INSIDER Chapter 16

Hearing the sounds, Lu Chu took turns running to the four doors that were being knocked on to observe. Quickly, he discovered new writings on the doors that hadn’t been there before, twisted and hard to read, just like the characters in the password box.

The four phrases were:

“It’s here, behind one of the doors.” “Be careful, don’t let it catch you.” “When you see it, the key can open the correct door.” “Dolls and teddy bears dance.”

The first three phrases were clear. This “it” would open one of the four doors, come in, and pose a threat to Lu Chu’s safety. When “it” appeared, Lu Chu would have to avoid being caught while finding the correct door to escape.

As for the last phrase, Lu Chu was puzzled…

For now, the most important thing was to find the correct door. The knocking outside the corridor grew louder, almost like the doors were about to be broken down. The intensity of the knocking was the same for all doors, making it impossible to discern behind which door “it” was.

Lu Chu organized all the clues and remembered the phrase “the way back is the way forward.”

The knocking grew louder, and the walls began to peel, with plaster falling to the ground. Lu Chu clutched the key tightly.

He had to survive. He had to see 7.

7 still owed him an explanation.

After much thought, Lu Chu had decided which door to open.

The corridor was narrow, only wide enough for four people to walk side by side. It was designed in a unique square shape with doors on each wall, leaving Lu Chu with no place to hide. To avoid “it,” he would have to use the narrow, repetitive layout to evade it a few times, all while finding time to open the correct door.

The four doors were on the right wall, with a small room’s door in the middle. Lu Chu adjusted his position, standing at the midpoint between the small room’s door and the opposite wall door, trying to maximize his distance from each door to ensure he had enough space and time to escape when “it” appeared.

“Bang! Bang! Bang bang bang!”

The knocking turned into banging, accompanied by a beast-like growl, as if accusing Lu Chu of not letting it in.

Lu Chu held a knife in one hand and a key and flashlight in the other. He decided to throw the flashlight at it the moment he saw it. To open the door quickly, the key should be held alone in one hand, and the knife was for self-defense, meaning he had to give up the flashlight. The width and length of the corridor were imprinted in his mind from previous experiences, allowing him to move in the dark, an advantage he had from being blind for the past twenty years.

If the flashlight didn’t break after being thrown, it could still light up a small area, reducing the blind spots.

Lu Chu listened cautiously to the surroundings.

Time passed, and suddenly there was a loud crash as a door opened, and a dull voice called out, “Found you.”

“It” didn’t come from one of the corridor’s four doors but from the small room’s door!

Lu Chu was shocked, threw the flashlight at it, and then ran!

Luckily, he wasn’t standing directly in front of the small room’s door, or he would have been caught immediately.

The footsteps behind him were heavy and slow. Lu Chu slowed down, fearing that running too fast would make him run into the bear head-on.

Yes, “it” was a giant teddy bear.

Only a day had passed since Lu Chu regained his sight, and he had a hard time believing it was a teddy bear. But seeing its dirty, stuffing-exposed belly, he had to accept it. The bear was as tall as Lu Chu, with fabric eyes replaced by rags and a mouth with exposed stuffing, stitched together like uneven sawteeth.

The most terrifying part was the bear holding a chainsaw, its tip dragging on the ground, making a grating sound. Dark, viscous liquid dripped from the saw’s teeth. Despite its slowness, the bear couldn’t be shaken off, preventing Lu Chu from opening the door. With no other choice, Lu Chu sped up, the corridor echoing with his light footsteps and the bear’s heavy ones.

“Tap tap tap” were Lu Chu’s footsteps. “Thud thud” were the bear’s.

Suddenly, the bear’s footsteps stopped.

Lu Chu halted immediately, his body cold as he stood at a corner, watching. He was in the corridor in front of the small room’s door, with the flashlight illuminating a small area, just enough to see around.

Lu Chu held his breath, gripping the knife, watching both sides of the corridor, guessing where it would appear.

Time passed slowly, with only Lu Chu’s shallow breathing breaking the silence…

Too quiet.

A bad feeling crept up his spine, chilling him.

“Ha… ha…” A cold breath brushed the back of his neck as a dull voice whispered in his ear, “Found you.”

The flashlight’s beam cast the shadow of the chainsaw merging with Lu Chu’s shadow on the wall.

Lu Chu’s breath caught, and he quickly dodged the descending chainsaw, then dashed off without hesitation. The bear reacted slowly, giving Lu Chu time to unlock the small room’s door, rush in, and lock it behind him.

