Poison City

With his Qi concentrated once again, the surroundings started getting darker just as Marcus expected. But as he looked around him, he found that he might have made a gross miscalculation - he was expecting some barely noticeable traces of “the unclean” before he came here, but the moment the surroundings dimmed as the sun went down, he was almost shocked by what he saw.

Dark mist lingering in the air, not dissipating, barely flowing along with the wind, like ribbons or tendrils made of grouped particles. Hand prints seemingly made of some kind of mud and dirt appeared on the trees and buildings on both sides of the road. And most worrying, even terrifying of all, were the human-shaped shadows hanging on or dangling from some of the trees at a distance from him. He did not get a clear look at those shadows, nor did he want to - he had a weird instinctual perception, that if he fixated his sight on them for too long, they would notice him as well.

Marcus took a quick look at the map and looked around for street signs - he needed to confirm the area in which Bai Gu operated first, then he could possibly find out where Bai Gu got the attention of “her” and needed a room full of talismans to protect himself.

“Okay.” Marcus took a deep breath and had his eye on a run-down house to his left. According to the markings made by Kevin, this would be the center of Bai Gu’s area, which at maximum would not extend beyond this very block. He expected the area to be relatively empty, for Bai Gu was only a new dealer and he could only get the less lucrative areas first. Lucky for him, he saw only some handprints on the walls and grass around the house, and there were no human-shaped shadows from where he could see. At this point he could pretty much conclude that Bai Gu was an unlucky new guy set up by his gang and thrown to a bad turf.

Nevertheless, he remained cautious when he approached the house. The windows to the house were almost all broken, the front door was dangling on the upper hinge, good indications that the house was completely abandoned and empty.

Marcus looked around once again, then peeked into the house before he went in. The inside of the house still felt empty, there was a lot of garbage and waste on the floor, and signs of termite infestation all over the walls and ceiling. The wooden floorboards creaked as he set foot on them, even when he used his Qi to lighten his footsteps.

The interior of the house was not as dark, probably due to the broken windows and a hole on the side of the ceiling that allowed some moonlight to come in. The sun had set at this point, and the glow in the clouds mostly faded away. The moon hung high in the sky and chilly breezes blew through the windows and door.

Marcus turned on his flashlight to look around - there were more handprints inside the house than it was outside, and he could see the tendril-like dark mist floating inside. Though ominous and chilling, he could not see anything that was imminently dangerous, nor could he find anything that could point directly to the reasons as to why Bai Gu was haunted.

The living room, just like Marcus expected, was quite a mess. Empty boxes and plastic bags everywhere. There was one slipper covered in dust, some tinfoil, and some broken off wood panels on the kitchen floor. The backdoor was visible from the living room leading right to the backyard.

Step by step, Marcus walked out of the backdoor and came face to face with a tree. The reason for this, was that the short, dark, crooked tree in the middle of the backyard had a face carved on its thick trunk. It was the face of a crying man with five horns scattered on his forehead. There were two dark tear marks on this man’s face, which from afar seemed to be the result of concentrated weathering and corruption instead of deliberately drawn or carved on; the five horns, when Marcus came slightly closer, appeared to be some kind of really new offshoots.

Though somewhat demonic looking, Marcus did not see much if any dark mist around the tree and the face carving. So he inched closer and closer towards the tree, while evading all the dark mist tendrils in the air. 

There was very limited lighting around him, and he could not shake the feeling that there was something curious about this tree - it was not just the face carving, but also the dark and somehow smooth looking, barkless surface. There were absolutely no leaves on the branches, maybe some former residents or occupying dealers peeled off the tree barks and killed it?

There were absolutely no signs of anyone around. And from the backyard, Marcus just noticed, even the neighboring houses did not have lights on, and the only one that had their lights on was an unfinished looking three-storey concrete building about one block away. Was the entire neighborhood emptied out at this point? Marcus shook his head, this might be another item for further investigation.

Marcus got to about an arm’s length away from the tree, and the beam from the flashlight shone upon the surface of the tree and the face carving once again. He finally got a clear look at what contributed to the smooth look of the tree - it was not that its bark was peeled off, but instead had a thick, dark layer covering its body. And on top of that, the layer was not still, but moving - like some kind of alien entity, slowly moving from low to high, from the roots to the crown.

