Awakening from their unconscious state, Ling Yechen initially believed they had merely drifted into a dream.
Indeed, the air felt thin, the surrounding light remained dim, and their senses registered no distinct stimuli. Everything was a blur, reminiscent of a dream.
Moreover, their body lay utterly immobile.
‘Was this sleep paralysis…’
‘I should just keep sleeping. Tomorrow I still have to—’
Yet, a faint glimmer of memory surfaced, thwarting Ling Yechen’s attempt to surrender to sleep once more.
‘Oh, right. It’s a holiday now.’
‘And, I’m not at home.’
Faces of companions began to surface in their mind’s eye. Initially, there were smiles, animated conversations, and gestures pointing towards the scenery beyond a window. Whose smiles were these, though?
Then, as if possessed, their mind churned through a torrent of images, sounds, and colors, bringing with it an irresistible, sharp awakening.
Accompanying this clarity was a pervasive, needle-like pain that enveloped their entire body.
This intense agony materialized in their eardrums as the chilling, sharp clatter of steel needles striking the ground.
‘This isn’t a dream!’
The physical sensations were undeniably real. Without a moment’s hesitation, Ling Yechen began to struggle.
Reaching out, their elbows collided with a hard, unyielding surface.
The material felt akin to synthetic plastic. Ling Yechen recalled a recent airplane journey, where they had idly traced the window’s shade panel, gazing down upon an endless sea of clouds. This present sensation was strikingly similar to that panel.
‘Am I trapped inside a plastic coffin?’
Fear, a smoldering ember, began to char a patch of grey-black within their heart, yet its insidious spread quickly halted.
A far more crucial realization began to surface.
‘I… I’m still alive?’
‘Am I in a hospital? Inside a medical pod? Do hospitals even have such ‘medical pods’? This feels more like something from a science fiction film…’
Though their memory remained hazy, Ling Yechen was certain of one thing: they should have been dead.
The lingering phantom pain in their neck served as undeniable proof.
‘Perhaps it’s truly better to just keep sleeping. Maybe I’ll awaken fully recovered.’
Ling Yechen closed their eyes, and a soothing comfort obediently bloomed through their limbs. Glimmers of true dreamscapes began to coalesce within their consciousness: the outlines of friends, a table laden with delectable food…
Why was such a dream unfolding? The question, however, failed to anchor Ling Yechen’s consciousness, and they plunged irrevocably into slumber.
Yet, something else compelled them to stay.
When their eyes fluttered open once more, Ling Yechen found themselves pondering the reason for this renewed awakening.
It was then that an eerie, low growl reverberated right beside their ear.
This was no animal’s cry. It possessed a faint roundness, hinting at human vocal cords, yet its articulation was savage, its speech muddled, as if someone were cursing in an utterly incomprehensible tongue.
This unintelligible ‘language’ jolted Ling Yechen’s memory awake.
‘This can’t be a hospital! I’m simply trapped here for now!’
As if validating their judgment, two more roars erupted beside their ear. These growls were laced with sickening gurgling sounds, and the distinct slurp of some viscous liquid dripping.
Awakening alongside their memory was an overwhelming, deep-seated fear.
‘I don’t want to die!’
A voice, one that had perhaps echoed countless times before, began to reverberate in their mind once more.
An immense fear began to fray the edges of their sanity. Rationally, remaining still and observing would have been the superior choice, yet terrifying memories surged back like a raging torrent, instantly shattering their reason into fragmented pieces.
Ling Yechen frantically pushed and shoved at the ‘coffin lid’, desperate to escape this oppressive enclosure.
Curiously, they perceived their arms as having grown thinner; perhaps a feverish hallucination, yet thankfully, their strength remained.
Even with their strength, the heavy ‘coffin lid’ proved immovable by human hands.
Just as exhaustion began to set in and they contemplated surrender, their fingers unexpectedly brushed against a clasp on the ‘coffin lid’ – strikingly similar to the latch on a lunchbox.
The clasp was stiff, but by inserting a finger and pulling with force, it yielded and sprang open.
A distinct ‘hiss’ of escaping air filled the space, and the surrounding atmosphere abruptly grew colder and richer, as though an icy hand had unfurled its fingers within their bronchial tubes. Ling Yechen gasped, drawing deep breaths, finally and irrevocably snapping into full consciousness.
The clasp, it seemed, functioned as a manual valve. The ‘coffin lid’ – or rather, the mechanical door of this medical-pod-like contraption – then slowly slid open to one side.
