Outside the covers.
Moonlight filtered faintly into the room.
Lin Ying lay with her eyes closed, her brows unconsciously drawing together. She did not know whether she was imagining it, but the Big Bear Plush beneath her covers felt a little harder than before. It was not as comfortable to cuddle, and something about it just felt off.
Her father had given it to her for her seventh birthday-he had originally wanted to give her a Chainsaw, but she had refused, because girls could not play with chainsaws.
The enormous plush had kept her company for ten whole years. Even though she was grown up now, whenever she came home, she still slept with her Big Bear Plush in her arms. Only then could she feel safe.
She unconsciously tightened her embrace again.
But it still felt wrong.
It was as though she were holding a real person rather than a plush toy...
"Is it because I haven't been home for so long...?"
Her brows knitted, and she instinctively opened her bewildered eyes. But just as she was about to sit up and check, her gaze happened to fall on the upper-left corner behind the curtains, right next to the ceiling.
Her gaze froze.
There, in that pitch-dark corner...
Her Big Bear Plush had been bound with strip after strip of tape, as though it had been kidnapped. Someone had even slapped a huge tape "X" over its mouth like a lunatic. Its big button eyes seemed to be telling her of some unspeakable sorrow.
Bzzz-
Her eyes went blank.
So... why was her plush taped up over there...?
But that was not the point.
Because if her plush was tied up above her, then what exactly was beneath her covers right now...?
Her body slowly stiffened.
"..."
A brief