2_Haunted Nightmare

Li Yao took a taxi back to the city and went home to her apartment. It was close to the station where she commuted every weekday to go to the law firm where she was working now.

It was a decent life, nevertheless.

She was content with this uneventful and quiet day of her life. She wanted nothing to change. Her life was no longer the same when her mother passed away. She was too preoccupied with her studies in order to become a lawyer. She was determined to get back at those people who dared to cover her mother's accident like it was nothing important! And she wanted her relatives to hand back everything they took from her!

She wanted them to suffer just like she did.

Especially that bastard of a driver...

-click-

A sound of her door opening. Li Yao went inside and switched on the lights. She got inside her bedroom and took a quick shower. Then she went to the kitchen to reheat some soup for supper.

After that, she sat in the living room and ate silently while watching the television. After just a few minutes, she lost her appetite. She stared in a daze at the television screen where she recalled all the hardships her mother and she had to endure after the death of her father.

Her mother was strong. Although she was just five at that time, she never noticed her mother crying in front of her except at the funeral of her father. That was the only time she saw her mother crying helplessly. The next day, her mother suddenly became strong. She hid her sadness behind a mask called 'smile' and she did it with ease too. Li Yao wondered how could she be so strong?

Now that Li Yao thought back. She was just too young to realize that her mother was crying inside. Perhaps she was gradually shattering.

They only had each other to rely on starting from that time.

But now, all was gone.

Li Yao closed her eyelids tight. She didn't want to cry again. Tears were for the weak. She had to buckle up. But that too was hard for her as she hugged her knee, sitting alone in the quiet apartment all by herself. She had no idea why she was so emotional tonight.

*

The road was painted in red.

Red.

Red.

Red was everywhere.

He tried to run but was stopped by the same deafening figure again. The woman seemed like she got something to say. But he didn't want to listen.

He was afraid.

Her face was in a mess. A puddle of blood upon her head. It drove him insane just by looking at the woman.

He could tell that this woman was around his mother's age. The slight wrinkles on her forehead made her appear more scary in his vision. She mouthed to say something but he closed his ears and eyes shut.

He didn't want to listen!

Bang!

Mu Lihai's eyes shot open in an instant. His forehead held beads of sweat but he didn't feel hot, rather he felt very cold that his hand was almost trembling.

He looked over the bed and realized that he had forgotten to cover himself with the blanket. No wonder it felt so cold...

"Huff... huff." he tried to calm his breathing and just after a minute, he was done.

It looked like as if he had been doing the same routine again and again for his whole life.

Yes.

After the accident, he could no longer sleep peacefully. The sight of the scene drew him into madness in the form of nightmare. His guilt couldn't be measured by numbers. He was afraid of the resentment of his victim. It was his fault.

And today especially, was the day where she died after being hit by his car.

Mu Lihai ran his fingers through his hair. He was helplessly in dilemma. No one could help him recover to his usual self. He was now very quiet and he never went out again with his friends after the accident. He cut off all connections. And his parents immediately sent him overseas to study abroad and to help him forget the incident.

But how could he forget?

He ran away.

His parents were the ones who dealt with the incident swiftly as they had money and power for it. He could never forget how his mother slapped him hard that day and she herself pushed him in the car and sent him to the airport right at the same day.

He got dysfunctional on that day after he failed to send the woman to the hospital. And he lost track of what was happening around him. He only realized what happened when he was in the plane to another country.

Since then, he was never the same again.

No longer the usually playful, easy-going young master of Mu.

Not the confident, blooming teenager in his youth who loved stirring up troubles along with his friends.

And it was all because of the haunted nightmare that he suffered from.