Scream

A bone-chilling cold quickly condensed on the window, and wisps of mist seeped through the cracks in the door, filling the floor.

Harry swiftly turned and hurried back to the ward, gently closing the door behind him before getting into his bed.

As the mist grew thicker, the door in the corridor slowly creaked open. A middle-aged woman with a sullen expression, dressed in a white lab coat, silently floated into the hallway, holding a clipboard in one hand and a pen in the other.

The oppressive and suffocating cold air spread out, creating an atmosphere that could smother anyone with fear.

Harry glanced to his right and saw that Victor was still fast asleep in the bed beside him.

Under the pale moonlight, he noticed that the person in the bed at the far end of the room had opened their eyes at some point. Their gaze was filled with sheer terror and despair. Their mouth hung wide open, twisted in fear and agony, as if they wanted to scream, but no sound escaped.

Just looking at them made Harry feel as if he could hear a heart-wrenching scream, but still, not a single noise came from the person.

Suddenly, an indistinct, chilling sensation—sharp as needles—assailed him, and in his mind, the agonized howls of that person echoed, hoarse and unrelenting.

He saw the despair and pain in that person's eyes suddenly get swallowed by an overwhelming fear that couldn't be shaken.

Harry slowly turned his head and saw, plastered against the door's glass, a distorted, grotesque face.

It looked as if it had rotted away, one eyeball hanging from its socket by strands of bloodied flesh, staring at him with malicious intent.

Harry's hair stood on end, his muscles tensed, but he managed to control himself, biting his lip to suppress any sound. He didn't scream, nor did he move. He just quietly watched.

He'd seen too many bizarre and twisted things in the past few days. He had encountered ghosts, incinerated dried corpses, eaten hallucinogenic mushrooms, and seen more illusions than he could count. The strange, decayed nurse from last night—he was getting used to the abnormal.

So, he sat there, calmly watching.

During the day, he had read the rules and regulations of Serene City's First Hospital multiple times. Not a single rule stipulated that patients had to fall asleep immediately after lights-out.

There was only a sign on the wall reminding patients to keep quiet after lights-out.

Apparently, the head nurse outside the door had never encountered someone like Harry. She seemed confused as to why he wasn't asleep and even more puzzled by his calm reaction to her presence.

She slowly pushed open the door and stood in the doorway, staring intently at Harry.

Harry just looked back at her, calm and steady. Gradually, he began to smell an overwhelming stench of blood, mixed with the putrid odor of decay. The icy, deathly chill crawled over him like tiny stings.

It was freezing.

Harry slowly pulled the blanket up to cover himself.

His heart was pounding, and he felt nauseous, but he remembered what Keith had told him: "the rules are the most important thing."

To distract himself from the increasingly real sensations threatening to overwhelm him, his thoughts drifted. He thought of the funeral home, of his first day there, and of how the director had made him study the employee handbook for half the day.

Now, he wondered, 'is the funeral home another kind of domain too?'

From the very first day, the director had been subtly and not-so-subtly drilling the importance of rules into him.

Facing the bizarre figure of the head nurse now, Harry found himself growing calmer. His racing heart began to slow.

He pulled the blanket tighter, lying quietly in bed.

No shouting. No running.

If he screamed or ran, he'd really be done for.

Watching the nurse slowly approach, step by step, Harry didn't flinch. She didn't touch him, but the deathly chill from her presence was far more intense than what he had felt when the phantom corpse passed through him.

As the head nurse came closer, the icy chill surged. But then, a faint warmth emanated from the vest Harry wore beneath his clothes.

A flash of golden light also appeared briefly in Victor's chest, like a small flare, and shot into the nurse's body.

Suddenly, an invisible flame seemed to ignite within her chest. The heat clashed with the freezing cold, producing a sizzling sound as it burned through the center of her torso, creating a gaping hole.

The nurse's face contorted even more grotesquely, like a melting wax figure. She glared venomously at Harry and Victor, her mouth open wide, body trembling, yet no sound came from her.

The nurse backed out of the room, the invisible flame in her chest slowly extinguishing. The hole in her body closed, and her melted face gradually returned to normal. Within two or three minutes, she was once again the sullen, middle-aged woman she had been before, standing quietly at the doorway, staring at Harry and the still-sleeping Victor.

Harry, still wrapped tightly in his blanket, didn't say a word and acted as though he hadn't seen a thing.

But as time passed, the head nurse, now looking normal again, didn't leave. The cold, oppressive air, like an invisible presence, crept into Harry's mind, making him feel as though his scalp was being peeled back.

He started to see illusions again. Everything around him began to turn transparent and gradually fade away, leaving only the floating beds.

Some of the beds were empty, while others had people lying in them, their faces twisted in fear and pain, struggling to scream but unable to make a sound.

They stared at Harry with their hollow eyes, as though their despair and pain had reached a point beyond comprehension.

Harry gritted his teeth, his face pale. The low, humming sound in the corridor grew clearer, turning into the incoherent whispers of many voices, their painful murmurs coming closer and closer to his ears.

He was on the verge of screaming.

If it weren't for the fact that his recent hallucinogenic experience had somewhat toughened him, he would have shouted long ago.

After a few more minutes, the head nurse's face darkened, and black liquid began to drip from her body. The pressure in the air became more oppressive, but finally, she glanced at the digital clock in the hallway, turned, and left.

The silence returned, suffocating but still.

When the sun finally rose, Harry looked toward the bed at the far end of the room and saw that the patient had vanished without a trace. Even the bedding remained neatly folded.

His face was pale. In the heat of summer, with the air conditioning off, he was still freezing under the blanket. Slowly, he climbed out of bed and gently tapped Victor.

"Hey, wake up."

Without opening his eyes, Victor rolled off the bed, a golden dagger clutched in one hand, a folded talisman in the other.

Victor scanned the room warily until Harry pointed toward the window.

"It's daylight."

Victor fished some ash from his pocket. His protective talisman had been activated by the dark forces around him, burning to cinders without him ever waking up.

He looked at Harry in silence, realizing that his own defenses had failed, and he had slept through the night thanks to Harry.

The situation was worse than expected.

"Thanks," Victor said.

"No problem. Just make sure to reimburse me for this equipment later."

Harry took out the vest that Keith had given him. The old banknotes sewn into the lining had mostly disintegrated.

"Don't worry, you'll get fully reimbursed."

"Good. Now, let me share what I've learned."

"Wait a second. Are you okay?"

"I'm fine. Just cold."

"I'll check on the others first."

Victor contacted the support team outside and confirmed that everyone else who had entered the hospital's inpatient wing had also fallen asleep immediately at 10:30 p.m. None of them had experienced any deaths.

Satisfied, Victor turned to listen to Harry's account of the night's events, writing everything down as he spoke.

After a moment, Victor frowned at his notes.

"This is more complicated than we thought."

"One, this domain isn't restricted to just three days a year, and it's not confined to a single location. It might appear elsewhere at different times. Otherwise, we can't explain why someone was recently dragged into the domain."

"Two, souls aren't only taken from people who die in the domain. People can die outside under 'accidental' circumstances and still have their souls taken."

"Three, the head nurse herself seems to be bound by the domain's rules, like no loud noise."

Victor summarized quickly.

Harry thought for a moment and added, "That head nurse, after spotting us, didn't stick around for more than ten minutes. If she had, I'm not sure I could've held out. She looked like she wanted to tear me apart. It doesn't seem like she was going easy on us."

"Is it possible she's also following some rule, like having to patrol the entire building every night?"