Global Ghost Stories: I'm Investigating Ghosts in My Nightmare!

Chapter 6 Redemption Under Broken Rules
The absolute darkness swallowed everything, even stripping away the night vision granted by Hei Yan. Bai Yu remained calm; years of experience instantly put him into battle mode. He held his breath, focusing all his attention on his hearing and touch. The stench of decay and blood in the air grew stronger, almost tangible, irritating his nostrils.

"Hiss...la...hiss...la..."

A heavy dragging sound came from deep within the bathroom, scraping across the wet tiles. The sound wasn't fast, but it had a sickening rhythm; each drag felt like a grating scratch on the eardrums. It was getting closer.

Bai Yu immediately recalled the cold, slippery ball that had rolled off her face.

eyeball.

That was the key item for rule number six, "Please help me find my eyeballs." He had to find it. At the same time, the revised rule number four flashed into his mind—"Please turn on the bathroom light when in danger."

This is undoubtedly his most dangerous moment.

He didn't act rashly. Instead, he slowly crouched down, extended his right hand, and groped along the cold ground like a blind man. The sticky, slippery sensation at his fingertips was the rapidly spreading pool of blood. He suppressed his nausea and carefully probed.

"Screech...screech..." The dragging sound grew closer, almost just a few meters away. Bai Yu could even smell the stench emanating from the thing, like a mixture of sewer sludge and rotting flesh.

His fingertips touched a hard yet elastic object. That's it! Bai Yu's heart skipped a beat, and he quickly clenched the eyeball in his palm. The thing felt nauseous, like a peeled, cold grape covered in a slippery liquid. He didn't dare think further and immediately stuffed it into his uniform pocket.

Goal achieved! Next step: turn on the lights!
Bai Yu remembered clearly that the bathroom light switch was right next to the entrance door. Leaning against the cold wall as a reference, he began to slowly move towards the door. His footsteps were extremely light, almost inaudible, trying to blend into the "drip, drip" sound of the water.

However, the dragging monster seemed to possess some kind of perception beyond sight. The moment Bai Yu moved, the hissing sound immediately changed direction, heading straight for him, and its speed noticeably increased!

A gust of wind swept over him, and Bai Yu could even feel the air thickening and viscous. Without hesitation, he rolled to the side, dodging the fatal blow. With a muffled thud, the wall where he had been standing seemed to have been struck by a heavy object, and the sound of shattering tiles echoed.

No more delay!
Bai Yu no longer hid, leaping to his feet and sprinting towards the door, guided by his memory. The hissing sound behind him turned into a frantic dragging sound, relentlessly pursuing him. The darkness amplified all his fear, and he could only rely on instinct and experience to judge the distance.

Closer, closer! He felt himself bump into the doorframe. Ignoring the pain, he frantically groped along the wall. The wall was cold and rough…

Found it! That protruding plastic switch!
Just as he was about to press down, a suffocatingly foul stench enveloped him from behind, and a giant hand, seemingly made of countless tangled strips of wet cloth, reached for the back of his neck.

Without the slightest hesitation, Bai Yu used all her strength to press the switch hard!
"Snapped!"

The entire world was instantly engulfed by a pale white light.

The blinding light caused Bai Yu's eyes to sting, and he instinctively squinted. When he opened them again, the scene before him sent a chill down the spine of even this battle-hardened investigator.

The lights were not providing stable illumination, but were flashing wildly at an extremely irregular frequency, causing the entire bathroom to switch rapidly between light and darkness, like a dying dream.

The "hand" that tried to grab him revealed its true form under the light—it was a tentacle made of countless blood-dripping mop strips twisted together, and at the end of the tentacle was the cleaning worker who should have disappeared!

No, that can no longer be called human.

The old man's body was bloated and contorted, his skin a sallow, rotten color from prolonged soaking. Countless filthy mop slivers crawled out of his flesh, writhing like living creatures. His blue cleaning uniform was tattered and torn, stained with dark red blood and yellowish-green pus.

The most horrifying thing was his face, a face covered in wrinkles and lividity, with two empty black holes where his eyes should have been, and his mouth stretched into an unbelievable arc, containing no teeth, only a clump of filth that kept churning like a mop head.

This is the true form of the Nightmare.

Bai Yu's gaze swept rapidly across the entire restroom. On the floor, the sea of ​​blood had spread to every corner. And above the sink, the enormous mirror that shouldn't have been there was now clearly reflecting everything.

No, not exactly.

In the mirror, Bai Yu's figure was clearly visible, as was the figure of the mop monster behind him. But in the mirror's reflection, two clear, darting eyeballs were clearly embedded in the monster's two empty eye sockets! The mirror reflected its "complete" state!
"Rule number two: There are no mirrors in the restroom." Bai Yu understood instantly. The mirror was the "truth revealer" of this strange tale; its appearance itself meant another distortion of the rules, and also meant that the key to solving the mystery lay within it.

His gaze finally settled on the innermost stall. In the flickering light, he could see a small, thin figure curled up on the toilet, motionless. It was a little boy dressed in children's clothes, his head bowed, his hands covering his face, his body trembling slightly with fear.

"Give...me...back...my...eyes......"

A faint, intermittent voice seemed to come from another world, resounding directly in Bai Yu's mind.

It's that kid!
The mop monster let out a roar that sounded inhuman. It seemed to have an extreme aversion to light, and black smoke billowed from its body under the flickering lights. It abandoned its attack on Bai Yu and instead used its disgusting mop tentacles to frantically smash the ceiling light.

"Bang! Bang!"

Glass shards from the light bulb flew everywhere, making the light more unstable and threatening to go out completely at any moment.

