Only I Walk Alone

A low hum came from the walls.

A woman’s voice said, “I feel vibrations, do you feel them? The vibrations on the rock walls!”

The three climbers were terrified; an earthquake was occurring during their climb, and there was nothing more dangerous than that.

“Hold on tight!” Mike yelled.

Erik shouted, “We should continue upwards, we’re almost at the top, I bet we can reach the summit in just ten minutes.”

Mike said, “We should wait for the earthquake to stop!”

Erik arrogantly replied, “No matter how severe the earthquake is, it’s not likely to crack the rock walls, right? Rather, successfully summiting during an earthquake would give us more to boast about when we return. Mike, if you can’t keep up, just aim the camera at me.”

At this point in the video, the Fox Immortal suddenly paused and asked, “Are all foreigners this reckless?”

Xiao Luo retorted, “Our elegant citizens of Y country wouldn’t do such foolish things, only people from M country would. Their behavior lacks any sense of etiquette.”

Wu Ge, puzzled, asked, “Is that what you’re focused on?”

He clicked play and reminded, “Listen carefully to the vibrations of the rock wall, pay close attention, that thing is about to appear.”

The video resumed, with Erik continuing to climb upwards, seemingly fearless of death, while Mike and the other woman stayed put, planning to wait for the earthquake to stop before proceeding. However, the earthquake showed no signs of subsiding and seemed to get even stronger.

“Mike, something’s not right!” the female climber yelled, “This doesn’t feel like an earthquake!”

Mike seemed to feel it too, and Wu Ge and the others also heard the growing sound of vibrations, which didn’t rumble like an earthquake but sounded more like a continuous, piercing noise from a cutting machine. This sound was sharper than that of an earthquake.

To give an example, it was like the difference between constantly shaking a table and repeatedly hitting it. This high-frequency vibration caused Mike and the female climber’s fingers, which were gripping the crevices, to go numb.

Erik shouted from above, “Hurry, come up here!”

But the female climber suddenly loosened her grip and then fell, luckily caught by the climbing rope. Mike yelled to Erik, “You go up first, secure the rope, and then we can pull ourselves up.”

Using the rope in this way wouldn’t really be climbing, but in a moment of crisis, there was no room for such considerations.

Erik nodded and continued climbing, while Mike looked at his female companion, shouting, “Lily, are you okay?”

Lily seemed terrified by something, unable to speak for a moment, and then suddenly, without warning, she let out a chilling scream. She yelled frantically as if she had seen something utterly horrifying, and then she did something no one expected.

She unhooked the carabiner of her climbing harness and fell from the height.

A boundless fear descended, and Wu Ge and the others felt a chill throughout their bodies. In the video, the cliff they were climbing seemed to silently split open.

The way the rock wall split was very strange; normally, if a rock wall were to crack, it would be very sudden, but the wall of this cliff seemed to tear open like a piece of dough, not quickly. Rather than tearing like dough, this splitting seemed more like a monster opening its eyes.

Yes! Like a monster opening its eyes!

Because after the cliff wall split open, an immense eye appeared. The sclera of the eye was black, and the iris was white. The moment this eye appeared, Mike’s panting stopped.

Then, the viewers saw the entire video shake crazily, but the whole process was silent, even the whooshing sound stopped. The video shook and spun, as if Mike, wearing the camera, was contorting his body.

Gradually, they heard Mike’s distressed howls and the sound of tearing clothes. Like the female climber before him, Mike twisted his body without warning, emitting a fearful wail, and then he too unfastened the buckle on his climbing rope.

The screen immediately began to spin wildly, making it impossible for the viewers to see anything clearly. About five or six seconds later, the image abruptly stopped, and the video ended there.

Xiao Chao said, “None of the three climbers who went to that cliff that day returned. They disappeared, and only this camera was found. Investigators conducted a thorough investigation of the cliff but found nothing. There was no earthquake in that area that day, and the cliff showed no signs of damage.”

Xiao Luo and Ya Yi could hardly believe it, murmuring to themselves, “Is this, then, Sugro?”

The Fox Immortal browsed through the file, reading out a few key points: “Sugro, also known as the Eye of the Demon, has been discovered in various eye statues around the world, but no related eyewitness testimony has been found… In April 1987, a mountain village in a certain country mysteriously disappeared. Investigations revealed that before the village disappeared, the villagers often dreamed of a peculiar eye… In 1965, in a deserted area of a certain country, an abandoned car was found by the side of a desert road, but the driver was missing. According to investigations, the missing persons were two eyeglass salesmen.”

There were many similar cases of disappearances, all related to eyes, and no clues were found at the disappearance sites, nor was the terrain damaged.

At this point, Xiao Chao said, “The owner of the recently disappeared household had posted a message in her virtual space not long before, saying that every time she closed her eyes to sleep at night, she felt an eye appearing on the ceiling, causing her to be afraid to lie down to sleep.”

Wu Ge pondered, “An eye, huh?”

The three women also began to think.

Ordinary people might be terrified immediately upon seeing this file, but those present were not ordinary. Among them were beings who were themselves considered strange: a 250-year-old human, a nine-tailed fox, a vampire, and a ghost – weren’t these all strange objects?

Xiao Luo asked, “Should we investigate this strange object?”

Wu Ge replied, “Leave this matter to me. You all have your own tasks to attend to, right?”

The Fox Immortal smiled, saying, “Having seen this file, we can no longer remain uninvolved. The moment we came into contact with this file, we likely already fell into the ‘divine trap’. Even if we don’t seek out this eye, it will eventually find us.”

“Divine trap?” Everyone looked utterly puzzled.

The Fox Immortal explained, “The so-called divine trap refers to the evil thoughts attached during the process of consciousness and mental transmission. You can also understand it as a curse, but a curse is formed actively. What I’m talking about is formed unintentionally, and the consciousness can mutate as it spreads.”

Wu Ge understood, saying, “Something like a meme, right? Any thought related to the eye attracts this monster. Most intelligent beings can’t control their own thoughts; the more they try not to think about something, the more they end up thinking about it. Once they start associating with the eye, they’ll keep thinking about this eye, and doing so will summon Sugro to appear and devour them!”

As Wu Ge and the others discussed Sugro, Xiao Luo suddenly cried out in horror, “Look under your feet, what is that?”