Horror Game Designer

“Do you want to go in?” The big dog was highly resistant.

“Why would the patients be guided here after they failed to be treated by the other three doctors? What is at the end of this tunnel?”

Gao Ming took out the map left behind by Mr. Question. It didn’t detail the layout of the gastroenterology department. However, Mr. Question drew a small house in this department.

“This map looks like it was drawn by a kindergartener.” The big dog bit Gao Ming’s clothes. “Don’t act rashly. This place feels wrong.”

“Do you think the small house icon means home? Is Situ An’s home deep inside this tunnel?” Gao Ming used his hand to touch the walls. He didn’t feel anything wet. He tried to walk in.

“Who will build their home in such a disgusting place?” The big dog hung his head. He resisted the urge to throw up and followed Gao Ming.

“Tunnel… Intestine…”

The light behind them faded away. Gao Ming felt like he was transported back to the night of the Hungry Ghost Festival. There was the sound of an axle turning. Gao Ming turned back and realised the door behind them had been closed. The way back was gone. Everything seemed to change at that moment.

“Gao Ming, something is growing on the walls. Do not get close to them.” The big dog warned Gao Ming, but Gao Ming was in a strange state. The environment felt so familiar to him. Shadows grew inside the gaps of the wiggling walls. Gao Ming reached in to pull something out. It was a uniform from twenty years ago. There was even a work ID that belonged to Situ An. In the picture, he was young and handsome. His eyes glowed with justice. He gave off a good first impression.

Gao Ming moved further down the tunnel. He saw a picture embedded in the wall. Situ An and the patient’s family stood together. The family thanked him profusely, but some of their faces had been marked by a red cross like they had been killed.

“The uniform and the ID represent his job. The picture represents his conscience. Everything he has was slowly being lost inside the tunnel, digested by the shadow world.” The big dog analysed the clues. Gao Ming didn’t give any response. “Why? Are you going to tell me you have a similar experience?”

The deeper they ventured, the more things appeared inside the meaty walls. This tunnel was like a time capsule, recording Situ An’s unknown past. At first, the things that grew out of the walls were relatively normal, like pictures, uniforms, presents from the patients, money and so on. However, after a wedding ring showed up, everything started to turn south.

Gao Ming examined the ring. The diamond on the ring was very small. It was not expensive. However, it stood out in the tunnel. It gathered all the light. It was like an eye that stared at Situ An. Right after the wedding ring was a doll that had grown human hair. The doll was cute, but it looked frightening with the hair.

Not far away from the first doll was the second doll. For the second doll, other than hair, human fingernails and teeth had grown. “This doll is becoming more and more human-like.”

Soon, Gao Ming saw the third doll that had human skin. Then, the fourth wall had human eyes and internal organs. When Gao Ming saw the ninth doll, he was stunned. The doll was no different from a child in real life. The scariest thing was Gao Ming had seen this doll at Han De Private School. He was Situ An’s biological child!

The nine dolls recorded the process of a normal doll turning into a human. Looking from another perspective, it was how a living human was slowly replaced by a ghost. The nine dolls looked normal, but they represented Situ An’s dying humanity.

“Father…”

Gao Ming could hear a boy’s voice. He walked near the wall and realised the child’s voice was coming from inside the wall.

“The things that grow out of the wall are the things abandoned by Situ An.” The kid was still waiting for his father to come home, but that was never Situ An’s intention.

The tunnel moved more violently. The things that grew out of the wall became even more demented and cruel. Situ An could turn his own child into a ghost. Why would someone like him show mercy to others?

In his beautiful suit and pretence of kindness, he used the sharpest blade to cut through one after another beautiful faces and blind pairs of hopeful eyes.

The meaty walls had incomplete corpses growing out of them. They were the people who needed the help the most but were drained of the most value by Situ An.

From the homeless to the big shots in Han Hai, Situ An was fair in terms of who to kill. He’d do anything that was beneficial to him. He would eliminate everyone that stood in his way. The ruined faces grew in the gaps of the walls. They could barely wave their arms. They begged Gao Ming to take them away from the dark intestine.

Walking down the tunnel, Gao Ming looked at the half-dying corpses, and he understood why it felt so familiar.

“The tunnels…”

On the night of the Hungry Ghost Festival, after he got off the bus, he saw something similar inside the tunnel.

In Situ An’s tunnel, the corpses belonged to others. In Gao Ming’s tunnel, all the corpses were of Gao Ming.

“One might need to conduct a special ritual to start breaking down fate. Situ An uses other people’s lives while I use my own lives.”

Gao Ming still had no idea what was at the end of his tunnel. However, at that moment, he was about to see Situ An’s deepest secret. Gao Ming and the big dog walked past the endless corpses. The murders were all special. More mutated ghosts and humans appeared. Suddenly, Gao Ming and the big dog heard laughter.

Inside the tunnel of corpses, the laughter was very out of place. The more innocent it sounded, the scarier it was.

“Is it Situ An’s home up ahead?”

The big dog couldn’t tell either. He hid behind Gao Ming.

“Is it Situ An’s home at the end of the tunnel? Then, is my home at the end of my tunnel? Is there where my family and past are?”