16 Red Apple

Disclaimer - dead body descriptions

Ye Delun, Yin Meng, and Shen Lin were left to themselves with the corpse in the room. Yin Meng didn't waste time and moved closer to the body. Shen Lin did the opposite and told the two of them, "I'll search around the room."

Ye Delun was finally able to see the body up close. He didn't like it at all. The blood seeped into the carpet and dyed it a deeper red. Stepping on it made a squelching sound and blood excreted from it like a sponge. It dyed the bottom of his shoes.

His eyes first caught onto Xue Peng's body, the way that his legs were snapped like pretzel sticks. And how holes covered his naked torso and that if it weren't for the insides filling in the gaps, he would have been able to see straight through.

"What the hell did they do to the guy..." Yin Meng said. He looked at Xue Peng's face and saw his bottom jaw being held onto his face by a thread of flesh. The white bone was broken and forcefully shoved back into place. With his mouth wide open, a shiny red apple was gently placed in between his gums. There were no teeth.

Ye Delun stalled before squatting next to Yin Meng. He didn't like looking at Xue Peng's body, it made him uncomfortable. His skin crawled like it was covered in bugs. He recognized this feeling as disgust.

Yin Meng slowly grabbed onto the red apple in Xue Peng's mouth. "I saw this earlier when I was covering him up, but seeing it up close like this..." The apple in his hand oozed a red substance. it was a mix of saliva and blood. "It's a lot worse."

Ye Delun kept his eyes on the apple. Although its red color was disturbing, it was a lot better than looking at the rest of the body. How something made it through Xue Peng's whole body and created caverns deep enough for him to stick his hand through. He imagined it as well. His hand moving through the body's moist organs and feeling all the way through to the floor. The intestines would maneuver and slip through his fingers and leave his arm covered in blood.

"There's some teeth over here." Shen Lin, from the other side of the room. She was bent over on the ground next to the sofas that they were sitting at either. She lifted her hand to reveal a tooth. "There's some more under the sofa but besides that, there's nothing else here. Not even some blood." She took one last look around the room. "It's too clean in here. That in itself is suspicious."

Yin Meng took another look at the body before he said to Ye Delun. "Help me move him over." The two of them put their hands underneath the body. Ye Delun could feel a stray inside squelch in his hands.

"On three." Yin Meng said. "One. Two...three."

The body wiggled as it fell onto its stomach. Ye Delun would have found it entertaining in any other situation, but now he found it disturbing. It jiggled like jello and liquid seeped through the bottom.

Yin Meng slid his hand over Xue Peng's back. The cavities were identical to how they were on the front. "There's no way that it was a human that did that." Shen Lin said. Her delicate eyebrows furrowed at the thought of the culprit.

"Look." Yin Meng advised them. They looked at the carpet that Xue Peng's corpse was on before. The red carpet was pooled with blood. But as they watched, the red liquid seeped farther into the carpet and down to the roots. The floor absorbed the scarlet sap until no stain was left. "What the hell?" Yin Meng quietly uttered.

"No wonder there were no other stains." Shen Lin said.

"Yesterday, that Gao guy. What he said..." Ye Delun quietly spoke.

"That's right. He said that they don't need to clean." Yin Meng said. He moved his bloodied fingers through the rug and didn't feel any wetness. "Because the house cleans itself."

"So not only was it a monster that killed the man. But also the house we're in is a monster." Shin Lin hypothesized.

"So the murder and the author of that letter is a monster in disguise of a human." Yin Meng finished off.

Ye Delun didn't say anything after that. He didn't know what to say exactly. He was supposed to be the murder. He was supposedly the writer of the letter. But he hasn't exactly done anything yet. He told the Host to do something. Does that even count? He wasn't a monster in disguise, was he?

Although, he was a little more excited than he was before. A monster house was pretty cool. Who wouldn't want to experience that?

"Are you all satisfied with your search?" They looked up to see Host standing over them. His long black pants and shiny black shoes. Ye Delun could almost see his reflection in them.

Host looked down on the two of them. Shen Lin to the side tossed him the tooth she had picked up. "As satisfied as we can be." She wiped her hand on her pants. She had touched the tooth with her bare hand and felt the need to wash it as soon as possible.

Host glanced at Ye Delun, and Ye Delun looked back at him. Black eyes meet the holes in his mask. He peeked down at Ye Delun's hand and saw the blood covering his fingers. His lips parted in surprise and his gloved fingers twitched. Ye Delun caught onto this change, but didn't do anything about it and just continued to look at him. Host gave him a forced smile.

"Now that you've had your fun and played around for a little bit, let's head back with the others. Yes?" He chuckled. "Wouldn't want to leave them out on your little discoveries now would you?"

Yin Meng didn't respond and glared at the man. His sharp eyes stuck imaginary daggers into Host's thick skin. "You bastard. If you think I'm gonna let you kill all of us then you should stop before you embarrass yourself. Because no way am I going to let that happen."

Host didn't seem at all affected and smiled at him. "The heroic type? I'm a little surprised, I didn't expect you to speak up so confidently. You seem more like a person to have logical threats, not something so groundless ."

Yin Meng ground his teeth together and was going to speak again before Shen Lin spoke up. "That's enough. Let's head back with everyone else." Her voice was calm like it always was. Ye Delun thought that perhaps that was because of her retired job.

Together, they left the room with Host. While Xue Peng's dead body was left behind.