Khương Triều Dạ lived alone in a cramped 28-square-meter apartment in an old housing block in Nam Kinh Street. The city was entering its bleakest season: cold winds howled like tunnels, the sky wore a sullen gray like somewhere nearby, someone had just set themselves on fire. Each morning upon waking, Khương Triều Dạ would sense something in the air—like the smell of warm, raw meat.
He existed like a ghost. Unnamed, unheard, unnoticed. A completely ordinary man—no religion, no mysticism, no interest in anything beyond what he could see. He'd grown accustomed to the chill from doors that never quite closed, the leaky ticking of the wall clock each night, and reflections in the mirror that sometimes didn't quite look like him.
His job was unremarkable. His life, solitary. Friends existed more like footnotes in brief conversations. No one truly knew what he was thinking—and Khương Triều Dạ preferred it that way.
Until that night, when he was awakened by the metallic clinking of something striking stone.
Khương Triều Dạ opened his eyes. The window was still shut. The hallway light outside flickered faintly; dust floated through the stale air like spores. But the metallic sound persisted—sharp and steady, like droplets falling onto a granite floor.
He stepped outside. The long corridor felt deserted, as though abandoned for decades. Each apartment door was tightly shut, their knobs rusted with wear—as if someone had twisted them hundreds of times. The walls were mottled, stained with something resembling dried medicine or diluted blood.
The metal sound continued—steady, like the heartbeat of something that wasn't quite human.
That was when he began to see.
---
The elevator doors were frozen in place, their seams rusted shut. The internal lights had long since died. Yet in the warped reflection of the polished steel frame, he saw... himself.
But not himself.
The figure in the reflection stood taller. Thinner. Elongated, with an arm stretched back over his shoulder, reaching toward the base of his neck.
He spun around.
No one. The hallway remained still. The neon glow from the emergency light twitched like a dying eye.
But something within him beat louder. A second pulse—not his own—deep, cold, and heavy.
---
When he returned to his apartment, something was on the table.
A book. Black. Leather-wrapped. No title.
Opening it, he found rows of script—ancient Chinese characters heavily crossed out, interlaced with lines of symbols written in a language no human tongue could ever utter.
Each page he turned chilled his wrist. And on the final page, there were no words—only a blood-like smear shaped in a perfect spiral, like an eye waiting to open.
Then the door behind him creaked open.
No knock. No footsteps.
Just a corridor, dimly lit, with walls that... breathed.
He stepped through.
---
Beyond the door, the world had no temperature. No scent. No sense of time.
Only breath-like sounds drifting along the walls. Patches of what looked like fish scales shimmered in and out of the sterile light from unseen bulbs. On the wall, a picture frame hung crookedly—a portrait of a man in a doctor's coat, eyeless, grinning as if his smile were stitched with black thread.
The farther he walked, the more the floor felt like flesh. Soft. Sticky. But when he looked down—it was still tile.
Twisting corridors folded upon themselves. Dim lights buzzed overhead. Then everything fell silent.
A door ahead cracked open.
Blood pooled across the floor, thick and wet like something freshly torn. The coppery stench curled up into his nose. It wasn't dried. It was still flowing.
A figure sat in the corner, back turned. Khương Triều Dạ stood frozen. The air congealed like invisible hands wrapping around his throat. He stepped forward—unable to stop himself.
Closer now, he saw: the back was too long. Shoulders nonexistent. And in the spine—something was opening.
A pair of eyes.
Not human. Not beast. Not describable.
Then it turned.
---
It had no face. Only a pale, waxy mask like unfinished candle wax, laced with dozens of stitches that held back what should never have been revealed. It didn't scream. It didn't move. It only stared.
And for one breathless instant, Khương Triều Dạ saw himself beneath that thing—as if he were looking from both angles at once.
Then it crawled.
Not ran. Not slithered.
It crawled up the walls, limbs twisting backward, leaving trails of viscous blood. The stench of rot swept over him like a morgue on fire. The eyes in its back widened, following him.
He turned and fled.
---
The hallway had changed. Staircases now ran toward the ceiling. Windows became mirrors. His shadow had disappeared—but another shadow ran opposite him, at his feet.
Breath caught in his lungs. His eyes swam. But his ears—his ears caught the sound of laughter. High-pitched like a child's, but sharp like breaking glass.
He tripped. The floor shattered like brittle paper.
And he fell.
---
When he awoke, the world looked like a twisted copy of the city he knew.
Still Nam Kinh Street. But the signs were reversed. The people wore mourning robes. None of them had eyes.
They walked. Silently.
He shouted.
No sound emerged. No one paused. No one noticed him.
Except for one thing standing near the power station.
It was humanoid—but stretched twice the length of any man. No face. No arms. No legs. Yet it stood.
And when Khương Triều Dạ looked at it, he realized—it was looking back.
A word formed in his mind—"Trầm Tầng Giới"—as if he had heard it before. As if this place was opening itself not to trap him, but to awaken what lay dormant within.
An outer god.
A self long buried.
Khương Triều Dạ trembled.
And smiled.
---
End of Chapter 1.