Chapter 7

The team had been living in this house for ten days. Nothing happened during this time. Everyone spent their days as they normally would. The girls occasionally headed to the second floor together for naps. Most of the time, the team stayed in the living room per Zheng’s order but people began to get impatient.
Evening of the tenth night came. Zheng said to the others, “I know. I know. We all stink from not showering for ten days. No wonder the girls covered their noses when they saw us.”

Kampa casually replied, “Not a big deal. It’s only ten days without a shower. I have gone through half a month without washing my face during the most important times of battles. Ten peaceful days are more valuable than anything else.”

“You are not wrong.” Zheng shook his head and said, “It just feels sticky and uncomfortable. Ok. Enough with the useless talks. The bathroom in the third floor can fit the nine of us. Let’s take a bath after dinner. Any objections?”

Kampa didn’t care much. Zero and the others nodded. Xuan was quietly reading a book while holding a piece of chocolate. It seemed as though he didn’t pay attention to what the rest of the team were talking about.

Zheng sighed. Xuan had no given him any advice or stated his plan since entering the movie. However, he couldn’t be sure if this was another one of Xuan’s plan. Perhaps Xuan’s plan was already in progress. What Zheng needed to do was go along with it until the movie reached its end.

“Sigh.. Is there an end to these kind of days?” Zheng shook his head. He stared out the window to the dark street.

Everyone was indeed quite happy for a bath after ten days. HongLu acted like a kid as he swam in the bathtub and played with water. The bathroom was nearly four bedrooms big. It was obviously chosen by the previous owner of the house. The bathroom included showers, a steam bath, and a massage tub.

“Stay strong. It’s been eleven days already. Nineteen more days until we reach our goal.” Zheng said while people were cheerful. He washed his hair and seemed rather content with the bath.

HongLu swam near him. “Have you found anything out of the ordinary during these days?”

Zheng sprayed his hair with water then asked, “Why did you ask? Did you notice something wrong?”

HongLu shook his head. “No. That’s why I have to ask you. I only know we have thirteen members. Did we lose anyone during this time? How many people did we have? You are the only one who knows. Who else am I going to ask?”

Zheng also shook his head. “Nope. These ten days have been really peaceful. No one disappeared after MoLi and Heng. It would be good if this peace continues. Although Heng… but we still have to live on. Just continue with this peace.”

HongLu gave him a bitter smile. “How can it be so easy? I don’t know why but my special ability somehow still works in this dream.”

Zheng asked in confusion, “Your special ability? What kind of ability?”

HongLu pointed to his head. “Do you still remember that I can see the air of death from people who are about to die? The reason I haven’t mentioned it is because I am a logical thinker. My thinking process will contradict itself if I include such vague information. I excluded this ability as much as I could all this time. But the air of death is clouding most of our bodies. It’s on you, on me, on everyone. I feel like we are going to die at any time.”

That could be really terrible. Zheng replied with a bitter smile. He didn’t know how to respond other than just sigh. He walked to the bathtub and submerged himself under water.

(What should I do? My deduction only has a 30% chance of being right. But it’s the only one I can come up with. I can’t think of another possibility. Yet, the price to testing it might be too high. Furthermore, if it turns out wrong, we will surely get wiped. It’s up to you now, Zheng.)

HongLu swung his head. He pinched a string of hair in front of his forehead. His hair felt oily so he went over to the showers to wash his hair. There were only adult shampoos near the shower. The children one he bought was nowhere to be found.

“Did I left it in the changing room?” HongLu ranted. He walked out naked. While searching for the shampoo in the changing room, he heard a faint cry that belonged to a woman. Along with it was the crackling noise of something burning.

HongLu’s body trembled. He recalled he did bring the shampoo into the bathroom. Yet, it wasn’t inside and he mindlessly walked out. This wouldn’t have been possible with how careful he usually was. The only possibility was his mind got clouded. Which meant Freddy had targeted him.

