Liang Wenyan sat in his cramped apartment, staring at the text message on his phone.
"You saw too much."
The words burned into his mind like the glowing markings that haunted his thoughts. He had read the message over and over, hoping it would change or disappear. But it didn't. The sender was anonymous, the phone offered no clues, and even the delivery timestamp seemed oddly… off.
The rain hadn't stopped since he left the warehouse. Outside, the city lights blurred in the downpour, but inside his room, the silence was deafening.
He replayed the events in his head—Heng's hollow eyes, the way his body seemed to sink into the floor, and the creature that emerged from the shifting darkness. A shiver ran down Wenyan's spine as the memory of those glowing red lights pierced his thoughts.
"I need to find out what's going on," he muttered, his voice breaking the stillness.
---
The next morning, Wenyan decided to go back to the warehouse district. As much as fear clawed at his chest, he couldn't shake the feeling that he had left something behind.
The streets were eerily empty when he arrived. The rain had washed away the grime on the pavement, but the warehouse loomed ahead, untouched and foreboding.
He hesitated at the entrance, his hand hovering over the metal door. It was ajar, just as he had left it. Taking a deep breath, Wenyan pushed it open.
Inside, the markings were gone.
The once glowing, shifting symbols on the floor had vanished, leaving the ground a barren expanse of cracked cement. The air, however, still felt heavy, as if the shadows were watching him.
"Heng?" he called out, though he knew it was pointless. The echoes of his voice bounced back, hollow and empty.
He ventured further in, flashlight in hand. The air smelled of damp and metal, and the faint whispers he thought he had left behind began to creep into his ears again.
It's just your imagination, he told himself. There's nothing here.
But then his foot hit something.
Wenyan looked down and saw Heng's phone lying on the floor. The screen was cracked, but it still glowed faintly. Picking it up, he saw the last message Heng had tried to send:
"It's inside me."
His stomach twisted. Before he could process the words, the phone buzzed violently in his hand. Startled, he dropped it, but the buzzing didn't stop. The screen flickered, and words began to appear, one by one:
"Leave. Now."
A chill ran down Wenyan's spine. His instincts screamed at him to obey, but his feet refused to move. Instead, he picked up the phone again and aimed its flashlight at the walls.
That's when he saw it.
The markings hadn't vanished. They had moved.
They now sprawled across the walls and ceiling, writhing and pulsing like living veins. As Wenyan watched, the symbols seemed to shift toward him, their glow intensifying.
The whispers grew louder, more insistent, filling his head with fragmented words he couldn't understand. His breathing quickened as the markings seemed to close in, dragging the shadows with them.
And then he heard it.
"Heng…"
The voice was faint but unmistakable. It came from deeper within the warehouse.
"No," Wenyan whispered, shaking his head. "You're dead. You're gone."
But the voice came again, clearer this time. "Help me, Wenyan…"
Tears welled in his eyes as he gripped Heng's phone tighter. Every rational part of him screamed to leave, but something in the voice—something desperate and familiar—kept him rooted in place.
He took a shaky step forward, then another, following the sound. The markings pulsed brighter, almost guiding him.
When he reached the center of the room, he froze.
Heng stood there, his body rigid and his face obscured by shadows. The markings snaked across his skin, glowing faintly. His lips moved, but the whispers that filled the room drowned out his words.
"Heng…" Wenyan called out, his voice breaking.
The figure tilted its head. Slowly, it raised a trembling hand and pointed directly at Wenyan.
"You shouldn't have come back," it said in a voice that was not Heng's.
The shadows surged forward.