My Cthulhu Girlfriend (gl) 2

Chapter 2: The Sound of Rain

It had been raining in Lǜ’è City since the beginning of autumn. The drizzle covered the damp and bustling city, as if sealing off people’s five senses, even making their perceptions duller than on sunny days.

Beneath the sound of rain, Xiang Er raised her eyes, her eyelashes trembling slightly. The tip of her nose caught that clinging, peculiar fishy smell, unlike the smell of any kind of food.

And at this moment, she was pondering a question:

Was this sculpture facing her before?

Was it really such a coincidence that the sculpture happened to meet her gaze?

Xiang Er couldn’t understand.

She wanted to raise her hand, but found her arms heavy, unable to lift them at all. Oh, right, after dragging the suitcase for so long, it was normal that she couldn’t raise her arms now.

She propped herself up on the bed and moved downwards, her legs numb and heavy, a tingling electric current running through them… suddenly, reminding her of the feeling in her dream, of being entangled by that thing.

It was cold, the dark red suckers clinging tightly to her skin, the suffocating, viscous liquid almost pouring into every pore. A feeling that even now, recalling it, made her shudder with fear.

Her gaze fell on her legs. There were several purplish bruises on her calves, like jade adorned with emerald green, beautiful yet searing to the eye.

Had she… really bumped herself like this? When kicking the suitcase, or climbing the stairs?

But the purplish marks didn’t look like bruises from bumping; they looked more like… long, streak-like marks left by something tightly wrapped around her, coil after coil, layer after layer.

Xiang Er frowned, then turned her head again. The eyes of the sculpture were still fixed on her, but they no longer emitted that eerie glow, returning to their original, dull wooden state.

She lifted her heavy hand, picked up the sculpture, and examined it carefully for a long while. There was nothing unusual.

She must be stressed. She put down the sculpture, tidied herself up, slid off the bed, and started cooking instant noodles on a small electric stove on the floor.

The trip had cost a lot of money, and she would have to be frugal for the next six months.

Xiang Er had just turned twenty-one and had graduated less than six months ago. An orphan since childhood, she had studied very hard and attended a good university. However, it was difficult to find a job with a liberal arts degree. She had finally found her current job, and only after securing a permanent position did she dare to travel.

She chose an off-the-beaten-path tourist destination, saw the autumn mountains and rivers, met many ethnic minority people, was ripped off two or three times, and also saw some unforgettable scenery.

She thought about the legends she had heard along the way. The elderly ethnic minority women selling goods, each one had countless stories, fantastical and exaggerated, of unknown truth, mostly to promote the souvenirs in their hands.

Xiang Er stirred the instant noodles while glancing at the sculpture. The old woman had remained silent about the legends related to this sculpture, only saying that it was a symbolic object of an unseen god, sold only to those who were destined for it.

Xiang Er had bought it for only thirteen yuan at the time. A sinister smile appeared beneath the old woman’s layers of wrinkles. She had said something to Xiang Er, but Xiang Er was in a hurry to leave and hadn’t heard clearly.

What exactly had she said?

As Xiang Er pondered this, the noodles overcooked, and she quickly turned off the heat.

She brought the noodles to the desk to eat, casually turning the sculpture so that it faced away from her.

After she finished eating, sleepiness washed over her again, and she lay down on the bed and fell asleep.

Her dreams were chaotic and confusing. She was lying down, but it felt like she was floating in a river, surrounded by thick, black, viscous river water, effortlessly supporting her, slowly surging beneath her like ocean waves.

Xiang Er asked:

“Where is this?”

She didn’t know who she was asking. She just wanted to make a sound to ease the panic in her heart.

Suddenly, rain began to fall on the river, large, red raindrops, falling into the black river water and disappearing instantly.

Those red raindrops also fell on Xiang Er. She raised her hand to block them, but found that the back of her hand, her head, her shoulders, were all covered in red… blood.

Those weren’t raindrops, they were blood.

“Ah!”

She screamed, frantically slapping at the river water, just wanting to leave this terrifying place!

At that moment, a dark red tentacle with suckers rose from the river below.

The suckers opened and closed, as if breathing, coming straight towards Xiang Er. Xiang Er reached out to push it away, but had no strength. She could only let the tentacle approach her as she slapped the river water even more frantically.

However, the tentacle slowed down the moment it neared Xiang Er’s chest. Then, it lifted, slowly, softly, gently and intimately, pressing lightly against Xiang Er’s heart.

Its tip tapped lightly against her chest, following a certain rhythm.

Under this strange tapping, Xiang Er actually calmed down quite a bit.

Above the dark, swirling river, beneath the torrential downpour of blood…

The girl and the tentacle seemed intertwined.

***

She woke up in the dead of night.

The night was like a waterfall pouring into her eyes. In the dark room, Xiang Er sat on the bed, panting heavily, looking out the window in bewilderment. The old residential compound used dark blue glass panes, adding an indigo tint to the night, like blue ink swirling and swaying in black ink.

The rain seemed to have stopped, and some indigo light filtered in through the window.

Xiang Er felt utterly exhausted. Why did she keep having such dreams? It was so uncomfortable, she couldn’t sleep properly.

