Liliath's Dream

P. S.: (This chapter is the most difficult one to write so far in this book. It's not that I'm having writer's block, but rather that the entire chapter requires vivid imagery, which demands a high level of writing skill...)

In a dark house, Liliath's clothes were soaked through. She looked around helplessly. The French windows in the distance were half open, and a cool breeze blew in, blowing on her wet clothes and making her shiver.

Outside the French windows, the rain was pouring down, and the wind was strong. The branches of trees in the distance could be vaguely seen swaying, and rainwater was being blown into the room in gusts. Outside, the rumble of thunder was deafening, and the occasional flash of lightning illuminated the room with a clear light.

Liliath wrapped her coat tighter, pulled up the French windows, and then locked them.

After being struck by lightning several times, she located the power switch in the room, walked over and pressed a few buttons whose purpose she didn't know, assuming there should at least be some lighting inside.

I pressed all four buttons on the switch several times, but the light didn't turn on, and no other electrical appliances responded either.

Just then, she vaguely heard strange noises coming from outside the door.

Liliath tiptoed to the door, trying to keep her voice down, and slowly pressed the doorknob, opening the door a crack. Through the crack was a corridor. In that corridor, a giant insect was walking on eight long legs, heading towards her room.

Liliath quickly locked the door, covered her mouth with one hand, and slowly backed away, trying not to make a sound. Her body was still trembling violently. This time, however, it wasn't from the cold, but from fear.

That eight-legged insect was a spider she had been afraid of and loathed since childhood. She had been traumatized by it after being bitten by it when she was very young, nearly dying from its poison.

But the spider outside was enormous, nearly three meters tall, with terrifying spikes on all eight legs, sharp serrations extending from its mouth, and its original eight eyes had strangely evolved into twelve. It was somewhat reminiscent of the mutated beasts Gu Ding had encountered on Ke Erla Star, a fusion of her two unpleasant experiences.

Soon, the sound of something knocking on the door came from outside. With just one impact, the sharp spikes on the spider's leg pierced a hole in the wooden door. Then, a second, a third...

Liliath continued backing away, when suddenly she stumbled and tripped over a chair that had fallen to the ground. Her gaze fell directly onto the floor beneath the bed. There, a little girl lay, her hands covering her mouth, softly sobbing.

The little girl had fiery red hair and looked only five or six years old. Liliath remembered being about that age when she was bitten by the spider. She crouched down and reached out her hand to the little girl. "Come out, I'll help you escape. Hiding here will get you discovered."

The little girl hesitated for a moment, wiped away her tears, and then nodded. She crawled out from under the bed, clutching a fluffy white teddy bear in her arms.

Liliath felt the toy looked familiar, but didn't investigate further. She patted the little girl's head and asked, "Tell your sister, what's your name?"

"My name is Lily." The little girl's nervousness seemed to lessen slightly.

"What a coincidence? My name is Lily too." Liliath looked at the door. The lower half of the door was basically destroyed, but given the size of the spider, it shouldn't have been able to squeeze in. However, it seemed that the door wouldn't last much longer.

Liliath took the little girl's hand and walked towards the French windows. Pushing them open, a gust of cold wind blew in, and the rain continued to pour, but there was no time to worry about that now. The two went onto the balcony, and Liliath looked down, trying to determine the room's height above the ground. A glance down filled her with despair at the possibility of escape; it was at least two or three hundred meters above the ground.

"Sister, there's a passageway in the wardrobe," Lily pointed to the wardrobe in the room.

Liliath didn't care about the passageway in the wardrobe at that moment. She grabbed Lily and rushed towards it, opening it to reveal a room filled with high-end brand clothing, both men's and women's. Clearly, this room belonged to a couple.

Pushing the clothes aside, Liliath indeed saw a hidden passage. She picked up Lily, carried her inside, and then stepped in herself, closing the wardrobe behind her and even moving the clothes back to their original places. Only then did she lead Lily along the passage.

The two walked for a long time, and just as Liliath was wondering if the secret passage had any end, a fork in the road appeared in front of her, leading to two different directions, left and right.

