Lost

“Bro, brother, I think there’s a shadow over there.” Tang Keke stammered, inching closer to Ye Shuang as she spoke.

“Probably just another one of those traps those two set up.” Ye Shuang wasn’t really bothered, though he hadn’t seen the shadow Keke mentioned either — most of the time it was just people scaring themselves, and once you had that idea stuck in your head, everything started to look suspicious.

But Ye Shuang didn’t say anything to spoil the mood. He just smiled slightly.

“Ducky, you got that on camera, right?”

“I did, I did…” Ducky said, pausing the video to rewind it, but there was no trace of the shadow Keke had described.

“Weird. It was really there. I swear I saw someone standing there.”

“Don’t you scare me!”

“M-maybe it really was just my imagination.” Tang Keke could only try to reassure herself.

They kept moving forward, but Tang Keke had lost all her earlier boldness. She grabbed onto Ye Shuang’s clothes, and before long, she had straight-up latched onto his entire arm. “G-give me a hold, okay?”

The moment her arm wrapped around his, Ye Shuang’s brain went blank for a few seconds from the sheer overload. He snapped back to reality though. “If it makes you feel better…”

“Do you guys feel like someone’s watching us from behind?” All of a sudden, Tang Keke spoke up.

“…”

“I don’t think so.” Ye Shuang glanced back. The entrance was no longer visible from where they were, and the pitch-black darkness really did look pretty eerie.

It was strange — the residential area wasn’t that far away, but standing here, it felt like they were cut off from the rest of the world. Like they had stepped into a no-man’s-land, where no matter which direction they walked, they couldn’t escape these woods.

The forest at night was especially sinister and terrifying. Pale moonlight filtered through the dense canopy, casting mottled shadows that looked like mysterious symbols. A sea breeze rustled the treetops, sending a chill down their spines.

Ye Shuang and the others walked slowly, surrounded by dead silence, broken only by the occasional birdcall or insect chirp. The deeper they went, the taller and thicker the trees became, their branches intertwining and swallowing up the moonlight like a massive black curtain.

The ground was covered in thick layers of fallen leaves and twigs, crunching underfoot with every step. Even the air was thick with the smell of dampness and decay.

Tang Keke couldn’t stop trembling. Maybe it was the atmosphere getting to her, making her nerves strung painfully tight, as if something might leap out at any moment.

“Huh?” Just then, Ye Shuang felt like his foot caught on something rope-like.

The next second, a shadow popped straight up out of the bushes with a “whoosh”!

“IT APPEARED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” Tang Keke and Ducky screamed, practically pouncing onto Ye Shuang. One squeezed his body tight, the other locked her arms around his neck.

“Wait, wait… I can’t breathe.” Ye Shuang was being pulled and yanked by Keke and Ducky, and with Ducky clamping down on his neck, he couldn’t even inhale.

“It’s just a plush toy.”

With Ye Shuang’s words, Keke and Ducky seemed to calm down a little. Realizing they were about to strangle Ye Shuang, Ducky panicked and let go immediately. “So sorry!”

“It’s fine…” Seeing Ducky bowing frantically, Ye Shuang reached out to steady her. “Okay.”

“It’s a Pikachu!” Tang Keke realized the thing that had popped out of the bushes was actually a dangling Pikachu plush, its tail end connected to the branches above, as if it had sprung up when something touched the trigger mechanism.

“So it was a prop. Still, something this cute managed to scare you guys.” Ye Shuang said, then reached up to take the plush down.

Funny how no matter what it was, anything that suddenly appeared in your face was terrifying — especially when your nerves were already wound tight.

“Oh no, my camera.” Ducky bent down to pick up her camcorder off the ground. She’d dropped it in shock when they got scared just now.

She checked it — luckily no damage. “I should’ve brought a strap with me.”

“Huh?” Just then, Ducky noticed a shadow appear in the camera’s viewfinder. She looked up in disbelief, and there, standing on the path ahead, was a figure.

“Th-there, over there…”

Seeing Ducky’s reaction, Ye Shuang looked up too. Sure enough, there was a shadowy silhouette beneath a tree.

More precisely, it genuinely looked like a person — with what seemed to be long hair.

“Eek?!” Tang Keke’s eyes went wide.

“I’ll go check it out.” Ye Shuang tried scanning it with his system, but nothing showed up. Maybe it was too dark to get a proper lock.

“Huh? Y-you’re going to check it out?”

“What if it’s just another plush toy?” Ye Shuang said with a teasing grin.

“Okay…” Reassured by the thought that it was probably just a prop, Tang Keke relaxed a little and followed Ye Shuang over.

But as they got closer, the shadow slowly became clearer.

“Ah, Yu You?” In the moonlight, the figure turned around, and Tang Keke gasped in surprise. “What are you doing here?”

“Too dark. I got lost.” Bai Yuyou said in a low voice.

The girl even had a leaf perched on top of her head.

“How careless. Good thing you bumped into us.” Ye Shuang said.

“You scared me half to death, Yu You! Standing there all quiet like that.” Tang Keke patted her own chest. “Come on, let’s walk to the finish line together.”

“Okay.”

Maybe it was the extra numbers, but Tang Keke and Ducky didn’t seem nearly as scared anymore. The three of them walked on and finally reached the end.

Because they had set off last, Ye Shuang’s group was the slowest to arrive. By then, Zhixia and Chen Hai’s groups had all shown up.

“Finally made it.” An Shiyu glanced over.

“You guys took your sweet time,” Chen Hai said with a grin. “We’re the fastest.”

“Fastest!” Yezi shouted.

“It’s way too dark in there. Yu You even got lost.” Tang Keke said. “Totally not safe.”

“Got lost? Yu You’s been with us the whole time?” Zhixia pointed at Bai Yuyou beside her.

The girl in question tilted her head.

“Huh? Yu You is with us…” Keke froze for a second, pointing at the spot next to her, only to find it empty.

Keke: “…”

“Wait, that’s impossible! Yu You was just with us! Ducky, you have the recording!” Keke’s face turned pale.

“U-um, the recording… Yu You’s not in it anymore.” At that moment, Ducky was staring hard at her camera. In the footage from just now, there was no trace of Bai Yuyou in the frame at all!

Then what had that thing been just a moment ago?