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墨書 Inktalez
The sound of the iron door slamming shut echoed through the empty, eerie warehouse, reverberating with a chilling resonance. I curled up among a pile of moldy cardboard boxes that emitted a musty odor, unconsciously digging my nails into the old wound on my palm; the pain kept me slightly awake. The surroundings were pitch black, with only a dim yellow light in the distance barely illuminating this corner, while my heart felt as though it had plunged into an abyss.
The sound of President Chen's leather shoes grinding against the concrete floor was heavy and slow, like a rusty saw methodically cutting through my last frayed nerve. That sound carried an indescribable sense of oppression, making my heart race and nearly choking me.
“Miss Xia, playing hide and seek?” His greasy laughter mixed with a strong smell of alcohol wafted over, like a nauseating tide. I tightly shut my eyes, trying to remain calm, but my back pressed against the cold iron frame, the rusty metal scraping against my collar, sending a bone-chilling sensation through me.
I counted his footsteps: thirty-seven steps, twenty-five steps, thirteen steps… Each step felt like it was crushing down on my heart. Suddenly, he lifted the cardboard box above me, and the neon light pierced in from behind him, casting a rainbow sheen on his bald head—a sight both ridiculous and terrifying.
His grip on my wrist was so strong that I heard the crack of dislocated bones; it hurt so much I almost cried out. “Last time I let you escape; this time there’s no fire escape.” His breath reeked of alcohol as his suit sleeve revealed half of a Rolex watch band. The cold metal pressed against my neck made me shudder.
I endured the pain while a surge of resolute courage welled up inside me. I felt for the pen hidden in my sleeve—the one I had bought three months ago at a flea market, its tip sharpened into a three-edged point for this very moment.
“President Chen, please let me go. I beg you.” I feigned weakness, my voice trembling slightly while secretly tightening my grip on the pen.
“Let you go? Ha! Dream on!” He sneered and tightened his hold on my wrist even more. At that moment, I suddenly exerted force; the pen plunged into his shoulder. Warm blood splattered onto my eyelashes; I couldn’t care to wipe it away—I just wanted to escape this monster.
The instant he loosened his grip in pain, I grabbed a nearby rusty wrench and swung it with all my might at the fire alarm. As the alarm shattered the silence, I felt an infusion of boundless strength surge through me as I burst through the side door into the rain.
The icy rain pelted my face like countless needles; my high heels had long been lost in the chaos of running, and sharp stones dug into my feet, but I felt no pain. Behind me came the dull thud of something heavy hitting the ground. When I turned back, I saw President Chen’s bulky body stuck at the warehouse door; the blaring alarm intertwined with his furious shouts like a death knell.
I stumbled into a nearby convenience store. The glass door reflected my current state: my collar torn down to my collarbone, blood seeping from the corner of my mouth, and my left earlobe empty—my pearl earring lost in the struggle back at the warehouse. The cashier was engrossed in scrolling through short videos; cheerful pop music played in the background, starkly contrasting with my disheveled appearance.
In a daze, I walked to the shelves and randomly picked up a pregnancy test. When the second red line appeared, I bit down on my tongue, tasting blood as it spread through my mouth. My last period had been two months ago; that night at the clinic in the urban village when I found out I was pregnant, I had squatted in a public restroom and vomited for forty minutes—despair and helplessness surged back to overwhelm me once more.
The phone vibrated with a buzz, interrupting my thoughts. "Before the demolition funds arrive next month, don't let your brother know you're still alive," President Chen's message popped up, accompanied by a photo of the hospital bill—a glimpse of my brother, a vegetative state, wearing a respirator, looking like a pale corpse. My heart ached as if pricked by needles; my brother was my only family in this world, and I couldn't let him lose me like this.
I stood outside the railing of the cross-river bridge, the smell of the river mixed with exhaust fumes filled my nostrils, making me feel nauseous. The B Ultrasound report, seven weeks pregnant, rustled in the wind as I clutched it tightly, as if it were my lifeline. The latest photo in my phone gallery showed a pothos plant on my brother's hospital windowsill, droplets of morning dew still clinging to its leaves—my only solace.
The sound of police sirens grew louder; I knew it was time to end this. I opened the Live Stream app and forced a smile at the camera, a smile that held too much bitterness and helplessness.
"Hello everyone, I'm Xia XX. Many of you might remember me as the victim from the Campus Violence Case three years ago." My voice was hoarse but unusually firm.
The comments in the Live Stream suddenly exploded with Danmaku; someone recognized me, and President Chen's name lit up the comment section. The video recording of his son pouring sulfuric acid on my desk flooded the screen—a nightmare I could never forget.
The cold metal railing pressed against my lower back as I looked up to see a crack in the dark clouds above, like a glimmer of dawn on the horizon. "Mom," I whispered to a name I hadn't uttered in twenty years, releasing my grip on the diagnosis report. The white paper floated towards the river like a dying butterfly, helplessly drifting in the wind.
As the number of viewers in the Live Stream surpassed one million, I heard the sickening crack of my spine hitting the railing. Blood spread beneath me, taking on the shape of Higanbana—beautiful yet tragic. The glaring red and blue lights of police cars pierced through the rain curtain, freezing an image of President Chen pinned against the hood of a police car in the Live Stream. The Rolex watch band on his wrist snapped open, and the dial pointed exactly to the moment I was born, as if marking the end of all fate.
(End of Chapter)
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