Doomsday Wonderland

It had been two days since Pence discovered the hand in his pocket.

These two days felt like an ongoing dream for Lin Sanjiu. She seemed to float on Wu Yiliu's back, checking corners of the room with him, repeatedly turning the TV on and off, observing others' faces over and over, and daring only to doze off in a corner when tired.

The others were no better; everyone's faces were pale from lack of rest. Day or night, two people were assigned as sentries, monitoring the situation inside and outside the house. The forest outside had spread so far that it was impossible to see its end, even when climbing to the roof to look afar. The path they had taken was swallowed by the dense greenery.

Of course, they weren't naive enough to think that they could come and go as they pleased in the pocket dimension.

Watching Pence and Cuining go out on patrol with their weapons, Wu Yiliu finally let out a half sigh of relief. He lifted the sofa cushions, meticulously searched all around, not missing any nook or cranny, before finally sitting down carefully.

Two days ago, when Pence realized his hand was being held by another living female hand, he was stunned for a few seconds. Then he violently shook his hand, almost going mad as the hand clung to his fingers. After swinging it around in mid-air several times, he finally managed to fling the female hand away.

The four spent the whole night searching for the hand but never found it. Without finding it, they naturally couldn't understand what it was. Since then, Wu Yiliu felt that the hand could appear in any crack, making him check almost neurotically every time he moved or touched something.

They all knew that the pocket dimension had started, and something was happening; but what tormented them was that none of them knew exactly what was happening.

On the surface, everything seemed normal again: Pence had already thrown his pullover out, and Cuining had stuffed her hat into the kitchen trash bin. They took turns guarding the inside and outside of the pocket dimension, relying on their own water and dry rations, never leaving anyone alone even when sleeping.

But then what?

They couldn't leave, didn't know what to do next, couldn't analyze the situation, and didn't even know what was wrong. The apparent calm only heightened the growing frustration and anxiety in the house.

"It's so strange, I just can't understand," Abby murmured as she sat down beside Wu Yiliu. "Why are we trapped like this without purpose? Every pocket dimension should have a goal; what is this goal? Are the people in the other half also trapped like us?"

She scratched her golden hair in annoyance. "If I knew it would be this troublesome, I wouldn't have come."

After the first night, the four had divided into pairs: Pence and Cuining formed an alliance, naturally leading Abby and Wu Yiliu to team up. Abby's straightforward personality made her a reliable partner, and Wu Yiliu preferred to stay closer to her.

"I've thought about what the goal could be many times," Wu Yiliu said.

Outside the window, Pence and Cuining were walking past the wooden porch; Wu Yiliu glanced at them out of the corner of his eye and quickly turned away. Pence's chin was nearly melting down to his chest, pulling his face, eye corners, and revealing the white of his eyes and underlying blood-red. If it fell further, Wu Yiliu didn't know what might be exposed beneath the skin.

Now his hallucinations have spread to Pence.

"What's the matter with you?" Abby asked, noticing his shiver. "Since we entered the pocket dimension, I don't mean to be blunt, but you seem a bit...distracted."

Her words were not too direct, otherwise, she might have said, "You're not living up to your reputation."

Can't blame her. Since entering this pocket dimension, he had acted like a complete novice, even he himself was confused and didn't know what to do. His mind seemed to harbor a storm, shattering any ideas - the nightmares of his birthplace, perhaps a curse he would never escape.

Wu Yiliu twisted his cold-sweaty hands together, his heart heavy and uneasy in his chest, never daring to tell her the truth. If he did, he'd be considered insane - just now when Pence walked by, Abby had clearly seen through the window, and since she had no reaction, how could he tell her the truth?

"It's nothing..." he said hoarsely. "I'm just like you, I can't figure it out. You didn't wear those combat shoes, did you?"

Abby shook her head. "How dare I? They are things in the pocket dimension, I can't put them in my storage tools, so I stuffed them into a pot and locked them in the bedroom safe."

"A pot?" Wu Yiliu raised his eyebrows.

"Yes." Abby smiled, the corners of her eyes crinkling. "I thought if my sanity was affected by the pocket dimension, I would need to get the shoes out of the safe to wear. If something illogical appears before I get the shoes, it might make me sense the strangeness and escape the influence of the pocket dimension. After all, the pocket dimension's influence doesn't seem so severe - you woke up the moment you looked down at your hands."

