WOA 1

 

World Of The Aberrant: Harvesting Apparitions Within The Nightmare

Chapter 1: Lu Yueqi

"Heh-he-he-hello, everyone, good evening! It's time once again for everyone's favorite live-streamed horror story recommendation!"

In the pitch-black room, a cute girl wearing a white sweater and a ghost-eared beanie waved cheerfully at the viewers streaming through her computer monitor. She looked like a popular streamer, and the chat box was scrolling past in a blur of endless comments.

"Good evening, Yueqi!" "Ah, it's time for our little Yueqi-chan's favorite stalling-with-reviews segment again." "The streamer reads horror story reviews every single day—this channel has no future, hurry up and play something everyone actually wants to see." "Is anyone really coming to our Yueqi's stream just to listen to horror stories?" "True that. Fast-forward to the main event, please. I can't wait to watch the streamer's legendary kitchen-tier gameplay feed us bad moves." "What kind of talk is that? Our streamer has looks and skill, and her horror stories come with top-tier aesthetics. Yueqi-chan is the best!" "Pretty, love it, keep watching!"

Lu Yueqi—known to her audience as Yueqi—glanced at the scrolling stream of text, laughing and scolding at the same time. "You guys spend all day every day just trying to drag me down. How am I stalling by reading reviews? I carefully handpick every single one of these horror stories! And as for the ones saying I'm trash at games—don't let me catch you in a shooting game or a MOBA, or I'll make you pay for it!"

The live chat erupted with warm amusement as the viewers bantered back and forth, tossing compliments and counter-jabs in equal measure.

"Alright, alright, I'm about to start the first story of the night, so don't you dare go forgetting your actual priorities."

Lu Yueqi reached up to brush her bangs forward, pulling them down to veil her eyes as much as possible, trying to pull off a ghostly expression. Only... the effect was far too adorably foolish to be terrifying.

Lowering her voice into a deliberate whisper and cueing a chilling background track, she fought hard to build up a suffocating atmosphere.

"This urban legend is said to be the origin of all anomalies. Rumor has it that when night falls, people fast asleep are hunted by a nightmare-like entity. They slip into your dreams; if you happen to be having a nightmare, they will slowly, slowly bleed that nightmare out into reality. And finally, the nightmare swallows the waking world entirely, devouring its host and breaking completely free of all restraint to infect the entire globe... They are endless, feeding entirely on human fear. As long as humanity harbors fear in their hearts, the day will come when they hunt you down, and then..."

Clack.

A sudden, jarring sound sliced right through the carefully built atmosphere.

"Huh?" Lu Yueqi jerked her head around, only to find her bedroom door standing wide open—when had it unlocked?

"Why is the door behind the streamer open?" "Is it someone from the streamer's family?" "Is there really someone behind that door? Why aren't they coming in, then?" "Maybe they saw our Yueqi-chan was live and didn't want to interrupt?" "But I've been staring dead at the screen this whole time, and there was nobody there!"

Lu Yueqi lost all appetite for streaming. Her eyes were glued to her bedroom door as a cold drop of sweat beaded on her forehead.

Even though she hosted a supernatural channel, she was privately terrified of these things. She made it a strict habit to lock her bedroom door tightly before every broadcast. She remembered locking it from the inside, and she was home completely alone—so how on earth had it opened?

"I heard a story once... a guy was watching TV in the middle of the night when his door suddenly swung open. He went out to check and found nobody, but when he walked back into his room, he found his own corpse slumped dead on the bed, looking horrific. When he stepped closer to his own body to figure out what was happening, the door suddenly slammed shut and wouldn't budge no matter what. After that, the guy vanished..."

A long comment crawled across the screen.

"Hey, user upstairs, I'm a coward, don't scare me like that." "Don't panic. If the guy vanished like that according to his story, where did the story even come from? Horror stories are fake. There's no such thing as real ghosts." "True." "Still, what Yueqi is doing right now..." "Total acting."

The chat kept scrolling.

Lu Yueqi tore off her headphones and slowly stood up, grabbing her phone for a beam of light as her whole body trembled, creeping toward the ceiling light switch.

"Eh? Why is the light broken?"

She punched the switch in a panic, but the bulb refused to flicker to life. In the pitch-black room, only the cold white glare of her computer and phone gave her a sliver of vision.

Ping!

A notification chime startled her so badly she shrieked, whipping her hand forward and sending the phone flying. Fortunately, the device survived, lying face-up on the floor with its lock screen glowing quietly in the dark.

With trembling legs, Lu Yueqi squatted down, scooped up the phone, unlocked it, and stared at the screen.

"Don't look back. It's right behind you. And don't even try to steal a glance in the mirror or over your shoulder."

It was a text from an unknown number. Her mind blanked—what if this was some malicious trap sent by an anomaly to mess with her head?

Her chest heaved with panic. She was terrified of ghosts, yet she had always considered herself a staunch atheist who scoffed at the supernatural—she just had an overactive imagination and loved scaring herself. She had never, ever expected it to actually happen to her.

Flicker—clack!

After a burst of static, the computer monitor went black before abruptly flashing back on.

