The Record of Unusual Creatures

The two imps were the scouts that survived and came back from the forest. They staggered to their feet, and their bodies were still covered in blood-stained bandages, which the humans brought.

They stepped over their peers who were sound asleep on the ground while they made some ominous rumble in their throats. Their steps were floaty like they were drunk. But their eyes were glinting red in the dark.

The red was turbid as if it indicated that its master’s mind was in a stupor.

The imps first took a few steps toward the campfire, the light from which cast a pair of long shadows behind them. But something darker seemed to be hiding in the shadows. The long shadows stretched to the open space at the campsite. Plumes of dark smoke with tiny tentacles rose from the edge of the shadows.

As if the two imps were afraid of fire, they stopped dead in their tracks and then made a series of incomprehensible sound before turning and moved toward the human camp.

It was at this time that the voice of the alpha sounded behind them. “Why are you going there?”

The two imps were rooted to the spot, but neither answered nor looked back. They stood there as if they were frozen.

Lily blinked. A light flashed in her golden eyes, and she reached to grab the shoulder of one of the imps. “I asked—”

Before her hand could touch the imp, a shadow suddenly flew toward her.

Lily could see that the shadow came out from the shadows of the imps, as though a three-dimensional figure had suddenly appeared in the two-dimensional surface. In the darkness, a group of weird, indescribable object from the shadows, which was formless, trembling, twisting, and groaning, and from which many translucent dark tentacles reared. Before Lily had time to react, the shadow had come before her eyes, and then everything went black.

When she opened her eyes again, she found herself standing in a familiar place.

She was in the living room at home.

Lily instantly felt it strange, and in that split of a second, she had the realization that she had fallen into an illusion. But it was too late for her subconscious mind to resist and this awareness was gone. She forgot that she was in a journey in the Shadowy Forest, that she was with the beasts, and that she had gone to the Plane of Dreams to look for the space crack but ended up on a floating island. The simple-minded husky quickly took in everything as it was. She slung herself into the sofa in the living room and yelled, “Mr. Landlord! I am back!”

No one responded.

“Mr. Landlord?” Puzzled, Lily got to her feet and looked at the familiar living room and the furnishings: the two cracks on the coffee table, which were her doing were there. The bite marks on the table belonged to Lil Pea. The water dispenser in the corner, taken apart but not yet put back by Y’lisabet was also there. She then saw Y’zaks’s newspaper on the armrest of the sofa. Those things were exactly what she remembered. She did not feel anything amiss. “Battie? Wuyue? Y’zaks?” she called out.

Circling in the living room and then going to check out the to the upper floor into the rooms, but Lily found there was no one home.

“Where is everyone?” Lily muttered as she came back down to the living room. She looked out the window; outside was so foggy that she could not even see the situation outside. “They have gone out in this weather?” she wondered.

The husky maiden decided to lie on the sofa, thinking that no one would come back anytime soon. But she did not feel uneasy at all. Instead, she studied her fluffy tail while humming a song but she was entirely out of tune. After a while, she suddenly spotted the fridge in the corner of her eye. She was overjoyed.

She scurried over and yanked it open while checking her surroundings as if she was a thief. Knowing that no one was looking, she quickly took out a bowl from the freezer. That was a bowl of leftover spare ribs.

“Are you not home, Mr. Landlord?” The husky maiden yelled in the direction of Hao Ren’s room as if feeling guilty. But quickly, she poked her head into the kitchen. “Are you not there, Battie?”

After he heard no reply, only then she would scamper into the kitchen with the spare ribs in her hands. “This time, no one is going to stop me. Who says that I can only eat these ribs at dinner?”

Lily started her feasting plan in this illusion, which was abnormal no matter how she thought it was normal. She had lost her vigilant. This ignorant attitude seemed to have finally angered a hidden hand that set the trap. Just when Lily was about to go into the kitchen, the scene of the illusion suddenly collapsed.

Everything disappeared in an instant. Lily felt a moment of dizziness before she founded herself had gone into a v. She took a double take and found that the spare ribs had gone from her hands.

“Where is my food?” the husky scratched her face.

No one answered her question. There were only endless darkness and fog in the surroundings. After a while, finally, something else emerged in the mist. Lily’s eyes were out on stalks as she saw a shiny gold vault.

She saw herself entering the treasure vault, taking all the treasure and became the wealthiest dog in the world and even building a palace built of gold for herself.

A voice whispered into her ear, “This is a real treasure, my inheritor. You have won my favor and are qualified to get this ancient heritage. Come with me; I tell you how to open this—”

“Are you the one taking my food?” Lily stared at the voice in the void.

“In front of the treasure you are about to open, it is just a small—”

“Don’t chime in. I’m asking you where is my food?” Lily’s glare became even more intense than before.

“You have to open a—”

“Is my food not with you?” Lily continued to glare at the voice.

The illusion of the treasure vault suddenly collapsed. Gold and jewels disappeared into the fog. The next moment, something new came out. Lily saw a high throne, and she was wearing a gold robe and a crown, holding a scepter of the emperor in her hand with countless warriors and officers bowing to her.

That voice sounded again. “The supreme authority and power will be yours! You will be the highest ruler in the world; your throne will be—”

“So where are my spare ribs?”

“I mean you will be an emperor—”

“Where are my spare ribs?”

The throne collapsed. A great battlefield emerged. The tone of the voice was a little hysterical now. “Power! Endless power! You will be invincible! The whole world can’t—”

“I still want my bowl of ribs,” Lily demanded with her arms akimbo. “Do you know how hard it is to get the moment when Mr. Landlord and Battie are not at home, and there is leftover food in the fridge at the same time?”

“Eternal life! I can make you immortal!”

“I still want my spare ribs.”

“Knowledge! All the knowledge in the world. I can give all the knowledge you can never imagine!”

“I graduated from Peking University four times. Do you want me to sit for the test again?—I want my spare ribs!”

“Past, present, future! I will give you the power of the prophet; I will let you change your destiny, I will—”

“Keep bluffing! The quantum collapse determines the irreversibility and inoperability of fate. Where do you hide my spare ribs?”

“God’s authority! You can even be a god!”

“I know a god; she doesn’t even get a bonus for the New Year—only when you let me eat the bowl of pork ribs will we discuss again.”

The meaningless conversation lasted for a while, and then everything became quiet. The mysterious voice seemed to have accumulated something in silence, and eventually broke out. Lily heard a loud voice from above. “Enough! You stupid, ignorant mortal! I’m going to tear your soul into pieces!”

When Lily looked up, she saw tentacles and a swollen piece of meat lunging out of the darkness. Countless pairs of eyes, all with a sinister glint, appeared on the meat, which shrilled as it waved its tentacles toward her.

Lily almost jumped out of her skin. She instinctively stepped back. Suddenly, a thought crossed her mind; she realized that she needed a weapon.

This thought broke through the imprisonment of her spiritual world, and she felt that she had grabbed something hard in her hand.

She yanked the thing in her hand at the monster without even thinking.

A loud bang ensued as if a high-speed train had hit the mountain; a piece of gray concrete slab smashed the monster in the face.

The illusions were gone.