“Monster?! Have you not woken up yet, Miss Shirley?!” Miss Huang clearly didn’t believe a single word Shirley had just uttered; instead, she reached out and slapped Shirley. “I’m giving you one last chance. Hand over ‘that thing’!”
“Our minds are perfectly clear!” Shirley retorted, a hint of anger in her voice. “I told you, all three of us saw it with our own eyes just now…”
“Which only proves that all three of you weren’t thinking straight! So, what exactly were you high on? Powder? Pills? Balloons? Or were you perhaps crystal meth users?! Were you engaging in other illicit activities in your dorm room, leading you to concoct such preposterous daydreams—”
“That’s no daydream!” Ji Bingyao and Eileen refuted in unison.
“Enough,” Miss Huang declared, shaking her head, her displeasure with their attitude palpable. “Come with me! Now!”
“W-where are we going?”
“To the infirmary! The school doctor will take your blood and urine samples!”
“Huh?! What?!”
Shirley and her companions instantly displayed expressions of unease.
Naturally, their concern wasn’t about the blood and urine tests themselves, but rather the act of ‘leaving the dorm building’.
After all, although the creature had been frightened away by their collective screams just moments ago, that didn’t diminish its inherent danger.
Nor did it preclude the possibility of other monstrous entities lurking outside the dorm building.
Most importantly, Salome had just claimed that this was ‘her original world’.
While they had initially dismissed it as unbelievable, what if it were true…?
“What’s wrong? Afraid to go to the infirmary?!” Miss Huang’s eyebrows rose in triumph, clearly believing she had found their weakness. “Then hand over the thing!”
“No!” Shirley shook her head firmly. “And there really are monsters outside! This isn’t a joke, it’s—”
“Monsters? I think all that’s outside are your daydreams, aren’t they?!” Miss Huang ceased listening to Shirley’s protests, seizing her wrist and forcibly dragging her downstairs.
The previous screams and arguments had created a considerable commotion, drawing almost every student still residing in the dorm.
Approximately twenty people gathered in the first-floor living room, adorned with spacious, luxurious sofas and a grand chandelier, eager to witness the unfolding drama.
“Please don’t! We really aren’t lying!” Initially, Shirley had felt too embarrassed to resist with all her might.
However, as she was dragged closer to the lobby entrance, genuine fear began to grip her, and she struggled desperately to break free from Miss Huang’s hold.
After all, no matter how incredible it sounded, the creature that had appeared outside moments ago was undeniably real!
Until she had concrete assurances of safety, she truly had no desire to venture outside casually.
Although Shirley was not particularly athletic, dealing with the elderly aunt, nearly fifty and excessively obese from a diet rich in high-salt, high-sugar, and high-fat foods, was well within her capabilities.
After an undignified struggle, Shirley finally broke free from her grasp less than three meters from the dorm’s main door.
“Agh!”
The moment Shirley broke free, Miss Huang, having exerted too much force, lost her balance and tumbled to the floor in an ungainly heap.
“You! You! You!” she shrieked furiously, struggling to regain her footing, resembling a fat cat that had failed to snatch a canary and instead gotten its backside pecked. “How dare you use violence against an elder?! I—I will definitely tell the principal! He’ll expel you! Just you wait!”
“Wait!” Seeing Miss Huang intent on leaving alone, Shirley was startled and quickly tried to interject, but alas, her reaction was a beat too slow.
The obstinate dorm supervisor had already entered the code into the dorm building’s keypad lock and opened the door.
Outside lay a vast expanse of white, swirling mist, resembling corrupted milk.
“Hmm, what dense fog, how did this happen?” Miss Huang, standing before the churning vapor, surprisingly faltered.
After all, ordinary fog was one thing, but this super-dense mist, literally thick enough to obscure one’s hand before their eyes, was quite another.
As creatures profoundly reliant on sight, humans instinctively recoil from the inability to see.
For a fleeting moment, Shirley and the others harbored a flicker of hope.
Perhaps Miss Dorm Supervisor would abandon her endeavor due to the dense fog outside, choosing instead to retreat into the safety of the dorm building.
Unfortunately, the supervisor, whose authority she believed had been challenged, possessed a resolve to expel Shirley that clearly outweighed the oppressive sensation emanating from the swirling white mist.
After less than two seconds of hesitation, she took her first step outside.
Then, a shadow emerged from the swirling mists.
“Eek?!”
Miss Huang was literally ‘startled’ by this unexpected development; she recoiled backward, leaping like an ugly toad poked with a stick, nearly stumbling to the ground and giving herself a cerebral hemorrhage.
Luckily, a curious student who had been watching the scene unfold quickly caught her, preventing what would have been the best… no, the worst possible outcome.
Of course, she wasn’t the only one terrified by the shadow.
Shirley, Ji Bingyao, and Eileen’s hearts all leaped into their throats with fright.
Fortunately, the newcomer was not a monster with an bizarre, beetle-like proboscis and vacant eyes, but a girl in a St. Lian Academy uniform—and someone Shirley actually knew.
“Hoo… hoo… hooh-ha…” The petite girl with a plump, oval face and braided pigtails was gasping continuously, seemingly utterly exhausted.
This was primarily because she was also carrying a small loli on her back, even more diminutive than herself, dressed in the yellow and white two-tone dress uniform of the elementary school division.
Shirley recalled that the braided girl’s name was Xia Hua, president of the school’s extremely niche club, the “Campus Mysteries Research Society.”
