Madness ecstasy

He released his grip on the witch in the building, interlaced his fingers, and vigorously moved his wrists and shoulders.

-

The display screen was filled with snowflakes, and the battlefield could no longer be observed.

"--Chief! What should we do now? Do we need to feed them again?"

The operator stuttered, no longer paying attention to the display screen in front of him, and turned his whole body to face the section chief's profile.

The section chief remained the same as before, staring at the buzzing flickering on the screen without blinking - like a wax figure, as if the current situation was just a movie he was watching.

But she suddenly laughed, without making any sound, but her body was shaking with laughter.

A slow but clear answer finally came from those tightly pursed lips:

"Sacrifice."

The operator's eyes widened, his mouth dropped open in horror. He grasped the edge of the console, trying to prop himself up.

"But--"

boom!

He didn't have time to finish his protest: the bullet entered the operator's temple and exited the other side, lodging in the floor.

boom.

Another shot rang out; the operator on the other side also fell.

The section chief put his service pistol back into his suit pocket, casually pushed aside the operator's limp body, and put his mouth close to the microphone.

Behind him, there was the sound of people rushing out the door, office chairs being overturned and falling, and doors swinging and banging - the remaining operators all fled the control room, but the section chief didn't even turn his head:

No matter where they fled, whether they lived or died, it made no difference.

She turned the knob to adjust the volume of the entire PA system; because of her braces, her voice was a little lisp-like:

"All units, attention! All units, attention! We are now beginning the sacrificial process for the [witch in the building]."

"You've all been trained and know what to do."

"Start remembering the people you love most—if you can't remember them, die: if you haven't loved anyone, why bother living?"

After saying this, the section chief unbuttoned his shirt collar, cleared his throat vigorously, and said solemnly:

“Ah—ah—ah—”

She opened her mouth wide and made a shrill sound as if she was practicing her voice. When she was finally satisfied, the section chief grabbed the microphone and put it to her lips.

Then she began to sing a strange ballad:

“Dodo, l'enfant do”

It's not Chinese, the melody is soft and slow, like a song to lull a baby to sleep:

"L'enfant dormira bien vite."

The voice was hoarse and dry, with a drawn-out cadence like sawing wood; it had nothing to do with being pleasant. It wasn't even emotional, like someone reading from a manuscript:

"Dodo, l'enfant do"

It was a short lullaby, half sung in a blink of an eye -

Click, click: the sound of limbs hitting chairs.

The bodies of the two operators beside the section chief suddenly began to twitch. Although their brains had been damaged by the bullets, their nervous systems seemed to be still functioning: one hand covered their chest, the other covered their mouth.

puff!

With a tearing sound, a large hole appeared in the center of the operator's shirt, and the buttons burst open.

Sizzle, Sizzle, Sizzle:

The abdomens of the two operators suddenly swelled up into small hills, as if they were pregnant for ten months, and then split open in the middle of their belly buttons.

There was no spurting blood, and even no organs could be seen in the opened chest and abdomen:

Camel red, crimson purple, sea blue, goose yellow, and white.

Colorful ropes surged out of the open chest and abdomen - where the operators' large and small intestines should have been, there were now bundles of colorful rubber wires flowing and tumbling inside.

“L'enfant dormira bientt”

The section chief sang a lullaby with an expressionless face, seemingly unaware of what was happening around him.

-

Doudou, who was halfway through warming up, pricked up his ears and listened carefully to the hazy singing coming from all around him -

The turbulence caused by my previous slap had caused a huge mess in the area; it seemed that it had even broken the sound system, and now the sound was muffled:

"Hey, that's the auntie with the awful voice who sings awfully. What was she talking about? What about love? What about training? Is she singing a love song?"

Doudou squinted his eyes, trying to appreciate the music; but he immediately gave up because it was too unpleasant to listen to—like a tape with its fabric tangled.

"I really don't understand. They have to sing background music in the middle of a fight. People are a bit weird these days—oh my god!"

He turned his head and just happened to see the face of the witch upstairs, which scared Doudou.

