C2 The Person Who Woke up

Most TransFur Disease patients had extremely strong life forces, but it didn't mean they could always survive the fatal injury.

Carl pierced through the patient's chest, and just like that, its inert body hung on the staff. He stared as its scattered, mercury-like pupils turned to dull yellow.

He never liked to look directly into the eyes of these TransFur Patients.

As Bayer Kinworth's student, Carl always held the highest respect for the eyes.

He moved his gaze away from the TransFur's eyes and pulled the cane out of its chest. Its lifeless body fell to the ground with a loud thud.

Carl didn't pay any attention to the cries that came from the room. He bent down on the corpse to examine it and found traces of all the symptoms of the TransFur — its skin had grown fur, its eyes had changed, and its teeth had become uneven. Not only that, but the body was also unusually light. It might be that the disease caused the patient's internal organs to rot until they disappeared and eventually became nothing but an empty shell.

An empty shell, like an animal.

He noticed the white medicinal pills scattered on the ground. It was evident that the patient had desperately attempted to consume the medicine to save his life in his last bit of consciousness.

People used those medicine pills to relieve some of the Cyan Blood symptoms, a common illness in Yanam. The members of the church regarded the symptoms as a precursor to the TransFur. The pills could have a significant alleviation effect in the early stages, but once the illness ensued, they would be ineffective.

'It's really just to ease the people's minds,' Carl thought to himself. Then he stood up and stepped over the corpse and walked towards the inside of the house.

He pushed open the half-closed door and approached the woman who was hugging her child. He slightly bent forward and hid the cane behind him.

This kind of approach seemed not in line with the identity of the Church Hunters, and the reaction of the victims proved that it was true. Before Carl could utter any word, the woman threw herself and her child to the ground. With their heads pressed against the cold ground, they trembled in fear.

Carl paused for a moment, then smiled bitterly. "Are you hurt?" he asked.

The woman slightly flinched, then shook her head hastily. Not once did she raise her head the whole time Carl was there as if as long as Carl stood there, she would stay at that position.

He knew that he wasn't suitable to deal with the situation. After all, he had just killed the woman's husband, the child's father. It would be awkward to express concern and sympathy when one killed someone's family.

"Those medicines spilled on the ground are stained with blood. Don't use it anymore." Carl didn't add any more to say and quickly left the room. Once outside, he took out an exquisite bell from his waist and gently shook it.

"Dong!"

The bell made a deep and heavy sound.

"Dong!"

"Dong!"

The sound of the bell to call his companions stopped abruptly, and Carl froze in place. His eyes were full of awe and shock.

It was the church's bell.

A warning that the Beast Disaster had arrived.

...

"Whew!"

A young man bounced from his chair as if lightning had struck his body. Everyone was looking in his direction, distracted by his loud reaction.

His face, which was pale due to the nightmare, quickly turned red when he noticed the strange gazes of the people around him. He hurriedly smiled apologetically at them and straightened up.

He scolded himself that if he continued to be like this, the librarian would throw him out of the library.

He paid no mind to the books in front of him and instead took out his phone to check the time.

'5: 54 PM.'

The light from the sunset shone through the library's window brushed his face. It was warm, but it made his heart palpitate, and he felt nausea.

'I can't believe I slept for two hours and thirty-five minutes,' he muttered.

'The sleep wasn't even worth it,' he grumbled.

The phone suddenly vibrated, and a system notification popped up on the screen accompanied by an advertisement for a recently launched mobile game.

In the past, he spent a lot of time and effort on these games and was even obsessed with some of them. However, a month ago, he no longer had the energy to play them.

In front of him was a tall stack of books that could make one's hair stand on its end. The book on the right had Freud's picture on the cover, the few ones on the left were mostly about the development history of medicine, and in front of him was an open book filled with a large number of church architectural illustrations.

The young man carefully recorded his sleep duration in his notes. There was a long list of different records in his notes that totaled up to 25.

From the earliest 50 minutes to the recent 2 hours and 35 minutes, the sudden sleep that resulted in strange nightmares became longer and longer.

