Poison City

 

“You - you know Kung Fu?” Kevin gasped and looked at both Marcus and Keryn with a slightly terrified, excited look: “Holy - you know actual Qi-wielding Kung Fu?”

 

“Shush, Kevin.” Both Marcus and Keryn responded with the same sentence and sentiment: “Keep it to yourself, okay?”

 

“Why?! Why?” Even though their bodies were completely broken, the family still tried to worm their way to Marcus, Kevin and Keryn. “Why… why are you so selfish… You… you are what’s wrong… with this city…”

 

“What is this?” Keryn looked at Marcus and then Kevin: “What is this? What’s happening? ”

 

“It’s hard to explain…” “It’s my first time actually seeing this …” Marcus and Kevin tried to explain at the same time, but then they both realized that they were interrupting each other, so they stopped at the same time.

 

“You guys know something?” Keryn took a look at the moaning bodies that were still crawling but still some distance away from them: “Both of you?”

 

“Yes. But let’s get out of here first.” Kevin shook his head and took out a folded paper talisman from his inner pocket and tried to put it on the handle of the door. The talisman immediately started burning. Green and yellow smoke rose from the flames, and the next moment, a deafening scream exploded from the ceiling.

 

Black tar seeped through the wooden floorboards and flowed into the broken bodies of the slaughtered family. All three of them started struggling as more and more thick tar appeared and crawled onto them like each droplet or pool had a mind of its own. Kevin and Marcus tried pulling the door and kicking it with full force, but none of their attempts worked.

 

“Let me try again!” Marcus immediately pulled out the two talismans in his jacket and tried to put them onto the handle once more. But before he did so, a sudden sense of danger came over him, and without even thinking for one moment, he grabbed both Kevin and Keryn and jumped backwards.

 

Just when they backed off, two hands made of dark smoke appeared right on the door and tried to snatch Kevin and Marcus’s neck. At the same time, the dark tar seeping from under the floor had covered up the bodies of the family in almost entirety. And slowly, they were pulled down into the ground by the tar, eventually disappearing.

 

“What is this?” Keryn stared at the two hands made of dark smoke as they returned behind the door and asked with a trembling voice: “Some kind of supernatural or paranormal being?”

 

“What attacked you in the bathroom?” Marcus turned to Kevin.

 

“It’s - it’s a woman. At least I think it was.” Kevin stuttered: “She appeared from the tub and tried to pull me into the water.”

 

“Yeah. Arms from the water.” Keryn nodded: “Some really creepy shit. I couldn’t believe it at first - but now it looks like I kinda have to. What should we do? Looks like you have more experience than me.”

 

Marcus and Kevin exchanged looks with each other, but their attempt to explain was interrupted once again by the sudden noises that came from the bathroom. It was a faint weeping sound, with the light splashes of water. The weeping sound gradually became clearer and closer, along with the water splashes.

 

“Try the fucking door. Try again.” Marcus said with his eyes narrowed: “Keryn, since you can use Qi as well, try and see if you can bring out the Yang side of it. They seemed to be afraid of Yang Qi, just like the folk lore.”

 

“Understood.” Keryn grabbed Kevin by the arm and pulled him closer, with her right arm raised in the air, her fingers clenched together and her palm facing down, like the claw of a praying mantis. “Hurry up, whatever you’re trying to do.”

 

Without much thought, Marcus slammed the two talismans onto the door, then struck the door with both of his palms. This time he did not hold back and utilized all of the Qi he could activate at this time. His orange flames lit up on his forearms and his hands were coated with a layer of shiny orange. The door emitted a shockwave when struck, and waves of dark mist seemed to be blown from the door. But still, the door just wouldn’t budge.

 

The two talismans did not seem to be doing anything - though they were stuck on the door, the invisible forces that kept the door closed did not appear to be affected at all. So Marcus immediately backed off, and started pushing his Qi more aggressively so that he could unleash a heavier attack.

