Hong Kong Young Writers Anthologies Fiction Group 3 - 2017 | Page 189

black. The deep voice echoed: “Wei, come in. Aren’t you curious?” Slouched with fear, he stepped through the red
door while keeping his head low, his bodily hair stood as if he was electrocuted. As he walked across the floorboards
they started to collapse all around. He ran as fast as he could as if it there was no tomorrow. Wei entered a labyrinth
of eeriness and bewilderness. He circled every corner he could possibly find as if the world was spinning around his
head.
Every few meters Wei ran, the voice echoed his curiosity and questioned his state of mind with riddles to solve.
Feeling hopeless, he wondered what his fate would have brought him to if he had chosen the green door instead.
Just then, he fell through a crack in the floor; green doors swirled all around him, like a whirlwind. It was as if the
spirit of the Red Room whispered his thoughts.
Shadows repeatedly whispered: “One step closer...one step closer...” Figures barely touching the floor shoved him
through one of the swirling green doors. Wei shut his eyes tightly in fear of not knowing what awaited him beyond.
Abruptly, darkness surrounded him, slowly climbing up his body creeping into his very soul. His sensations
diminished, memory faded, then in a ‘Poof ’, he disappeared into thin air. Suddenly, Wei regained consciousness as he
landed on the roof of the Shikumen townhouse. Liquid ash dripped down his face, he started to chant an ancient
incantation unleashing shadows into the sky, which made the streets rampage into chaos. Within moments, darkness
loomed as the shadows conquered the surrounding villages of the Red Room.
The panic stricken villages were out of control, fear and chaos were everywhere and nobody understood what had
happened. With Wei missing, his family wondered if it was his doing because they knew about his peculiar
fascination with the dark spirits of the Red Room. When they entered his room to search for clues, under his bed,
they found a case full of notes, pictures and research; one wall was covered with unusual symbols that were beyond
what they comprehended, it was almost as if Wei had practiced dark magic. It quickly became clear to them what he
was trying to achieve. With torches in hand, Wei’s family and all adults in his village fearlessly fought their way
through the shadows towards the Red Room. It was too late. Grief stricken, they knew the only way to stop this
disaster was to destroy Wei. They searched for every sharp object they could find to stab him but failed over and over
again, while others decided to set the house on fire.
Weakened by the attacks and as fire tore through the house, darkness slowly began to lift. Wei’s family and the
villagers knew the fateful consequences as legend had it that if the Shikumen townhouse was destroyed, the
unleashed shadows would kill the possessed soul along with it. As the house crumbled to dust, the shadows started
to scream in torture, poured themselves out of Wei’s body before vanishing into thin air, as did Wei’s body. Wei was
gone forever. The sinister pain pierced through witnessing soul like a knife stabbed through their hearts, a feeling
they would never forget.