Doomsday Wonderland Vol. 13: Sleepwalking in Dreamland

1555: Escaping Death

Wu Yiliu stared down at his coffee cup, a lingering coffee stain clinging to the rim. He fixated on the brown mark, feeling as if his eyelids were shrinking, soon unable to contain his eye sockets and eyeballs— he knew his eyes were widening abnormally, revealing his fear to anyone who saw, yet he couldn't control it.

Li Bo was finished too.

The restaurant's leather armchair beneath him had become the only solid and reliable thing in the whole world. He sat on that small cushion, and the world outside seemed like coffee with milk, a flowing liquid hue, mingling and swirling together, constantly rotating, sinking, rising and falling, crumbling apart... Only those two faceless faces in front of him were getting closer and closer.

The thing that once wore Li Bo's face casually tossed its face onto the dining table and asked, "Wu Yiliu, what are you staring at?"

How is it still able to speak? Wu Yiliu felt as if he was on the verge of passing out, his mind a chaotic mess. If the muscles beneath the skin had been exposed like a physiological anatomy model, perhaps speaking wouldn't be strange, but those two... those two...

"The seafood mixed rice is ready."

The female waiter with a face cracked open, revealing black eye sockets, inadvertently saved his life at that moment. As she spoke, a steaming hot heavy plate landed in front of Wu Yiliu, diverting the attention of the two entities across from him. The table was small, and his plate clanked against Li Bo's, causing the human face on the table to quiver slightly.

'They haven't noticed I'm different; they haven't noticed I'm different.'

Clutching onto this glimmer of hope, Wu Yiliu abruptly stood, almost knocking over the coffee cup, "I-I'll go wash my hands. Before eating, I must wash my hands..."

"Be careful," Alice quickly reached out to steady the cup. Her hands were still human, but the thing on her neck made the buzzing sound as she spoke.

'What is she? How can she talk? Is my hallucination getting worse? If I reach out and touch their faces on the table now, will I feel them?'

Wu Yiliu stumbled toward the restroom, startling a passing waiter. If it weren't for the stubborn awareness in the back of his mind, reminding him to appear normal, he might have already knocked over numerous people and tables. He rushed into the restroom, locked himself in a stall, and fumbled with the latch.

Logically, humans can't remove their faces. There are no ghosts in the world; it must be a problem with his mind. Wu Yiliu's vision began to blur, so he rubbed his eyes, immediately wetting his hands. As his vision cleared, he realized he was crying, unable to control himself. He wanted not only to cry but also to vomit—

"Can you... can you see it too?"

A trembling female voice suddenly echoed in the men's restroom.

Wu Yiliu froze, quickly wiped his face, and held his breath without responding. The woman closed the door and came in, seemingly confused, and whispered, "Don't be afraid of me; I've been scared for a long time alone. Please, answer me."

Wu Yiliu gritted his teeth in silence. Who knew what was outside; even if he saw the other person and her face was normal, there was no guarantee that she wouldn't remove her face later— moreover, all this could be a hallucination from his possibly schizophrenic brain.

The woman suddenly sobbed, seemingly unable to bear it any longer. She entered the adjacent stall, and Wu Yiliu quickly moved a few steps in the opposite direction. He slightly lowered his body and saw a pair of black women's flat leather shoes, adorned with butterfly knots on the surface.