The loli on her back was named Lu Ying, one of only two ordinary members of this “Research Society.”
Shirley knew about this because the other member of this ultra-marginalized research society was Ji Bingyao, also a member of “Pink FM Frequency.”
As an aristocratic school with a notably open ethos, St. Lian Girls’ Academy naturally wouldn’t confine its students to a life less fulfilling than that of caged, egg-laying hens in an intensive farm.
Throughout the entire academy, with the exception of the two kindergarten grades and the 150 youngest girls from elementary school grades one to three, all other students were free to join any club.
The only requirements were school approval and a minimum of three members, making the barrier to entry remarkably low.
Among the more than fifty clubs across the school, the “Campus Mysteries Research Society” was by far the most inconspicuous.
Since virtually no one else shared Xia Hua’s interest, apart from herself, she had first recruited her friend Ji Bingyao to join.
Then, using lollipops, she had lured Lu Ying from the fourth grade of the elementary school division to make up the numbers, finally meeting the criteria for club establishment.
Their usual “club activities” involved scurrying through every corner of the school, searching for those elusive “mysterious phenomena.”
“Fog… there’s something in the fog…” After setting down the loli she had been carrying, Xia Hua uttered this classic line straight from a Stephen King novel to the crowd gathered in the dorm lobby.
For some inexplicable reason, beyond the terror, her face also held a hint of… joy.
“There’s… there’s something very, very big!”
“Huh?!” Miss Huang, who had just regained her footing, once again shivered in fright.
This woman always strove to project an image of decisive authority and unyielding resolve.
Regrettably, her audience for this act was limited solely to the eighty-four students within Dorm Building No. 7, which she managed.
The moment she stepped outside the dorm building, she transformed entirely, becoming easily swayed and gullible, a stark contrast to her demeanor within her ‘private domain’.
“Really? Is that true?”
“It’s true! This afternoon, we were initially searching for a legendary alien probe at the small playground near the kindergarten section when, unexpectedly, a slight earthquake struck, and our phones lost signal!
Following that, this strange fog surged in, engulfing the entire school!
This… this must be the legendary gate to another world!” Xia Hua gesticulated animatedly, resembling an old scholar who had spent half a lifetime in fruitless pursuit, suddenly proving a long-held hypothesis.
“Im… impossible!” Perhaps the terms “aliens” and “another world” mentioned by Xia Hua were simply too preposterous, for Miss Huang, who had moments ago believed in the danger outside, now regained a measure of her former confidence.
“This… this is just ordinary fog. Perhaps the weather forecast was inaccurate; after all, unusual weather has been frequent in recent years…”
“But we really saw it—” Xia Hua shouted, a hint of annoyance in her voice.
“There’s nothing out there, just ordinary fog!” Provoked by Xia Hua’s exclamation, Miss Huang, who was more efficient at automatic contradiction than the most sensitive ETC, immediately roared back.
She simultaneously strode a short distance into the mist until her figure was almost entirely swallowed by the dense vapor.
“See! There’s nothing… huh?”
Before the perpetually correct dorm supervisor could finish her sentence, something suddenly seized her ankle.
Then, with an unsettling prickly sensation, it rapidly scaled her leg, quickly reaching her torso.
It was an enormous insect, resembling a common sap-sucking stink bug, with a nearly hexagonal body and a pointed head.
However, it was over thirty centimeters long, and the ends of its six segmented legs were all tipped with barbed spikes.
While these spikes would naturally aid in climbing and anchoring its body, if they latched onto a person, even a casual touch would inflict a series of lacerations.
“Eek—eek—eek-yah—what is that, ahhhhhhh—”
Miss Huang flailed her stout, radish-like arms, attempting to dislodge the giant insect crawling on her.
Instead, the creature seized the opportunity, gripping her arm and promptly ascending towards her head, leaving a trail of small, bleeding wounds in its wake.
Finally, after latching onto Miss Huang’s plump, round face, the creature extended its slender, piercing-sucking mouthpart, inserting one end into her gaping mouth, enlarged by her hysterical screams.
“Gulp… guh-woooooo…”
Miss Huang emitted a series of gurgling sounds, forced to swallow liquid, as she convulsed and collapsed onto the ground.
Her face, struggling for breath, turned an unsightly purplish-red.
Fortunately, while the other students stood petrified, Ji Bingyao dashed into the swirling mist, seized the insect with both hands, and forcibly tore it from Miss Huang’s face as if pulling a radish.
“Pleh—”
After the insect was ripped away, the previously imperious dorm supervisor spat out a large mouthful of foul-smelling, acidic liquid, thrashing wildly like a fish flopping on dry land.
The strange creature’s legs had carved several gashes into her facial skin, from which blood continuously welled.
Having vomited sufficiently, Miss Huang reached up to wipe her face, only to erupt into another scream upon seeing the blood.
“Quick, get back inside the dorm building first!” Shirley yelled, noticing other non-human figures stirring ominously within the white mist.
Ji Bingyao immediately followed suit: she first kicked the detached giant insect away, then forcibly hauled up the still-wailing supervisor, dragging the continuously struggling mass of flesh back into the dorm building.
Following swiftly, Shirley and Eileen, with quick reflexes, slammed the dorm door shut and pressed the red “lock” button on the keypad.
A flurry of insistent “thump-thump-thump” sounds immediately emanated from outside the door, sounding as if someone was urgently pounding on it.
However, everyone present, including Shirley, knew with chilling certainty that it was not a person.
At least, not a human like them…