horror effect

The hotel corridor was still dark and yellow, and the hands of the antique clock at the corner were blurred.Julian glanced at the fluorescent watch on his wrist, the time was one forty in the morning.He gently closed the door of room C307 and locked it with a key.

At this time, in his own room not far away, there was a muffled sound, very like the sound of something falling on the carpet.

"Stephen?" He called softly.

Of course there was no answer, since he was alone in the corridor.

Julian felt a sudden rush of tension, a tension that was silent, very silent, but so sharp that it could tear the house apart.He walked quickly to his room.

When he and Stephen came out of his room, they left the door unlocked in order to get back quickly in case of accident, but it was also likely to be a way for others to enter the room.He first tried to hold the doorknob to make sure that the door was not locked, then he opened the door lightly and got in.

There was no light in the room, and the moonlight was very weak that night, but in the darkness, Julian could still feel that there was another person in the room.The man was somewhere near the innermost wall, and Julian could hear small gasps and what seemed to be involuntary groans.How strange, Julian thought.

If that person is a thief or a snooper, he shouldn't make such an easy move to expose himself.

So, is it Stephen?

But how could Stephen turn off the lights and hide?

That person should know that there is no way out, but why didn't he respond?

Finally, Julian got tired of all the guesswork, so he took two steps forward and reached out to press the light switch on the ceiling.

The sudden bright light made Julian uncomfortable, but he soon realized that there was a person lying on the side of the room, between the sofa and the bed.

"Stephen?!"

He was not mistaken, the one who was curled up on the floor between the sofa and the bed was the partner who left before him just now, or the accomplice.But something happened to him obviously. Beside him, the coffee table was overturned on the carpet; the cup rolled under the bed and wet the carpet a lot; It's muddy.

Julian's first feeling was that Stephen might suffer from sudden epilepsy. This is not a rare disease. He has encountered it before and knows how to deal with it.But from the outside, Stephen's situation doesn't look like it.He was lying half sideways on the ground, with his head almost touching the wall, his hands tucked in front of his chest, and some cut wounds could be seen on his wrists; grunt.

He looked more like a nightmare.

Julian pushed Stephen's shoulder, but the latter didn't respond, so he increased his strength and said the other's name in his mouth.If it was just a normal sleep, this would wake him up, but for some reason, Stephen seemed to be still immersed in the dream, unaware of what was happening in the outside world.

"Stephen! Stephen!!"

Julian leaned down and yelled in Stephen's ear, but he didn't dare to make it too loud for fear of attracting others.As he screamed, he grabbed Stephen's shoulders with both hands and shook them violently.A few minutes passed like this.

Slowly, Stephen regained consciousness, and his eyes slowly opened.

At first, he didn't understand where he was, and then, very suddenly, his eyes widened and he stared at Julian with an expression as if he had seen death.Immediately afterwards, Stephen let out a scream that made Julian feel horrified.He reached out and grabbed Julian's face and eyes so suddenly that Julian was caught off guard and his face was left with a red mark from his nails.

"Are you crazy!" Julian yelled involuntarily, stepping back.And Stephen pressed forward, roaring, and hitting him fiercely with his hands and feet.

Julian knew that he had to silence Stephen as soon as possible - no matter how, or his screams would sooner or later cause the neighbors and hotel attendants to rush in.At the beginning, facing Stephen who was attacking frantically, Julian was also at a disadvantage for a while, but he had been a soldier after all, and unarmed combat was naturally better than Stephen who was flipping through books all day long.Julian saw the timing, rushed over, pressed Stephen under him, fixed his body with his legs, and then cut his hands behind his back and held them firmly; his other hand held Stephen's chin, Fingers pinched his cheeks tightly, and pressed his head hard on the carpet.Because his mouth was pinched, Stephen couldn't yell loudly, he could only make a hissing sound.

The two of them maintained this position, and there was only the sound of wheezing and wheezing in the room.

At the beginning, Stephen struggled violently. After a stalemate for a while, his strength gradually exhausted, and slowly, he gave up struggling.At this point, Julian relaxed a little.He felt like he was sweating profusely, and he had never had such difficulty dealing with an enemy on the battlefield.He turned Stephen's head with his hands, made him face himself, and said, "What the hell is going on? You were acting like a lunatic just now."

