Chapter 2
Chapter 2
It was a long, long dream.
In the dream, you were pursued by all sorts of mutated monsters. Some of them even wore the faces of your friends and family.
You let out a scream and jolted awake, drenched in sweat.
Sunlight spilled into the room through the gaps in the curtains.
It was dawn.
The pendulum clock on the wall ticked rhythmically; the surroundings were silent.
You were still lying on the floor. Instinctively, you picked up your phone and pressed the screen to light it up.
Nothing had happened.
The notification bar was as clean as ever, containing only a few messages reminding you to pay your phone bill and a bank balance alert.
You chalked it up to a nightmare. Rubbing the back of your aching head, you sat up from the floor, turned the doorknob, and walked out.
In the living room, your parents had already prepared breakfast. Hearing the door open, they looked up and greeted you in a familiar tone, gesturing for you to sit down and eat.
You stuffed a fried egg into your mouth, smiling as you mentioned you’d just had a nightmare.
Your parents looked up at you, smiling without saying a word.
Your chewing slowed to a halt as a sudden chill crawled up your spine.
You turned your head toward the window and realized the sky was actually pitch black.
The clock on the wall still pointed to 3:00 AM.
The light gradually dimmed.
In the darkness, your parents’ faces became utterly unrecognizable. They smiled and said, “You finally opened the door. We’re going to take you to see the moon.”
The sound of your father’s chewing was identical to the noise coming from outside the window.
The fried egg in your mouth felt dry and difficult to swallow, carrying a faint, metallic scent of blood.
Your stomach churned. With a gag, you threw up.
You realized something was wrong.
You bolted back toward your room.
Strange, mocking laughter followed you like a shadow.
You slammed the door shut. The pounding on the wood, interspersed with loud laughter, was exceptionally piercing in the silence of the dead of night.
Not far away, your phone screen lit up. You crawled toward it slowly and saw that the official account had posted another message:
“Do not eat the food they give you, or dawn will never arrive.”
You fell into despair.
Crouched by the bed, you shoved your fingers down your throat over and over, forcing yourself to vomit.
Your raspy gasps echoed in the room. In your desperation, you thought: *Maybe I should just take one look at the moon.*
You weren’t mentally strong; you were just an ordinary person. If becoming one of those monsters was the ultimate fate of humanity, you were willing to go with the flow.
You pulled back the curtains.
The thick darkness before your eyes suddenly thinned. You saw a quiet street, dim yellow streetlights, and further up, a bright full moon hanging in the sky.
It looked no different than usual.
Everything was so peaceful and beautiful.
The terror in your heart was suddenly smoothed over by something. You felt like you were sick, or perhaps suffering from a delusion-or maybe, you really had just had a nightmare.
At that moment, your phone chimed. You received a text message: “Welcome to the Moon Party.”
“Our mission: To achieve eternal happiness for mankind.”
There was a knock on the door from the outside.
This time, your parents’ voices sounded familiar and normal:
“Come out and eat! It’s one thing to rank last on your exams, but now you aren’t even eating? Look at Xiao Zhang next door, he takes first place every time. Can’t you show a little backbone?”
You thought to yourself: *Where exactly is the ‘happiness’ in this?*
It was just a damn scam text.
The dream from moments ago still left you with a lingering sense of dread. You waited a while until you heard your father laugh and scold you: “Stupid kid! If you don’t want to eat, then starve. Your mother and I are going out for a walk.”
This thick atmosphere of daily life was what you had been most familiar with for over a decade.
It really was your parents out there.
Through the window, you saw them holding hands, wearing ridiculous tracksuits as they waddled over to join the elderly activities in the nearby square.
Giant speakers were blasting “Most Dazzling Folk Style” at a deafening volume.
Children ran back and forth on the street, and a group of old men played chess under the streetlights.
You finally woke up.
You rubbed your face and called your girlfriend.
Her flirtatious laughter came through the phone. “Hey, what made you think of calling me?”
You opened the door and sat at the dining table, making plans to see a movie with her tomorrow.
Over the phone, she talked about last year’s Valentine’s Day, when you went to Xi’an to see the Terracotta Warriors together.
You reminisced about the past, staying on the line for two hours.
After dinner, your parents came home.
They started nagging you to do your homework.
Meanwhile, they leaned back on the sofa and started watching a drama on CCTV-8, occasionally criticizing the plot.
Once your homework was finished, you went to bed early. Through the crack in the door, you could hear your parents talking in low voices about buying a house in a good school district.
You felt very happy.
This time, you welcomed the dawn.
On the first day, you put on your backpack. Before leaving, you plucked a white chrysanthemum from a vase and carried it in your hand. As you passed your neighbor’s door, you tucked it into the doorframe.
You skipped class at noon and went to the cinema with your girlfriend.
On the second day, you put on your backpack. Before leaving, you plucked a white chrysanthemum from a vase and carried it in your hand. As you passed your neighbor’s door, you tucked it into the doorframe.
You skipped class at noon and went to the cinema with your girlfriend.
On the third day, you put on your backpack. Before leaving, you plucked a white chrysanthemum from a vase and carried it in your hand. As you passed your neighbor’s door, you tucked it into the doorframe.
You skipped class at noon and went to the cinema with your girlfriend.
…
On the tenth day…
You were tired. You felt this kind of life was utterly boring, so you broke up with your girlfriend.
Heartbroken, you went home and stayed in your room alone, drawing the curtains and hiding under the covers to sleep.
This time, you didn’t wait for the dawn.
At three in the morning, the vibration of your phone jolted you awake from your dreams.
“The night is so beautiful. Look out the window.”
You broke out in a cold sweat.
Your mind had never been clearer than at this moment.
Looking back at the past few days, you realized the logic was a mess; everything was permeated with strangeness.
1. You graduated from university years ago; you don’t have homework.
2. Your neighbor, Xiao Zhang, was about your age, but he died in a car accident last month.
3. You don’t have a girlfriend.
At that same moment, there was a knock at the door again.
You were going crazy.
God knows you had been living and eating with these monsters for the past few days. The beautiful life before your eyes was nothing but an illusion.
You opened your phone and frantically logged into various social networks, seeking help.
Without exception, every reply you received was: “The night is so beautiful. Look out the window.”
You were in despair.
What kind of bizarre power was controlling humanity within this illusion?
The ear-piercing sound of nails scratching the door continued. “Time for school! Time for school! Time for school!”
You covered your ears and curled up on the bed, screaming in a breakdown, “Leave me alone! How many years has it been since I graduated?!”
Suddenly, your phone vibrated violently as a massive influx of messages poured in.
For a split second, you thought the phone was going to explode.
Seeing the messages in the notification bar, you snapped the message center open and stared intently at the screen in disbelief.
“To the Survivor: If you have received this message, it means you have discovered the paradox and survived the first layer of the Illusion Realm. Please lock your doors and windows tightly and wait for dawn.”
“We are glad to be alive – Survivors Alliance.”