Calvin thought he would wake up and see Virgilli, as he had always been.

But the reality is that there is no one around him.

Calvin sat up slowly, and he found himself back on the bed, the Egyptian cotton bedding covering his body, heavy and cold as if it were damp. The holiday villa was empty, the temperature was very low, and the central air conditioning was buzzing in the pipes around the roof.

The light that fell into the room from the window was dim, and Calvin got out of bed, as he had been in a stupor, his headache bouncing regularly in the flesh beneath his temples, which made Calvin a little dizzy.

He glanced at the time, and the round metal clock hand on the wall pointed to six o'clock, and the slender black hand looked like a witch's finger, stuck in the small square to the left of the six. Ironically, Calvin stared at it for a long time before he realized that the wall clock had stopped.

"Hoo ......"

Calvin made a hard thumb on his forehead and temples, and he was so dizzy that he couldn't even tell whether it was morning or afternoon—looking out of the window, the beach, which should have been as bright as a postcard, was shrouded in a gray mist, and the yellow light struggled to fall through the fog to the earth's surface, but the position of the sun was difficult to judge.

Probably because of the bad weather, the water is a turbid blue-gray color, and the beach looks dirty, and there is no one in it.

Calvin glanced at the lifeless landscape for a single glance before turning his gaze away.

He suspected that he was having a fever because he felt really cold.

"Virgilly, are you there?"

He put a blanket over himself, staggered open the door, and shouted.

He still didn't get any response, and Vicili wasn't here.

"Damn. ”

Calvin muttered, the irritated kind.

He had to admit that he felt a great panic when he found out that Vicili was not by his side.

Of course, Calvin could also attribute his vulnerability to the dream he had before waking up, and unlike the previous nightmares that lasted almost the entire length of his sleep, Calvin remembered the contents of that dream rarely.

Dr. Holden.

Door.

His wings.

……

Calvin remembered the things on his back, the sharp pain and strange touch he felt before he fell unconscious.

Without any hesitation, Calvin tore open his pajamas, and the old wound on his shoulder blade was once again well covered with dressing and gauze, and Fugg apparently gave Calvin a partial anesthetic to the skin, and when Calvin tore the gauze in front of the mirror in a strange position, he didn't feel anything, and the reddened and swollen wound felt woody, like someone else's skin.

Calvin saw a very small bits of white embedded in the swollen wound. It was a newborn wing, and Calvin himself was surprised that he wasn't too excited about it.

Even if the pair of wings is proof that he was once in hell.

Maybe I knew it long before it came along......

Calvin heard a voice in his heart speak quietly.

Yes, even though he had cut off those wings a long time ago, he had always had something that might have been called an intuition telling him that, yes, the wings would still come back.

After examining the wound, Calvin moved into the kitchen, he was too cold and needed a big pot of piping hot coffee or something.

On the kitchen sink, Calvin saw a note from Virgilli, which said that he had gone to buy some essential supplies and would be back soon. At the end of the note, Virgili mischievously sketches out the symbol of a heart.

From this point of view, this rich boy still maintains an almost innocent childlike nature.

Calvin didn't seem to care about the note being put aside, but even he didn't know it, and he relaxed a lot after seeing it.

"Ka...... ...... Titicaca"

As he made himself hot coffee, the coffee pot in Calvin's hand made a clear sound on the rim of the cup.

That nightmare was unsettling.

Until now, when he remembered the scene from that nightmare, Calvin could feel the cold hairs on the back of his neck standing up uncontrollably.

Of course, what bothers him even more is his self-knowledge, such as his dependence on Vicili.

The man with minty eyes and soft curly hair had been around for a short time, but he naturally blended into Calvin's life, filling the stenching black cracks of Calvin's life little by little. And when he suddenly didn't stay by his side as Calvin had expected, Calvin found himself feeling terrified.

That's not good.

There may be someone in this world who can live as innocently as a weak child, but that person can never be Calvin.

He wouldn't forget the pain of the blood and □□ sparks falling on his hands.

Calvin lowered his eyes and poured the piping hot coffee into his mouth in one gulp.

The heat ran down the throat and down into his stomach, which made Calvin feel better. His back also hurts,

And at this moment, a subtle feeling, as if the neck was gently swept by goose feathers, appeared—

"Who?"

