Chapter 18: Ghost hunting-3

"You’re sure about this," Wen Ruo said.

"I’m sure." Lian kept his eyes on the door. "I need to know what’s happening to me. Waiting here won’t tell me anything."

The doctor had come back once before visiting hours ended. He wanted Lian kept overnight for a few more tests in the morning. Nothing urgent. His parents hadn’t argued.

His mother kissed his forehead and left without saying much. His father only squeezed his shoulder. Jun stood in the doorway a second longer than the others before their father pulled him out. No one knew what to say, so no one tried.

The room went dark. A strip of hallway light still showed under the door. Machines hummed somewhere down the corridor. A cart wheel squeaked past at long intervals.

It was time.

Lian eased off the bed and tested his legs before trusting them. He crossed to the door and pulled it open slowly. The hinge groaned. Metal dragged against metal. His heart jumped.

The corridor was empty. The fluorescents were dimmed for the night. One light flickered near the nurses’ station far down the hall.

Wen Ruo was already outside, standing in the middle of the hall as if she had never needed the door.

"You should be more careful," Lian said.

"They can’t see me the way they can see you." She tilted her head. "You’re the one they’d catch."

"Noted." He pulled the door shut as quietly as he could. "Let’s go."

They found the first one twenty minutes later in a supply closet with its door left ajar. Wen Ruo had it by the back of the neck before Lian even registered movement. She held it out toward him.

The shape squirmed in her grip. Pale. No bigger than a fist. The same twisted infant-shape from the hospital room.

"Do I need to kill this one too?"

"Where the hell did you find that?" Lian’s stomach turned. "There’s more of them?"

"There’s always more of them." She said it flat. Something crossed her face and vanished before he could read it.

"What was that look? You flinched."

"I didn’t flinch." She turned the shape over in her grip. "Kill it or don’t. Your call."

"Kill it."

She didn’t hesitate. Her hand closed. The small skull gave with a crunch, small and final. Lian already knew he’d still hear it days later.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

S̸u̷c̴c̷e̶s̷s̸f̶u̷l̴l̸y̷ D̴e̸v̷o̸u̸r̴e̷d̶

3 low-t1er sp1rits ○ut of 3/30

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r̷e̶w̷a̸r̶d̷ 1 @b1l1ty

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They kept moving. Wen Ruo drifted ahead of him, barely touching the floor, moving faster than he could match.

"Hey, wait." Lian’s breath was already sawing in his chest. "I’m still alive, remember? You’re going too fast."

"You don’t need to be dead to keep up. You need to be in shape." She glanced back. "Which you aren’t."

"There." Lian’s voice went flat. He was staring past her down the corridor. "Another one."

Crouched at the far end of the hall, past where the lights gave out, was something shaped like the others. Same soft, unformed limbs. But this one was massive. It filled most of the corridor’s width, hunched low to fit under the ceiling. The air around it had gone thick with a smell like a butcher’s bin left too long in summer heat.

"What the fuck is that." Lian’s voice cracked. "It’s huge."

Wen Ruo’s face tightened. "That is disgusting."

"Why are you disgusted? It’s a spirit, same as you."

"Don’t compare me to that." The words came out hard. "It’s been eating the small ones. Feed long enough in one place and this is what you become."

"It can evolve?"

"They all can. There’s a whole tier system for what they grow into. I’ll explain later." She didn’t look away from it. "Right now we figure out if we can win this."

The thing saw them.

It didn’t creep. It threw its head back and screamed, a sound too large for the throat that made it, then charged, filling the corridor as it came.

"Lian, stay by the wall." Wen Ruo was already gone before she finished the sentence, closing the distance so fast her outline blurred.

Her fingers lengthened as her hand met the thing’s stomach. Nails became something closer to blades. She drove them in to the wrist.

Black fluid sheeted from the wound, darker than blood had any right to be, and with it came the smell, thick and coppery, sharp enough that Lian tasted it at the back of his throat. The creature shrieked. A broken sound came out of it, almost like words. Wen Ruo answered with a raw sound of her own.

The thing threw its weight into her. She skidded backward a full body length, boots scraping tile, catching herself an instant before it would have pinned her against the wall.

"This one’s older than anything I’ve faced," she said. Her voice had gone thin.

"You have time to talk?" Lian shouted from where he stood frozen against the wall. "Focus."

She was already moving again, ducking under a limb that swept where her head had been a half-second earlier. The wall took the blow instead. Plaster rained down in fine white dust.

"Don’t you have some kind of skill?" Lian shouted, half hysterical. "Like in the manhwa—"

"This isn’t a manhwa." She dropped low, then came up inside its reach with both hands already changed. "This is just me."

She started cutting.

One limb. Then another. No wasted motion now, no words. Black fluid sprayed with every strike, arcing far enough to hit Lian’s face, warm and heavier than it should have been. He could feel it on his skin. Two floors down, doctors and nurses would never know any of this was happening. That thought turned his stomach harder than the gore did.

The screaming changed pitch as the limbs came off. Closer to pleading now. It folded in on itself where it had once filled the whole corridor. One strike. Two. Wen Ruo drove her hand into what remained of its center.

The scream cut off mid-note.

The corridor went quiet except for Lian’s shaking breath.

Wen Ruo straightened slowly. Black fluid dripped from both hands. She looked him over.

"You’re covered in it," she said.

Lian looked down. His shirt clung to him, soaked through in a dark, heavy patch. He hadn’t felt a single wound open anywhere on his body.

He stared at the black fluid on his hands and didn’t move.