Chapter 43: The Mutated Chihuahua

Ethan carefully crept backward, doing his best not to step on the tentacle.

The tentacle was coiled up like a python, resting lazily around the room. Ethan had lost count of how many loops it had made.

His eyes gradually adjusted to the darkness, and the objects in the second-floor room became clearer.

The room was about 30 square meters wide, furnished like a studio apartment with a private bathroom - similar in layout to the rental rooms on floors 3 to 7.

Ethan focused on the source of the growling.

It came from a creature reeking worse than a pile of rotting fish. It was sprawled across a double bed in the center of the room.

The creature growled, yapped, and coughed like a cat choking on fur. And that yapping… sounded awfully familiar to Ethan.

Thanks to the portrait photos hanging all around the room, Ethan realized what IT was!

This room belonged to IT. A high-end apartment, twice the size of his attic room - and renting for triple the price.

But from what Ethan remembered, Kitty - the landlady's Chihuahua - was smaller than a cat.

Yet now, Kitty's body had grown as big as a pitbull's. And like a pitbull, her muscles bulged grotesquely.

Worse still, her head had swollen to an abnormal size - out of proportion even compared to a pitbull's body.

Kitty's mouth was clamped around something large. So large, in fact, that her jaws had to stretch to the limit - her lips were torn and oozing blood.

Her bulging eyes swelled even more each time she tried to cough the thing out. But with every attempt, the tentacle coiled around the room just extended further.

Ethan clapped a hand over his mouth to stop himself from screaming.

So that reddish-brown, slippery, slimy tentacle that had tormented him earlier - wasn't a giant earthworm or an octopus arm.

It was Kitty's mutated tongue.

On that grotesquely transformed tongue, dozens of eyes - of various sizes - remained tightly shut as if asleep. Ethan now realized that all the eyes on the tentacle were grotesque versions of Kitty's own bulging ones.

"Oh no…"

A soft gasp came from the balcony.

Autumn appeared at the door, trembling as she looked at Kitty's eyeball-covered tongue coiled around the room.

After having just been showered in a rain of eyeballs and pus, Autumn no longer looked as confident and composed as when she first stormed into Ethan's apartment.

Autumn glanced at Ethan and shook her head in dismay.

Sliding down into this room on Kitty's tongue had left Ethan looking messier and filthier than before he'd even taken a shower.

But Autumn didn't look much better. Her voluminous hair was now decorated with several small eyeballs - leftover souvenirs from the earlier downpour.

Ethan had planned to keep quiet about the state of her hair. But the way he stared made Autumn suspicious.

She began to raise her hands to her head…

Ethan shook his head frantically to stop her but it was too late.

Tiny eyeballs, each about the size of a quail egg, rolled down from Autumn's hair to her feet.

"Oh my god!"

Autumn covered her face and let out a tragic wail.

And just like that…

All the eyes on Kitty's tongue snapped open. Black pupils spun wildly, searching for the source of the scream.

Beneath Ethan, Kitty's tongue began to slither like a snake.

Ethan didn't think - he just acted.

He dropped down to the floor and… started singing to the tentacle - that is, to Kitty's tongue - the first song that popped into his head:

"Are you going to Scarborough Fair?

Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme

Remember me to one who lives there

She once was a true love of mine"

It wasn't a lullaby, but the sorrowful and gentle melody seemed to calm Kitty's tongue. The eyes on it slowly began to close.

Then Ethan mustered all his courage and gently patted the tongue, as if trying to soothe a crying baby.

Thankfully, the last of Kitty's eyes shut tight. The monstrous tongue finally fell asleep after Ethan's song.

Autumn calmed down as well. She quietly stepped around the coiled tongue and ran over to Kitty's bed.

"Shh… good girl. Stay still, okay?"

She cooed to Kitty tenderly. The Chihuahua stopped growling and let out a pitiful whine, as if trying to complain to Autumn. Her attitude toward Autumn was clearly different from how she treated Ethan.

Ethan raised an eyebrow in disbelief.

Kitty had never looked cute - not before, and definitely not now. She looked downright terrifying. Yet Autumn was still able to cuddle her so sweetly.

"She's an Infected too, isn't she?"

Ethan whispered.

Autumn nodded, her brows furrowed. Her mesmerizing brown eyes began to shimmer with tears.

"I will find the one who did this. How could someone bite a dog?!"

Ethan had to fight hard not to laugh in front of a heartbroken Autumn.

In Ethan's mind, an image of a beautiful vampire appeared - someone who looked like that silver-haired singer from Crimson Veil. But instead of seducing innocent girls, this vampire was… passionately biting a dog like Kitty.

"There, there. Don't be scared."

Autumn continued to soothe Kitty. Her right hand slipped into the pouch on her hip and pulled out a syringe gun.

Kitty's attitude changed in an instant. She was no longer sweet with Autumn. Like most pets, Kitty utterly hated needles.

The dog turned its oversized head - still weighed down by the monstrous tongue - toward Autumn. She couldn't bark because of that massive tongue, but the growl she let out echoed like the roar of a beast.

"Good girl, Kitty. Calm down now!"

The more Autumn tried to coax her, the more panicked Kitty became.

Her tongue began squirming inside her mouth, reacting defensively to the perceived danger. The eyes on the tongue started to twitch open.

Autumn knew she had to act before those eyes fully opened. She was painfully aware of her own limits.

She leapt onto the bed, throwing her arms around the mutated Chihuahua's head while Ethan watched in horror.

Ethan was the exact opposite of Autumn. He wasn't particularly afraid of Kitty's grotesque, eye-covered tongue - but he absolutely hated Kitty. Hug her? Never. Not even when she was just a regular dog.

Just as Autumn pressed the syringe to Kitty's neck, the door to the room burst open.

"Stop right there! What do you think you're doing to my Kitty?!"

The landlady charged in, trying to shove Autumn off the dog with her large, plump body. But Autumn clung on with unwavering resolve.

Though the landlady was somehow stronger than even her Infected husband, she couldn't pry Autumn off Kitty. About a third of the syringe's contents had already been delivered.

"Let go of her, you little monster!"

Kitty's neck was held too firmly for her to pull the dog away, so the landlady grabbed Kitty's mouth with her chubby hands instead - trying to tug it toward herself. She clearly didn't realize just how unstable Kitty was.

"Kitty is the monster! Let Autumn finish! That's the only way Kitty can go back to normal!"

Ethan rushed behind the landlady and tried to pull her away so Autumn could focus on her task.

And so it was: two teenagers, one mutated Chihuahua with a gigantic eyeball-covered tongue, and one large, confused landlady - creating an unprecedented scene of chaos and noise.

Kitty had always been underbite-prone. Her fangs constantly jutted out past her lips. And with her head now swollen to unnatural proportions, those fangs had grown even larger.

After struggling with Kitty's jaw for a while, the landlady accidentally sliced her own hand on the dog's protruding teeth.

Bright red blood streamed down from the landlady's chubby hand - dripping right onto Kitty's massive tongue.

Kitty shuddered.

Then she began convulsing violently, forcing Autumn to let go - even though the injection wasn't finished.

"Ethan… we have to run. Now."

Autumn's face turned pale. Her shimmering brown eyes filled with absolute terror.