Capítulo 20: Chapter 8 Sudden Mutation_2
Miss Zhou stretched her mouth, showing a row of ghastly white teeth, then suddenly lunged forward and smashed her fist against the door, followed by another heavy punch.
"Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang!"
Miss Zhou unapologetically hammered An Zhizhen's door with her fists, pressing her face tightly against the window, the expression in the glass twisted and deformed, the malice in her pupils almost bursting into flames.
"Open the door...open it for me now! I'm so hungry... I'm so hungry! Open up!"
"...right now you've basically turned into someone with manic disorder."
An Zhizhen immediately closed the window.
"Bang, bang! Bang, bang!" But the knocking never stopped, starting with fists smashing against the door and then resorting to body slamming.
An Zhizhen even heard a horrifying sound of bones cracking; the woman outside seemed utterly indifferent to her body becoming battered and torn, desperately wanting to break down the door with her bloody flesh.
"Open up, open it now! Let me eat, let me eat!"
With her relentless effort, shallow dents began to appear on the security door. At this rate, the lock would break before the door would.
An Zhizhen started to consider whether to take a kitchen knife for defense, so she walked toward the kitchen.
...
Miss Zhou's twisted, shrill screams pierced the deep night, stirring the entire neighborhood.
Soon, several lights in the corridor lit up, and startled neighbors came out to check what was happening.
"What in the world is that noise so late at night? Can't people get some sleep?"
The person closest to the scene was a middle-aged man holding a flashlight, wearing a tight white T-shirt that could not contain his beer belly, shuffling in his slippers and looking irritated.
The beam of the flashlight shone on Miss Zhou's face, and she instinctively covered it with her hand, but her mouth involuntarily opened wide.
Saliva uncontrollably drooled from her mouth, indicating how hungry she was now.
"I'm so hungry, so hungry... I really want to eat something..."
"Hey, you, what's wrong with you...?"
The man sensed something was off and asked hesitantly.
"I'm so hungry, so hungry..."
Miss Zhou showed no intention of responding, only uttering growls from her throat like a wild beast, staggering toward the man.
"Wait...!"
Before the man could stop her, he saw a shadow swoop rapidly towards his face.
He instinctively tried to block with his hand, but the attacker's movements were too swift— the next moment, he felt a sharp pain shooting through his arm.
"Ah, the pain?!"
He screamed in agony.
The flashlight fell in the chaos and pain, illuminating Miss Zhou's pale face. She bit fiercely into the man's hand like a mad dog, her ferocious face smeared with blood from her own injuries.
In pain, the man instinctively kicked at her, flailed his arms, and smashed her head with his other hand, but Miss Zhou seemed unperturbed, continuing to bite down on the arm, even shaking her cheeks like a real beast and ripping a chunk of flesh right off the arm.
"It hurts...?! What the hell... are you crazy, woman..."
The man clutched his bleeding wound, looking at the large chunk of flesh missing from his arm marked by teeth, retreating backward in a mix of anger and panic.
Miss Zhou stood there, calmly eating the flesh from her mouth, swallowing it as if savoring a delicacy.
She again opened her mouth wide, wiped the blood from her lips.
Watching the middle-aged man turn and try to flee, her pupils glistened with a bloodthirsty gleam.
Her back arched, limbs spread, she climbed the wall like a spider, then swiftly pounced out, pinning the running man to the ground.
...
The dim corridor was submerged in the night, seemingly extending endlessly into the distance.
Under the boundless night sky, Xiaokang Building stood solitary like a square-shaped maze, unconnected to heaven or earth.
Screams, cries, weeping, swallowing and chewing... the sounds that occurred in this building flickered like phantoms, ultimately vanishing into the night wind, unheard by the outside world.
*
An Zhizhen had just returned from the kitchen to the door when she heard the man's fearful screams.
She hesitated, ensuring no one was outside, then carefully opened a slit in the door with the handle of the knife.
Then, she witnessed a shocking scene:
Miss Zhou had pinned the neighbor to the ground, going straight for his neck with her wide-open mouth, a scene straight out of a horror movie.
Blood splattered everywhere, flesh flying; the scene was too horrific to bear.
The crushed man struggled a bit at first but lost all his strength after about ten seconds, as a pool of thick blood spread beneath him.
"What's going on here?"
An Zhizhen closed the door, locked it, and pushed the sofa against it.
She enjoyed watching horror movies, which invariably included various zombie films, but she had never expected to witness a "cannibalistic" scene in real life.
From her perspective as a medical professional and physiological scientist, she found it unbelievable.
"She kept saying 'I'm so hungry,' so she started eating people because she was too hungry? No, that doesn't make sense."
An Zhizhen stood behind the door and waited for a while, but heard no other sounds.
The hallway had become silent again. The still night enveloped the apartment building, as if nothing had happened.
The cruel scene she had just witnessed seemed like a nightmare.
There should be other residents in this corridor... Where were they? Had they seen it too and, frightened, hid in their rooms in silence?
She tried to call the police on her cell phone, only to find there was no signal.
An Zhizhen frowned in thought for a moment, then tried a different number. This time it was Cen Dongsheng, and though the call connected, the signal was very weak.
"Dongsheng, I..."
Before she could continue, she heard hurried footsteps and a young man's whispered warning through the phone:
"Don't be afraid, Sister Zhi Zhen... Stay at home, don't go out... I'm coming to save you right now."
"Huh? You're coming to find me... wait, it's very dangerous—"
The communication cut off.
When she tried again, she couldn't connect any calls.
An Zhizhen paused for a moment, then quickly walked towards the door.
*
Miss Zhou was feasting on a corpse with heavy, greedy breaths when she seemed to hear something and alertly lifted her head.
The cold light reflecting off the glass faintly illuminated a terrifying face covered with blood and brain matter.
Footsteps sounded not far away, steady and unhurried, approaching her.
Miss Zhou abruptly lifted her head and jumped onto the nearby stair railing, staring into the dark corridor.
...
A young man emerged from the darkness.
He looked to be in his early twenties, very young, with a buzz cut and a tall, sturdy build, exuding a formidable air that suggested he was not one to be trifed with, and his expression calmly serious beyond what one would expect from a hot-blooded youth.
Even upon seeing the mangled, unrecognizable corpse on the ground, his expression barely changed, and he merely muttered under his breath:
"...Possessed?"
The woman crouched like a fierce beast on the stair railing, bared her teeth at him as if to threaten. From Miss Zhou's demeanor and actions, no trace of humanity could be discerned.
Just then, a door burst open not far behind them, and An Zhizhen poked her head out, urgently shouting at him:
"Go back! No... come here, hide inside the room! That woman is too dangerous, she eats people!"
"Uh-huh, I know."
Cen Dongsheng responded briefly.
At the same moment, Miss Zhou lunged at him with fierce, wind-carrying movements, incredibly fast.
However...
"Bang."
The young man's hand, outstretched, perfectly caught the woman's skull, halting her airborne momentum, her feet swinging off the ground.
It looked as if he were holding Miss Zhou's head in the air with one hand.
His palm was broad and thick, fingers large, spread wide, engulfing her face, deeply embedded into the woman's facial flesh.
Miss Zhou still tried to bite, but his fingers, like steel, tightly locked her movements.
Then, Cen Dongsheng, holding Miss Zhou's head, fiercely swung her against the wall.
"Boom!"
The wall was smashed into a crater, with tile fragments flying everywhere, the woman's head plunging into the spiderweb-like cracks.
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