Paintings of Terror

Chapter 200: There Was A Creature That Made You Want to Die When You Encountered It

Warning: Some gross stuff ahead. If you’re easily grossed out, read with caution.

There was the sound of clothes rubbing in the darkness, and Liu Yanlei quickly put his homemade earplugs into his ears. He grabbed the hands of the people sitting on both sides of him and told them to hold on as much as possible.

Holding Yu Long with his left hand and Chen Xinai with his right hand, he found that both their hands were cold, wet and trembling slightly.

The room without light was already very dark, but suddenly, a thicker darkness silently encroached and enveloped everything.

Time slipped on by, slowly and leisurely, and the murky seawater pushed up against the ship’s side, trying to find a way in.

Creak, creak.

The noise sounded far and wide, empty and dead.

Nothingness and darkness blurred the boundaries of time. It seemed that only a short time had passed, and yet still it seemed that a long time had passed.

Creak, creak

In the narrow corridor outside the room, from weak to strong, from far and near, there was a slow sound of something stepping on the wooden floor.

Creak, creak, creak.

The sound stopped outside the door.

There was a dead silence in the darkness, as if something was standing quietly at the door, sensing the twelve fragile humans in the room.

Liu Yanlei felt that something was wrong.

He obviously plugged his ears, why could he still hear the sound so clearly?

–Plugging their ears was useless!

Liu Yanlei was shocked. He forced himself? to calm down, and tentatively called out to his right side in a very low voice, “Xinai?”

“Yan… Yanlei…,” Chen Xinai’s voice trembled with extreme fear, “I…I…I’m afraid…I’m afraid…”

“Shh… it’s okay… it’s okay… don’t move… don’t move…” Liu Yanlei comforted her and also comforted himself. He firmly held her cold and trembling hand, and he told himself that he loved her. Maybe she wasn’t his favorite person in the past, but in the future, she would definitely become his favorite person. He would protect her, he would believe in her, and just like any hero in every heroic movie, he was willing to protect her. Even at the risk of his own life.

Chen Xinai also held on to his hand tightly, but she shook more and more, so much so that the words she forced out of her mouth were shaking, “No…no…Something’s wrong…Yan-Yan-Yanlei…Yanlei! Yanlei! Something’s here! Something’s here! Ahhhhh!

She screamed, as if a sharp ax was splitting her flesh and blood. Her voice was terrified and distorted. “Help—No! Ahhhh! Yanlei help me. Ahhhh!!!!

His nerves, already so tense they were about to shatter, was instantly cut into pieces by the sounds of her non-human screams. As if electrocuted, he subconsciously pulled back his hand before he could stop himself. Realizing this, he tried to reach out with his hand again, but he heard her slapping her own body frantically in the dark, screaming loud enough to tear her own throat apart. “Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh—Lee—Lee—So many leeches—They’re inside my skin—They got inside my skin—Ahhhhh—Yanlei—Help me—Ahhhhhh!!!!!

Liu Yanlei was shocked. He was still desperately trying to find Chen Xinai’s hand in the darkness, but when he heard this, he subconsciously retracted his hand again. Even his body jerked backward.

Leeches?! Where did the leeches come from in this vast sea? Was it the doing of that phantom monster?

As he thought this in panic, he heard everyone in the room screaming. The mixture of men and women’s screams were terrifying and horrific. They were slapping at their own bodies, rolling all over the floor, and even running into walls. Within these chaotic sounds were also sounds that made his scalp go numb, the sounds of snakes and insects squirming.

Liu Yanlei was dumbfounded. He could no longer tell whether what he heard was an illusion or real. He had to crawl backward to prevent the others from stepping on him.

The room wasn’t big. He only had to move up a few steps before his back hit the wall. But unexpectedly,? one of the hands he was using to support himself accidentally pressed on some kind of sticky filament in the corner. He hurriedly pulled his hand back, but he could not shake off the filament at all. The harder he shook, the more the filament stuck to him.

—What was this?!

Liu Yanlei was in a panic. He grabbed at the filament with his other hand. They were light and sticky, and they were gone with a few rubs of his fingers.

—Spider, spider web?!

—There were spider webs in the corner!

His whole body went numb. From the top of his head to the back of his feet, dense goosebumps rose up.

Spiders were the most disgusting thing, and he feared them the most.

This kind of fear was different from the fear of ghosts and death. It was a kind of fear that was more akin to physiological disgust and psychological rejection. Regardless of whether they were male or female, many people have their own unbearably terrifying fear. Some people were afraid of mice, some were afraid of snakes, some were afraid of bugs, and some were afraid of toads.

Liu Yanlei was afraid of spiders. No matter how big or small, as long as he saw this creature that crawled fast on slender legs, he would feel as if it was crawling on him. And the place where it crawled will grow dense, small bumps. And these bumps with white tips would emerge one after another. Pus would ooze out, and out with the pus would come clusters of tiny baby spiders.

Whenever he saw a spider, he couldn’t help but imagine it like this, making himself sick and disgusted.

Now, he couldn’t help but imagine such a scene. He quickly leaned forward to avoid the spider web, rubbing his hands desperately against his clothes, trying to wipe off the spider web and the spiders that might have been attached to it.

Suddenly a hairy thing landed on his forehead. On reflex, he stretched out his hand and his palm brushed against what felt like the leg of a spider. He screamed and jumped up, shaking his head desperately to get rid of it.

