Chapter 3: Sitting Up

Chapter 3: Sitting Up

This was not reality...

After waking up half a month ago, it had taken Karen nearly a week to accept and confirm that he had transmigrated into another "real world," rather than living in a dream of his own making, a mere figment of his imagination.

But right now,

what lay before his eyes,

was absolutely not reality!

He should be... no, he was definitely still in the basement of the Immoles family residence,

and all of these anomalies had begun the moment he tried to pry open Jeff's head.

Add to that the giant pair of red high heels and the woman's face looming before him—products and environments so utterly defying reality and transcendent of rational thought could only mean one thing: he had been "hypnotized."

The word "hypnotized" carried various interpretations, but in this current context, it meant his conscious existence had been stripped away from his physical body and confined within a spiritual domain.

To put it in simpler terms: he was currently... dreaming.

The static snow from the radio continued to hiss and crackle,

while up above,

the woman's mouth began to slowly pull open,

having already stretched to the absolute maximum limit a normal human face could manage, it kept ripping apart, a rasping sound like grinding zipper teeth echoing clearly.

Until finally, her entire face was split horizontally by the cavernous maw, teeth that were once closely set now separated by massive gaps as the width distended, and that lively, gargantuan tongue swooped downward with a posture even more bizarre and nimble than before!

Like a gecko about to snap up a tiny mosquito.

"Hum!"

Karen felt his entire body enveloped in a mass of slick, warm stickiness before he was hoisted violently upward.

When a person is swiftly lifted to high altitudes, or more broadly speaking, subjected to rapid acceleration—much like riding a pirate ship or a giant pendulum at an amusement park—there is a tickling, thrilling sensation;

and once this feeling intensifies past a certain threshold, it becomes very easy for a person to lose their bearings or even fall unconscious.

This is a dream, this is a dream...

Karen chanted silently in his mind, knowing that what he needed to do right now was to quickly "wake up."

He actually did not understand the underlying cause of this current predicament, but that did not stop him from dragging the unknown into a domain he was familiar with and excelled at to resolve it;

it was like solving a math problem—instead of sitting there scratching his head in frustration, it was better to try substituting the formulas he already knew, even if... he had to force the fit.

In truth, the human spiritual world had always been an incredibly profound and mystical "place";

when normal people dream, they naturally wake up once the dream reaches a certain point, though in rare instances, one might realize it is a dream but find themselves temporarily unable to awaken, a phenomenon otherwise known as "sleep paralysis."

Among another group of enthusiasts, it was referred to as "lucid dreaming," a state where one could increase their success rate of entry through specific training and self-suggestion techniques.

The vast majority of people, entering out of mere curiosity at first, would often end up avoiding it like the plague, because every time they forced themselves to wake up, the sense of "despair" akin to a drowning person surfacing from the bottom of an abyss was enough to drive someone mad and leave them utterly terrified in hindsight.

And for those whose minds were frequently exercised due to the nature of their real-world jobs, they could easily construct their "dreams" to be far more realistic in this situation, which in a practical sense amounted to "spinning a cocoon to trap oneself";

an even more severe scenario involved multi-layered dreams, where the subconscious began to "work" on its own, using the dreamscapes to deceive the dreamer, allowing them to "wake up" only to enter a new layer of the dream, thereby blunting their resistance to the "dream," a phenomenon known as "true self-deception."

If the "sleep paralysis" of an ordinary person was merely surfacing from an abyss, then for this group, it was like a winter swimming enthusiast diving back up only to find a thick layer of ice right above their head.

What the consequences of failing to wake up from a dream would be... remained impossible to define for now, because death certificates did not have a checkbox for "died in a dream," and those who "survived a grand dream" would simply let the matter drop since it was just a dream and their bodies suffered no actual physical harm.

The wind howled fiercely by his ears, the tongue possessed immense elasticity, and after Karen was wrapped up, he was propelled into the oral cavity at an extremely rapid speed.

Next came

the dense, overlapping sounds of chewing and sucking,

crunch after crunch, slurp after slurp,

continuously entering Karen's ears.

You are being eaten, you are being gnawed on, you are being swallowed...

You are dying... you are dying... you are dying... you... are dead!

Karen understood that if he did not wake up now, his end would be very grim.

A person who had died once before would rarely look upon life and death with indifference... instead, they would cherish the beauty of being alive even more, and Karen was exactly that kind of person.

He did not want to die!

In this environment, he had to reinforce himself with enough conviction and courage to help shatter the barrier of this "dream," allowing his consciousness to return to his physical flesh, back to reality.