Now, the witch in the building no longer looked like a corpse, but she was still very different from a normal person:

The waxy pale skin became more red, and the chest began to rise and fall; the teeth clashed, making a "clicking" sound.

But the "eyes" of the witch in the building were blurry - like a pinball that was accidentally stuck in a gap but had not yet lost its kinetic energy, bouncing and jumping around in its eye sockets.

In the whites of his eyes, he could see the ever-changing words formed by the blood vessels of the conjunctiva; but Doudou couldn't recognize a single word.

She moved her lips like blades, uttering words that Doudou couldn't understand:

“MamanMamanMaman”

Doudou narrowed his eyes and pondered for a while, but still couldn't figure out what the other party was talking about:

"Ah! So you really are a foreigner. I think your face looks quite foreign. Do you understand me? Hello?"

-

Tap, tap, tap.

The sound of scattered footsteps not far behind him interrupted Doudou's attempt at friendly communication:

This was the first time anyone had approached the battlefield between Doudou and the [Witch in the Building] since the previous "feeding".

He was a heavily armed man, and judging by his gear, he seemed to be a member of the suppression force, who had also been transporting the bodies. He staggered, nearly falling in the rubble, and clutched his stomach with one hand, as if he was looking for a toilet because of diarrhea.

Gulp, gulp: the man made a strange sound in his throat, and his cheeks kept bulging, as if he had an unbearable urge to vomit when he was drunk; in his other hand, he was holding a photo, which was deformed by the scratching, but he still held it in front of his face and stared at it, no one knew what he was looking at.

The man stared at the photo, shook his head, and opened his mouth as if he wanted to say something; but no sound came out -

puff.

A roll of shiny, saliva-soaked rubber wire spun out of his mouth.

Thin wires broke out and exploded from every orifice in the man's head: his eyeballs were squeezed out of his sockets and his teeth were pushed out of his gums.

The buttons of the bulletproof vest on his body were torn as his belly bulged out - more wires tore through his abdomen and clothes, and he twisted like a python.

Rubber wires were connected outside his body, twisted into a thick bundle; it was wrapped around his neck and then nailed upwards into the ceiling. The man, no longer able to move, was suspended like this, swinging forward.

Behind him, the rest of the suppression force emerged from holes and cracks in the distance—some of them were unfamiliar to Doudou, wearing frilly uniforms.

One after another, their intestines transformed into wires piercing their chests and abdomens, dancing upwards, twisting their necks, and nailing the rest of their bodies to the ceiling. Their faces were bruised and their cheeks were swollen; they lined up and, like the witches in the building before them, swayed into the small square.

Chapter 77 Peeling

Even though these corpses had been disemboweled, the air didn't carry the irony of blood or fishy odor; only a faint, burnt smell that came from nowhere.

Every corpse that passed by would wave its drooping hands to Doudou, as if to say hello - even though its face was facing the ceiling and its neck was strangled, there was no "eye contact" with Doudou at all.

Doudou didn't take it seriously, and was even somewhat moved by this strange enthusiasm after death. He ignored the witch in the building in front of him whose eyes were about to pop out of her head, and raised his hand to respond to the passing corpses:

"Ah, hello—oh, hi, hello hello. And you, hello! You can swing slower. There's rebar on the ground, and you might get poked."

Even though he was dead, everyone was still very polite; this made Doudou feel strangely comforted: in the past, when the school held a New Year's Day party, the students who were going to perform would also gesture to the audience in this way when they walked onto the stage.

Doudou watched them sway and waver, then spread out across the small square, hanging in every corner. Suddenly—the corpses, still hanging from the ceiling by wires, linked hands. More than a dozen bodies formed a large circle, surrounding Doudou and the witch in the building.

It was like they were playing the game of dropping the handkerchief together, and the atmosphere was even harmonious.

The lullaby on the radio had stopped, and the aunt with the rough voice was also silent; except for the witch in the building who was still mumbling, the entire Mong Cai City branch was silent.

"Hey, now..."

Doudou opened his mouth and looked around, but he was only halfway through his words when he felt the back of his hand become cold and clammy. He lowered his head and saw that the witch in the building had, at some point, gently placed her hand on his.

