Plink!
What was happening to her?!
Chen Mo’s heart hammered against his ribs. Pain from his wounds vanished, consumed by sheer adrenaline. He yanked the bolt back! The heavy door groaned open a crack—a desperate gambit!
A frigid gale, heavy with the putrid stench of decay, blasted inward—filling the confined space instantly! Outside, Xu Na’s frail frame collapsed—stiff, desiccated, like a leaf drained of all life—crashing backward onto the icy terrazzo with a sickening thud! She convulsed, hands clawing at her throat, face waxen, shifting to a ghastly corpse-grey! Her lips bloomed an ominous violet-blue! Eyes rolled upwards, whites showing stark against unfocused terror. Beside her battered body lay her worn canvas satchel. Its side pocket gaped open, revealing a small, viscous mass of dark crimson flesh—putrid, writhing, emanating a noxious fetor! Pulpy matter oozed thick, sepia fluid; suspiciously mouldered bones protruded from its edges. This was the source of the horrific smell.
"Xu Na!" Heart clamped by terror and fury, Chen Mo surged through the doorway! Heedless of the stench and grotesque satchel! He knelt beside her convulsing form! Reached out to support her—
His fingertip hovered above her icy shoulder—when his peripheral vision snagged it! Deep within the shadows by the corridor’s end—within the crack beneath the closed iron door labelled "Tranquility Chamber"—
An eye.
Lifeless. Cold. Sclera only.
No iris. No lids. A peeled, macerated egg floating in murk. It turned, glacially slow, within the door’s shadow. Fixed… fixed… upon the corridor center—staring at the convulsing girl… at Chen Mo kneeling beside her!
A soul-freezing terror—cold as the abyss—flooded Chen Mo. His blood turned to sludge. Every hair on his neck stood rigid. That eye… was not human.
The thing in the Tranquility Chamber!? It tormented Xu Na? Drove her here? Watched unseen? It worked with the cameras?! This school’s hidden rot… was viler than he’d imagined!
The next instant, the horrific eye receded—slow, silent—vanishing within the slit. Only a faint, oily gleam smeared the edge remained.
"Gah… uhh…" A final, airless rattle escaped Xu Na’s throat. The hands strangling her fell limp. On her deathly grey face, the rolled-back eyes suddenly snapped wide—pupils contracting to pinpricks in ultimate terror! A flicker of awareness—seeing Chen Mo? Seeing hope? One icy, sticky, corpse-cold hand shot up! Clutching Chen Mo’s outstretched wrist with drowning desperation! Claws digging deep into his flesh!
Her lips trembled violently, parting for speech, emitting only hollow, dry gasps! "Hhah… hhah…" Simultaneously, her other hand—drenched in snot, tears, and filth—trembled upwards. A dying spasm. Aimed desperately toward the fallen satchel… toward the gaping pocket… toward the nauseating, reeking mass of putrescence!
What was she trying to say? The bag? The rotten meat?!
Clarity struck Chen Mo. Heart pounding. She intended this?! Opened the pocket on purpose?! Fled here because of this revolting thing?! Driven by the entity behind the iron door?! She wanted him to see it?! But what… what was it?!
"Here she is!" A flat, affectless female voice cracked from the corridor’s far end.
Li Enci.
Impeccable in aquamarine wool, she materialized from the stairwell shadows—a machine spectre. Her habitual smile was absent, replaced by transactional severity. Clutched in her hand: a compact auto-injector pen emitting an eerie green glow.
Behind her: two impassive, powerfully built orderlies in navy overalls. Hu Qiang was one! His baleful glare—venom-tipped knives—raked Chen Mo’s face. A cruel smirk played on his lips, a silent echo: "I told you to wait."
Li Enci approached, her heels striking the desolate hallway like funeral drums. She ignored the satchel. Ignored the convulsing child. Ignored the vanished eye (as if aware or blind to it). Her razor gaze speared Chen Mo, projecting magisterial judgment. Her voice shattered like cracked ice:
"Teacher Chen! Deep in the night! Disturbing dormitory peace! Frightening a student! What are you doing?!"
Chen Mo’s heart raced. Throat tightened. Xu Na’s icy fingers still gouged his wrist. Her other hand pointed its dying tremor at the bag—its horror exposed to all!
"S-she’s sick! Badly!" Chen Mo forced the words against Li Enci’s withering gaze, voice hoarse with tension and rage. He angled his body, trying to block the open pocket. "She needs a doctor! Now!"
