Luan remained in his position, totally motionless.
He behaved as if he was not a part of his surroundings.
His eyes were closed tightly shut. So tightly that he could see colours while his eyes were closed.
In his ears were patches of brown dirt that he had stuffed ahead of time.
His skin, which was supposed to be warm, was now frigid to the touch, courtesy of the strange coldness that had seeped into him.
His heart could faintly be heard and his shallow breathing was sometimes audible.
If not for those signs, Luan could very well pass as a cold corpse.
Don't see.
Don't hear.
Don't feel.
Don't touch.
Those were his rules.
The way he would survive.
The forest, which was once lush and vibrant in the daylight, was now dead and devoid of any trace of warmth and life.
It was as if the coldness seeped into every living being, making them feel like nothing more than cold corpses.
From the trees to the grass, to the animals and to the insects, and to the beasts and the monsters.
An hour later, fog appeared.
It churned through the whole forest at unimaginable speeds as if it was alive.
This fog was greyish in colour and was extremely thick. It first started out as an inconspicuous wisp before abruptly enlarging and engulfing the entire forest.
At first, the fog was greyish white, the normal colour of fog, but then, a pitch black hue appeared on it like a smear on a grey painting before spreading rapidly.
The fog overtook every place the cold had seeped into, obscuring the view of every living thing to no more than a few centimetres before them.
After a while, the fog stopped churning and remained stationary.
Suddenly, a grating scream that sounded like the amalgamation of countless voices shook the whole forest.
Luan felt warm liquid drip down his ears, but the coldness made it dry up immediately.
The cacophony of screams sounded as if there were men, women, children and animals of every kind of race and age, singing an unholy song into the night.
Luan felt extremely terrified, but he controlled himself.
He didn't shiver.
Until he heard something else.
The sound of footsteps.
These footsteps were very erratic and extremely numerous. The footsteps accompanied the music everywhere, giving it a bizarre drum that didn't follow any reasonable order known to Luan.
This wasn't enough to make Luan shiver, but he suddenly heard all the footsteps halt.
The song also halted at that moment.
At first, he thought that the bizarre entity that was the cause of his fear had disappeared.
But he suddenly heard the sound of countless footsteps right in front of the hole he made in the tree.
Ba-dump!
Luan's heart skipped several beats at once!
'The thing is in front of me!
'Is this how it ends for me?!'
He thought he'd simply cease to exist the next second, but he didn't hear anything else after a minute.
Still, he didn't dare to get careless.
He remained in his position without moving.
Gradually, only the slightly disorderly beats of his heart could be heard.
Two minutes passed.
Then, he let out a tiny breath of relief.
This breath was so tiny that it didn't even cause ripples in the fog.
The moment he did that though, Luan suddenly felt his heart rate spike over the roof!
Then, he heard the sound of many tongues smacking their lips.
Even worse, the sounds of smacking lips were coming from everywhere around him!
One was even directly in front of his face!
Suddenly, a cacophony of soul-piercing wails rang out.
The waves produced a terrifying shockwave that landed on Luan, tearing everything around him to smithereens!
Luan himself was flung out like a ragdoll, crashing into a tree.
Blood spilled from his mouth as he felt the impact reverberate through his whole system.
He tried to get up, but the eerie sound of chewing and swallowing rang out behind him.
He froze on the spot for a moment, and only moved to dust his ear after confirming that the sound was near him.
When his hand got to where his ear was supposed to be, it passed through the air aimlessly.
A bit surprised, Luan looked at his hand, but what he saw made a sense of unease wash over him.
He tried to get a feel for his ears, but what he felt was the disgusting squelch of what used to be his ears, now no more than tiny lumps of meat.
An overwhelming sense of horror washed over him!
His ears were gone!
Luan looked back, but suddenly regretted his actions.
There were twisting vines covered in slimy mucus that lashed around.
On their tips were mouths full of teeth.
In one of the teeth, he saw his ears being devoured.
Suddenly, all the vines turned to him.
All colour drained from Luan's face.
He seemed to see himself repeating four rules in his mind.
Out of the four rules, one particular one struck him with an overwhelming sense of regret.
'Don't see…'