My throat feels a little itchy, as if I had eaten a piece of snow cake stuck in my throat--

Wow!

A coil of tangled rubber wire, as thick as a forearm, suddenly rushed out of Doudou's mouth. With slippery saliva, it nailed straight into the ceiling like a snake's head, making a dull "puff" sound.

"Hey, what insight does Wotuole have?"

Doudou's eyes widened, his hands clutching the wires coming out of his mouth, and he muttered incoherently.

Uh-huh! Swish!

His hands danced with afterimages, alternately dragging the wires extending from his throat, pulling out a long section each time - Doudou felt like a magician in "Zhengda Variety Show", performing the old-fashioned magic of spitting ribbons from his mouth.

In the blink of an eye, the entire roll of spirally twisted rubber wire, which was more than ten meters long, was pulled out by Doudou and smashed into the cement; but it was still twisting.

Doudou covered his mouth and spat a few times hesitantly:

"Bah, bah bah!"

Doudou lowered his head again and touched his abdomen; there was no alien-like bulging and rising, nor was there any wire suddenly piercing his body.

But after looking at the corpses around him with ruptured intestines and wires sticking out of their abdomens, Doudou still scratched his stomach a few times to prevent anything strange from happening.

"I don't blame you - I won't play with this spitting wire. It feels a bit unhygienic. Has this wire been disinfected? It wouldn't be nice if it ended up in someone else's stomach."

Doudou said as he turned his gaze back:

"Have you changed your clothes? You're so quick."

Doudou had just raised his head and pulled out the wire from his lower mouth; but now he found that the appearance of the witch in the building had quietly changed again.

Apart from the strange eyes, her upper body was no different from that of an ordinary person; but she put on a brand new "skirt".

There were more than a dozen human legs—merely bones—wrapped around the waist of the witch in the building. The bones hung down like a skirt, covering her lower body.

But through those gaps, one can see that there is nothing inside: it seems that the witch in the building never had legs in her life, and her lower body below the waist was only a long skirt made of bones.

Femur, patella, tibia, fibula, tarsal bones, phalanges—all the bones of a human leg were broken up and reassembled into this wind chime-like outfit. Even without any air disturbances around them, they still collided and made a subtle sound.

She just lowered her head and stared at the ground; no one knew what she was looking at, and even the low murmur of "Maman" had stopped.

There seems to be some invisible weight in the air--

The relief of those corpses staggering into the arena just now lasted only a brief moment:

The depression, heaviness, and worry that pounded deep into his soul and filled Doudou's heart were emotions he had never experienced in his daily life, and they even made him feel strangely uncomfortable.

Doudou frowned and thought carefully--

Then he grabbed the witch's head with his hands, one on each side, and pulled her close to his face. They were so close that they could clearly see the pores on each other's nostrils.

Doudou had no idea that just a few minutes ago, the [Witch in the Building] was a skeleton with only a head and spine. He could clearly see every bit of turbidity and bloodshot in the whites of her eyes, as well as the constantly changing words made up of the blood vessels in the conjunctiva: the [Witch in the Building]'s eyeballs were rolling and shaking up and down every second, and were about to pop out of their sockets at any moment.

But Doudou couldn't understand the words. They weren't the Chinese he was familiar with; they were similar to the half-baked English he'd learned in class, but he couldn't understand them at all.

Doudou nodded and looked as if he understood.

Some feelings don't really need to be expressed through words or text:

"Life is painful, huh? Don't worry, I understand what you mean."

Then, without a moment's hesitation, Doudou opened his mouth wide—his upper and lower jaws suddenly parted almost 180 degrees, the skin at the corners of his mouth deforming like rubber, but never cracking. Doudou seemed to have transformed into a crocodile in human skin, the hair on the back of his head bending and itching from pressing against his neck.

From the depths of the dark throat, a rumbling roar like a space shuttle engine came from far away and approached:

Finally, he roared.

[Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh——]

There were no more windows on this floor to shatter, but the concrete shards on the ground were shaking—