Bai Yu's brain was working at lightning speed.

The truth is clear. This janitor monster is the true form of the Nightmare; it killed the child and stole his eyes. The child's resentment and obsession with his eyes form the core of this supernatural tale.

The child's consciousness left a plea for help within the rules—"Please help me find my eyeballs." The cleaner, on the other hand, devised misleading rules, attempting to trap and kill all intruders, turning them into nourishment. He disguised himself as a harmless old man, using the rule of "trusting the cleaners" to deceive his victims. When a victim chose to stay, it meant falling into his trap, at which point he would reveal his true form and rob all living beings of their lives.

I now have one eyeball, and according to the mirror, the other one is on the monster!
The second eyeball must be retrieved and returned to the child before the lights go out completely!
Bai Yu's gaze locked onto the monster. He noticed a small, round bulge in the pocket of the tattered cleaning uniform on the monster's bloated abdomen.

That's it!

He took a deep breath, picked up a blood-stained mop handle from the ground, and gripped it tightly in his hand. Instead of charging at the monster, he turned and, without hesitation, rushed towards the last open cubicle!
"Never use the last stall in the men's restroom under any circumstances." This is the revised rule. Bai Yu bets that this rule is not only a warning to intruders, but also a kind of restriction on the monster itself!
Sure enough, seeing Bai Yu rush towards the cubicle, the mop monster let out an even more ferocious roar. It abandoned its attack on the overhead light, and its massive body charged towards Bai Yu at a speed disproportionate to its size, splashing blood everywhere on the ground.

Just as Bai Yu stepped into the cubicle, he suddenly stopped and turned around, lowering his body and pointing the mop handle in his hand like a javelin in the direction the monster was charging.

The monster charged in with unstoppable force!
"Pfft!"

The sharp end of the wooden pole pierced precisely into the pocket on the monster's abdomen!
A burst of foul-smelling pus and blood instantly erupted, spraying all over Bai Yu.

The monster let out a painful roar, and the huge impact sent Bai Yu flying, his back slamming heavily against the door of the cubicle.

Ignoring the excruciating pain that felt like his body was falling apart, Bai Yu stared intently at the wooden stick embedded in the monster's abdomen. As pus and blood oozed out, a cold, wet eyeball was squeezed out of the wound and fell into the pool of blood with a "plop."

It worked!
The mop monster writhed in agony, trying to pull out the wooden handle, its movements momentarily faltering.

It's now!

Bai Yu scrambled forward, grabbed the eyeball from the blood, and then rushed back into the last cubicle without looking back.

The moment he rushed in, a deafening "boom" echoed behind him. The mop monster's massive body slammed into the door frame of the cubicle, but it seemed to be blocked by an invisible wall. No matter how much it roared or how frantically it lashed out with its mop tentacles, it could not advance another step.

The gamble paid off! This compartment is a "sanctuary" for the victims, but also a "forbidden zone" for the monsters!
Bai Yu gasped for breath, leaning against the cold wall of the cubicle, looking at the little boy curled up on the toilet. He slowly walked over, opened his hands, and two blood-stained but still clear eyes lay quietly in his palms.

"I found it for you...." Bai Yu's voice was a little hoarse.

The little boy slowly raised his head. It was a pale, bloodless face, streaked with tears, and his eyes were like two bottomless black holes.

He looked at the eyeball in Bai Yu's hand; transparent liquid seemed to be flowing from the black hole-like eye socket.

He reached out his trembling little hands and gently cupped the two eyeballs in his hands.

The moment his fingertips touched the eyeballs, a soft white light emanated from him. He slowly pressed the two eyeballs back into their sockets.

The light shone brightly!

The mop monster outside the cubicle let out a final, mournful scream. In the dazzling white light, its body, composed of filth and resentment, melted away rapidly like snow under the blazing sun, eventually turning into a pool of foul-smelling black water and disappearing completely.

The entire bathroom began to shake violently, the tiles on the walls cracked inch by inch, and huge cracks appeared in the ceiling and floor. The mirror shattered into countless fragments with a "crack," and the entire ghost story world was falling apart.

The little boy's body became increasingly transparent, and he gave Bai Yu a pure and grateful smile.

"Thank you, big brother."

As soon as he finished speaking, his figure completely vanished into the white light. A strong sense of dizziness struck again, and Bai Yu's vision went black as he lost consciousness completely.

……

"Hey! Wake up! Bai Yu!"

Someone was slapping his cheek forcefully. Bai Yu slowly opened his heavy eyelids; the glaring sunlight made him uncomfortable. He found himself lying on the cold floor of the mall, surrounded by colleagues in investigation bureau uniforms, with An Mu and Mo Fei's anxious faces right in front of him.

He struggled to sit up and found himself standing in front of the "Dream Cafe." The cafe was brightly lit, customers were coming and going, and everything had returned to normal, as if the terrifying experience of being on the verge of death had really been just a bizarre nightmare.

"You little rascal, you're finally out! You scared us to death!" Mo Fei pulled him up and patted his back hard.

An Mu handed over a bottle of water, his eyes filled with lingering fear and relief: "Are you alright? The nightmare inside..."

"It's resolved. I never expected it to affect Hei Yan's abilities; I almost died inside." Bai Yu took the water, unscrewed the tap, and took a big gulp, finally relieving his dry throat. He looked down at his hands, which were spotless, without a trace of blood, and the two disgusting eyeballs were no longer in his pocket.

However, in his palm lay a crystal-clear, eyeball-shaped glass marble, refracting a rainbow of colors under the sunlight.

"This should be the core of this nightmare."

(End of this chapter)