She switched on the dim light in her room, carried the instant noodle pot and bowl out of the room, washed them in the kitchen, and returned to her room.

She hadn’t slept well or eaten well all day. Her heart was pounding, and she felt utterly unwell.

Afraid of having that dream again, she didn’t even want to sleep, but in the middle of the night, there was nothing else to do but sleep.

Sitting on the bed, Xiang Er’s gaze couldn’t help but turn towards the sculpture again.

Her heart jolted.

The sculpture… was facing her again.

That eye was watching her.

“Hmm?”

An involuntary sound escaped her throat, startling her in the silent night.

Her body stiffened, her back straightening. She forced herself not to overthink. She must have turned the sculpture around again after eating. It must be that…

But the fishy smell in the room lingered.

She had eaten instant noodles, without even an egg. There shouldn’t be such a persistent fishy smell.

Xiang Er carefully sat up and peered out the window. Outside was a large camphor tree, its dense, dark green leaves holding rainwater, shimmering faintly.

The surroundings were eerily quiet. The old residential compound had only a few privately installed streetlights, emitting weak light, illuminating only a small area. The other buildings, the stone paths, the large trees, and the moss were all swallowed by darkness.

Xiang Er’s heart pounded. She raised her hand and pressed it against her chest, feeling a tightness in her heart. Looking down…

On her chest, right where her heart was, there was a sucker-shaped mark.

Her heartbeat abruptly skipped several beats. For a moment, the only sound between heaven and earth was Xiang Er’s heavy breathing, the world shrinking down to just that sucker mark, stubbornly refusing to disappear from her bloodshot vision!

A pain stabbed at the corner of Xiang Er’s eyes. When she came to her senses, her teeth were chattering, her lips bitten until they bled, the taste of blood filling her mouth.

And the sucker mark was still there, exactly the same as when she first discovered it, fresh, reddish-purple, slightly painful to the touch.

It was real, this mark was real!

Who left it? This unusual, circular mark with slightly serrated edges, how was it made, and with what?

Xiang Er’s throat felt like it was stuffed with cotton. She wanted to scream, but no sound came out. She wanted to stand up and leave this place, but… where could she go?

An orphan, a young girl drifting insignificantly in the provincial capital, she had no home; this was her home.

Xiang Er wanted to turn around, but if she did, she would inevitably bump into the sculpture.

Bump into that terrifying, intently calm eye, and those strange tentacles fluttering around it.

Her body extremely stiff, her hand on her chest falling limply, she dragged her heavy body backwards, without turning her head, her calf hitting the bed, causing her to fall onto it.

She stared at the ceiling, feeling herself tremble all over. The bizarre dreams, the bruises on her legs, the mark on her chest… what was going on?

Although she hadn’t always slept well in the past, she had never had dreams like this before, dreams whose content she could remember so clearly upon waking, still retaining the eerie sensations from within the dream.

What exactly… was it?

An answer was rising in her heart, but she dared not acknowledge it. It felt like, instinctively, that once she acknowledged “it,” something even more terrifying would happen.

But what else could she do?

Her breathing gradually evened out, and she slowly calmed down. She recalled the scene in her dream, the strange, dark red tentacle…

“Ah! It hurts…”

A sudden, needle-like pain shot through her head. What a terrifying pain! As if an electric drill was boring directly into her brain. But actually, she could sense that this pain wasn’t real, partly a product of her own psychological state.

She was too panicked now, and just thinking about it caused a sympathetic pain in her chest.

She rolled over, covering her head, deliberately turning away from the sculpture. She saw the frame of her wooden bed.

There seemed to be something on the wall behind the bed frame.

She pressed her hand to her head, trying to move closer to see clearly.

Just then, a sound came from the living room, someone moving around, the distinct plop plop of footsteps.

Xiang Er stared at the bedroom door. It was so fragile, so old, she hadn’t changed the lock, and she couldn’t remember if she had locked it.

The security here was very poor. The old residential compound had no property management, and it was mostly occupied by elderly people. Thefts occurred frequently.

It was three o’clock in the morning, and the moon outside was dark.

Fresh from such a terrifying dream, she was extremely panicked, fearing that outside the door was…

“Xiang Er? Are you asleep?”

It was her roommate! Her roommate’s normal, clear voice!

When her roommate’s voice rang out, she genuinely, deeply sighed in relief!

This was practically the only normal thing that had happened to her all day!

Xiang Er responded eagerly:

“What’s up? I’m not asleep.”

Her roommate said:

“Then come out, I have something to ask you.”

A “Whoosh—” sound filled the air. Outside, the downpour started again.

Xiang Er quickly turned towards the bed. Her gaze landed on the large-eyed sculpture, and she quickly turned away as if burned, not daring to look again, and slipped on her slippers.

Before opening the door, she couldn’t suppress her curiosity and went to the head of the bed to look.

On the damp wall behind the wooden bed frame, there grew clusters of plump, beautiful mushrooms, vibrant and swaying.

The first thing Xiang Er realized: there are no blood-red, translucent mushrooms in the world.

The next thing she realized: the mushrooms were swaying, but there was no wind in the room.