I froze. Every instinct in my body screamed at me to turn around, but I gritted my teeth and held back. Hu Xi’s face wasn’t that of someone playing a prank. So, I stood there like a statue, facing her with my back to the door. The flashlight’s beam stayed locked on her, leaving me draped in shadows.

　　"What... what's happening?" I whispered.

　　"The rat is coming," she said, her voice not even lowered. "I thought... I thought it wouldn't wander off, but when the power went out, it broke out of its cage on its own. Luckily, it’s deaf and its vision is poor, but if you lock eyes with it, it’ll find you. That’s when things get dangerous."

　　"What kind of 'super rat' is this?" I joked half-heartedly. "It’s deaf and half-blind—the thing is practically a cripple. How's it going to attack anyone?"

　　"Turn around and see for yourself. Then you'll stop questioning me," Hu Xi replied, a bizarre, twisted smile creeping across her face.

　　To be honest, I was dying to look, but I didn't have the guts. Better safe than sorry. I stayed put and kept my mouth shut.

　　But things went south fast. The "rat" was clearly scurrying toward me—the sound was getting louder and faster by the second. I’m not usually afraid of rats, but if that thing crawled up my leg, I’d lose my mind. I started inching slowly to the side, praying this damn thing wouldn't climb me.

　　I’d barely moved a step when I caught a dark shape out of the corner of my eye. About a meter away, it scrambled onto a glass display case and started heading toward the light. It was as if the flashlight beam was acting like a beacon for it. To protect Hu Xi, I started to shift the light, but I didn't dare move too fast, terrified the "rat" would realize the source was in my hand.

　　"Don't... whatever you do, don't look into its eyes!" Hu Xi cried out, covering her own eyes with her hands.

　　Her reaction left me stunned, but the moment that "rat" scuttled into the light, I dropped the flashlight in pure terror. I slammed my hands over my eyes and stumbled backward toward the counter.

　　That thing was nothing like the rats I knew. It wasn't even a rat by any normal definition. That thing—that monster—looked like a giant ladybug. It had the same jointed, spindly limbs as an insect, but instead of a beetle's body, there was a hairless human head. Those legs sprouted directly from the jagged stump of its neck. Its ears had been sliced off, and blood was seeping through yellow paper talismans plastered over the wounds. Its eyes were a milky, clouded grey. From its nose to its chin, the face had been ripped open by something sharp, exposing raw gums and a flickering, divided tongue. Its teeth had grown into razor-sharp points, like a shark's.

　　I didn't see anything more specific than that; I didn't dare look a second time. To me, it was just a severed head with legs. It looked like some grotesque, dismembered ghoul straight out of a horror movie.

　　Then, I heard it scuttle to a stop right in front of me. It stayed there, as if it were sniffing the air, searching for something. I kept my eyes squeezed shut, not daring to move a muscle. A moment later, I heard something grab my flashlight. Then came a sharp crunch as the casing shattered.

　　The faint light leaking through my fingers vanished. The "rat" had destroyed it. The scuttling sound began to recede, moving away from the storefront. I let my guard down just a fraction and lowered my right hand.

　　The world was pitch black. I finally understood why Hu Xi was so terrified of a power outage. There wasn't a single lick of light in this shop; it was absolute, suffocating darkness.

　　"Hu Xi? Hu Xi, are you still there?" I asked, my hands groping blindly in the dark as my eyes struggled to adjust.

　　"You haven't been eaten yet?" Hu Xi’s voice cut through the silence, cold and sudden.

　　"What? No, of course not. I did exactly what you did—I didn't look at it. But what the hell was that thing? That... that was no rat. That was a monster..." I was babbling at this point, my thoughts a total wreck.

　　"No, it's a rat. My papa said it's a rat, so it’s a rat," Hu Xi replied, her voice so calm she might as well have been talking about the weather. "If you lock eyes with it, your reflection gets trapped in its milky pupils. Then it attacks. It’ll rip your throat out and... take over your head. It turns your skull into its new home. That’s why a rat never leaves its house."

　　To her, this sounded normal. To me, it sounded like a nightmare. "That is not normal! Nothing about this is okay! We have to get out of here. Can we open this shutter? Let’s just run!"

　　"No," Hu Xi refused again. "Papa said when it’s time to close, the doors stay closed. They don't open until it's time."

　　I didn't care what her "Papa" said anymore. I ignored her. If I tried to leave through the back door now, I’d probably run right into that freakish thing. I had to find the release for the rolling shutter. I remembered there was usually a latch near the floor; if I could just unhook it, the door would spring up.

　　I began fumbling around on the floor, and sure enough, my fingers brushed against a metal latch. But there was a padlock on it, and I definitely didn't have the key.

　　"Hu Xi, give me the key," I snapped, my voice harsh with frustration. "I’m opening this door and I’m leaving. I am not staying trapped in here with that monster."

　　"Sure," she said. "But you’ll have to go over there to get it."

　　I heard the distinct clink of keys being tossed across the room—right toward the area where I’d entered the shop. Right where that monster had just gone.

　　"What the hell are you doing, Hu Xi?!" I screamed.

　　"Nothing. I’m just bored," she said, a playful edge to her voice. "I lured you in here to have some fun, that's all. I told you to leave, but you just had to hang around the door, peeking in. So now, you have choices. Option one: run over there, grab the keys, and try to get the shutter open—or just bolt out the back. Option two: you do exactly what I tell you, help me out with a few things, and I’ll let you go. Of course, there’s always option three: you could kill me and use my corpse as bait to distract the rat while you sneak out. That works too."

　　"You’re insane," I muttered. I didn't give her the satisfaction of an answer. Instead, I began inching toward the spot where the keys had landed.

　　By now, my eyes had adjusted to the dark. I could just make out the blurry shapes of the furniture. I crept forward, feeling my way along the floor, until my hand closed around something.

　　But it wasn't the keys. Because it moved.

　　"Aaaah!" I shrieked, scrambling backward in pure, unadulterated terror.

　　In the gloom, I saw them—at least three dark silhouettes skittering toward me with terrifying speed. My heart nearly stopped. I finally realized that the monster wasn't alone; there was a whole pack of them.

　　I stumbled, my legs tangling with a table, and slammed hard onto the floor. Before I could even scramble back up, I felt the weight of the three monsters lunging onto me. Their razor-sharp teeth began to tear into my flesh. I fought back, flailing my arms wildly to shield myself from the onslaught, but the searing pain and raw terror were eating away at my sanity.

　　My right arm felt like it was being ripped open. I could feel a torrent of warm liquid—my own blood—streaming down my skin. Slowly, my arm began to go numb, the sensation draining away. But then, it felt like something... something was clawing its way out of my right hand.

　　In that same heartbeat, the air was filled not just with my own agonized screams, but with the shrieks of the three monsters. Their cries were even more guttural and wretched than mine. Then came a sickening series of wet thuds—the sound of overripe watermelons being smashed open.

　　As those horrific sounds echoed through the dark, the air grew thick with the cloying, metallic stench of fresh blood and the foul odor of rot.

　　"You... what did you just do?!"