Eldritch Horror Theatre

"Officer."

Seeing that the woman had calmed down, Fu Qian turned and patted the policewoman's shoulder.

"Since I'm in a bit of a hurry myself, how about we just walk?"

"Wouldn't that be too rude?"

Before Kelly could even react to Fu Qian's suggestion, the woman blurted out an instinctive reply.

"It's perfectly fine!"

A moment later, Kelly finally snapped out of her daze. Realizing what Fu Qian meant, she hurriedly agreed.

"You can wait right here. We aren't far, so walking over will be fine."

"Thank you so much!"

"The rain is too heavy out there. Take this with you."

"Alright."

An umbrella would do little against such a torrential downpour, but Fu Qian accepted it without hesitation.

Giving Kelly a meaningful glance, he popped the umbrella open and stepped out of the car first.

Kelly followed close behind. She slipped under the umbrella's canopy and hurried forward in tight-lipped silence.

"You..."

The two of them walked quite a distance. Only after the flashing police lights vanished around a corner did Kelly finally let out a long breath.

Yet a moment later, she looked up at Fu Qian, her expression conflicted as she struggled to find the right words.

"What is it?"

They were standing under an overhang that shielded them from the rain, and Fu Qian had already closed the umbrella.

"I really have half a mind to arrest you right now."

Kelly hesitated for a long time before shaking her head and speaking.

"Don't tell me it's because of my performance back there?"

Fu Qian looked thoroughly surprised.

"Given the circumstances, shouldn't I be getting a commendation instead?"

"I admit it was all thanks to you... but a normal person wouldn't have stayed that calm, would they?"

"Especially when you only just found out what happened here."

Kelly spoke slowly, her eyes brimming with deep suspicion.

"But you're right. If it hadn't been for you just now, things would have gotten incredibly messy. That couple..."

She trailed off, refusing to finish the thought, and instead let out a heavy sigh.

"The situation is deteriorating much faster than I thought."

"Yeah, I noticed."

While Kelly lamented their circumstances, Fu Qian's gaze drifted over her shoulder to stare at something behind her.

"What is it?"

Her nerves were already frayed from the constant shocks, and she instantly whipped her head around to look.

"It looks like we're at a hospital!"

Taking in the massive outpatient clinic sign looming before them, Fu Qian drew in a sharp breath.

For a while now, he had been vaguely aware of a strange noise approaching from the distance.

It was a difficult sound to describe. If forced to make a comparison, it sounded like a flock of noisy ducks quacking in the wind.

"We need to leave."

Fu Qian made the call without hesitation.

Without a doubt, even in a torrential downpour, a hospital would be packed with people.

And according to what Kelly had just said, crowded places were undeniably the most dangerous.

Kelly nodded in agreement, fully accepting Fu Qian's suggestion.

Crash!

But just as they were about to move, a deafening crash erupted from behind them.

The colossal glass panels of the clinic's exterior wall had been violently shattered from the inside.

Waaah!

At the exact same moment, the piercing wail of an infant rang out.

'What the hell is that?'

Staring at the figure barreling out of the shattered opening, Fu Qian knew things were about to go south.

The figure was wearing a hospital gown and looked utterly emaciated. There was even an IV tube still dangling from its arm. No matter how you looked at it, this was someone at death's door.

But the sheer destructive force required to do that was completely beyond the realm of normal human strength.

Fu Qian knew exactly how tough that kind of architectural glass was. Forget a body of flesh and blood; even someone clad in a full suit of steel armor would struggle to shatter it like that.

The most alarming detail, however, was how the figure's arms were currently curled inward, cradling a bundle of white cloth that seemed to wrap around something.

"There's a baby."

The crying seemed to trigger Kelly. With a low growl, she skidded to a halt and raised her gun, taking aim.

Her sudden movement clearly startled the rushing figure, who immediately snapped its head up to stare at them.

It was an incredibly elderly face, and just like the woman they had encountered earlier, it was deathly pale and completely drained of blood.

Upon spotting Fu Qian and Kelly, the old man didn't hesitate for a second. He began lumbering straight toward them, step by step.

"Put the baby on the ground!"

Kelly roared, issuing a stark warning.

'Something isn't right here.'

Fu Qian narrowed his eyes, tracking the slowly approaching old man.

Beyond the superhuman strength, he had felt that something else was off from the very beginning.

Watching the man take a few more lurching steps, he finally pinpointed the problem.

The crying wasn't coming from the bundle in his arms. It was coming from the old man's mouth.

"That's not a baby!"

The moment he confirmed it, Fu Qian shouted a warning. At the exact same time, acting on pure instinct, he threw himself back behind the cover of the wall.

Bang!

A gunshot rang out. Kelly had opened fire, and her target had shockingly been Fu Qian.

Fortunately, he was already hidden behind the concrete, and the bullet only kicked up a spray of pulverized stone.

"Don't get in my way!"

Kelly spat a chilling warning, her voice laced with an unnatural, obsessive stubbornness.

'Things are spiraling toward the worst possible outcome. I guess there's no room for optimism here!'

Watching Kelly's expression twist into something bizarre, Fu Qian sighed.

Just as he suspected, she wasn't normal either. Somehow, that infant's cry was acting as a trigger for her.

In that brief moment, he had noticed the wound on her left hand twitching, as if something was trying to worm its way out.

The mutation was subtle. If he hadn't already been suspicious, he definitely would have missed it.

"Stop, or I'll shoot!"

Having failed to hit Fu Qian, Kelly didn't press the attack. Instead, she pivoted her gun, aiming right back at the old man in the hospital gown.

But the old man showed absolutely no fear. He just kept lumbering forward, his lurching steps steadily picking up speed.

Bang! Bang!

True to her word, Kelly pulled the trigger, firing directly at his head.

The old man instantly stumbled from the impact and crashed to the ground. The wailing came to an abrupt halt.

Without a moment's hesitation, Kelly sprinted forward, desperately trying to rescue the baby in his arms.

Unfortunately, as the old man collapsed, Fu Qian had a crystal-clear view of the situation.

The thing cradled in the old man's arms wasn't a baby at all. It was a grotesque, multicolored pile of internal organs, and it was still slowly writhing.

There was a horrifying, gaping wound torn into the old man's abdomen. The abnormally swollen organs were spilling directly out of the cavity, supported only by the bunched-up bedsheets.

In the next breath, a length of intestine lunged outward like a striking snake, wrapping tightly around Kelly's neck. Her body instantly began thrashing like a fish out of water.

The struggle didn't last long. The ensnared Kelly raised her handgun point-blank at the old man's head and unloaded the rest of her magazine into it.

This time, the old man's head shattered completely, painting the ground in a spray of bone fragments and blood.

The rest of his body rapidly dissolved into a slurry, and even the trapped Kelly couldn't escape the reaction. In the blink of an eye, they were both reduced to a pool of crimson liquid that slowly seeped into the ground.

A moment later, an indescribably vile, dark crimson hue began to bleed outward from that spot, rapidly spreading across the surrounding area.

Wherever it touched, everything rotted into a state of absolute ruin.

'This is...'

Watching the rapidly warping environment around him, Fu Qian pondered for a moment before stepping forward. He used the tip of the umbrella to poke at the remains the two of them had left behind.

Flicking the blood-drenched handgun aside, Fu Qian uncovered something that looked like an ID badge.

"Kelly Landa."

Making out the name printed on it, Fu Qian even recognized the policewoman's photograph.

The only problem was that it wasn't a police badge. It was an employee ID badge, in the exact same style as his own.

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