In the past, due to his line of work and personal interests, it was not as if Karen had never encountered similar situations; although none compared to the current bizarre horror, he possessed a practical and feasible protocol of action.

Illusion must be pierced with reality;

Frailty must be reshaped with ideals;

Heresy must be dispelled with truth!

When you yourself are powerless, you can attempt to borrow strength.

And so,

Karen began to sing,

roaring the lyrics with his entire heart and soul:

"Arise, ye prisoners of starvation! Arise, ye wretched of the earth!

For justice thunders condemnation, a better world's in birth..."

At this moment, he needed conviction, he needed faith to transform into the most explosive will to tear himself free from this spiritual morass; furthermore, in his past life, Karen had been a staunch materialist.

Amidst the singing,

the sound of his own body being chewed began to gradually diminish, and Karen felt his form floating upward; keeping up the song, he slowly lowered his head.

He saw the woman's teeth, the woman's tongue,

then he saw the woman's mouth,

the woman's entire face,

and finally,

he saw the face that seemed to be growing, or perhaps bound together, between her two legs... a visual that carried a profoundly jarring sense of incongruity.

Right at that moment,

the static snow sound cut out,

and immediately after,

the male voice that had spoken previously delivered a line carrying a hint of confusion:

"Huh... who are you?"

Then,

"Where... is this?"

Karen lifted his head,

Straining to awaken every dormant fiber of his perception,

Open your eyes,

Open your eyes,

Open your eyes!

...

"Whirrr!"

Karen snapped his eyes open,

Only to find Aunt Mary kneeling before him, her face a mask of frantic anxiety.

"Gasp... gasp... gasp..."

Seeing Karen return to his senses, Aunt Mary slumped back onto the floor, her hand beating rhythmically against her chest.

"You scared me to death, scared me to death, Karen... Do you have any idea how terrifying it was when you suddenly collapsed and blacked out just now..."

This nephew of hers had only recently recovered from a brush with death after a severe illness;

If anything were to happen to him now, Aunt Mary truly had no idea how she would account for it to her father-in-law, especially since the boy had been helping her wheel the corpse downstairs.

Karen took a deep, shuddering breath,

Forcing a deeply strained smile onto his face,

And said,

"It is nothing, Auntie. Perhaps my body is simply still a bit weak."

Karen lifted his gaze and saw Jeff's face on the stretcher ahead; it had already been adjusted back to its proper position.

"Meow..."

A feline cry drifted in from outside Aunt Mary’s workshop. The black cat, Purr, poked its head in, observing the scene inside with what seemed like curious detachment.

Propping himself up with both hands, Karen attempted to stand, but a sudden sharp sting flared across his face. A warm current surged through his nasal passage, and fresh blood began to patter against the floor.

"I... I only slapped you just now to wake you up," Aunt Mary explained quickly.

She called that... a slap?

Yet what choice did Karen have but to acquiesce? He could only reply,

"Thank you, Auntie."

"Go upstairs and rest. Tell Mina to come down and clean up for you. You are no longer needed here."

Aunt Mary dared not allow her eldest nephew to remain in this place a moment longer.

Karen nodded and stood up. He stole another glance at Jeff lying on the gurney, intuitively sensing a dark thread connecting his sudden dream to this corpse. If he left his aunt alone to work here, would she be in danger too?

Just then,

From the spiral staircase of the basement came the shouting of his cousin, Lunt:

"Mother, Grandfather is back."

Grandfather was the undisputed, absolute patriarch of the Inmoles family. Ordinarily, when he returned, everyone in the household—especially the women—had to present themselves to welcome him, even if... one was in the middle of work.

Lunt came rushing over. He, too, saw the corpse on the gurney, but displayed no hint of fear.

No matter how ghastly a thing might be, once it frequently passed through your home, it ceased to evoke much of anything at all.

"Lunt, take your brother to find your sister. Get the medical kit to stop the bleeding," Mary commanded.

She worried intensely that she might have broken something inside Karen’s nose when she struck him. Without proper attention, this nosebleed might truly prove difficult to stem.

"Oh, alright. Mother. Brother, come along."

With his head tilted back, one hand cupping his nose and the other pulled along by Lunt, Karen walked outward. As they passed the spiral landing, he sensed a figure standing before them.

The silhouette was not particularly imposing, yet its presence conveyed an immense sense of stability, as though there were nothing in the world the man could not handle with ease.

Karen’s ambient anxiety instantly dissolved into a profound calm.

"Grandfather," Lunt greeted.

"Grandfather," Karen echoed.