Panting, he sat against the door.

“The way back is the way forward.”

Lu Chu had entered the corridor from the small room’s door, and the bear had appeared from it, making it the “way back” and thus the “way forward.”

He guessed that the small room he opened with the key after the bear appeared was not the same as the one he initially entered.

Calming down, Lu Chu noticed the room was now brightly lit, warm and cozy, with clean, cute bed sheets and toys everywhere, confirming his guess about the different rooms.

Had he succeeded?

Lu Chu sat against the door, dazed.

Suddenly, his body convulsed painfully, and his consciousness began to fade. When he came to, he found himself sitting on a bed, his head resting on a soft pillow, covered with a cute blanket, holding a plush teddy bear.

He tried to speak and move but couldn’t control his actions. His hands were small, his hair long and soft, and he looked like a six or seven-year-old girl.

This wasn’t him.

Lu Chu remained calm, facing the strange situation.

It felt like he was experiencing someone else’s life.

He watched “himself” hug the bear, laughing and rubbing its face.

“Today is my birthday, Teddy. Will you dance with me?” The child’s innocent voice sang “Dolls and Teddy Bears Dance,” swaying with the bear, occasionally laughing shyly.

“Bang!” The door burst open, and a furious woman stormed in, snatching the bear and throwing it to the ground, stomping on it. “Why did I have a useless girl like you? A son would have been useful! Would he even look at us? He would, wouldn’t he? He would, ha ha…” The woman ranted and laughed crazily, “He’d look at you and buy you toys, but what about me? I love him… Without me, there’d be no you!”

Then came a brutal beating. Lu Chu, now the child, felt every painful blow.

The woman avoided the child’s face, eventually leaving with a final “clean up yourself” and slamming the door.

Lu Chu watched “himself” uncover bruised legs and painfully crawl to retrieve the teddy bear, tears unknowingly falling and soaking its fur.

“Dolls and Teddy Bears Dance, one two one They dance in circles, one two one …

You’re the teddy, I’m the doll.”

The child’s sobbing voice faltered.

“Teddy, it hurts, save me.”

Time seemed to speed up. The child never left the room, talking to the bear daily. Sometimes her “father” visited, patting her head and calling her good. After he left, the mother’s beatings worsened until the child’s legs were permanently damaged.

She stopped talking, holding the bear in silence, eyes lifeless.

“Teddy, save me.”

Lu Chu uncontrollably picked up the scissors beside him. He could only watch helplessly as “he” clumsily but firmly gouged out the pretty eyes of the bear, replacing them with torn fabric strips. Next, “he” dismantled its mouth, using hidden needle and thread to sew it back together, and finally, forcefully cut open its belly, causing the stuffing inside to spill out.

“Click—” The woman opened the door and, seeing the scene before her, screamed, “What are you doing again? Did I give birth to you just to make my life miserable?!”

As she spoke, she strode over, grabbed the dilapidated teddy bear, and violently threw it outside.

Undoubtedly, another round of beating followed.

After the beating, the woman left in a good mood, while the child lay on the bed, intermittently humming a tune.

“The doll and the little bear dance, one-two, one-two…”

“Ah!!”

Suddenly, the woman’s scream echoed from outside, followed by the sound of an electric machine starting, abruptly cutting off her screams, then the sound of a sharp object tearing into flesh.

The heavy smell of blood wafted in from outside the door.

The girl’s mouth bled, clearly injured from the severe beating, but she still softly and carefully sang the lullaby.

The sound of the electric machine stopped, and the room was flooded with the scarlet liquid, seeping in. “Plop—plop—” The hideously sewn-up teddy bear grew unusually large, stepping through the blood with a dance-like grace.

Lu Chu, still on the girl’s body, could only helplessly repeat her actions, lying flat on the edge of the bed, letting the blood trickle from the corner of his mouth.

The giant bear stood by the bed, holding a chainsaw from who knows where, looking down at the girl with its patchwork eyes.

“Found you.”

“I’m here to save you.”

The chainsaw roared to life, the giant bear raised its hand, and Lu Chu’s lips curved involuntarily.

A searing pain split his body in half.

————

Lu Chu woke up drenched in sweat, lying in a strange space filled with floating square screens.

One of the screens sprouted paper doll limbs and fell at Lu Chu’s feet. Picking it up, he saw the words— “Congratulations on surviving the previous ’round.'”

“Outside the ‘Round'”