Autophagy

'Let's see...'

Song Lei had two more hours left until class. He had to make his way to the university and find his class in this time span. He took his phone out and started navigating with the map in it. Fortunately, he could easily find the way. After walking for a certain time, he had to take the metro for the rest of his journey.

'This place is surprisingly empty.' Song Lei thought while looking around. There were no other passengers than him on the train. Although he would occasionally see a few people walking outside, he couldn't really do so in this place. 'Well... I still don't know how this place works...'

Song Lei sighed and kept waiting for the right station. Being the only person on the train was really unnerving. It was as if he was in a horror game. He looked left and right to see if anyone was there.

'What..?'

At the furthest corner of the next wagon, Song Lei could see a person wearing a trench coat that was covering his whole body. This person was wearing a hat and sunglasses too. It was almost impossible for Song Lei to identify him.

The weirder thing was, this person was looking at the wall. He had left his back all open for the train to see. He was just standing there, staring at the wall without making any moves. Even the shaking of the train didn't seem to affect him.

Seeing the man, Song Lei decided that it was a bit dangerous to stay on this train so he left at the next station. He made sure to keep eye contact with the man while he was leaving so he would know that the man hadn't moved from his place.

Ding!

The doors of the train made a crisp sound and closed. It spent a few seconds to accelerate and left the station. All the while, Song Lei made sure that the trench coat man was still on the train. Seeing the man leaving with the train, Song Lei sighed a breath of relief.

If he could avoid dangers by just spending a few more minutes, he would do so. After five minutes passed, another train came to a stop at the station. This one, just like the one before, was completely empty. Song Lei took in a deep breath and entered the train.

When his eyes caught a glimpse of the trench coat man at the corner of the wagon, his mouth twitched.

'Well... I had guessed that this would be the case...'

This time, the trench coat man wasn't in the next wagon but in the same wagon as Song Lei. Seeing this, Song Lei decided to experiment with the trench coat man a little bit.

'First of all, I should figure out when it moves,' Song Lei decided. He turned his head away from the trench coat man and cut his sightline. After waiting a few seconds like that, Song Lei looked at the trench coat man again. He was now standing a bit nearer to Song Lei. Seeing this, a wide smile appeared on Song Lei's face.

'Just like I guessed...'

This was a pretty common setup for any kind of horror element. Whatever happened would happen while no one was observing the things that were happening. As Song Lei spent more and more time in the New World, he was starting to realize that the monsters and ghosts seemed to act in stereotypical ways most of the time.

Confirming that the trench coat man moved whenever he didn't look at him, Song Lei decided to take his phone out and record the trench coat man.

After taking a few seconds of recording, Song Lei ended it to watch.

In the video, the trench coat man was slowly sliding towards Song Lei. He didn't seem to move on his own. It was more like an invisible person was pulling him with a rope towards Song Lei.

Song Lei turned the recording off and opened the door to the next wagon. The intense wind made his hair flutter. He passed to the next wagon and closed the door, all the while keeping eye contact with the trench coat man.

'When am I going to arrive?' Song Lei thought. A good amount of time had already passed. He was surprised that he still hadn't arrived at the right station. He used his phone to take a photo of the station map and looked up which station he was at. 'What the fuck..?'

As soon as Song Lei saw which station he was in, a headache started creeping its way into his head.

'I'm still in the same station...'

Since he had got on the train, Song Lei hadn't moved even a single bit.

'Now that I realize, the station doesn't change no matter how much I keep going. I had thought that it was just a similarity but that doesn't seem to be the case.'

After putting the phone back into his pocket, Song Lei turned his head to look at the trench coat man again.

*THUD

"Fuck!" Song Lei muttered. He took a step back, seeing that the trench coat man had reached the end of the wagon. There were less than three meters between them. The only thing separating them from each other was the two doors of the wagons.

Song Lei frowned deeply. He knew that he wasn't getting anywhere by escaping the man again and again. The train was seemingly in a loop that wasn't ending. He could just try to leave and go back to his house but he was pretty sure that whoever this trench coat man was, he wouldn't let Song Lei off so easily.

On the other hand, Song Lei didn't want to go back to his house. If he did so, he would just spend another dangerous night without making any progress towards leaving this place.

Although the remnant world's overall atmosphere and looks were much better than the New World, Song Lei found this place unnerving. This seemingly peaceful place was, in reality, filled with countless dangers for him. He would actually prefer the New World to here. At least, that place had real humans and ways to protect oneself from the supernatural. And furthermore, Song Lei could even fight with some monsters all on his own.

Here, however, he wouldn't know whether the people who were talking to him and acting normally were, in fact, humans or not. They could very well be monsters that were inside human skin, just like the intruder last night.

Realizing that he had no other choice, Song Lei decided that he had to face the man face on. He turned his head away for a moment to give the man a chance to move. Then he instantly turned back and opened the wagon door, catching the trench coat man by its throat.

'I caugh-! What?'

Song Lei pulled the man towards himself and realized that this wasn't a man but rather a white mannequin. Song Lei shivered when he saw the soulless mannequin staring at him. Penetrating into his very own soul with its empty eyes.

[Your soul is under attack!]

Song Lei frowned at the new notification. Just as he was about to throw the mannequin away, he received a new notification.

[Your soul stat overpowers your enemy! You've managed to consume a remnant spirit! Soul stat +1!]

"Wh- what?" Song Lei asked himself. Everything had transpired so suddenly that his mind couldn't process everything in time. Before he could even react to the notification, the mannequin in his hands turned into sand, scattering with the wind. After a few seconds, everything around him became a mosaic that was impossible to perceive.

Song Lei closed his eyes. When he opened them back up, he realized that he was standing in front of the wagon entrance. There were a few people here and there. As it wasn't the working hours, it was normal for there to be fewer people than normal.

'So everything was an illusion?' Song Lei thought while boarding the wagon. 'Or was I pulled into some kind of subspace?'

At this point, Song Lei wouldn't be surprised just because a being could create subspaces and pull people into them. The existence of this remnant world was a much more surprising thing than that.

'This was fine...' He thought. Although he had experienced a good amount of fear from this encounter, his gains outweighed that. A free point in soul was something he would never refuse. In the end, he hadn't gotten hurt or experienced hardships in any way in this encounter. He could overpower this remnant spirit by just standing there because of his high soul stat.

After passing ten stations, Song Lei finally arrived at the station he was supposed to leave at. He quickly left the train. This place felt really suffocating as opposed to the outside.

After leaving the station, Song Lei took his phone out again to check the map.

'It's this way...'

After walking for some time, he finally reached the campus.

"Finally...."