The Tree

Ethan quickened his pace and continued moving forward in the darkness. "Step, step~!" But the clear footsteps behind him remained steady, closely following him. No matter how fast Ethan tried to go, he couldn't shake off the sound of those footsteps. As time passed, the footsteps grew closer and closer. Initially, he felt the footsteps were only five or six meters behind him. But soon, the sound seemed to be just three meters behind him. As he continued walking, the footsteps were almost right behind him, only a meter away. Ethan tightly gripped his phone, afraid to let the screen go dark because he was prepared to open that audio file at any moment. If the ghost attacked him again, the knocking sound from the audio file would be his only means of survival. Tense and ready to fend off the ghost at any moment, Ethan realized that the footsteps behind him remained at a constant distance of one meter, neither moving away nor getting closer, regardless of whether he increased or decreased his speed. "Could it be that thing is waiting for my phone's battery to run out?" Suddenly, Ethan's face turned pale as he looked at his phone with less than 10% battery remaining. If that were the case, it was only a matter of time before he met his end at the hands of the ghost. Escaping from this place alive seemed impossible. Glancing at the phone screen displaying 7% battery, Ethan thought, "If the battery drops below 5%, there's a possibility it will shut down."

Regretting his careless use of the phone during the day, draining its battery, Ethan knew it wasn't the time to think about it now. If he didn't want to die here, he had to run out of this haunted place before his phone battery completely depleted. Determined, he gritted his teeth and started running. He ran at the fastest speed toward the direction from which he heard the dripping sound. "Step, step, step~!" The footsteps behind him closely followed, refusing to dissipate. Ethan could even feel the cold, chilling aura and the faint stench of corpses emanating from behind. The ghost clung to him, relentlessly pursuing him. Despite exerting all his strength in his desperate sprint, the source of the dripping sound drew closer and closer. But at that moment, the phone screen automatically lit up. Battery: 5%. The message on the screen warned him to charge the phone to prevent it from shutting down automatically. "Damn it!" Ethan gasped for breath, his body covered in sweat as he glanced at the screen, growing increasingly anxious.

Although exhausted, he couldn't afford to stop. Stopping meant certain death. He gritted his teeth and continued running. Suddenly, a faint glimmer appeared in the darkness ahead. The dim red light stood out in the pitch-black surroundings, like a spark in the night. "What is that?" Ethan's eyes lit up, his heart filled with newfound hope of survival. However, at that moment, his phone vibrated, and the screen lit up again. This time, it displayed the message "Automatic shutdown in progress." Despite having some battery left, the phone had begun forcefully shutting down. But just as the screen went completely dark, Ethan felt a chilling breath engulfing him from behind, and the footsteps quickly closed in from one meter away. Right behind him. Although unable to see in the darkness, he could sense a cold, pale hand reaching out, brushing past his ear, aiming for his neck. No matter how he ran, he couldn't escape the grip of that hand. "Am I going to die here?" Ethan could feel the icy fingers touching his neck, and the freezing coldness spread throughout his body, sending a shiver down his spine. The faint stench of corpses filled his nostrils. There was no way out.

In the darkness, the faint red glow became even more conspicuous. Suddenly, the footsteps behind him stopped, instantly vanishing. The icy hand that had almost reached Ethan's neck froze, failing to grasp him. As Ethan took a few more steps forward, he felt the presence behind him receding. It seemed that the ghost had stopped pursuing him. "What just happened? Why did it stop?" After running for a while longer, Ethan found himself unable to continue and stopped, gasping for air. He was drenched in cold sweat, still in a state of shock. Recalling the perilous scene he had just experienced, he was certain that his survival wasn't due to sheer luck but rather because the ghost had given up chasing him. But why? He listened carefully but didn't hear the footsteps that had been following him so closely before. It seemed he was temporarily safe. "I shouldn't dwell on it. Since that thing didn't chase me, it means I'm safe for now. Regardless, I need to leave this place as soon as possible." Ethan took a deep breath, wiped his sweat, and looked at the direction of the red light. Then, he walked toward it. Soon, he arrived at the spot emitting the red glow. "A light bulb? A glass bead?" Ethan was momentarily puzzled since he couldn't clearly see in the darkness. He reached out and touched the area emitting the red glow. "Ah~!"

Instantly, Ethan felt an intense pain and quickly withdrew his hand. "This... this isn't a light bulb." What terrified him was that the red glowing glass bead stuck to his hand and was wriggling madly, even forming a crack and entering his hand's back. An instant later, an icy and agonizing sensation engulfed his entire body, causing him to convulse and writhe in pain as if his soul were being crushed and shredded. However, amidst the painful struggle, Ethan noticed a change in his surroundings. The darkness surrounding him began to recede rapidly. He could see clearly now. He could see everything around him. It was as if he had gained night vision all at once. The pain came and went quickly. Not even three minutes had passed, and Ethan felt the overwhelming pain receding like a tide. He lay on the ground, nearly exhausted, breathing heavily.

The muscles all over his body twitched slightly from the pain he had just endured. "What on earth is happening?" After a while, when Ethan had regained some strength and managed to sit up, he suddenly realized that his expression turned pale, revealing a look of horror. In front of him was a tree—a pale, bone-like tree. The tree was adorned with tattered human skins, dirty cloth scraps, and the heads of mummified corpses, as well as eerie paper charms. But what terrified him even more was the enormous four-meter-high figure lying on the tree trunk. No, it wasn't a person. It was a shadow—a silhouette resembling a human, as if condensed from darkness. This tall black shadow remained motionless, hanging upside down on the tree with its head facing the ground. On closer inspection, Ethan discovered a forearm-sized iron nail embedded in the shadow's chest, or to be precise, a coffin nail commonly used in folk traditions. The coffin nail had been rusting and seemed on the verge of breaking.

"Tick, tock, tick, tock~!" Black blood oozed from where the shadow was nailed. The dripping sound he had heard throughout his journey in the darkness turned out to be from this. But when Ethan saw the head of the massive shadow, a chill ran down his spine. The head of the shadow had no facial features, only a hollow cavity that seemed to be the location of its eyes, which emitted the earlier red glow. Ethan glanced at his hand. "Gurgle~!" The torn flesh parted, revealing a red eyeball that rotated a few times and emerged, accompanied by a strange perspective appearing in his mind. It was as if an eye had truly grown on the back of his hand, and the eye's imagery was transmitted to his mind. Eerie, bizarre, or perhaps an unknown ability.

However, as Ethan looked at the grotesque bone tree, the hanging human skins, mummified corpses, and the colossal black shadow nailed to the trunk, he thought, "This place is eerie. It's better to leave as soon as possible, regardless of what this tree is." He had a sense that the gigantic shadow nailed to the tree was even more terrifying than the old man. Moreover, he felt as if the empty eye sockets of the hanging mummified corpses were secretly observing him—a chilling sensation that sent shivers down his spine. He looked at the red eye exposed on the back of his hand, a gloomy feeling enveloping his heart, unable to dissipate. However, he couldn't dwell on it at the moment. The surrounding darkness seemed to have receded completely, and Ethan could clearly see everything around him. It was a dim, endless space devoid of anything except for the bone-like tree. It felt like another world, nothing like the familiar school he knew. But when he looked back, he saw a door in the direction he had come from—a toilet door. He realized how close the door was to him, and yet he hadn't noticed it before.