It was only then that Ling Yechen felt a flicker of regret, wondering if perhaps remaining inside would have been the wiser choice.
Their clothes were gone, and they knew they hadn’t removed them themselves.
Thus, this truly might be a medical pod, and a doctor had placed them within it.
Yet now, it was conceivable that the doctor too had perished.
‘Should I retreat? Back into the medical pod?’
Without a doctor, they would likely starve.
Then so be it.
Even if death awaited, to starve would be an agonizing end.
With this thought, Ling Yechen pushed themselves into a sitting position, and a fresh wave of pain coursed through their body as several wires, connected to various points, were abruptly torn away.
Concerned about potential lingering wounds, Ling Yechen quickly palpated their limbs. There appeared to be nothing amiss, no pain induced by touch. Oddly, however, their legs also seemed to have grown noticeably thinner.
‘Have I been here for an extended period? Have my muscles atrophied?’
When confronted by an overwhelming multitude of unknowns, even curiosity can falter into timidity.
Ling Yechen dismissed further questions, their hands groping through the darkness until they soon encountered another metal door.
With a forceful push, the door swung open, and a long-awaited rush of frigid wind abruptly plunged into the confined space, causing them to shiver uncontrollably.
Gazing out, a thick, crimson mist enveloped everything, stretching from the distant horizon to their immediate vicinity. The sky must have been dark, or perhaps the fog itself was simply too impenetrable—
No, that wasn’t quite right; their own vision seemed unduly blurred.
Their eyesight was normally keen; unless shrouded in absolute darkness, they would never struggle to discern the outlines of objects.
Yet, at this moment, they registered something far more unsettling.
As the cold wind swept past, something seemed to flutter gently at their shoulder.
Raising an arm, their fingers brushed against their hair, which billowed freely in the wind, and a jolt, akin to an electric shock, coursed through them.
This was a girl’s long hair.
“Huh?” they uttered in astonishment, the sound emerging as a clear yet subtly delicate female voice.
The sound of that voice instantly shattered their previous conjecture: for a fleeting moment, they had even entertained the thought that perhaps their hair had simply grown long during an extended slumber.
Their hands then moved to examine other parts of their body, uncovering a dizzying, undeniable truth.
Evidently, this current body was vastly different from their former self.
“Who am I?…” Ling Yechen whispered, their gaze trembling as they stared at their own slender hands.
Her body began to tremble, whether from the biting cold or sheer terror, she could not discern.
She now stood at the open cargo door of a medium-sized truck. Beyond the iron door, the oppressive, dark red landscape slowly came into sharper focus—a highway littered with countless derelict cars, scattered haphazardly. Among the wreckage, ghostly figures swayed and stumbled through the narrow gaps between vehicles.
On the faces of many of these spectral forms, two pinpricks of sinister light seemed to fixate intently upon her.
Her trembling knees buckled, and she collapsed, kneeling. As the frigid wind swept over her, her constricted pores frantically expelled a torrent of cold sweat.
Simultaneously, her hearing sharpened, and the horrifying, guttural cries from all directions grew increasingly distinct, betraying the considerable number of entities producing them.
“No… why has the world devolved into this? Save me… someone, please…”
Her already slurred and jumbled speech stumbled over each word, while deep within Ling Yechen’s memory, fragmented images suddenly began to flash.
A pair of hands clamped around her throat.
“Senior, please, kill me…” It was her own voice.
Those hands tightened relentlessly, seemingly targeting a specific point on her neck.
“I’m sorry… I’m so sorry, Yechen…”
Whoosh! Another gust of frigid wind swept through, causing the cargo compartment’s iron door to rattle. Ling Yechen jolted from her memories, looking up to find a shadowy figure looming before her, where she knelt.
On the figure’s indistinct face, two points of eerie green light flickered like malevolent will-o’-the-wisps.
A wave of putrid stench assailed her, reminiscent of a festering wound.
“Am I… am I going to die?”
The girl, Ling Yechen, tilted her head slightly, her gaze assessing the shadowy figure that towered over her.
In that same instant, the shadowy figure abruptly raised a hand, lunging down upon the girl with the ferocity of a beast striking its prey.
****
This was once a congested stretch on the southern section of Highway 219, or perhaps, more accurately, what remained of one. For the current state of affairs could no longer be simply dismissed as ‘traffic’. Now, this place was nothing short of hell.