Autophagy

Song Lei's mind shook and he lost his balance because of it. He felt a powerful force yanking him back to his room, dragging him along the floor. He was thrown onto his bed by the invisible being. He felt his legs aching. His shoulder felt like it was broken and he couldn't breathe properly.

After the entity threw him onto the bed, it closed the door while turning the lights on. Song Lei had to spend a lot of time before he could pull himself together. 'What was that? It seemed so docile back when it came to my room, but this time it was very aggressive,' he thought

He shuffled out of the bed and looked at the mirror while pulling his collar a little bit. There was a big, purple hand mark on his shoulder. It was still hurting albeit a bit less.

Song Lei sat back on the bed and started thinking about what he could do. The system wasn't showing up no matter how many times he called out. His only choice was to sit and assess all the information he had gained.

'This light is disturbing my eyes,' Song Lei thought. He had gotten used to darkness back in the Heaven and Hell Apartment. This amount of brightness was making him uncomfortable like someone was holding a flashlight directly at his eyes. 'Oh?'

Song Lei dragged himself up to the light switch and looked at it for some time.

'Now that I think of it, the lights seemed to be reversed in this dream space,' he deducted. 'The invisible entity turned the lights off when it came in. The corridor and the empty room's lights were on while the invisible being's lights were off.'

Song Lei closed the lights and started waiting.

'Another thing to consider is the corridor lights. There didn't seem to be any switches in the corridor. Maybe they are motion sensor lights? Then that explains why the lights would turn off when the thing went out to the corridor. I may not be tall enough to activate the motion sensor.'

The room's door was opened. The lights were turned on and Song Lei heard the familiar voice of the invisible being.

"EJ JADA ASD QEW" The being grumbled.

This time, it wasn't as loud as before. He didn't lose his balance. He was getting used to this horrible speech.

After some time, the monster went away while closing the door.

'As I thought. The monster doesn't seem to be my direct enemy. Rather, it's more like a sitter. Furthermore, the lights are really reversed. When the lights are on, it means that the room is dark. When the lights are off, it actually means that the room is illuminated. The thing doesn't want me to keep the lights on.' Song Lei thought. 'This may be useful.'

After assessing everything he went through and lingering around a bit more, Song Lei made sure that the monster wasn't waiting outside of his room and went out again. This time, he made sure that he didn't enter an occupied room by checking through the gap between the ground and the door.

The floor was split into two halves by the staircase. After searching through 10 rooms, he realized that there was no other resident than the invisible monster on this side of the floor.

He stopped searching random rooms; stood in front of the staircase and looked down. The railings were taller than him so it was a bit hard to see.

'Uhh...'

There was nothing. Literally, there was nothing downstairs. He couldn't see anything other than the stairs leading to it. Below that, there was an infinite space that couldn't be seen past no matter how hard he looked. It seemed to be white but it wasn't, as calling it white would make it sound like something was there.

'That is weird,' he thought.

Song Lei started going down the stairs to take a closer look at the nothingness. This may have been a rash decision but there seemed to be something that was pulling him there.

He took a few steps but quickly realized that something was weird. With every step, the next one would become much harder to take. He could feel that an invisible power was making him heavier and heavier. It was like those willpower tests in certain novels.

Albeit the pressure, Song Lei did his best to keep going down. When there were 2 steps left till the white nothingness, he took a deep breath to take the 2 steps at once. He had to throw himself to do so because of his low height. When he landed on the lowest step, he almost lost his balance because of the pressure change.

After descending the stairs, Song Lei tried to touch the nothingness to check out whether there was something there or not.

When his hand came in contact with the nothingness, his mind instantly filled with countless amounts of thoughts. He hardly managed to pull his hand out before he almost fainted.

'Fuck! What was that? These feelings... It felt like I was incredibly angry, scared, and sad at the same time,' Song Lei thought. The emptiness was obviously something he shouldn't come into contact with a lot. He shuffled back to the upper floor. He was left gasping for oxygen when he finally managed to take the last step.

'There must be some other way to travel in nothingness. Until I find that way, I have to keep wandering on the upper floor.'

After recollecting himself, he started walking leftwards. He had realized back when he was searching through other rooms that the end of the corridor didn't seem to get closer no matter how much he walked. 'I wonder what's there at the end...'

He confirmed his thought to be true. He had walked for ten minutes towards the other end of the corridor but when he turned his back, he saw that he was still in front of the stairs. He instead tried to walk backwards but to no avail. When he did so, he quickly hit a wall after a few steps. He tried touching the wall to see whether there was a passage or not.

'I'm getting nowhere like this. I have to do some more proactive things or the feeding time will come again. When that happens, I may lose my mind because of it. And even if I don't, the monster's attitude may change at any time,' Song Lei decided.

He glanced over the whole corridor. There were no windows on this floor. If he went downstairs, maybe he could find one and leave the house. Whether to find an exit or to gather information, he had to go there as there was nothing left on this floor for him to check.

'I can't go there by myself. I need help,' Song Lei thought while gulping. He turned his gaze towards the monster's room and walked there.

Song Lei wiped the sweat pouring from his head with his hand and knocked on the door.

*Knock

He was getting more and more nervous as a few stepping sounds came from the room.

*Creak

The door creaked open. Song Lei closed his eyes and pointed at the stairs without saying anything. There was an awkward silence. He felt a hand touching and grabbing his.

"Do you want to go to the bathroom?" a mature, feminine voice said. Song Lei didn't speak and opted to nod. He was shocked to hear this kind of humane voice in the dream space.

Just as he was about to open his eyes, he decided not to do so.

'Maybe, the reason why I can understand what it's saying is that my eyes are closed,' Song Lei thought. Although he wanted to confirm his hypothesis, he didn't dare to take a look as he was scared of what he would see.

He felt the hand pulling him. It was a cold, soulless hand. Song Lei had experience holding hands with ghosts. Yao Ai's hands were cold but had a warm feeling to them, full of affection. But the invisible monster was different. Just holding its hand was enough for Song Lei to understand that it was devoid of any emotions.

He started following the monster in the direction it pulled him. It was a bit hard for him to keep up as his steps were tiny compared to the monster's.

As they kept walking, Song Lei felt an emptiness under his feet. He stumbled and almost fell down. Fortunately, the monster held him.

'We are going down the stairs. Is it going to throw me to the nothingness?' Song Lei panicked a little. 'Probably not.'

"Be careful Lady Mia," the monster said. Song Lei kept his silence.

The monster started walking again and Song Lei followed along. He tried to remember the number of steps the stairs had but couldn't do so.

"This is the last step, Lady Mia. Be careful to not stumble," the monster said.

Song Lei gulped loudly....