Covered in crawlies

Darkness, boundless and starless, enveloped me with a damp coldness as I stood alone on the ground. In the distance, a faint glow emerged, seemingly emanating from the clouds or even the heavens themselves, casting a pale hue over the world and weighing down heavily on my mood.

As I slowly surveyed my surroundings, I realized I was standing in a desolate field of wild grass, with a gnarled and twisted old hackberry tree atop a nearby hill, beneath which lay a fresh mound of earth.

On the grave, grass had already grown, its leaves swaying gently in the breeze like a swarm of locusts, searching for the scent of blood. The silence was oppressive, and the entire space seemed to be rotating slowly, causing my consciousness to sway along with the rhythm.

After an indeterminate amount of time, a mooing sound suddenly broke the stillness. Looking up, I saw a small black calf lying beside the grave, its plaintive cries piercing the air. It struggled to get up, teetering precariously before collapsing once more and rolling down the slope towards me like a boulder, kicking up dust and sending weeds flying.

Instinctively, I tried to step back, but my legs were like lead and refused to budge. Just as I was about to be crushed, the calf miraculously came to a stop in front of me, trembling as it slowly regained its footing. It looked up at me with huge, plaintive eyes, then let out a low bleat.

I stared at the small black calf in horror, noticing the blood still oozing from a wound on its forehead, its entire body filthy and covered in maggots wriggling and squirming along its spine. The sight was enough to make my skin crawl, but the calf seemed oblivious to the pain, slowly inching its way closer to me until I could smell its putrid odor and feel its long, rough tongue licking at my hand.

Its tongue was extremely rough, like sandpaper, and it pulled at my hand, causing it to feel hot and painful. I couldn't help but open my eyes and saw that its tongue was almost one meter long, blood-red in color, and covered with small white dots, resembling a big worm. This made me feel nauseous and almost vomit. "Get away, go away!" I struggled and shouted, desperately moving my arms to try and dodge it, but my body was completely paralyzed. I was extremely nervous, anxious, and helpless, not knowing what to do. However, at that moment, a burst of fiery power suddenly surged from my left hand, and the white handprint on the back of my hand glowed with a jade-white luster, instantly giving me the ability to move. Then, I extended my left hand, grabbed that disgusting tongue, and pulled hard. There was a dull thud, and the cow's tongue broke in half. "Moo-wahh!" After the tongue broke, the calf let out a hoarse and piercing cry, then fell back to the ground again. At this point, I struggled to shake off the cow's tongue that was still clinging to my hand, panting heavily, and trying to find a place to hide. However, to my surprise, the ground suddenly shook, and the wild grass around me started to swell up into little mounds. Then, those mounds began to shake, and black little hands stretched out from inside. Those small hands continued to extend and grow longer, popping up like mushrooms after a rain. In just a moment, my surroundings had become an ocean of hands. The small hands were wriggling in various ways, some shaking and rising upwards, while others curved downwards and crawled on the ground like earthworms. So many hands made me break out in goosebumps, and I instinctively wanted to escape, but there was no way out. I was already surrounded by those little hands. I was so anxious that my forehead was sweating, not knowing what to do.

At this moment, the white handprint on the back of my left hand appeared again, emitting a dazzling white light. The light formed a circle around me, preventing the small hands from coming near me. Due to the barrier of the circle, the small hands could only wander around me, and I felt like I was trapped in a circular glass room with hands crawling all over the walls. Although I was terrified, at least I was temporarily safe, so I calmed down a bit. Then I heard a heart-wrenching scream, and I unconsciously walked towards the direction of the scream. The small hands around me were pushed away by the circle, and I arrived at the spot where the little calf had fallen. Here, I saw the most disgusting scene I had ever seen in my life. Blood, stench, and scattered flesh and bones covered the ground, with dripping blood sticking to the white bones. The whole calf had been torn apart, and the small hands growing out of the ground were tearing at its flesh and body. The little calf was already dead, its lifeless eyes staring silently at the sky, perhaps recalling its running in the field last spring, which was its lost youth. "Ah, ah!"

Countless small hands waved around the flesh of the little cow, seemingly showing off their ferocity. However, what was unexpected was that at this moment, the palms of those small hands opened up into mouths. Then, those mouths devoured the flesh of the little cow, and the small hands turned blood-red. At the same time, a big white eyeball bulged out from each of the mouths. The blood-stained hands then rushed towards me together. This time, because the strength of those blood-stained hands was so powerful, the halo around my body could no longer stop them. The blood-stained hands instantly grabbed onto me and started tearing my flesh apart. "Screaming for help, I don't want to die!" I was so frightened that I trembled all over and struggled desperately, but ultimately, I only heard the sound of my clothes and bones breaking. Then, I was completely submerged in the sea of blood-stained hands. Am I going to die? Am I going to be torn to pieces by those blood-stained hands like the little cow? I don't know. All I know is that, through the gaps between those blood-stained hands, I looked towards the deep and high sky and seemed to see a meat-faced doll grinning. That face belonged to none other than Little Fool.