She strained her eyes to the limit but still couldn't see any difference between the two secret passages. She immediately turned to Lily. "Lily, do you know where each of the two passages leads?"

Lily shook her head. "I only know there's a secret passage, but I've never been inside because it's too dark here."

Liliath was also somewhat speechless. Although she wasn't usually a conflicted person, this was a matter of life and death, and making the right choice was crucial. After hesitating for a moment, she turned her gaze to the left. "Lily, shall we go to the left?"

"Hmm." Lily nodded, offering no objections.

After receiving Lily's affirmative reply, Liliath's confidence increased slightly. "Let's go to the left. If it doesn't work out, we can escape back."

Having chosen the left side, the two continued walking forward. They hadn't gone far when they finally saw a door. Liliath tightened her grip on Lily's hand slightly, gesturing for Lily to be quiet. Lily covered her mouth with the head of her teddy bear, then mimicked Liliath by stepping on her heels, trying to make as little noise as possible.

Liliath gently pulled the door open, revealing a crack, and peered out through it.

Behind this door is another room, quiet and seemingly safe.

Leading Lily, the two returned to the room. This room was a study, quite large, with bookshelves over three meters tall covering two walls, their tops almost completely level with the ceiling. The bookshelves were filled with all sorts of paper books.

In the center of the room, towards the back, was a mahogany desk. These days, things made of pure wood were quite expensive. Even paper was not something that ordinary people could afford, let alone a desk made of pure wood.

The items on the desk were arranged neatly and orderly, clearly indicating that the owner of this study was a self-disciplined person. There was also a picture frame on the desk, but in the darkness, Liliath could only vaguely make out a couple and a little girl in the picture, but she couldn't make out their faces clearly, so she didn't look at it closely.

Behind the desk was a black leather swivel chair with metal legs that reflected a faint metallic sheen in the night.

"Where are your mom and dad?" Liliath finally managed to find a moment to ask this question.

"At work..." Lily seemed unhappy when she talked about it.

Liliath rushed to the desk and began rummaging through the cabinets and drawers for any usable weapons.

She started rummaging through the first drawer on the left, one by one, but all the drawers were filled with work-related items like hard drives.

I searched all the drawers, but there was only one drawer that I couldn't open.

Liliath grabbed a metal card and carefully slid it along the keypad to open the drawer.

"Sister, are you a thief?" Lily asked at that moment.

"Sister isn't a thief. Sister just wants to find a weapon that can protect both of us." Liliath didn't even look up, rummaging through the last drawer, but still found nothing.

"Is this okay?" Lily suddenly handed over a silver pistol.

"Where did you get this?" Liliath took the pistol.

"I took it from Mom's bag when I was in the closet," Lily explained.

Liliath checked the magazine; it was full of bullets. The gun had a capacity of twenty rounds. Having taken the pistol, Liliath's fear vanished instantly, and she prepared to take the initiative.

In the past, she would never have made this choice. But after meeting Gu Ding, she understood a principle: taking the initiative gives you a greater chance of winning than passively defending.

"Stay behind me and don't get lost," Liliath whispered to Lily.

Lily nodded.

Liliath opened the door and looked around. The spider monster was gone, but she saw the room where she and Lily had hidden, less than twenty meters away from where they were now. Liliath clearly remembered how the door had been damaged, and she could clearly see where she was standing through the crack in the door.

She knew the spider hadn't gone far when, just then, slimy sap dripped from the ceiling not far in front of Liliath. Liliath instantly raised her gun and fired, striking the spider, which was crouching low in the ceiling, in Liliath eye.

Driven by pain, it lunged at Liliath in a frenzy, but Liliath was no longer afraid. Each of her bullets landed in the spider's ruptured eye sockets. After five shots, just as the spider's serrated teeth were about to clamp down on her neck, the giant monster's body collapsed with a crash.

Green blood instantly stained the entire ground.

"It's over..." Liliath turned to look at Lily, only to find that the little girl had vanished sometime during the night. "Lily?!"

When she turned around and looked around, she found that her surroundings had completely changed...