Stephen's eyes stared blankly at the ceiling, his eyes were confused and empty, and he seemed to be in deep thought.There was a thin streak of blood at the corner of his mouth, probably because Julian pinched his mouth too hard just now, and his teeth broke the inner wall of the mouth.This made Julian feel very guilty. He took two tissues from the tissue box turned over on the carpet and wiped Stephen carefully.

Perhaps because of his gentle movement, or perhaps for some other unknown reason, Stephen began to stare at Julian, his expression seemed to become alive for a moment, light gray eyes shining, lips Nervously shaking.Compared with the sluggishness just now, he is now more like a person who woke up from a dream.Julian didn't let go of this change, he breathed a sigh of relief, and asked Stephen again in a much more relaxed tone: "What happened just now?"

"...you..." Stephen said tremblingly, but almost at the same time he stopped again, as if he was afraid of hearing his own voice, "you killed me."

Julian suddenly felt his heart drop into his abdominal cavity. It was an indescribable feeling, shocking and very depressed. "How is this possible! Yes, my actions just now may have been a little rough, but don't forget that it was because you attacked me inexplicably!"

"I'm not referring to this matter..." Stephen closed his mouth, and fell into a state of confusion similar to just now.Julian didn't ask any further, he knew that Stephen himself would say it when the time came.Sure enough, after a while, he continued, "...I had a nightmare. In the dream, there was no one in the town, only a group of horrible monsters, they couldn't speak, they could only make weird noises, but I I clearly feel that they have human-like intelligence...very clearly, not like a dream, but rather like I was drawn into another world. They chased me, screamed, and wanted to kill me, and I ran away crazily .On the street I found a man like me, a real man, and that was you Julian. How happy I was...but it was you who hacked me to death with the ax! How strange and terrible Ah! When I opened my eyes here and saw you, I thought it was still a dream, and you were still chasing me. But it’s okay, it’s okay, it’s not a dream, I’ve woken up. Thankfully, thankfully... ..."

But did I really wake up!

In the dream I am dead, in reality I am alive.

But who knows if reality is another longer and deeper dream?

Fifty years, sixty years from now, when I die, will I, having ended my life in reality, start another longer, deeper life in another place—or in a dream?where am iWhat's up with the ceiling above my head?What happened to the man next to me?Could it be that this is a dream, and the world full of monsters is real?But here I am, how do I go back to that world?die?If death alone is the only way to that truly higher world, then it is the ideal reinforcement of life.

Time is the sum of arithmetic that never stops; death is the midwife of life, the only way to eternity.Death is the beginning.He felt himself melting into the earth, his blood into soft balsam and heaven.

Julian stared at Stephen worriedly.

Because the latter returned to that frantic state: his eyes were empty but extremely bright, his breathing became more and more rapid, and his cheeks were flushed.Julian guessed from his words what he was thinking, but because of this, he was even more disturbed.He already understood that Stephen was lured into the dream trap by the white lion just like he had experienced before.For himself, the white lion chose his weakness - Lidi; for Stephen, the weakness is not easy to find, because this is a young man who has not experienced too many setbacks, so the white lion chose his weakness to almost everyone. Working Weakness - Fear of Death.Apparently, "he" succeeded.

Thinking that Stephen was caught in fruitless questioning like he was when he was young, Julian thought it was necessary for him to understand the whole thing, at least let Stephen return to his normal state, otherwise future investigations would be empty talk.

So he stretched out his hand and took Stephen into his arms, stroked his hair and back tenderly, and muttered in a low voice: "Don't think so much, don't think so much. It doesn't make any sense. In a dream, or after death Even if the current world exists, what does it have to do with you now? There is only one you, you only have this life now, and the rest are meaningless, meaningless...don't keep thinking..."

He repeated these words many times, and slowly, the breathing of the body in his arms began to stabilize.The shadow of the dream dissipated little by little.After a while, Stephen was still, and then Julian realized that he had fallen asleep.He relaxed, and angrily thought about why a well-established investigation had been carefully planned for several days, yet he got such a dumbfounding result.He really didn't know what "he" was doing: preventing them from investigating, or teasing them.

Julian picked Stephen up, and only then did he notice how heavy the 27-year-old was.He put him on the bed, took off his coat, and covered him with the quilt.

He thought of Hippocrates' potion for treating madness, and felt that the Greek doctor should have written in his oath: a large bowl of black veratrum soup should be prepared in every room of any hotel in the world.After he settled Stephen, he didn't intend to squeeze next to him or sleep on the sofa.In fact, he has more important things to do than sleep.