 

Kevin and Keryn watched Marcus’ action from behind, while still paying attention to the surroundings. The dim but still mostly clean room without blood all over the floor, the appearance of the three ghostly bodies and the still unseen weeping woman slowly approaching their location all indicated that they were not in the same living room as before anymore, though it was still very unclear why they would end up here.

 

“Bang!” Marcus unleashed his attack one more time, this time both of his hands were in a claw shape, swung downward in an “X” formation with his Qi concentrated on his fingertips. Two claw blades completely made of Qi were unleashed onto the door. If it was a normal front door made of wood and a thin metal frame, it should have been completely blasted to smithereens. But right now, with the protection of the invisible force, only two claw marks were left on that door, and from the deepest parts of which dark mist slowly arose.

 

“Tsk, it’s not effective enough!” Marcus backed off and tried to tame the Qi rampaging through his meridians after the attack: “Let me try again - I don’t know why the talismans are not working…”

 

“Where - where’re my eyes?” Just this moment, a slightly hoarse, desperate and familiar voice came from the short hallway: “My eyes… my eyes … I can’t find my eyes…”

 

“Stop moving!” Marcus immediately said to Kevin and Keryn, then he tried to lift the talismans up from the door. But they seemed to have been completely stuck onto the door. The sound of the weeping woman came closer, and Keryn was holding Kevin while sticking close to the wall. Marcus tried once more to lift the talismans, and hopped to Kevin’s side after this failed attempt.

 

With a hand on Kevin’s shoulder, Marcus sensed that Kevin was in a state of panic and the rate of both his heartbeat and breathing was elevated. So he discreetly infused a small amount of Qi into Kevin’s body to help him calm down.

 

“My eyes…” The first thing they saw from this weeping woman was an arm with rotten skin and flesh barely hanging onto the arm bones. Then came another arm, pulling the rotten and boney body ahead.

 

It was a woman in almost completely ripped and ragged red clothes and only the upper half of her body. Her hair was wet and spilled all over her body. None of the three humans present could see her face clearly. Her intestines were exposed and were dragging on the floor, leaving a trail of blood and some kind of foul, dark green watery substance behind.

 

“My eyes…” The woman looked to the positions where the family once was, then looked around trying to sniff something from the air. It was only at this moment, did Marcus got a glimpse of what this woman looked like.

 

Her face was almost entirely bones, only a few slivers of flesh remained. And along her boney cheeks flowed two lines of foul dark green liquid. There were no eyeballs in her eye sockets. The sockets were not hollow, either. Instead, they were filled with lumps of flesh that barely resembled ball shape. Her nose and ears were almost all gone, with only holes where they should be. Her tongue was long and full of sores, and was flowing not from her mouth opening but from the hole on her left cheek.

 

“My eyes… my eyes…” This rotten corpse of a woman continued her cries, the voice sounded like it was coming off her stomach instead of her mouth and throat.

 

None of the three humans dared make a sound right now. Kevin was clenching the edge of his clothes as well as Marcus’ sleeves. Keryn stared right at this supernatural malice with her lips closed and jaws tightly pressing into each other. Marcus, on the other hand, though suffering from the chilling and almost debilitating memories and flashbacks of what happened in that tunnel under the docks of the Mud River, still had his Qi battle ready and his eyes watching the woman closely.

 

“My eyes! Give -  give me back my eyes!” This woman screamed, and a sense of chill shot through everyone’s spines from head to toes. And with the dizziness keeping her prey in a state of confusion and fear, she launched herself from the ground, right at the three humans.

 

“No!” Marcus was already standing between Kevin, Keryn and the woman, and the moment this woman moved, he immediately activated his Qi and swung his right arm at the woman’s face with his right hand in claw shape.

 

“Clunk!” Marcus’ fingers and palm collided with the woman’s left forearm. Then came the deafening sound of hard metal bashing into and sliding against each other. While Marcus’ Qi burned some flesh off the woman, he was also struck with an invasive stream of cold, dark energy, like a bolt of cold lightning. Marcus lost balance for a brief moment and almost fell backwards, hitting the wall behind him.