Autophagy

"Lock her in her room!" The flute monster shouted. Song Lei felt his world shaking as he opened his eyes out of reflex.

As soon as he opened his eyes, the room went into a cacophony of shoutings, screamings, and all kinds of noises. His eyes went blurry as his mind got overwhelmed by everything that was happening. He tried to get up from his seat but his knees became soft as he fell down. No matter how hard he tried, his eyes weren't getting any more focused.

Song Lei felt himself being grabbed by his arms as he was about to pick himself up from the ground. He was pulled out of the dining room by two invisible monsters.

'Oh fuck!' Song Lei screamed in his mind. The ground was still made up of the nothingness. The invisible maids were able to traverse it freely but it was a bit different for Song Lei. He was dangling off of the maids' arms. If they were to let him go at the moment, he would drop into forever, becoming a part of nothing.

As his feet were dipped into the nothing, he could feel his body getting filled with all kinds of emotions. Anger, sadness, regret, hate, melancholy, and etc. were all defiling his mind, making him something closer to a clump of negative emotions, a monster, rather than a human.

Fortunately, the invisible monsters were very fast on their feet as they reached the stairs. After reaching his room, the maids threw Song Lei to his bed and closed the door on him.

*Click

"Oh good. I've been locked inside," Song Lei thought. His mind was still in chaos because of the prolonged contact with the nothing. It took him quite a bit of time and mental power to somehow go back to his normal self and regain his mental capabilities.

When he came back to himself, he realized that his body was in bad condition. He couldn't really feel his shoulders or move them a lot.

"I'm fucked," Song Lei thought out loud. He was in one of the worst situations he had been in since he entered the dream space. As he explored more and more about the dream space, he came to understand why the Hammer Branch people would have to send out at least two people to beat a guardian spirit. It was truly impossible for normal people. Fortunately, even though the system wasn't showing up, his mind stat seemed to work properly. His thoughts were clear and quick. He could make reasonable deductions and think creatively.

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He looked around and did his best to ignore the pain that was slowly creeping up to his mind.

'What do I do?' He pondered. Song Lei didn't have a lot of choices as his body was too hurt to move now. Another problem was the fact that he would be locked in this room for a whole day.

'What would I or any normal person do in a situation that's impossible to overcome?' Song Lei thought. He could feel his body running out of energy as his brain kept working to find an answer. 'Oh!' Song Lei's eyes shined. Although there were obvious bags under them, they still managed to give off a hopeful light.

'I will sleep,' Song Lei thought while laying down on the bed. 'I'm such a genius!' He thought. He was locked in a room. Was heavily injured and couldn't move a lot. He didn't have any choice other than to sleep and recover. For some reason, being locked in this room was relieving him. It was more like the lock was there to keep the monsters out rather than to keep him in. Finally, once in a long time, he had the chance to properly relax.

As his eyes got heavier and heavier, he felt his mind calming down. Slowly slipping off to the dreamlands...

...

Song Lei opened his eyes. The room wasn't any different than before, lights were still on, he could still feel how dry the air was and he could easily tell that his body had gotten bigger.

'What?' Song Lei asked himself. His eyes were wide open, realizing that everything in the room had gotten considerably smaller. Or rather, he had gotten much bigger. 'I should take a look at myself in the mirror,' Song Lei decided. He tried to get up but couldn't do so.

'Right... There was this too,' he thought. His body was weak, weak like the first time he came here. He did his best to move his hand to his right pocket, hoping that the recovery pills were still there. After fiddling around a little bit and sweating a lot. Song Lei managed to feel a round-shaped thing in his pocket.

'Here!'

He pulled the pill out spending just as much energy as he had spent while putting his hand in his pocket and threw it in his mouth. Although his throat was dry, he could still swallow it albeit with hardship.

"Here it comes again," Song Lei talked to himself while coughing. He felt a hot feeling rising up from his lower body, slowly filling him up. Suddenly, he started convulsing as his body was regaining it's strength. After a painful process. Song Lei got up from the bed, feeling refreshed. His wounds had healed and he was in tip-top shape.

"This time, I seem to be 12 years old," Song Lei inspected. He was still in the same body, just a bit older. He was excited to see what had changed outside of the room as he walked up to the door and pulled the handle.

"*Blergh" Song Lei started puking as soon as he opened the door. There was a pungent smell, filling up the whole hallway. Fortunately, the pill wasn't puked out. Song Lei had gained some amount of resistance to disgusting things after eating the meal back in the dining room. Thanks to that, he quickly managed to recover.

After pulling himself together, he realized that the worst thing wasn't the smell but the red tissues that were stuck to the walls, quivering, moving, and making weird sounds all the while pulsing in a coordinated manner. They seemed to be alive. The tissue was blocking some rooms, including the invisible monster's one. There were some tentacles sticking out of them, randomly slapping around. Although there was no source, there was a red light covering the corridor.

Song Lei went back into the room and wore more protective clothes. He left the room before closing the door back. He didn't want the tissue to infest his room. In case it was something he couldn't come into contact with, his room was like his last line of defense.

'I should try closing my eyes,' Song Lei thought. 'Having my eyes closed seems to change this world. If I manage to figure out some pattern, It can get me out of hard situations. To do this, I have to experiment.'

As soon as Song Lei closed his eyes, the sounds made by the tentacles and the tissue got amplified. When he felt something touching his ankles, he quickly opened his eyes back.

The tissue had spread a little bit to his ankle, trying to grab him. Fortunately, he opened his eyes in time and the tissue backed off.

'Okay... I have to be careful when I close my eyes.'

Song Lei kept walking to the end of the corridor. The weird situation where he wouldn't be able to get past the stairs to the other side of the floor no matter how long he walked was still there.

'This time, I may know the solution,' Song Lei smiled to himself. He closed his eyes and started running. If his guess was wrong, he would probably hit a wall and break his nose.

Fortunately, Song Lei didn't feel a wall, he kept running for a little bit and opened his eyes. Because he was moving in a fast manner, the tissue couldn't get a hold of him.

'I was right!' Song Lei celebrated. He had managed to get to the end of the corridor. This confirmed that closing his eyes would change the dream space in different manners. Because this was his first actual achievement in the dream space, it lifted his mood up quite a lot.

He looked at the door in front of him. This was the 22nd room on this floor, the one straight opposite to his.

Song Lei tried to pull the door of the handle but realized that it was locked.

'Right...' Song Lei remembered. He searched the insides of his pocket for some time and managed to pull out a key.

'This may be it,' he thought. Initially, when he found it fixated on the ceiling in the bathroom, he had thought that this key was the way to escape there but that wasn't the case. He had tried unlocking the door of the bathroom with the key but it hadn't even budged.

Song Lei inserted the key into the lock and turned it. The door creaked open as Song Lei was met with a disturbing scenery. This room was decorated normally, the same as his room. The problem was the fact that there was a person lying on the bed. This person wasn't actually much of a person anymore. It was more of a skeleton than a human.

The skeleton slowly turned its head towards Song Lei and spoke, "Daughter...?"