Puzzle Madness

Chapter 19 The Flower of Brain Blooms
His reverie lasted only a moment before his body interrupted him. John Dou trembled, his teeth chattering: fear had rushed into his spine. Through his tear-stained eyes, he could see the boy across from him, also weeping.
Or rather, just the part that involves crying.

At least those eyes, which looked like those of a plastic mannequin in a shopping mall, were indeed shedding tears - but even though there were constant drops of water and even tiny streams of water flowing down the corners of his eyes, he didn't blink.

Just standing there crying: the curiosity in my eyes seemed to have substance, trying to break through the curtain of tears--
"What are you looking at?"

The young man in the yellow raincoat retreated back out of the elevator. He looked into John Dou's empty eyes and spoke.

John Dou caught a glimpse of the sky outside the building through the blur of tears in his eyes, the boy's shoulder, and the gap between the corridors.

This time, he no longer needed to raise his head to see the virtual image that he usually didn't want to see:

His daughter, long dead, now suspended thousands of miles in the sky—she had swelled to the size of a mountain, obscuring the city buildings behind her and even covering half the sky; her calves alone were taller than the building she was standing on. She held her arms straight out to her sides, her long, curled-up golden hair covering her face, chest, and stomach.

It was still the same blue pajamas with white spots, the corners of which looked like circus tents.

Whether it was an illusion or a fantasy under heavy pressure, John Dou saw his daughter's hair, like a group of concrete pillars, tremble slightly. She seemed to be about to move.

He knew that this was a picture that only John Dou himself could see.

It's all so clear, but—
How did it grow so big?

Everything John Dou saw gradually turned red: signals of severe pain came from his eyeballs and inside his head.

He clearly remembered that when he last observed her, she was only about ten meters in size.
John Dou thought about his training and realized what this meant:
[Intensity, the intensity is different, but how is that possible? ]
-
John Dou turned his head back, not daring to look at the scenery in the sky again; the flowing tears kept sliding into his collar and his slightly open mouth.

[The client] was still twitching on the ground, like a live fish that had been fished out of the water and thrown onto the ground, thrashing around; his heels kept hitting the elevator wall, making a thumping sound.

The strong smell of cigarettes still permeated the narrow elevator. Thick white smoke drifted upwards and gathered at the top of the elevator, like a thin cloud; the dim light was the sun hidden behind it.

The young man in the yellow raincoat wiped the tears from his face and put his wet palms in front of his eyes to look at them. He suddenly frowned:

"Are you sad?"

John Dou lowered his head in confusion, wanting to respond but not knowing how to put it into words. Would the young man across from him understand? Somehow, he felt that this emotional communication should be possible.

Not through words—but in the overload of tear glands just now, the barriers between humans have been crossed.

John Dou felt a faint but definite sense of relief and joy. The rift between him and his daughter, a barrier that could never be undone, seemed to have been bridged by this pain. Yes, perhaps the person before him would understand.

You will understand
The young man in the yellow raincoat raised his arm and tapped the Hardman cigarette, which was already burning to the filter tip, between John Dou's left fingers.

"You can't smoke in an elevator even if you're sad."
-
It was like an illusion: the boy who had been standing outside the elevator shaft just a moment ago had stepped in front of John Dou's face and made another statement.

Snapped!
John Dou's vision was suddenly blocked a little - the boy's palm was pressed against his face, as if he was about to grab a basketball; the cigarette butt was pressed against his palm, burning with a sizzling sound.

"It is wrong to smoke in an elevator."

【Why? 】

John Dou felt a little puzzled and surprised: How could this happen?
The young man in the yellow raincoat gently pushed forward the hand that was holding John Dou's head.

thump.

The back of John Dou's head slowly hit the elevator wall, making a dull thud.

Snap.

Then came a moist and sticky crisp sound, like the sound of a watermelon being crushed; followed by the rustling sound of small streams of water shooting out like a fountain.

But John Dou couldn't hear a thing. His cigarette, his features, his skull, brain, and hair blended into a pinkish-white mass, forming radiating graffiti on the elevator wall—his headless body twitching against the wall, the pressure causing blood to spurt from the broken part, spraying bright red all over the elevator.

Under the pressure of the palm and the elevator wall, the fragile head burst open and shattered; the brain tissue and blood in the head expanded in an unprecedented way, covering every inch of the elevator interior.

The headless body was embedded in the half-sunken elevator wall, its still-twitching hands stretched out to the left and right; it looked like a withered saint enshrined in a Mexican sandstone shrine.

John Dou is dead.

Just as abruptly as it began: the cries between cities did not completely cease, but diminished in an instant, becoming chaotic and fragmented; no longer like a chorus of grieving people.

After a while, even the scattered sounds fell silent, while the horns of ambulances and police cars blared.

Mong Cai City has returned to its former bustle.
-
[Client] woke up, her throat clogging with solidified asphalt and her eyes filled with double vision. Her eyeballs ached, as if some invisible awl were meticulously pricking them, one by one. Her cheeks were covered in bloody scratches, even covering the redness and swelling from the beating.

She felt her chest cavity ripped open, exposing her organs—she knew it was impossible, because she was still breathing. It could only be that her sternum and ribs were broken, piercing her tender internal organs.

I might be dying.

".ah."

She couldn't fully understand what had just happened - everything seemed like a distant dream brought about by lysergic acid diethylamide, the leisurely and hazy dream she had experienced in her student days.

The world around him was no different except that it was blurry: blurry bouquets of blood and flesh smeared on the elevator walls, sticky chunks of flesh sliding down bit by bit; this hazy and detached illusion was something [the client] had seen many times under the influence of drugs.

But when [the client] raised his eyes and looked at the bright yellow monster, everything was different:

In his overly tearful eyes, the monster had a vaguely human form. But when he saw something that wasn't human, he could still recognize it.

The [customer’s] vision was filled with blur, and mosaic-like blocks of color rolled like flowing water - the light cast from the top of the elevator, and the backlight cast a shadow over the monster’s face.

"Open your mouth."

The bright yellow monster said, its voice was very clear, like two short gunshots.

[Client] shook her head—she wasn't in denial, but she wasn't fully awake yet.

"Open your mouth."

An arm covered in dark red droplets stretched out from the bright yellow and grabbed the [Client]'s jaw - she tried to raise her hand to block it, but almost lost her balance.

Click.

With a teeth-grinding noise, [the client]'s jaw dislocated.

The severe pain brought back some rationality and clarity; but it was stopped by something more instinctive.

"Blow."

The bright yellow monster wiggled its nose. Or was it some part of its face? [Client] I don't know, and I can't tell.

At this moment, the only thing she could do was to try her best to squeeze all the air she had inhaled into her chest out of her throat and mouth.

hiss!hiss!
This time, the [client] really saw it clearly - the dust and ash in the elevator were swirling, flowing out like a whirlwind, and then flowing back into the yellow monster's nasal cavity.

Goo-dong, goo-dong.

The recessed elevator walls trembled and swayed, expanding and contracting back and forth.

"Mm, mmm. Just the smell of blood."

The tip of the bright yellow monster's face moved slightly, and it tilted its head. It loosened its hand and pointed at the field officer whose head had turned into a puddle of goo:

"Oh, don't smoke in the elevator like him."

The [client] held his jaw with his hand, watching it pick up a wet piece of paper from the ground and slap it next to the bouquet of corpse flowers—blood and brain tissue obediently playing the role of paste:

"You can go now. Visitors are advised to register at the security booth."

It turned around and walked out of the elevator silently.

　Share the picture of my good friend running

　　
　
(End of this chapter)