In that moment, he became as frenzied as everyone else. The screams around him were infectious, disrupting his sanity and composure. The big spider on his head clung to him firmly. He could feel it covering most of his face, and it’s legs were digging eagerly into his mouth and nose.

He remembered reading about a spider landing on a human face, which had left a deep psychological shadow in him. If the human body was injected with toxins from this spider, it’s muscles would become numb and be unable to move. Another kind of digestive juice would be injected into the body, so that the flesh and blood under the skin would turn into liquid. During this process, the person would still be alive and would still feel everything. But they would be unable to move and could only helplessly feel themselves melting and slowly being sucked dry by the spider.

Regardless of whether this was true or not, he was very afraid of spiders. He was afraid that he would become that helpless body. Now, at this moment, with the spider on his face, its eight long legs clinging to his face more and more forcefully, he dared not touch it with his hands. He could only shake his head desperately. But now matter how hard he tried, he could not shake it off. He screamed frantically, just like the others around him. All of them were screaming non-stop, frantic and hysterical.

He really was going crazy. At the moment when his nerves were completely broken, he heard someone screaming, stumbling, and then desperately rushing out of the room. This person was followed by a second person, then a third person. The sounds of their footsteps rang out loudly, crashing and rushing out the door.

Everyone was rushing outside. Liu Yanlei became even more anxious. He was afraid of being abandoned. He was afraid that they would leave him here to die tragically alone. Unwilling to be left behind, he struggled to untie the rope around his waist. Then, fiercely, he rushed forward, pulling away the people already in front of him, and managed to successfully escape out the door.

The strong, fishy scent of seawater instantly burst into his nostrils.

He thought, where did that spider come from?

There were also leeches…Chen Xinai was most afraid of leeches. That fat, ugly, and terrifying worm would burrow into human flesh and suck human blood. When it burrowed into the flesh, one must never try to pull it out by hand. Because, as soon as you did, it’s body would be torn in half. One half would be in your hand and the other half would only drill deeper into your flesh. You could only push the meat next to it, pushing it out bit by bit.

He heard that after leaching into the flesh, the leeches would not only suck human blood, but they would also lay eggs. Thus, when the baby leeches were born, they would continue to suck more blood and lay more eggs inside the human body…

Liu Yanlei didn’t know if these things were true. This was what Chen Xinai had told him, because she was afraid of leeches, just like how he was afraid of spiders. Therefore, she was always willing to exaggerate their terrifying effects.

But where did the spiders and the leeches come from?

Did they come from that phantom monster?

What did they say before darkness fell?

Now matter what happens, do not leave this place.

But then, why were they all running outside?

He remembered what he’d learned about herd mentality when he was in job training classes.

When everyone was afraid, he also became afraid. When everyone screamed, he also could not help but scream. And when everyone ran out the door, he…he also ran out without thinking.

He raised his hand in a dazed manner and touched his face.

Somehow, the spider had disappeared, and when he touched his face, he felt seawater.

————-

When Ke Xun turned on the flashlight on his phone, he found everyone collapsed on the floor. Some were sweaty, some were crying, and some had peed on themselves…

After confirming that Mu Yiran and his companions were okay, he pulled his leg away from Luo Bu’s arms. “You have a loose bladder or something? Why do you keep peeing on yourself?!”

“Brother, I was scared to death…” Luo Bu was pale, lying in a softened lump on the floor. “You give me a moment.”

“Check on the number of people.” Mu Yiran’s voice sounded calmly, and Ke Xun hurriedly took a picture of the entire room with his phone.

“Six, seven, eight, nine…” Ke Xun paused. “Liu Yanlei is missing.”

Chen Xinai was prostrated on the ground, crying bitterly.

No one spoke for a while, until Shao Ling said, “Let’s go to the deck first.”

The sea breeze in the early morning had a strong, salty scent. The sky was gloomy, and the sea was a dull color. The surface of the ocean was calm, just unchanging, undulating waves that seemed to extend to the end of the world, as if there was only a sea of stagnant water and a ship of 11 people between the sky and the earth.

They all looked at each other, and they all were very haggard, as if they had suffered a great deal of mental torture.

“Now, let’s talk about our respective experiences last night.” Shao Ling spread out the bamboo slips he’d been using to record information and lifted his brush. “In the first instance, we heard sounds. In this instance, we feel things. What I felt was…I hope this wouldn’t make you feel uncomfortable. What I felt was cockroach eggs, spilling out of my hair and clothes. They burst open to spray out countless small cockroaches that fell on me.

“Urgh–” Wei Dong and Luo Bu both vomited together.

“So, what the illusion last night focused on was what each of us found most disgustin,” Zhu Haowen said coldly.

“What is in Haowen’er illusion?” Qin Ci asked smoothly.

“Touching the faces of locusts and praying mantises.” Zhu Haowen was expressionless.

Qin Ci: “…” What strange fear was this?

——————

Xida: Ugh. This reminded me of a Thai movie I watched as a child, where a girl was force-fed a worm by either her mother-in-law or her love rival and worms were squirming out of her skin everywhere. She went crazy and started eating the worms that were coming out of her body. That movie left a deep psychological shadow on me, and I have hated worms ever since. Have you guys ever seen the movie “The Fly”? Another reason why I cannot stand maggots. Now I feel like throwing up.