Calvin instantly grabbed the stainless steel dinner knife on the counter and turned around alertly.

However, in the direction he felt his gaze coming, there was only the still empty porch.

"Hum—"

The buzz of the air conditioner increased a bit at this moment.

Calvin didn't let his guard down, his hand gripped the knife and slowly left the kitchen. After an unusually careful search, Calvin still didn't see anything.

"Click. ”

Calvin turned on all the lights in the room and turned the air conditioner to its highest temperature.

For some reason, the empty house made him feel that something was not quite right.

It's so quiet here.

Calvin thought.

He heard the sound of the air conditioner, and his own footsteps, but nothing else.

This quietness made him nervous all the time.

Finally he came to the living room, turned on the TV, and was so expressionless that he curled himself up in the soft sofa and did not put down the chef's knife in his hand.

The sound of a loud television broke the deathly silence in the house.

It's a children's TV show that could even be described as loud, but the picture quality is not good, and the dim and archaic screen shows dozens of children with brightly colored plush hoods under botched special effects, exaggerating what is known as the top 10 horrific crime scenes in the United States.

Calvin had just wanted to take his head out of his paranoia, but his appearance on television made him frown unconsciously.

It's too bloody......

Calvin thought.

Even though all the characters and props are clumsy toys, the scenes performed by the children are unpleasantly gloomy and tyrannical.

Keeping victims awake with slings and stimulants and making them watch alive in extreme fear as they are disemboweled, live rats and cockroaches are placed in fragile paper bags and sewn into the abdomen of living people, and families are forced to pull each other's teeth and nails off each other with crude scissors and pliers......

Artificial laughter and applause echoed regularly in exaggerated screams and struggles, but Calvin found himself in a cold sweat.

He felt like throwing up, and his heart was beating fast and fast......

"Hee-hee-hee-hee-hee......"

A small, soft laugh was caught in the sound of the television, ringing out closely.

Calvin suddenly grasped the hilt of his knife, and he jumped to his feet, almost knocking over the couch, but there was still no one to be seen as far as he could see.

"Hahahaha......"

Behind him, the mean, mechanical laughter on the television seemed to grow louder and more cacophonic.

Calvin's face turned pale, and he stared at the television.

Why didn't you notice it at first?

Calvin asked himself in his mind.

That TV set is completely different from the ultra-thin flat-screen TVs that are popular in modern society.

Heavy, round body, slightly raised screen surface, and tiny snowflakes that constantly roll past the screen surface.

On the side of the TV is a faded sticker, next to which is a blackened offset print.

Calvin remembers how he happily pasted the sticker on the television.

It was scrap that the man had brought back from the second-hand market — but for young Calvin, the television was second only to a game console.

Daniel Wright, his stepfather, agent, and Advent salesman, would allow Calvin to sit in front of the television for half an hour after Calvin behaved "well," and he would even take Calvin to the public library to borrow some videotapes.

Whenever it was time to receive a "reward", Calvin would beg Daniel to let him watch television for a while, like a stray dog that had been hungry for a long time, and Daniel would laugh softly......

Calvin shuddered and stared at the television set of his childhood memories without moving.

It's an illusion.

He muttered to himself.

His hand went from the hilt to the blade, and hot blood trickled down between his fingers and fell to the ground.

And his shoulder blades began to ache again as if a soldering iron had been applied.

"Hee-hee-hee......"

The soft and innocent laughter of children rolls down.

Calvin struggled to move his head, but could only faintly catch an afterimage.

Looks like a child, playing hide and seek through porches and closet cracks.

"It's not over yet, you should kill them, kill them happily. ”

The show on the television continued, and the child's sharp voice was like a silver knife, slicing Calvin's nerves back and forth.

Calvin looked at the TV again with a bloody face.

The show has ended, but the children in doll costumes are still standing on the stage and never leaving.

"Gouge out their eyes with a silver spoon, cut their skin with scissors, remove excess fat with a knife, and bring in cute puppies and eat their soft entrails......"

One by one, the children took off their doll hoods to the sound of merry singing.

One swollen face after another was reflected in Calvin's pupils. 166 Reading Network