My House of Horrors

Chen Ge exited the laundry room to head for the second floor, to find the room Wang Haiming had once stayed in. There were two beds placed in the small room. The mattress and covers had been taken away, and only two bed frames remained. Perhaps due to safety concerns, there was nothing sharp in the room. Even the bed’s edges had purposely been smoothened.

“Wang Haiming was sent into the hospital by his second wife. Perhaps there was something wrong with his head, but it shouldn’t have been that serious. I believe this was a conspiracy against the man.”

Composing all the information he had, Chen Ge realized that Wang Haiming had led a complicated life.

His life had big ups and big downs, but he had never given up, never stopped resisting or struggling. Be it being forcibly sent into the mental hospital or fighting for his body with a monster after he left the hospital, he never stopped fighting. He was not a saint, either, considering he had cheated on his first wife, but from a certain perspective, he had already paid more than enough for his sin.

“Every door to the sick room is equipped with a single-sided lock, so even with the key, the door could only be opened from the outside. There are safety doors at every twenty meters along the corridor, and there were nurses and workers patrolling nightly, so how did Wang Haiming manage to escape?” Chen Ge sat on the bed frame and studied the window that was boarded up. “Jumped down from the window?”

Prying off the wooden boards, Chen Ge realized that the window was strengthened with steel netting; it was not the exit he was looking for. Furthermore, the hospital was surrounded by a two-meter-tall cement wall and a lush forest beyond that. Without a proper guide, getting lost was common. But under these conditions, Wang Haiming not only managed to escape, he also got in touch with his ex-wife to get her to save him. This whole process could have been made into a movie.

It’s too difficult for Wang Haiming to have escaped this place alone. He should have relied on the power of that monster inside him as well. They managed to escape this hospital by working together. After all, their united goal was to leave this mental hospital. Chen Ge understood this, but another question remained. When did the monster enter Wang Haiming’s body?

Remembering his conversation with Xu Tong, Chen Ge discovered something strange about Wang Haiming. Not long after his first shock ‘therapy’, he started to provoke the doctors and even physically assaulted a nurse, and the reason was simply hiding medicine. This could be understood for a crazy person, but Wang Haiming was not a crazy person.

Did he do this on purpose? He wanted to get back into the Third Sick Hall? Chen Ge examined this simple sickroom. The only spot that could have hidden something was behind the curtain and under the bed.

Standing up, Chen Ge moved the two bedframes. On one of the walls that was covered by the bed earlier, and he made a new discovery. Someone had used their fingernails to carve out a diary of sorts on the white paint. Due to the passage of time, most of the words were unreadable, but Chen Ge got the gist of it.

“Is it Wang Haiming’s handwriting?” Chen Ge closed the door, shone his flashlight on the wall, and started to read the words on it.

“Have I really gone crazy?

“Two workers and a doctor hauled me into the electroshock room. The bunch of animals locked the door, so technically, no one should have been able to come in.

“Why did I see four people in the room after the therapy?

“Who was the one wearing the patient’s garb?

Wang Haiming probably left this behind. In a room without any entertainment devices, keeping a diary became his only entertainment. It was here, after plenty of rumination, that he realized he was different from those around him.

“Is it a hallucination caused by the shock? Why could he talk to me? Why can only I see him?

“He said that he can help me escape, but in return, I have to agree to one of his conditions.

“This is truly a devil’s bargain, but I have no choice.

“Perhaps something is wrong, could it be those pills? I find myself falling asleep easily like someone has poured lead into my brain. I have to leave this place.

“The devil doesn’t seem like he can leave the third sick hall. I’ll need to find him there if I want to escape from this hospital.

“The workers here are heartless animals! I will ruin this place, I swear!

“After entering that room for the second time, I agreed to his demand. After completing the ritual inside the bathroom, he entered my body.

“Have I really gone insane to believe there is a devil in this world and accepted his trade?”

The diary stopped here abruptly. After the trade, perhaps only Wang Haiming himself knew what happened to him.

The monster inside Wang Haiming probably came from the Third Sick Hall, and the ritual was completed in the bathroom. Could it be that the ritual required a mirror? In that case, the monster that possessed Wang Haiming was not some kind of devil but a common mirror monster. Chen Ge knew a thing or two about mirror monsters. They were not particularly strong but extremely cunning. There were no other clues in the room, so Chen Ge left.

The mirror monster on Wang Haiming came from the Third Sick Hall, and the tall monster on Wang Shenglong also came from the Third Sick Hall. Why wouldn’t the monsters stay there? Chen Ge needed more answers. He grabbed the hammer, whistled to get the white cat, and prepared to head into the Third Sick Hall.

He came back to the hallway connecting the two buildings on the fourth floor. Twisted face had used this path to escape into the Third Sick Hall.

“The salt hasn’t been moved, so no one has passed this way.”

Pushing open the steel door, Chen Ge felt submerged in the darkness. The tiles under his feet were moving, and as he moved across the corridor in the Third Sick Hall, there was a bad feeling that settled over him. He felt cold, like some scary monster was staring at him.

Even the white cat, which was not afraid of anything, hid behind his ankle. If not for the jacket on Chen Ge, he believed that the cat would have run already.

The clue left behind by my parents is here. No matter what, I cannot turn back.

Chen Ge opened half of his backpack and pulled on the cleaver so that the handle was exposed. This way, he could grab it anytime he wanted.

“It’s about time.” Chen Ge looked at his phone; it was 11:51 pm. Another nine minutes, and it would be midnight.

Chen Ge experienced a strange feeling as he stepped into the sick hall. It felt like the entire Third Sick Hall was a large living entity, and the cold draft that caressed Chen Ge’s body was its breathing.