"A doctor? We have a school medic!" Li Enci closed in, looking down on the dying girl with clinical distaste—a broken appliance. "But what she needs isn’t some common physician! She requires—Tranquility!" The final word slammed down like an ice axe, commanding absolute obedience.
She dismissed Chen Mo, commanding the orderlies: "Administer! Prepare C-Wing Tranquility Chamber! Immediately!"
The orderly beside Hu Qiang stepped forward. With ghostly efficiency, he drew a bulkier injector—bearing a stark "EMERGENCY" label—from a metal case at his hip. Its viscous amber contents glinted ominously. Kneeling, he callously pried Xu Na’s desperate grip from Chen Mo, yanked up her sleeve, revealing ghostly flesh mottled with livid bruises and needle marks. The brutal procedure unfolded with chilling speed.
"No!" Chen Mo roared. But Hu Qiang’s iron hand clamped onto his shoulder—an anvil’s weight pinning him helpless!
The thick needle plunged into Xu Na’s skeletal arm. The thick amber fluid surged inward.
"Mmm—!" Like electrocution, Xu Na’s body arched violently. Then, life fled. She went utterly, terrifyingly limp. Motionless. Her features, frozen in terror, smoothed into vacuous stillness. Only a phantom whisper of breath hinted at lingering life.
Li Enci surveyed the sedated girl with cold satisfaction. Only then did her gaze drift to the stinking, open satchel. An infinitesimal flicker—of understanding, of absolute control—passed over her features. She bent slightly, ostensibly checking Xu Na, one hand resting casually on the tattered bag. Her fingers brushed the edge of the open pocket. Her icy stare swept the revolting contents within. Her lip curled, disdainful as flicking off dust.
"Bring the bag," she commanded the orderly, her voice professionally level, brooking no dissent. "Take the child. Is the Tranquility Chamber prepared?"
"Ready," Hu Qiang grunted, one hand still shackling Chen Mo, the other hoisting Xu Na’s limp body like a sack of flour over his shoulder.
"Hu Qiang, escort Teacher Chen back to his quarters. He’s endured quite an ordeal," Li Enci instructed, cradling the foul satchel like innocuous luggage. The meticulously false warmth returned to her face as she nodded at Chen Mo. "My apologies for the disturbance, Teacher Chen. The child suffers severe psychobehavioral disruptions. Obsessed with imaginary treasures—collecting vile detritus to torment her own nerves. The area will be sanitized tomorrow. Please… rest." Cradling the heavy burden, she turned, disappearing down the C-Wing staircase—a blue phantom swallowed by the gloom.
Silence reclaimed the hallway. Chen Mo, alone. Agony pulsed where Hu Qiang had gripped him. The suffocating reek of decay hung thick—a putrid monument to the atrocity witnessed.
Chen Mo staggered back. All strength bled away. He slumped against the cold doorframe of 307, sliding down, his spine hitting the metal with a dull thud. His vacant stare fixed on the spot where Xu Na had fallen. On the terrazzo, amidst a smear of viscous spittle and grime, lay scattered…
A few minuscule, hard fragments, crushed and misshapen… white pills?!
One fragment, half-trampled into the filth, revealed enough of its compressed edge. Blurred, yet devastatingly clear, stamped letters seared into Chen Mo’s vision—
L-E-N-A-I-S…
(Lenais?)
This was…
A potent surgical anesthetic… With devastating psychoactive properties? A Schedule I Narcotic?!
An icy fist ripped through Chen Mo’s chest cavity! Absolute cold fury drowned him!
The satchel! That obscene, putrid meat! It was a shield. A deliberate, repellent screen—masking the only scent that mattered. Xu Na hid objects, not coveted food. It wasn’t greed—it was survival. Hiding her life-saving medication. She’d harnessed the vilest decay to smother the faintest scent of the drug! Hiding what? From the cafeteria patrols? The omnipresent cameras? Or… from the cold, watching eye behind the Tranquility Chamber’s iron door?!
The gaping pocket wasn’t accident—it was confession. A final gambit. Her dying tremor… pointing the way!
Amongst the filth, a single battered pill lay exposed—half-buried, half-accusing.
Chen Mo’s trembling hand reached towards the minuscule token of despair. His fingertips brushed the cold, compressed disc—and the clammy, viscous dampness beside it. Tears and spittle. Xu Na’s final trace.
Clammy. Cold.
A silent scream vibrated through his touch.
- Writer
