Horror Game Designer Chapter 2: Family

The mud on the bottom of the boots dirtied the floor. Qi Yan shut the door and locked it. His hand, hidden under the sleeve, tightened. His breathing turned heavy. The media called him the Rainy Night Murderer, and he loved it for its simplicity and fearfulness.

“How should I thank him for taking me in?” His eyes were almost covered in blood. Qi Yan stared at Gao Ming’s back. He loved to hunt kind people. He loved to ruin the beauty of the world.

“He has to have a perfect family to have such a kind hard. He must be well-protected by his parents. Kind people like this have no idea how evil the world can get.” Qi Yan kept his face shielded by the hat of the coat. He was thinking of ways to torture Gao Ming.

“You must be hungry.” Gao Ming served the food and poured a glass of water. “Today is my birthday, so we make a lot of food. There’s also cake. Do you want some?” The cake was brought by Gao Ming’s parents, so Gao Ming would gladly share it.

“It’s fine.” Qi Yan didn’t touch anything, afraid of leaving traces. “Is there someone calling for you from the bedroom?”

“My parents are home too.” Gao Ming smiled. “They are not so well. They have to stay in the bedroom and can’t move around too much.”

“Don’t you need to go look after them?” In Qi Yan’s heart, Gao Ming was already dead. “Should we greet your parents?”

“I’m shy and don’t dare to talk to them.” Gao Ming sighed and hobbled to the bedroom. “They are sick with strange symptoms. They need the quiet.” Qi Yan heard the noises from the bedroom. He followed Gao Ming to the bedroom door. The light started to distort, and the temperature lowered.

When Gao Ming opened the bedroom door, Qi Yan took a step back. With curiosity, Qi Yan looked into the bedroom. The shadow in the bedroom retreated. At the place where light and shadow intertwined, there were many scary faces and a giant twisted body! When the monsters saw Gao Ming, they dragged each other towards the door.

Seeing this horrid scene, Qi Yan felt suffocated. He assumed there’d be two elders in the room. He took a step back hurriedly, but when he turned around, he saw Gao Ming raise a heavy vase. He remembered the man saying that he was shy.

The china shattered. Qi Yan’s face was dyed red. He could feel the sky spinning. As his body fell, the ‘kind’ man very kindly shoved a glass of water into his throat. He was so quick with his actions.

“I provide painless anaesthetic, but you insist on the physical one.” Gao Ming knelt beside Qi Yan. “Don’t be scared. Soon, you’ll lose all senses, including pain.”

Hearing that, Qi Yan’s eyes flooded with fear. He had no idea what Gao Ming would do to him. His eyes wandered about. He saw the ‘parents’ in the bedroom and the calm Gao Ming. What kind of madman was this?

Disguise, controlling, domination, revenge, greed. He had the characteristics of a murderer. He was cool and cunning.

“How come it feels like you’re cursing me with your eyes?” Gao Ming sat on Qi Yan’s back and grabbed his hair to pull his head up so that he’d look right into the bedroom. “Before the medicine kicks in, I need to ask you. Can you see the people inside the bedroom?”

Qi Yan’s eyes filled with fear. He couldn’t answer. Pain came from his head. His heart pounded. His brain slowly numbed from the drugs. He was about to kill but was knocked out before he could do anything.

“From your reaction, I believe you did.” Gao Ming tied up Qi Yan. “There is nothing wrong with my mind. The game did become a reality through some special medium.”

The shadow inside the bedroom dissipated. The strange mothers and fathers growled as they faded into the dark. They didn’t belong in the real world. They only escaped when the two worlds overlapped. Gao Ming could feel the temperature rising, and his breathing became more even. “My game has become some kind of medium to connect the real world and the location where mom is. After I clear the game, everything will return to normal. But if I leave it be, would the ghost stories spread until the two worlds couldn’t be separated anymore.”

Most of the bedroom was taken over by light. Just as the mothers and fathers were dragged into the darkness, one of the mothers suddenly struggled loose! Her eyes were filled with love as she dragged the darkness towards Gao Ming.

Gao Ming turned to run, but Qi Yan was not so lucky. At the last moment, the shadows around the mother swallowed Qi Yan. The man screamed, and then, something on Qi Yan was taken away by the mother.

At 4.44 am, the bedroom returned to normal. Gao Ming took the mop into the room. It was like the parents hadn’t been there. All the cakes and candles disappeared. Only Qi Yan remained. His eyes were dull, like his soul had been sucked away.

At the spot where the mother disappeared, Gao Ming found two scary black-and-white pictures, “Is this the reward?” The pictures were old like they had been taken a long time ago.

One of them was of Gao Ming sitting at the table, enjoying some cake. Many strange fathers and mothers surrounded him. It was worth nothing that everything in the picture, from the parents to the cake and furniture, was black and white. The only exception was Gao Ming. He was in color. He turned the picture around, and there were a lot of words on the back.

“To my dear son, you are an adult now at 18. You’ll be your own parent. You’ll get the key to the home.

“Our home is between the place that exists and doesn’t. It is hidden deep in nightmares and at the most absurd edge of reality. It is very far from you, but it is connected to the darkest part of each human heart.

“As the parent, you can choose to save every family and give them equal love, or you can take them as tools and choose to torment them in even crazier ways.

“You have complete freedom, and the thing we need you to do is very simple. Have more people join the game after dark. Disperse the energy from them to feed the things in the legends.”

The handwriting made it look like it was written by a child. It was stained with blood too.

“A parent?”
Gao Ming frowned as he picked up the second picture. It featured Qi Yan’s fear-stricken face. It looked like his last picture. There was strange writing on the back too.

“Family picture: Only those who had a great attachment to reality, were dying, trapped in despair, caught in mental torment or had sinned greatly could join our family. We are the pitstop closest to death. Our existence provides them with a second choice other than death.

“But most people who came here would regret not choosing death.”