Terror Infinity

Once the issues of identity and money were settled, everyone took a taxi to the nearest city. The driver informed them the ride would take only a few hours and arrive before six. So they would have time for a dinner before heading to the hotel. Everyone felt relieved seeing things were proceeding smoothly.

“A Nightmare on Elm Street 3... This series is pretty much the same no matter which episode it is. They all portray a demon named Freddy who has the ability to sneak into another person’s dream and kill people. Freddy isn’t a normal living human. He is a demon that came back from hell. Also a psychopath that favors torturing children. He attacks young men and women frequently in the movies.”

The four newbies sat in the same taxi. The other eleven members were split among three taxis. No one felt sleepy as it was still day time. So they felt at ease leaving the newbies alone. The newbies got along well since they all suddenly entered a strange environment.

The only men in the group was pretty outspoken. He told jokes to the girl along the ride. His family restricted him from going out due to overprotectiveness. His free time after school was spent on the computer, which was how he became an expert in movies, novels, manga, jokes, and music. There was no one to chat with him on a usual basis. So once he started talking to the girls, he couldn’t get himself to stop. He finally smiled with satisfaction after getting the girls to laugh.

“It sounds like A Nightmare on Elm Street isn’t that scary. We just have to not sleep. And if we have to, just keep someone awake on the side. When you see the person sleeping experiences a nightmare and struggles, immediately wake the person up. Everyone take turns to sleep. Won’t we be able to get through the movie like this?” MoLi looked at the watch and said. There was a time to this mission. They didn’t have to stay in this situation for their whole lives. Her idea was possible to make it through thirty days.

LiuYu shook his head. “It’s not so simple. A Nightmare on Elm Street is one of my favorite series. Its story is bizarre. There are no patterns to a dream. In on of the movies, the protagonist drags Freddy out from a dream and burns him to death. However, the ending of the movie says that is an omen of Freddy coming back from hell.

“In another movie, the protagonist is chased by Freddy and in the end realizes everything is a dream. She only has to believe she is not in a dream and that Freddy is an illusion to prevent anything from happening. Just like she thought, Freddy disappears but when the ending comes, she is still in the dream. Freddy disappeared to toy with her.”

The girls were scared from hearing LiuYu’s words. They looked at each other, noticing their pale faces. LiuYu laughed out loud as if he wasn’t worried about the Freddy he just depicted.

“The demon Freddy... does he look like me?” A creepy voice sounded next to LiuYu’s ear. That was when he realized the girls were staring at his side, where the driver was supposed to be at. An untold terror filled their eyes. Goosebumps spread from LiuYu’s heart. His head inched around and witnessed a scary, burned face. A hat was worn over his head. He was wearing a black and white checkered shirt. His hands wore scissor like gloves. The man laughed in a high pitch as he scratched the window with those blades.

“Ah!”

“Wake up! LiuYu! Wake up!”

A voice pulled LiuYu back from his nightmare. His body shot up instantly and saw Zheng standing next to him with an incense in hand. Zheng put out the incense as he saw LiuYu woke up. The remaining fraction disappeared in his hand. It seemed like he valued this incense a lot.

“It fine now...” Zheng let out a sigh of relief.

LiuYu noticed he was lying on a road. A bus was stopped next to him. The other members of team China were either standing or sitting around.

LiuYu asked, “What happened? Wasn’t I in a taxi? How did I get attacked? I swear that was his face... it couldn’t be mistaken.”

Zheng shook his head. “We don’t know what happened either. The only thing we know is we returned to the town where we started.”

LiuYu looked out and it was indeed the town that he was familiar with. Evening had came. Twilight painted the streets in gold.

“It couldn’t be? Weren’t we taking the taxis to the city? How did we return to the town? Impossible! That’s impossible!” LiuYu cried in a shock.

Zheng stood up and walked over to a taxi. “We did take the taxi to a city but we encountered Freddy on the way. He replaced our driver and attacked us... Fortunately, I kicked him away. Our taxi smashed into a guardrail. Then the shock woke me up. I saw everyone had fallen asleep and we were stopped inside this town.”

There were no drivers in the taxis. One of the taxis indeed had signs of a collision. LiuYu carefully looked over the one he took and found the scratches on the window. Was that really a dream? Or did they treated reality as a dream?

Zheng didn’t waste time on LiuYu after seeing he woke up. He walked over to Xuan and said, “Did you see that demon too?”

Xuan took the same taxi as HongLu and ChengXiao. Aside from Xuan, their faces were pale white. Xuan frowned and replied, “I did fall sleep, but I did not have a dream. My hypnotizing mechanism would have activated if I did. It would be interesting if he enters my dream.”

A shiver struck Zheng’s heart. He never expected Xuan to have no fear of the bizarre experience he just went through and instead, Xuan was looking forward to Freddy entering his dream. Zheng didn’t know what to say in response.

HongLu said, “Anyway, this might be God’s answer. We are not allowed to run away from this town or we will get attacked. This is only the first day so the attack wasn’t strong. Furthermore... This world isn’t what we thought it is.”

Zheng asked in confusion, “What do you mean that it isn’t what we thought it is?”

Xuan suddenly stopped HongLu from replying. “Wait. You can’t say it!”

HongLu felt a bulb light up and nodded. He didn’t say anything more.

Zheng was enraged and loudly said, “The heck? What are you scheming again? Why can’t you tell me? Just why won’t you tell us? And you even stopped HongLu from doing so!”

Xuan looked at him in a serious expression then shook his head. “It’s not I don’t want to. I can’t... The situation isn’t so easily explained. Let us go to a hotel first. The sky is getting dark. You surely don’t wish to stay on the streets through the night, do you?”

Zheng was pondering the meaning of “I can’t”. He had no choice but nodded then said to the others, “Let our questions for later. We will settle into a hotel first. Gather up and discussion this situation at night. We are not in a good situation!”

Zheng sighed and took the lead toward the hotel. The sun had set... the night was near.