“So the next target is me. I am curious. Is it because the hole in my soul is big or is it because I found the correct ‘key’? As long as I complete this key, I will break your magic… No. That will probably kill you.” HongLu smiled coldly.

He pushed the door to the bathroom open. Behind the door wasn’t the room in his memory just like he expected. It was a set of stairs leading up. A wave of heat was coming from above.

“The hole in my soul…” HongLu pinched his hair. “I haven’t found the hole in my soul. So am I still in the safe dream? I can imagine what tricks you are going to use on me… Disgusting. To be honest, I don’t ever want to walk these stairs again. I was planning to take down this type of houses after I return to the real world.”

HongLu weaved a sign with his hands and chanted a spell. A hound appeared in front of him. He sat on the hound then pointed at the stairs. The hound ran up.

“The soul, or our consciousness is relative.” HongLu said with a cold smile. “You can’t simply watch the side like this is a movie. You can see us and we can see you. If I don’t break apart from this scene that you set up, you will. Nothing is absolutely perfect in this world, including power.”

(Zheng. This is the final thing I can help you. A hole appeared in my soul and it is the same to him. Remember what I told you… Our lives are in your hands. Don’t forget us. There are… no more revives if we die again.)

Despite HongLu approached the situation without turning back, but he was trembling within. Tears filled his eyes as though they would burst out any second. He continued talking to the air and controlled the hound to run up. Fire soon consumed the floor in front of him and spread to the floor behind him.

(For real. If Zheng is a bit smarter, I wouldn’t have to say the correct thing at the wrong time and wrong place. Zheng! If you fail, I won’t let you off even if I become a ghost!)

Tears ran down HongLu’s cheeks. He came down from the hound. He cleared a path using Ray of Frost and came to a burned door. HongLu slowly weeped as he pushed the door open. He saw a skeleton that had been completely burned. The skeleton moaned in pain in a woman’s voice as though it was a human being burned alive.

HongLu cried out. A hand wearing scissor like glove reached out from the room and dragged HongLu inside. Pah! The burned door closed.

Zheng was greatly enjoying the refreshing bath. His never rested for a moment in the past ten days. For one, he had to be aware of the surrounding at all times in case something out of the ordinary happened. And two, he continued training his Qi, Blood Energy and refining Qi. He arranged the eight flags on eight directions in the living room. So he was tired from the lack of sleep. This bath was an opportunity to relax his mind and body.
(Need to think through our next actions. If everyone is in a dream, how can we wake up? Xuan is planning something by himself without telling me. Hope he pulls another miracle as he always did and bring the team out of this dangerous world… What was HongLu trying to say? The origin of the nightmare. What other way is there to wake up from a dream aside from physically waking the person?)

Zheng was never an intelligent type. He was at best on the same level as Kampa and Zero. Maybe a little higher in the third stage but still far, far away from Xuan and HongLu. The circumstance enclosing them was strange. Xuan kept his silence. HongLu’s words were as good as silence. Zheng had to force himself to think. Yet, he still wasn’t able to think of the answer. On a last resort, he entered the third stage and simulated HongLu’s mode of thinking. The situation became clearer in his head. He could see fractions of what might be happening but there were still parts he couldn’t figure out.

(Haven’t figure out what HongLu was trying to tell me but following his perspective that we are currently in a dream, the power levels in this world is established around a standard. What is this standard? Another key question is… with regard to time.)

Zheng pinched his hair then continued thinking.

(Time does not flow in accordance with the real world. Twenty days might have passed in reality already or maybe it is only several minutes. If the world is split into three, time in the safe dream and despair dream might not share the same rate. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have lost the girl when she fell off the window since I immediately chased after her.)

(Wait. That girl. What was her name?)

Cold sweat drenched Zheng. He jumped up from the bathtub then walked back and forth in the room. He was perturbed as though a fire was burning his body.

(How is this possible? How could I have forgotten the girl’s name? I am also forgetting how she looked like.)