“Shit.” An immense sense of danger exploded from his stomach, Marcus immediately started backing away. But it turned out too late, as he felt that his attention and his gaze had triggered something and put it into a state of alert. 

“Crack, crack” The face carving on the trunk of the tree moved and turned, and the darkened eyes on the crying face seemed to have focused on Marcus. The next moment, the black outer layer of the tree opened up from the position of the face carving like it was a curtain of black waterfall being divided from the middle, exposing a hollow trunk hidden underneath. The face carving had a body, a crooked root-like wooden humanoid body, with two long arms, the right even longer than the left; the left hand had a bigger wrist and thicker fingers while the right hand had three long and sharp claws.

“Shit!” Without much thinking, Marcus immediately backed into the abandoned house behind him. But before he could go very far, the monster had already let out a high pitched, echoey and multi-toned sharp scream and lunged at him. Without breaking a sweat, it broke through the already fragile wooden wall. Debris, dust and broken paint burst everywhere from the hole made by the its entrance.

Marcus might be surprised, but he was pretty far from being in a state of panic, and the moment the monster burst into the room, he took advantage of the element of surprise and unleashed a quick kick against the monster’s wooden waist.

“Bang!” The wooden monster stumbled back a few steps, then swung its right arm aiming at Marcus’ head.

Marcus lowered his body and backed off some more, in an attempt to gain more distance between him and the monster. Another giant chunk was missing from the wall due to this wooden monster’s attack, and Marcus unfortunately found himself pushed into a corner in the abandoned living room.

The monster screeched one more time and swung its relatively shorter but thicker left claw at Marcus. Marcus took a quick step forward with his Qi more activated and battle ready. He grabbed the monster’s left arm to stop its attack. Before it could do another move, he launched another more forceful kick onto the monster’s lower abdomen.

The monster was thrown backwards and its arched back went through the wall. But it still pulled its left claw closer to Marcus in mid air. Its sharp nails tore through Marcus’ clothes and left a claw mark on his left shoulder.

Marcus gasped in pain, and immediately concentrated a big portion of his Qi on the three gashes, trying to push some of the possible toxins out. His instinct proved correct - a numbing yet simultaneously burning sensation started gradually seeping from the wounds to his entire left arm and even his chest and neck. It was halted and pushed back in time by his Qi. Dark blood was pushed out through his wound and stained both his clothes and the floor.

The monster screeched and broke away from the broken wall, while Marcus ran towards the front door with his left hand reaching into his pockets inside of his jacket - the two talismans from Wuzui, or Bai Gu, he had had them with him at all times since they met in the Temple of Forgetfulness.

“You’re mine!” Somehow, as the wooden monster tore down the walls in the house, it spoke with a voice that had multiple tones, some higher, some lower, some female sounding and some male sounding: “You can’t escape me!”

“Crack!” The wooden monster burst through at least two walls and landed on the ground outside right beside the main roa. Yet it was not able to see Marcus anywhere.

“Bang!” A bullet landed on its back, splinters flew and several chunks of thick, liquid dripping wood was ripped from its already slender body. Before it was able to stabilize its body from the impact, its wooden legs were hit with a sweeping kick from behind, fully infused with Qi.

The monster almost face planted on the cracked concrete floor, its head turned 180 degrees to stare back at Marcus. But its sight was promptly blocked by two paper talismans, delivered with a palm strike full of Qi.

The monster’s head and then the entire wooden body shook violently as if there was a motor inside it. Orange and red light crawled from its forehead towards the rest of its body, like a wooden log exposed to high heat. As the orange and red light covered more parts of its body, the more violent it shook.

Marcus jumped back while having his eyes on the monster. Countless cries and moans gushed from the burning wooden monster, and they eventually stopped when it completely went up in flames. Something inside of the monster exploded, tearing it apart.

Marcus sat on the ground, panting and tried to relax. But out of nowhere, he felt something pulling his jacket, his pants and his collar.