Father Part 2

Back in her room, Qing Yue threw her purse and flapped on her bed.

She was tired.

Living in a world where everything was different, where everyone behaved differently, sapped her energy, leaving her tired and drained.

She was confused.

If the heavens wanted to give her a chance at life, why did they keep the memories of her previous life intact?

Why did they send her to this strange world with the memories of her original world?

Why...this world at all?

As her violet eyes roamed over the luxurious room with its splendid decorations and purple lavender petals were strewn around, loneliness and desperation oozed off her slender frame in surging waves.

"How long...? For how long will I continue to live in the illusions of this dream?"

With a heavy heart and disoriented mind, Qing Yue fell into a deep slumber.

*

"Save us! Somebody save us!"

"My baby! My baby is in the fire!"

"Move! Move! Move!"

"Get moving! There's no time for tears!"

"Someone save my wife! She got left behind!"

"Uwahhhh! Mommy! Mommy!"

Qing Yue blinked, her face filled with confusion before dread clenched her stomach in knots.

She licked her lips, her muscles tightening, as she raised her ashen face and fixed her fearful sight to the scene around her.

"Another rotten dream!"

The words passed her lips in a strangled hiss, her violet eyes swimming with tears of despair and a deep haunted look as she raised an illusionary hand to her head.

Ever since her first birthday, Li Qing Yue's peaceful life had shattered and crumbled apart like a stack of cards.

For all the wealth and glory, the only daughter of the richest man in the New World Formation suffered from horrendous nightmares.

On her first birthday, the day she turned one, Li Qing Yue regained the memories of her previous life!

The one-year-old Qing Yue, though in the body of a child barely able to speak coherently, started dreaming of a world engulfed in blood and gore.

If that was all, it wouldn't have been so bad.

But as she grew older, the dreams grew more brutal and savage. Where before she only saw blood and severed limbs, with the passage of time, she began to witness masses of people burnt, crippled, poisoned, lacerated, and tortured to death.

The horrific dreams were so awfully similar to her ending that she crumbled and cried to anyone who would listen, to bring them to an end.

She begged to just kill her and stop the cruelty.

But as if she was only an outsider viewing a film, her pleas went headless, her cries ignored.

And so it went on and on and on. Without any sign of stopping, the nightmares continued and the tormenters never stopped.

The only daughter of the richest man in the New World Formation lived her days like she was in a dream, while she spent her nights with nightmares of blood and gore.

"Ahhhhh! Husband!"

The shrill cry was a knife, sharp and filled with deep anguish that pierced her heart.

Against her better judgment, Qing Yue's eyes unwittingly flew in the direction of the cry and her breath caught.

In a sea of corpses, a woman sat on her knees clutching a lifeless corpse to her chest.

The dead man's skin was blue, evidence of poison.

But what caused Qing Yue's breath to catch was his horrific state.

From the man's seven orifices, a swarm of maggots and slimy worms crawled out, eating and gnawing on his flesh as they spread to the rest of his body.

Lower down, on the man's belly, was a large, bloody gush where blood-soaked parasites and leeches latched onto his innards and feasted with relish, wriggling and cleaving more skin as they moved further up his body.

And that was only one person.

The many, many corpses littering the ground were all in similar, horrid conditions.

Qing Yue turned and gagged.

"Uuhhug!"

*

"Ah!"

Qing Yue woke with a start, her heart pounding violently in her chest as her wild eyes confusedly swept around the room. Seeing the familiar furniture and decorations, her tense muscles relaxed.

Her head throbbed, beating violently as if a war drum was being banged beside her ears. Taking long, deep breaths, Qing Yue placed her hand on her chest and tried to calm her racing heart.

"It's okay, Qing Yue. It's okay. It was only a dream...nothing more than a mere nightmare." At least, that's what she hoped.

Because she didn't want to think of it or consider it as anything more than that. A mere nightmare.

Qing Yue descended from her bed and walked to her queen-sized mirror. Her pale face and haunted eyes reflected back to her, making her cringe in distaste. Her grey blouse stuck to her body, defining her curves, as sweat poured down her forehead to her bloodless lips and down her chin.

"...Nothing more than a mere nightmare..." She whispered again, tried to believe it. But her weak and uncertain voice made it difficult to do so.

Sighing dejectedly, she ran her hands through her sticky hair and was focused on at least keeping them untangled when a shout came from outside her door.

"Qing Qing! Qing Qing! Your Dad's back. He wants you to join him for dinner."

"Coming sister Na!"

Hurriedly straightening her skirt and fixing her blouse, Qing Yue took one last cursory glance at her appearance in the mirror.

"Will have to do for now." Satisfied...well, at least finding herself presentable...she turned and rushed out the door.

The spiral stairs were long, wounding around like a sinuous snake with glistening scales as it loomed disdainfully over the miniature creatures below.

Qing Yue was gracefully descending the last third, her heart pounding in her chest and her hands soaked with nervous sweat, when her anxious sight fell on the black-clothed figure of her Dad, Li Chen.

"Father..." Timid and weak, her voice sounded like that of a frightened bird before a hungry lion.