Lu Yueqi slammed her hands over her eyes, curling into herself and pretending she couldn't see anything. After a moment of agonizing hesitation, raw survival instinct took over. Following the text's instructions, she picked up her phone with trembling hands and slowly pushed herself up, refusing to twist her neck even an inch, keeping her gaze locked straight ahead.

"Don't be scared. Come to your front door and open it now. Remember—still don't look back, and keep your eyes straight."

Open the door?

That felt completely wrong. In every horror movie she'd ever watched, opening the door right now was practically walking yourself straight into the abyss. According to standard ghost lore, opening the door meant inviting the entity willingly into your sanctuary, cutting off your last shred of escape.

Snap.

The computer monitor went dead. Absolute, suffocating darkness swallowed her from all sides, pierced only by the jittery strobe of her phone screen.

"What do I do? What do I do?" Tears welled up in her eyes, burning hot.

The unknown number kept bombarding her with texts, but she didn't dare read them. She was terrified that the moment she opened a message, a rotting face would pop out at her.

Seemingly losing patience on the other end, her phone suddenly began to ring shrilly, a string of digits flashing across the display.

Should I answer?

She stared at the green accept and red decline icons, paralyzed. On one hand, the warning not to look back hadn't gotten her killed yet—at least, not yet. On the other hand, who knew if the person on the other end was even human anymore? Ghost calls were a classic trope; someone trying to help you one second could turn into a slaughtering spirit the next.

After a long, agonizing pause, Lu Yueqi decided she had to break free on her own terms.

She muted her phone, toggled the flashlight on, and crept toward her bedroom door. Since she couldn't look back at whatever was behind her, could she just keep her eyes fixed straight ahead and make a run for the living room?

Staying trapped in the bedroom meant a dead end. Only by getting outside could she live.

Steeling her nerves, she yanked the door open and let out a small breath of relief when the familiar living room came into view.

Yet the relief vanished instantly. Behind her, a harsh white glare flared—the bedroom light had turned itself on.

As every single light in her apartment flickered to life one by one, an involuntary shudder racked her entire frame.

"Come on out, Yueqi. Let's watch that new series I found."

A voice called out from behind her—her best friend's voice.

Panicking, Lu Yueqi jammed her hands over her ears and bolted for the front door.

BANG!

Just as she reached the exit, a violent crash shuddered through the heavy wooden door as if something outside was trying to smash its way in.

She froze, skidding to a halt. Her mind was a complete, shattered wreck. Is the ghost outside the door, or right behind me?

Wait!

An idea struck her. If she wasn't allowed to turn her head and look backward, what if she used her phone's front camera to check her reflection?

Fumbling frantically, she switched the phone to selfie mode and raised it.

There it was. Looming a head taller than her behind her reflection was a silhouette with matted, filthy hair obscuring its face—leaving only a split, grinning mouth visible. Its pale, rotting garments were soaked in dark, viscous fluid.

The second the camera lens aligned with it, the creature's lips curled upward into a slow, grotesque smile, exposing rows of jagged teeth smeared with fresh blood.

"Hehe... you saw me."

"Ahhh!"

Lu Yueqi shattered completely. A piercing, soul-deep shriek ripped from her throat. Her legs gave out, and she collapsed hard onto the floor. She had outsmarted herself—she thought looking back was the death trigger, but the real trap was laying eyes on the entity. The only reason she couldn't turn her head was to keep her from ever looking at it face-to-face.

The warning text flashed back in her memory: "Don't let your eyes wander." That was why the sender had warned her.

Tears streamed uncontrollably down her face as wave after wave of despair crashed over her.

"Sob... am I going to die here...?"

BOOM!

The front door finally splintered inward. A figure surged through the threshold, scooped Lu Yueqi up by her waist, covered her eyes with a hand, and sprinted straight out.

"What are you spacing out for? You figured out the trigger and just gave up? Heiyan, handle the rest!"

A shadowy phantom materialized behind the man, rapidly solidifying into flesh and blood. The apartment lights began to violently strobe in its presence, plunging back into deep shadow the moment it fully manifested.

The entity known as "Heiyan" looked remarkably human, save for a gaping, hollow void right where its heart should have been. Dressed in an immaculate black tuxedo and holding an antique book, he looked like a refined, elegant gentleman.

"Hmph. You're calling me out for such small fry? Xiaobaiyu, you really need to practice more." Heiyan shot a disdainful smirk toward the grotesque anomaly. Muttering under his breath, he flipped open the book in his hand, unleashing a powerful, vacuum-like suction from its pages.

The terrifying spirit panicked, trying desperately to scramble away, but Heiyan snatched it effortlessly by the neck. "Though it lacks any real nourishment, it'll make a decent little snack."

In a flash, the entity was sucked into the binding. Heiyan flipped through a few pages, located the newly printed leaf, tore it out cleanly, rolled it into a ball, and popped it into his mouth.

"Hmph, genuinely tastes like nothing."

No sooner had the words left his mouth than Heiyan's figure dissolved back into a wisp of shadow, evaporating into the dark.

Outside, Baiyu tossed Lu Yueqi into the back seat of a waiting car, slid into the driver's seat, and sped away into the shroud of the midnight streets.

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