In his memory, Grandfather Diss Inmoles was a deeply stern man, yet he had always possessed a soft, tender spot for this eldest grandson of his.

"Mm."

Diss nodded and walked down, offering no spoken word, nor any comment regarding the state of Karen’s nose.

Lunt seemed somewhat fearful of his grandfather, hurriedly pulling his brother by the hand up toward the second floor to find their sister.

The basement lights hung dim and yellowed.

As Diss stepped onto the floor below, he happened to catch the black cat, Purr, approaching with elegant, measured strides.

Diss paused,

And the black cat stopped in its tracks as well.

"Are you quite idle today?" Diss inquired.

"Meow..."

Purr flicked its tail and tilted its head, seemingly uncomprehending of the old man's words.

Diss waved his hand, apparently losing interest in conversing with a cat, and marched straight into the workshop of his daughter-in-law, Mary.

Mary was sitting there in the act of lighting a cigarette. Shaken as she was by her nephew's collapse, she had not expected her father-in-law to arrive so swiftly. Terrified, she immediately snuffed out the newly lit ember;

The plume of smoke that should have escaped her nostrils was violently sucked back down her throat, swallowed whole.

"Cough, cough... Cough, cough..."

The choking fit brought tears to Mary’s eyes.

Diss paid little mind to his daughter-in-law, fixing his gaze instead upon Jeff. Reaching out, he pried open the corpse's eyelids, then rested his palm flat against Jeff's chest;

A moment later, Diss’s eyes narrowed slightly.

Immediately following this,

He took a step back, as though appraising the very environment of the workshop, his nose twitching slightly as he sampled the air.

Mary spoke up instantly,

"I will never smoke in the workshop again, never again..."

Mary was genuinely terrified of this father-in-law. It was not merely because she and her husband were currently living under his roof; it was simply that the old man himself radiated an aura that made people... inexplicably afraid, even if he still served as the gentle priest of the Mink Street Church.

Diss waved her silence,

And asked,

"What happened just now?"

"I... Karen suddenly fainted. I broke his nose just to wake him up, I..."

"Karen fainted?"

"Ye... yes."

"And then, Purr came in, did he?"

"Purr?" Mary froze for a moment before remembering that was the name of the family's black cat. She could never understand why her father-in-law had given the cat such an ugly, tongue-twisting name.

"It seems... I..." Mary racked her brains to recall. "It was Karen who woke up on his own. Purr, Purr didn't come in."

Mary hadn't noticed if the black cat was outside the workshop earlier, but she was certain that it hadn't appeared before her—at least, it hadn't come inside.

"He didn't?" Dis murmured thoughtfully. "Karen woke up on his own?"

"Yes, Father."

"Where did he die?"

"This is the welfare slip, Father. He probably froze to death by the roadside last night."

"A welfare slip? Call your man back."

"Mason went to the Blossom Bay Sanatorium..."

"Call him back."

"Yes, I understand, Father."

Even though she had lived in this house for quite a long time, Mary still felt a crushing weight whenever she faced her father-in-law. Many daughters-in-law in other families called their in-laws by their names, but she would never dare.

To her, the title "Father" already carried a somewhat religious reverence.

The daughter-in-law left the workshop in a fluster.

Dis reached out and closed the door.

Then he walked over to the stretcher, sat down on the chair Mary had occupied moments ago, and looked down at Jeff lying before him.

The workshop fell completely silent, save for the lightbulb that occasionally flickered ever so slightly due to the fluctuating voltage.

Dis reached his hand forward.

He closed his fingers into a hollow fist.

From beneath his feet,

Striking black shadows began to spill out, spreading across the tiled floor and the surrounding walls like wildly growing vines, enveloping everything in the room.

At that moment,

Dis spoke:

"Tell me, how did you die?"

It was an absurd scene; he was actually posing a question to a corpse.

Yet, what followed was an even greater absurdity:

Jeff, who had long been dead and lay flat upon the stretcher, slowly sat up on his own...

—

This particular "awakening" plotline stems from my real-life experience—no joke. If any of you share the same plight, you might want to learn "The Internationale."

I originally planned to publish the book at noon, but I couldn't resist the demands for updates, so I released it right after midnight. I only gave a three-hour notice beforehand, yet many of you still stayed up late to accompany me until midnight for the launch.

I am deeply touched.

As an author, this brings an immense sense of happiness and validation.

The new journey has begun, and I will use all the writing skills I possess and my utmost sincerity to tell this story well.

You are the stars above my head; because of you, the dark night is lonely no more.