Autophagy

He felt a round-shaped thing entering his mouth.

'Fuck! The pills!' Song Lei panicked. He felt the pills being pushed into his throat with a bit of the tomato soup. As he didn't have much strength in him, he couldn't resist and swallowed the pill.

Song Lei started sweating profusely. Whatever the pill was, Song Lei knew that it was doing something to his body.

The being took the leftover pills off of the tray and put them on the nightstand next to Song Lei. It lifted the tray and left the room while turning the lights on. Song Lei didn't realize the changes as he was still hyperventilating and sweating. His body was aching as veins bulged out of his skin.

After having a few seizures, Song Lei finally managed to calm down and laid back on the bed. The pain was gone, leaving its place to a weird feeling. 'My strength is back...'

Song Lei swung his arm around and confirmed his hypothesis. 'Although I'm still weak, I think I can walk around.'

He lifted the blanket off of him with hardship. His feet couldn't reach the ground when he sat on the edge of the bed. He jumped out of the bed and looked at the pills on the nightstand.

"These made me regain my strength. I may need to take them occasionally to keep it going," Song Lei spoke to himself. He then grabbed the leftover pills and pocketed them. He took a look at himself in the mirror of the dressing table.

'I've really become a girl...' Song Lei thought to himself. In the mirror, there was a 6-year-old girl seemingly of European descent. She had blond hair and brown eyes without any other discerning qualities.

Song Lei turned around and realized that he was wearing casual pajamas. These pajamas were made out of high-quality material that should've normally made him feel comfortable. The problem was, they didn't. They were more like a freezer wrapped around him, making him feel cold and alone. 'This dreamscape really has weird rules...' He thought.

Song Lei started rummaging through the room out of habit. He had gained this habit because he didn't have the chance to be carefree since he was thrown into the New World. Every corner could be a new danger for him. He had to gather every little bit of information he could.

After looking through the room for some time, Song Lei found a little diary with a pink cover. The room was devoid of any other personal belongings than some clothes.

Song Lei climbed on the bed and started reading the diary carefully.

'Ugh...'

After he opened the diary in the middle, he realized that it was filled with nonsensical letters. They didn't make any sense in any way. They seemed to be too absurd to be any kind of alphabet in the world. Even though Song Lei was no linguist, he knew that these letters weren't from earth.

The weirder thing about this was the fact that he could read those letters just fine even though he didn't know what they were.

Song Lei flipped back to the start of the diary.

"Hmm..."

[Dear Diary, today, we went to the hospital. My mom and dad said that I'll be fine but the pain in my head is still there. My dad had to leave in the middle of my medical examination because of his job. I wish he would spend more time with me.]

Song Lei kept turning the pages. These pages weren't written in the weird alphabet like the further pages of the diary. They were written in the Latin alphabet.

'This must be because there are no languages in the new world. How convenient. Even though I don't know English, I can read and understand just fine.'

Then the aforementioned pages filled with the weird alphabet started coming up. As Song Lei kept reading, he became more and more disturbed. At the start, pages were filled with bitter comments about how the little girl had gotten some disease. The girl didn't know what she was dealing with and the name of the sickness.

As Song Lei kept flipping pages over, the girl seemed to be getting more and more manic with each. She seemed to be angry at her dad for some reason.

At one point, the things written in the diary started becoming unintelligible for Song Lei. Rather, there were some very peculiar sketches on it. They were about flying trays and horrible monsters. Song Lei examined all of them and burned them in his mind. If these monsters were the child's imagination, these sketches might as well be a guide to survive.

After finishing the diary, Song Lei closed it and threw it under his pillow.

'I have never heard of this disease the girl was dealing with. The symptoms are too vague to match with anything. As far as I can understand, it's something that affects both her mind and body,' Song Lei thought. 'But why was the father this hated? Did he do something bad? Also, the dad seems to be the only person that the girl didn't see as a monster.'

Song Lei stepped on the ground and got near the door. There wasn't anything left to do in this room. If he kept waiting and the effects of the pill were gone, he would have to waste another one. And things would be much worse if the flying tray came back and kept feeding him the tomato soup filled with hate.

He held the door's handle and pulled it cautiously. The door opened without making any sound. After sighing out of relief, Song Lei inspected the seemingly endless corridor. The walls had the same design as the ones in his room. There were some monochrome carpets laid on the ground. All of them were exactly the same and they were reaching out to the end of the corridor.

Song Lei realized that there was a certain pattern to the hallway and it didn't change till the end of the corridor. There were doors on the two sides of the hallway with 10 meters between each. The only thing that disturbed this layout was a staircase 5 rooms away from him.

'How big is this house?! This girl's family seems to be very rich. Even the hallway back in Heaven and Hell Apartment isn't as big as this one,' He thought while stepping out of the room.

Another thing to note was the fact that all the lights on the corridor were turned on, illuminating it. Song Lei had gotten so used to the dimly-lit environment back in the Heaven and Hell Apartment that this much light actually made him anxious.

He started walking through the corridor and passed by a few rooms. The end of the corridor didn't seem to be getting any closer.

Song Lei sighed and chose to enter a random room next to him. When he opened the door, he realized that the room had the exact same design as his one. Another thing to note was the fact that the lights were on even though there was no one in the room.

Song Lei searched the room like he did back in his and found nothing of importance. He carefully closed the door and walked to the opposite room.

When he opened the door, he realized that this one didn't have the lights on. Before Song Lei could walk in, he felt powerless. The whole world was shaking. The lights in the section of the corridor he was in turned off and he was yanked back into his room....