Wu Yiliu nodded. Abby was indeed good at analyzing and understanding pocket dimensions, though a bit naive, she was quick-minded.

"But so far, I've never thought about putting on the shoes." Abby looked out the window and lowered her voice. "Should you take a little rest while they are on patrol? You seem to have rested worse than anyone these last few days. If you keep going like this, what if something happens in the pocket dimension?"

She didn't say it directly, but her meaning was clear. Since that night, anyone who wasn't blind could feel Wu Yiliu's suspicion and distrust of the other two, as well as the distance he involuntarily kept due to his recurring hallucinations.

Patrolling took a while, including checking the open space outside the house, the generator, and a walk around the wooded area surrounding the cabin. Wu Yiliu was indeed exhausted, his temples throbbing as if the blood vessels beneath were about to burst through, and he couldn't concentrate. He sighed softly. "You don't mind, do you?"

Abby jumped up, "Of course not. You can rest on the couch, and I'll keep an eye on you in the living room. Don't move, I'll get you pillows and blankets."

Before Wu Yiliu could say "no need," she had already dashed into the bedroom. He laid back, only to suddenly get up and nervously check the couch's crevices before lying down again.

Abby came out quickly with the items, propped up a fluffy pillow for him, and spread a thin blanket over Wu Yiliu, as if he were a patient with a cold needing care. Although he felt the pillow and blanket were unnecessary, he was touched by her care and softly said, "Thank you."

"Sleep, I'll try to adjust the TV again," Abby said, picking up the remote control. They had tried the TV several times, and each time they turned it on, the cartoon figure would appear just as it was, motionless and unhelpful. But the television was their only channel to understand the pocket dimension, so even if it yielded no results, they couldn't afford not to try.

The pillow was evidently one Abby herself used, for as Wu Yiliu buried his head in it, the scent of Abby filled his nostrils. Before his eyes, he could even see a strand of her golden, curved long hair. The shadow of Abby adjusting the TV with her back to him quickly blurred in his vision, turning into meaningless patches of color, eventually being completely swallowed by an encroaching wave of deep sleep.

When he slowly awoke from his profound sleep, Wu Yiliu had just opened his eyes, realizing that the living room was so dim that daylight was not visible, and his stomach immediately tightened.

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How long had he slept? Why hadn't Pence and Cuining come back yet? How could Abby let him sleep until it was dark?

He abruptly threw off the blanket, sitting up on the couch, a cold sweat about to burst from his pores, retreating only when he saw Abby.

In the dim and fuzzy darkness, a shadow was curled up on the single sofa. Abby had fallen asleep herself, legs tucked under her, her entire body huddled on the couch, sleeping with her mouth slightly open, looking not like a posthuman but like a little girl.

He did not wake her but quietly stood up. The clock's hands pointed to three in the afternoon, indicating that Pence and Cuining had been gone for less than an hour, but the room was nearly pitch black. Approaching the window, he found the sky outside heavy with dark clouds, not letting in a single ray of sunlight.

His shadow, like a cluster of translucent shards, gently swayed on the dark glass as he moved. Through the glass, he could feel how stifling and heavy the air was outside. It seemed a storm was inevitable.

With such weather, Pence and Cuining should be back soon.

The room was quiet, perhaps for the first time: two people had gone out and not returned, Abby was asleep, and he was standing alone by the window, all around was the silence of the world outside, weighed down by the impending storm. He listened to his own breathing, Abby's breathing, and... another soft breathing at the back of his neck.

He finally heard it.

The attention, scattered within the cabin by various upheavals, the sounds concealed by fear and distraction, were now once again reaching his mind and ears.

Wu Yiliu heard it, in the air behind him, a faint voice, like an illusionary drop about to fall on the nerve endings, whispering softly to him. The voice persisted, like the humming of a refrigerator engine, and would disappear from consciousness if listened to for too long.

"It's going to rain, very cold, wrap the blanket well around yourself, tightly, keep it on, don't take it off..."

Wu Yiliu looked at his reflection in the window, his whole body as if frozen in ice.

He distinctly remembered throwing off the blanket when he got up, but now it was wrapped around his shoulders, standing with him in front of the dark glass as the storm approached.

After all, nobody had said that the fourth object had to be clothing.