Chapter 29: Skinwalker Demon

Mitch walked over and smacked Alex hard on the back of the head.

"Appreciate my ass. One more word and I’ll cut your tongue out."

He kept cursing, yet his eyes still drifted involuntarily toward May’s legs. Those white-stockinged limbs were openly testing the limits of his self-control. May pretended not to notice the men’s awkward stares and simply rubbed her stomach.

"Boss, I’m hungry. We were too busy running for our lives earlier. Haven’t eaten a thing."

Ray’s expression softened a fraction.

"There’s some leftover canned food in the kitchen. Ace, heat it up."

Ace came out of the back kitchen carrying a metal basin.

"It’s ready. Come eat."

May started to stand, but Ray pressed a hand firmly onto her shoulder.

"Sit. Don’t move. Your stomach was just acting up and you still want to walk around? Trying to get yourself killed?"

He took the basin, scooped up a piece of meat with the spoon, blew on it, and held it to her lips.

"Open up."

May froze. The looks the other men shot at Ray could have burned holes straight through him. Mitch’s face had gone green.

"Fuck, Boss, what the hell are you doing? She still has hands and feet, doesn’t she?"

Ray didn’t even lift his eyelids.

"Her legs hurt. She shouldn’t move around."

Ray, this is period pain, not paralysis, May thought to herself.

Still, she obediently opened her mouth and took the bite. Alex let out a sarcastic laugh.

"Ayo, look how caring he is. Us filthy dogs really don’t deserve anything."

Ray kept feeding her, ignoring the rest.

"Less talking. Eat your own food."

Jack squatted in the corner, chewing a biscuit, watching the scene with open longing. He muttered under his breath,

"Boss... I was the one who found those cans."

Ray shot him a glance. "Your contribution is noted. Maybe you’ll get a medal in your next life."

May chewed the meat and watched the group of men seething with jealousy over her. Inside, she was blooming with joy.

[These points are so easy to farm.]

[Just eating a bite of meat raises affection.]

[Ding. Strong protective and possessive desire detected from Strategy Target No. 1 "Ray." Reward points +50.]

[Current total points: 460.]

She chewed the canned meat while her eyes made a quiet circuit around the men, tallying every reaction in her mental ledger.

"Boss, is this place really safe?"

Ray tossed the empty can into a corner.

"First floor’s been cleared three times. Doors and windows are sealed."

Mitch leaned against the wall, flipping a lighter in his hand. "Just sleep easy. Like hell I can’t watch over one broken-down hotel."

May pursed her lips and didn’t answer.

Hope he doesn’t jinx us.

Theo adjusted his glasses, carried a basin of hot water from behind the bar, and set it by her feet.

"Soak them. It’ll help with the abdominal stagnation."

He turned and left without giving her a second glance. May stared at the basin, a complicated mix of feelings swirling inside.

Theo really is the type to act aloof. I can’t figure him out at all.

Alex bounced up from the sofa and leaned in close.

"May, are your feet cold? Want me to check the water temperature for you?"

Mitch threw him a sharp glare.

"Don’t you dare get any closer."

"Hey, why so fierce?" Alex grinned and pulled his hand back. "I’m just touching the water, not her feet."

In the corner, Jack kept his head down over his biscuit. The moment he heard that, his ears flushed bright red.

May slid her feet into the hot water. Warmth climbed from her ankles up her calves, and the dragging ache in her abdomen eased noticeably. She closed her eyes in pure relief.

"Thank you, Theo."

Theo didn’t even turn around. "Mm."

Night deepened.

In the hotel lobby, the men scattered in twos and threes to find places to rest. Jack sat at the stairwell with a machine gun across his lap. Mitch set up his sniper rifle by the window. Ray stayed behind the front desk, eyes half-closed.

May was given the small storage room behind the bar. The space was tight, but two layers of blankets made it just big enough for one person to sleep. She curled onto her side, the hot-water bottle still pressed against her lower abdomen, and drifted off almost at once.

She had no idea how long she slept before a strange smell pulled her awake. Not rot. Not blood. A flower fragrance so sweet it turned cloying—like the night-blooming jasmine that used to grow in her grandmother’s courtyard, only ten or a hundred times stronger. It poured into her nose like liquid honey. The scent was familiar; it was the exact same smell from the day she first arrived in this world.

May sat up, frowning, and rubbed her nose.

"What is that...?"

In the next second, everything in front of her felt wrong. She braced a hand against the wall, stood, and pushed open the storage-room door. The hallway lights glowed a dull yellow. The red carpet stretched all the way to the far end.

Everything looked identical to before she slept—yet something was off.

She looked down. The carpet fibers were moving. Not the way wind would move them. Each individual strand was sweating dark-red liquid, like pores opening. A chill raced down the back of her neck.

This isn’t right.

She jerked her head up and sprinted toward the stairwell.

"Jack? Jack!"

No one answered. She reached the top of the stairs and looked down. The lobby was completely empty. The men had vanished. Blankets still lay on the sofas. Guns still leaned against the walls. But the people were gone—as if they had simply evaporated into thin air.

Her heart hammered against her ribs.

Where did they go?

She turned and ran upstairs, hoping to find Ray. The higher she climbed, the wronger everything became. The steps softened under her feet, like she was walking on flesh. With every step, something squirmed beneath her soles.

The walls were wrong too.

The once-white wallpaper began to bubble outward, as if something were growing under the skin. One after another, the swellings pushed against the surface until the wallpaper turned pale and stretched.

May stopped, back pressed to the wall, breathing hard.

[System, what is this?]

[Ding. High concentration of hallucinogenic substance detected. Identified as Skinwalker Demon pollen. Current environment is a spatial-displacement illusion, not real physical space.]

[Recommendation: Locate teammates immediately and exit the illusion’s range.]

Skinwalker Demon. So it really was that.

Theo’s words from a few days earlier flashed through her mind—Skinwalker Demons were intelligent infected. Masters of disguise. During a hunt, they plunged their prey into hallucinations and then slowly consumed them.

Her scalp prickled. She turned and ran. The corridor stretched endlessly beneath her feet, turning one corner after another. No matter how many times she ran it, she always ended up back where she started—a classic ghost-wall maze.

Panic burned in her eyes. She kicked the wall hard.

"Is anyone there?! Boss! Mitch!"

Silence. Then the light at the far end of the corridor winked out.

Darkness poured toward her like water. Something was moving through it, closing in—not footsteps. The soft shhh-shhh of fabric dragging across carpet.

May pressed her back to the wall, trembling. In the blackness, a woman’s outline slowly took shape.

She wore a hotel-staff uniform. Her face was pale and clean, lips curved in a professional smile. Yet the longer May stared, the more wrong it became. The features were crooked—one eye larger than the other. The curve of the mouth didn’t look like a smile at all; it looked like a slit cut open by a knife.

May clamped a hand over her mouth to keep from screaming. The thing tilted its head and stared at her. What came out of its mouth was not human language—only a wet, sticky sound, like a tongue stirring through rotting meat.

"Don’t... run..."

May’s legs went weak. The moment the creature reached for her—

Bang!