My dear nightmare《Yizhan version》

《Twenty-second encounter》

"Okay, it all started when Zanjin and I met Yibo; Zanjin and I were friends since birth because our parents were friends; we met Yibo one day when he was out with his parents, it was a weird combination. I mean, his parents, I learned later more about them, they were different, they never let Yibo leave the house, and things were just weird, I don't mean to say Yibo's parents were overprotective. No, I don't know how to explain it, but I always had this surreal feeling when I was around his parents. I felt like they were never up to something good; do you understand what I mean?" She played with her cup of coffee, her eyes looking tired.

"Yeah, I do?" She gave me a meek smile.

"The three of us used to be inseparable; we were close, each other's backbone until we weren't anymore." I raised an eyebrow; Zhouxuan just sighed.

"This makes it only more confusing for you, doesn't it?" I kept quiet as she knew the answer already.

"As I said, we were close friends, but Zanjin, from one to another day, withdrew from us; he became quieter although he never talked much in general, his whole bubbly aura changed. And when we asked about it, Zanjin would look like a bunny caught in a headlight, I don't remember how it exactly happened, but he parted his way away from us. At the time, the pills had already been out in the world; it was a case the three of us worked on since we had 'some experiences' with them," she said; I buried my head into my hands, my eyes still interlocked with her as Zhouxuan gave me a soft smile.

"I know it's confusing and going all over the place, but when the cases worsened, so Yibo and I had a quarrel at the time as we wanted to find the roots of how this all started and who spread it and why I had a theory yet every time I brought it up Yibo would get mad about it, we had a hard time about it, and in the end, I too parted my way from him and found my own way in trying to solve this mess." I let the information sink in as I leaned back, closing my eyes.

"But why did you return here; I mean, what do I have to do with all of this?" I opened my eyes, folding my hands on the table; I looked at her.

"That my bunny, is what brings us to the second part of the story; you see, the theory I had made up was that Yibo's parents might have been involved in this mess, of course, at the time, I was not careful and hurt Yibo's feelings; after all, it was still his parents."

"You think they experienced with humans?" I felt a shiver running down my spine as Zhouxuan slowly, almost carefully nodded, and for me, at that moment, the pieces fell together.

The reason Yibo's parents looked so stiff, why Yibo didn't like to mention them, the cries he heard at night, the feeling of the house having an own heartbeat, but what was that room, why did it appear and disappear, the room I met mister Liu?

"Xiao Zhan, I don't know if anything I said made sense, but I have no proof either, it only was a theory, yet you need to know that Zanjin and I were the only ones allowed in that house, and there are weird traits I have noticed in Yibo's parents. Yibo has a brother; he mentioned it, right? Anyway, he got treated really differently from Yibo, worse, way worse; I don't even know if Yibo's parents are truly his parents!" With the words, her voice raised as I saw her eyes glimmering with an unshed tear.

"You suspected something and still do, aren't you?" She nodded weakly, her eyes not meeting mine as she blinked a few times.

"I-, this is something I haven't told Yibo before, but I have had bruises, they appeared just out of the blue, I have gaps in my memory, lost bits and parts. Maybe not to worry, but combining with the bruises and the ones I saw on Zanjin's and Yibo's body and the weird behaviours of his parents, do you expect me not to worry? Even if I was young, I saw something was fishy, and although my parents warned me to stay away, I felt a need to protect Yibo." She bit her lower lip, shaking her head as she met my eyes, her hands fiddling with the half-filled cup of cold gone coffee.