Uncontrolled

Author: Zhang Jiandong
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-10-01
Features: She took a few steps forward and turned back, only to find the girl had disappeared. She suddenly felt the ground uneven beneath her, as if she had fallen into a low, damp pit in the mountains. Dense thorns and wild grasses rushed toward her. At that moment, she heard a heavy, rough breathing sound of some beast approaching from afar. Terrified, she ran off. The beast was clearly heading this way, and she could hear its greedy whimpers and the sound of its claws snapping through bushes. As she ran forward, she called out in fear and sorrow. Apart from the beast chasing her, she distinctly felt a white figure in the darkness was also following her. Perhaps it was the white figure that was driving the beast away. Her legs felt as if they had no control, and she stumbled and fell over and over, always quickly getting back up and running forward, bumping and scraping. She ran through a forest, over a slope, and came face to face with a house surrounded by a log fence. She ran to it, climbed over the fence, and hid in the yard. The yard had a made of bamboo poles, with strange-shaped fruits hanging from it, giving a sinister and terrifying impression in the dim morning light. The house was lit by a dim, yellow light, and a woman dressed in grayish-brown clothes sat in the center, her small body facing the door. When she entered, she whispered, "Please, kind stranger, let me hide here!" But the woman didn’t react at all. She walked to the other side and saw her face hidden by long hair. She couldn’t see her eyes beneath the hair, only her flat, pale chin and lips biting tightly together, with a mole at the corner of her mouth. She gently shook her shoulder, and the woman fell to the ground like a bundle of straw. Only then did she clearly see her face—her eyes had been gouged out, leaving bloody holes. She screamed in horror, jumping over the dead woman and desperately ran out of the house. She heard a sound from the bushes and clearly saw a white figure of a woman in the depths of the forest. Without hesitation, she ran in another direction. Behind her, the white woman screamed with a sinister and hoarse voice: "You’ll die like her! That’s my heart! I won’t let you go! You’ll die! Die like her! Wait to die! Die!—" She trembled all over, crying as she ran, with dark clouds following her like a monster. She glanced back and saw the outline of the village far behind her, only then sighing in relief and slowing her pace. She saw a high mountain ahead, its peak shrouded in clouds, as if it was raining, and she heard the distant rumble of thunder rolling in. A wind blew from the mountain, pushing the dark, heavy clouds. At the foot of the mountain, under the cloud cover, she saw vast patches of dark, thorny oleanders. She felt her body spinning with the wind and rain, and before she knew it, she was thrown into the middle of the forest, surrounded by hard tree trunks and large flowers. The oleanders suddenly transformed into pale, blood-red faces, which then reached out and blocked her path, tripping and tangling her, even clawing blood streaks onto her face. She fell and got up again, her voice choked with fear. Running back and forth through the bushes, she couldn’t escape. Then, a cat slipped past her. In a daze, she followed the cat. When she looked up, she saw a withered tree in front of her, and another person lying among the branches, staring at her.