'Persisting for a long time is a good thing... but definitely not in this aspect.' He scratched his hair in frustration and tidied up the desk. Then he picked out two books from the pile before he headed toward the exit.

'The school library doesn't seem to be enough,' he complained in his heart and handed his library card to the administrator who had been looking at him with contempt.

It wasn't the first or second time he fell asleep in the library, and his dreams were different from those so-called 'normal' dreams. In these dreams, he felt as if he was 'awake.' He told himself that it could be lucid dreams where he seemed to be actually experiencing the lives of another group of people.

However, he couldn't explain why all those dreams took place in the same setting called Yanam, and all the characters he played belonged to a group of people called hunters.

It wasn't the first time he had woken up to a nightmare, and there were even times when he felt near-death experiences in these dreams.

In the library about a week ago, he dreamt that he was walking in a dark underground building. He met a hideous human-shaped creature that brutally split him into pieces.

It was then that he attracted the attention of the librarian. After all, he fell asleep and suddenly woke up screaming and was punching the air like a crazy person.

"Mr. Zhang!"

It was evident that the librarian couldn't stand this absent-minded student. When he went through the borrowing procedures, she purposedly slapped the library card in front of him.

If she could, she would've slapped the card on his face.

Zhang Liang stared at her blankly for two seconds before he came to his senses. He quickly took the card and the books he borrowed and hurriedly walked towards the door.

Once he was out, he took his phone and turned off his mobile phone's flight mode. Several notifications popped up a few seconds later, and before he could check them one by one, someone called. Subconsciously, Zhang Liang picked it up and put it beside his ear.

He instantly heard the loud background noise of keyboards, loud music, and people constantly shouting at each other. Immediately, Zhang Liang felt his head was about to explode.

Then a familiar voice sounded out.

"Where have you been the whole afternoon? I kept calling you, but you weren't answering."

The person on the other end of the call clearly had something in his mouth as he spoke. "I'm going to the gathering tonight. Are you coming?"

Zhang Liang smiled bitterly and replied, "Are you at the internet café? Are you planning to go to the gathering smelling like cigarettes?"

"Yeah, what's wrong with that... Damn it!" the other person at the end of the call suddenly shouted. He seemed to be in a fight with his teammates in a video game. After a few seconds, the voice returned, "Say, why do I feel like you don't really want to go?"

"I just felt...tired recently."

Zhang Liang sighed. "You know I'm not in the mood to care about those things at the moment."

The other person fell silent. Zhang Liang heard the sound of the chair moving and then the background noise quieted down. "Listen. I'm not joking with you," the person spoke clearly.

"Look, I know you've been tortured a lot lately, but that's why you must attend today."

He paused for a second, then continued, "Didn't you know about the old man in the hospital last week? Let me tell you. I found out a few days ago that our class monitor is that old man's granddaughter."

"What? No kidding?" Zhang Liang suddenly became attentive that he forgot about his nightmares for a moment.

The person at the end of the call noticed the sudden change in Zhang Liang's voice and couldn't help but sigh.

As Zhang Liang's best friend, he knew how much pain this guy had been suffering recently. At first, when Zhang Liang described the scenes in his nightmares to him, he thought his friend was making it all up. But soon, he realized that Zhang Liang's situation was indeed very bad.

Once when Zhang Liang suddenly screamed in his sleep, he tried to wake him up, but all his efforts, even violent means, were to no avail. During the whole process of him trying to wake him up, Zhang Liang showed frightening strength that he couldn't hold him down even if he called two more people to help.

Of course, Zhang Liang had no idea of what happened, and under his protection, no one dared to tell the poor young man either. After all, he was the basketball team leader, and he had enough muscles to intimidate others. Therefore, Zhang Liang was kept in the dark about his abnormal behaviors in his nightmares.

Zhang Liang finally gave in to his best friend's wishes and positively responded, "Fine. Tonight at seven o'clock, right? I'll be there on time, but first I'll go back and rest for a while."