Illusion Report

Suo Beihua was a remarkably practical person.

While Mai Mingle stood frozen, her mind a complete blank, unsure of what to do next, Suo Beihua was actually interrogating the uneven forest of figures in the stairwell. "Where did you all crawl out from? I didn’t hear you go up or down the stairs. Have you been hiding in the concrete this whole time? How do you fit? How do you get around?"

The dense, undulating forest of people was topped with countless flesh-colored, not-quite-human faces.

A few seconds later, a face that looked like a melted version of Suo Beihua’s spoke. "That’s not important. Come, once you become one of us..."

"Either kill me or cut the crap." Suo Beihua cut off the melted version of herself, her voice cold. "Why are you just standing there? Make a move."

"They want to force us to jump,"

The thought came suddenly, the words tumbling out of her mouth before Mai Mingle’s brain seemed to catch up. "They’ve blocked our escape, both upstairs and down. The only opening left is behind us. They probably want us to jump, just like Robert did."

At this, she subconsciously glanced downstairs.

There was still no sign of Robert. At the base of the wall on the first floor was a strip of untended greenery, overgrown with tall weeds.

"If that’s what they want us to do, then we absolutely can’t do it," Suo Beihua’s voice was low, but her anxiety and frustration were still perfectly clear in the silence.

’...Wait, why is it quieter than before?’

’Where’s the sound of Robert’s winding key?’

Mai Mingle looked up, her eyes meeting Suo Beihua’s. Before either of them could voice their question, a sudden RUSTLING sound came from below. A figure emerged from the weeds.

Looking down from above, they could only see the person’s head and shoulders, but there was no doubt it was Robert.

He was panting, intermittent groans escaping his lips. He lowered his head and pressed his hands to his groin. After turning in a few circles, he straightened up again.

Robert was now holding a winding key, polished to a gleam by the oils from his hand.

Despite knowing that countless unknown things stood right behind them, neither Mai Mingle nor Suo Beihua could look away. If they were eventually forced to jump, what they were witnessing now was very likely their own future.

Who could resist looking at their own future?

’What’s happening to Robert?’

He didn’t seem to notice them watching from above. His chest heaved more and more violently. Even from the third floor, Mai Mingle could see his rib cage expand further outward with each breath, as if he were trying to give himself a pigeon chest.

Robert pushed the hair away from the nape of his neck with one hand. With the other, he raised the key and, as if handling something precious, slowly inserted its tip into the back of his head.

Suo Beihua sucked in a breath.

Just as the two were about to look away, the chest—which had seemed to be expanding infinitely, ignoring the existence of a sternum—suddenly split open. For a moment, as it swelled in the air, it looked like a pregnant belly undergoing a C-section.

From the clean-cut fissure, a flesh-colored shape began to emerge from Robert’s chest—sliding, squeezing, and crawling out, little by little.

It was a colossal strip of flesh, nearly as thick as a human torso. One end flopped onto the ground while the other remained inside Robert’s chest.

As the two women watched, frozen in horrified disbelief, the thing continued to crawl out like a long, flesh-colored worm. It crawled on and on, growing longer and longer, stretching farther and farther away. It took several minutes, reaching a length of dozens of meters, before it finally detached completely from Robert’s body.

On the end of the fleshy strip that had been closest to the chest, a few folds were embedded, vaguely forming a human face—a face that looked like Robert’s.

It tilted its face to the sky. The fleshy wrinkles that served as its eyes met Mai Mingle’s gaze. A fold below them suddenly deepened, as if forming a smile.

Robert’s body still stood in the same spot.

He looked at the thick strip of flesh that had emerged from his chest, completely unfazed. Then, he turned and walked off in the opposite direction.

The man and the strip of flesh walked away from each other, growing more distant until they both disappeared from view below, melting into the Nest.

"...He became a resident?" Suo Beihua said, her voice flat. "No, wait. Did Robert just give birth to two residents?"

Mai Mingle turned her head toward her, only to see a face right over her shoulder. It had thrust itself between them at some point, a face with three rows of nostrils.

It had no features, only three rows of black holes embedded in its fleshy skin, yet it felt as if it was still looking right at her.

"Did you see that? You really mustn’t jump off the building."

A tiny voice emanated simultaneously from two of the black holes in the bottom row, as if they were a pair of round, black, fuzzy speakers.

"What’s all this about us forcing you to jump? You really don’t appreciate our good intentions. If you jump, you become residents. You saw it, didn’t you? Becoming like that is so, so scary."

"...This is a bit like the pot calling the kettle black."

Mai Mingle slowly took a step back until her back was against the low wall of the landing. "If we don’t go downstairs, how are we supposed to... ’live happily ever after’ in the stairwell?"

"It’s simple. Just come with us. Walk among us, escorted by our warm, protective embrace. Come down the stairs with us, step by step, down, down, down, down, down... All your fears will disappear into the concrete. Peace, tranquility, stability..."

Suo Beihua, who clearly had no patience for this, cut it off. She turned to Mai Mingle. "You’re obviously not going to go with them, so why are you even asking?"