Chapter 3: Terror of the night

The comforting warmth of the bed enveloped her, creating a sense of familiarity that led her to believe it was her own. Nestling into the softness of the pillow, she dismissed the surreal sights she'd encountered as mere fragments of a dream. Yet, a lingering unease compelled her to scrutinize her surroundings after a momentary respite, her body frozen in the same posture.

She harbored reservations about the room from the outset, a hesitancy born from its enveloping darkness. Despite a lifelong fear of the dark, her perspective shifted after her mother's passing. The obsidian sky, adorned with consoling stars that shimmered intermittently, became a source of solace. Each twinkle carried an ethereal connection, a comforting sensation that her departed mother was reaching out to her. Consequently, every night, she engaged in a quiet dialogue with her mother, recounting the events of her day before drifting into sleep.

So, each night, she left her window curtain open so that she could see the stars clearly, even on nights when the moon was full. She doesn't close her curtains at all because moonlight doesn't bother her; instead, seeing the sky while sleeping gives her a calm slumber after a miserable day.

Clutching the pillow tightly, Yin Lan whispered, "If this is my room, shouldn't the curtain be open? Why is it drawn?" A chilling realization settled over her—this was not her room.

As her hand traversed the surface of the pillow, she murmured a feeble reassurance to herself, "Perhaps I'm letting my imagination run wild." Attempting to quell the surge of anxiety, she strained to calm herself, yet her hands betrayed her composure. Instead of moving with a hushed caution, they pressed against the pillow violently, as if seeking to expose the truth.

Fingers dug deeply, finding no trace of the familiar patterns that adorned her usual pillows. The plainness puzzled her, a detail incongruent with her life. Questions raced through her mind like wildfire – the curtain was drawn, the unfamiliar pillow – all signs pointing to an unsettling revelation: this was not her room.

"Where am I?" she questioned, beads of dry sweat tracing her spine, her cheeks flushed with warmth.

This is when she realized her body was not even fully covered with clothes. She might be modern, but she never ever in her life slept in her only undergarment because that was somehow uncomfortable. Then why on earth was she lying on the bed with her bra and underwear? If she is not lazy enough to forget to put on her nightdress without a doubt, then where is her whole cloth? How could she be stupid enough to not pay attention to this important detail?

Out of fear, she jumped out of bed just to run to the door. But the darkness was not helping her at all. She doesn't know which way the exit door was situated in the room. And the worst thing that made her collapse on the bed again was her sharp headache. What a futile effort! She did not even manage to properly stand on the floor of the room and fell again on the bed.

"I was fine moments ago, so why?" she wondered, her body aching, her breathing erratic. Frustration and confusion consumed her as she attempted to cry for help, only to find her voice replaced by a mere rush of air.

"Why can't I scream?" Panic seized her, her fear escalating. Something was amiss—perhaps some drug coursed through her veins.

"What kind of drug could be this effective?" Yin Lan contemplated, feeling a loss of control over her body. Despite her inability to move in her dream, she could now feel her body's sensations.

Her mind raced as she considered her predicament. The haunting scenes from her dream mirrored her current condition. The painful recollections left her questioning the nature of those experiences—were they truly dreams, or had she lived them before? Did her inability to move and the strange sensations point to her death?

As she lay, contemplating the unimaginable, a sudden wave of heat surged through her, awakening a primal desire. Quivering and moaning, she felt a loss of strength—a sudden, perplexing vulnerability.

Biting her lips, Yinlan reluctantly acknowledged, "Yes, this is it, and I can't deny it anymore. I actually did die. And now I think I've awakened in some period of my life, but where?" She stared blankly at the ceiling, grappling with the surreal nature of her existence.

Despite the return of sensations to her body and the disappearance of numbness, Yinlan found herself devoid of strength, unable to make even the slightest movement. It was as if her body, though alive, refused to respond.

Attempting to place herself in the timeline of her life, she recalled events from her previous existence, feeling a sudden chill. The scars and wounds that once adorned her body, remnants of a past life, were conspicuously absent. The tragic events hinted that she might have regressed to her mid-twenties.

"This can't be the night of my kidnapping, right?" Dread gripped her as scenes from that nightmarish episode flashed before her eyes, shattering her sense of reality.

Her eyes darted around frantically, the relief on her face replaced by grim realization. A violent scream escaped her lips, "No, no, no, no!"

"This is not what I am thinking." "God can't do this to me again. I have already been to hell once, and I cannot go through it again." "Someone! Please help!"

She struggled to force her body into motion, tears streaming down her face, and sweat drenching her skin. Sobbing in despair, her nose running, she felt utterly helpless, her eyes fixated on the ceiling.

In her mind, she screamed, "Did I do something wrong, God?" "This is the same as before, and I now understand that this is the same night as before." Ferociously demanding, "All these years of prayers, do they mean nothing?" "Why are you doing this to me again?" "No! Someone, please put a stop to it." "This is something I will not accept." "Please, please, please!" "Why am I going back to the worst day of my life again?"

Her hysterical sobbing abruptly ceased as her attention shifted to a moving shadow. The realization struck her—she was not alone in the dark, closed room; someone else shared the space with her.

Recollections of an earlier touch flooded back, a memory she had temporarily forgotten. Dread settled in as she whispered to herself, "So it already begins. And I do not have time to run at all."

This is the worst nightmare of my life—the day that has shattered my soul and haunted me over and over again throughout my life.

"And they are not even ashamed of doing all those things to me. Instead, they even enjoyed that," she shouted in her thoughts, clenching her teeth as tight as she could.

Because this is the day when she got set up by the people she trusted most. One of her own people. But one thing she doesn't understand is why they have so much hatred for her that they didn't even have the haste to make her life this miserable. What was her fault, after all? All she did was love them from her heart, but what she got in the end was their scorn, their bullying, and their betrayal.

"I am unable to move like earlier, which means it is the same day."

The stream of tears never stopped flowing through her eyes out of fear.

Now her heart felt like it was breaking apart. She was really on the edge of her emotions.

"So, my hell is not over; my fleeting illusion of serenity was just a cruel mirage." Throbbing pain crushed her heart, the weight of it contorting her face in utter disgust.

On this ominous day in her previous life, she had lost not just her dignity but every shred of hope for a better life. Now, in the echoing corridors of her personal hell, it seemed the nightmare could resurface at any moment, an unrelenting cycle of despair.