A sense of fear fell upon Zheng. The situation was unsettling to begin with and now he discovered blank spaces in his memory. This inconceivable development was scarier than any enemy he could see with his eyes. He still remember what HongLu told him. The moment everyone in the team forgot about a person, that person would die. Because she no longer existed.

Zheng took several deep breaths then turned to Zero who was washing his hair. “Zero! Do you still remember the girl that vanished? What is her name? How does she look like?”

Zero hurriedly washed off the shampoo then opened his eyes, looking confused. “What vanished girl? Who?”

Zheng calmed himself and said, “The one that I kept saying had disappeared. Everyone said no one disappeared but I firmly insisted someone disappeared. I mentioned that girl. What is her name?”

Zero thought for a while before he shook his head. “Nope. You never mentioned about anyone disappearing. So I don’t know who you are talking about. We have twelve people in the team. Nine veterans and three newbies. None of us are gone.”

“We have twelve people?” Zheng immediately searched the room and yelled, “We have thirteen people! No, we have fifteen people! How did it become twelve? Xuan, Kampa, WangXia… Where is HongLu?”

Zero gave Zheng a weird gaze and said, “You are too tired. You haven’t slept for so many days. Get a good rest after the shower. I will keep watch over the night. We don’t have anyone named HongLu in our team.”

“We don’t? It’s impossible!” Zheng panicked and couldn’t the words to express himself. It was clear that every person who vanished became forgotten by the rest of the members. He was the only one who could remember these people but his memory of them faded as time passed. The terror of helplessness was spreading toward his heart.

(Calm! Calm! It seems like I have completely forgotten about that girl. I can still remember Heng and HongLu. We had fifteen people and now only twelve… I have to write down Heng and HongLu on paper. Never forget their names and existence! If what HongLu said is true, they will die once the whole team forget about them. I can’t let them die!)

Zheng entered the changing room, still in the third stage. As he dried himself with a towel, he smelled a very faint odor of burned plastic. He sniffed it a little more then followed the trail of this odor. It was coming from bathroom he just came out of. Zheng pushed the door open. The same room came into view again. Xuan, and the rest of the men were still there. The room looked perfectly normal.

(Was it an illusion? The odor appeared all out of a sudden… was it from Freddy?)

In the original movie, Freddy was killed by a fire. The odor might signify that Freddy had came into the safe dream.

“Is that so? The next target is me. What a good plan. Just kill me and the rest of the team won’t ever remember Heng, HongLu, the girl, and me. We will all be forgotten… Come! Come kill me! I dare you come in front of me!” Zheng roared with rage.

Fighting Freddy face to face was nothing compared to the helplessness as he witnessed his teammates disappearing one by one. The unknown and unseeable enemies were the deadliest!

There was no escaping what was destined to come. Zheng stopped pondering over it. He got dressed them ran down to the first floor. The girls looked at him puzzled. Zheng grabbed a pen and a few pieces of paper to the table. He wrote down Heng and HongLu’s names. Then he thought for a moment and wrote down the names of all twelve people remaining, including his own.

The girls came up to him. Lan asked, “What is this? And who are Heng and HongLu?”

“A member of team China.” Zheng replied. “They are all members of team China. These two people have disappeared. No matter what happens, don’t forget the remaining twelve people. Don’t forget those who has disappeared. Please.”

The girls didn’t know what happened. They had lost the memories of Heng and HongLu. Yet, Zheng spoke in such a serious manner, so they nodded in response.

Everyone came down from the third floor. Zheng made the team signed their names on the paper. After all was done, he said, “This is everyone in team China. Remember them. Even if only one person makes it back alive, remember every name here!”

Seeing the sincere expression from Zheng, the team began to doubt themselves. Did these people really existed and they had forgotten their own team?

“We have nineteen more days to go. We have twelve people. I don’t know how many of us will make it back to God’s dimension.”