A Tale of Forgotten Gods

Chapter Three: Town of the Undead

Mo Fei stared at the skull, perfectly decorated, like a personal collection, almost a hobby. It was certain now that something was here, terrifyingly intelligent.

He pushed up and took a safe distance of two feet.

Mo Fei moved, his instinct screaming to run away. His attention shifted to something hanging on the door of the next room. Distance and shadows obscured it. ”What’s that now? The last world was at least good enough to rest in.” First, his gaze dropped to the threshold—a scrap of wool torn from clothing. Most likely from a fellow Chosen One.

”A piece of cloth?” He stepped forward. ”There were seven chosen ones, right?” his thoughts returned to the fresh bones outside, one dead. Which left only six people alive, including him.

”Wait-- this ’Ji Yu’ phenomenon must have been happening for decades or even centuries. Is it possible that any of them have survived?”

He moved toward the fabric, and the shape cleared up. It was a wreath of skin, stretched and pinned. At its center, finger bones were tied with roots, creating a cursed rosary of finger beads made from recently harvested human flesh, still dripping the blood.

A sinister face of brutality. He soon realized the danger; the ’Collector had killed the person.’

Mo Fei stumbled back, then his back hit the wall.

He prepared to run, but then heard muttering in the air. It was a repetitive human voice, as if someone had gone paranoid.

”Someone is here. And they are alive...” The thought of someone alive gave him strength to find another living person among these horrors. He walked toward the voice silently.

In a corner, a man leaned against the wall. He was in his thirties, with a buzz haircut, bandages covering his head and ears filled with sticky blood–his lips twitching as he muttered words repeatedly.

”The well... Don’t go near it–don’t,” his blue eyes staring blankly at the floor. Mo Fei’s gaze shifted to see the piece of paper. Black outlines showed something was written. The man said something again.

”It’s a museum. A collection of arts. H-He’s adding humans to his collection... He took my ears but threw them in the garbage–he needs the right pair of ears.” His voice cracked, and he added another chilling word. ”I thought the ribbon was any help?” A wet, hiccupping laugh. ”It’s a sickness, a path of madness.” ”Everyone will die.”

Mo Fei stopped in front of him, staring into his eyes. ”What are you doing here? What happened?” The man flinched when he heard Mo Fei’s voice. But what the man saw instead of relief was another hopeless person trying to find a way back home.

”Yo-you are also one of the chosen ones, aren’t you? We are going to die by that thing... that beast killed another person. He is terrifying. This world is terrifying. Don’t go to the well, don’t go to the well,” and he began chanting the same thing.

For one last time, Mo Fei asked in a reassuring tone. ”Come with me; we will survive and ascend to world 3.” But all the response he got was...

”We won’t survive; it’s the end for us. We can never escape the world. This world two is already terrifying. I don’t want to go to the next world; I don’t want to.” After this guttural tone, he started holding his head; yes, he had lost himself.

A part of Mo Fei understood him. The peace of giving up. To stop being a rat in this maze of a rattrap. But the ribbon on his wrist glowed as if telling him to move or die. He looked at the broken man, a ghost in World 2. Carrying him would only get both killed.

Mo Fei stepped back; his sickly appearance and bloodied bandages made Mo Fei hesitate, but he had no option: ”Survival means cruelty.”

He had taken less than ten steps when the muttering behind him stopped. A new sound replaced it: the clattering of bones. He didn’t look back and sprinted.

The man he had left behind would probably die.

Time passed; the footsteps behind him were gone. He stopped near a room, and with both hands, he pushed and shut the door. His body leaned against the door, and on the ground, a small, metallic object rested. A locket?

Its clasp was broken, as if torn from someone’s neck. He pocketed it without a word, a piece of evidence from a prior victim.

”The owner is dead, of course.” Well, he had an obvious reason to say that: the star shape in the locket held a memory of the horror the person had faced.

”It doesn’t matter whether anybody came back from the world. I couldn’t care less about what others think. I have a family.” His hands trembled as he clenched his clothes.

He saw that something was written beside the mirror; someone had etched it by scratching the wall with a sharp object.

He stood up to see what was there. There was written, ”The Ribbon is a lie. I’ve been here four times. There is no way to escape. The collector takes the will. Do not listen to the voice of Well.” - K.

Beneath this, a second note in a different handwriting: ”K is gone. The well took him. It stole his voice and speaks with his voice now.”

Besides that, yet another note with another handwriting: ”Is it Cycle 3? In this hell-town. The man I came with, Wen, is gone. But I found a box in the Shiphara district of the world. It feels alive. If you are reading it, escape the bone city and find the districts. I have to–”

The sentence was cut off. A single, long streak marked the wall, as if the writer was dragged away. As he read it, his expression turned grim.” How can I escape this?” Mo Fei whispered. His gaze shifted to the mirror.

”WHAT IN THE–?” His eyes widened at the scene in front of him. The mirror held no reflection of him, no shadow nor face. He tripped backward, hitting the floor hard. Before he could even process it, another sound of something rolling inside the room came.

Behind him...

Two eyes rolled across the ground with no host. They twitched, trying to blink but couldn’t. ”Damn it!.”

He reached for the handle of the doorway, and when he opened it, the realization hit him: his face went pale.

The Yan Gu was standing outside the door, crouching. ”How... didn’t it have a boundary? It couldn’t come inside, right?” Quickly, he shut the door. His breathing became heavier, and his gaze scanning the room for a way out.

In the center of the room stood a window framed entirely with human teeth—a disturbing mindset of how that collector loved decorating his collection. Each tooth was embedded in a grotesque manner; yet it was an elegant sight for this collector.

But he would rather not be fodder for that Yan Gu. Mo Fei slammed his hand against the calcified frame. The teeth felt like hard rock, but he threw the weight against them and leaped out into the open air.

Outside, the whole town came into view. It was curated. It was a place of disgusting art, existing as a museum of terminated lives, a gallery where the final, terrified moments of its collection were scattered.

The stones of the buildings were weathered by time, they were also textured intentionally and carved with faint, repeating patterns that matched the symbols on Yan Gu’s bones.

The ever-present, pulsating roots framed them like glowing veins, tracing doorways and windowsills like highlights on a painting.

The whole place was filled with a scent of damp stone, an acrid smell taking over. This was no refuge. It was the collector’s personal creation. And every bone on the sill, every flesh-wreath on the door, was a finished work.

A cold understanding washed over him. That town was a stomach, and it was digesting the chosen ones.

The paranoid man he’d left behind wasn’t insane; his will to survive was taken away, and his thoughts had turned chaotic. The collector wasn’t mindless.

It was no longer a fight for survival, but a fight to keep his will.

Mo Fei scanned the street. The arranged bones by the doorstep were mild. That skull on the windowsill was staring deeper into the side of a well, the hollow eyes of the skull formed an abyss.

”There... The well.” He murmured and turned to leave. He already knew to avoid it.

His hand closed around the locket in his pocket. He heaved a sigh of relief and took two steps in a counterclockwise manner. Near a broken house, a black feather just like ”Ji Yu” was resting on the ground but lifeless. A connection. A clue left not accidentally, but perhaps... for false hope?

Was the Collector leaving breadcrumbs for the ”living exhibits” to follow, to make their final moments of realization more flavorful? The thought made his blood freeze.

How to ascend?