Chapter 353: The Fountain of Youth (10)
After leaving behind a string of shocking revelations, Paul asked Emil for a pen and a sheet of paper. Dragging his increasingly inhuman body behind him, he turned and went his separate way from Emil.
In the diary entries that followed, Emil never mentioned Paul again.
At this point, Everly took the note she had found on the sofa monster from her pocket and placed it beside Emil’s diary for comparison. She discovered that the patterns and texture on the two pieces of paper were exactly the same.
It seemed that the mound-of-flesh monster she had seen on the sofa was very likely Paul, after he and Emil had parted ways. Before completely transforming, he had left behind a note, then despairingly taken his own life with the pen.
The diary entry marking their separation became a turning point. From that point onward, Emil’s emotions underwent an unprecedented upheaval.
[…Will I become a monster too? But I want to go home. I only just got into college not long ago. I haven’t even had the chance to really enjoy my life!
It hurts so much. My face hurts so much. I only touched it—why does it hurt this badly?! What have I become? Can I really get out of here?
God, I wish all of this were just a dream…]
He cried for a long time, his tears soaking the diary and leaving the next several pages wrinkled, grimy, and covered in blue-green mold and stains. Perhaps the hand he used to write with had also begun to mutate. The handwriting on the pages grew increasingly erratic, and there were even numerous spelling mistakes.
Even so, Emil still refused to give up. He continued searching the corridor for an exit that might not even exist.
Unfortunately, this search brought him neither salvation nor release. Instead, it subjected him to even greater pressure and plunged him into deeper despair.
As time passed, the changes in Emil’s body became increasingly apparent. Gradually, he realized that he no longer needed to eat or relieve himself. No matter how long he walked through the corridor, his body never felt tired or sleepy.
The patches of mold on his face spread to his neck and chest. Before long, his limbs were covered in mold as well.
Emil jokingly described himself in his diary as a “moldy orange.”
His mental state had deteriorated severely. At times he was optimistic, at times pessimistic. Sometimes he would boast at length in his diary, bragging about all the accomplishments he had achieved in his life. At other times, he would hurl hateful and malicious insults at himself, viciously berating and attacking himself.
The further Everly read, the stranger the diary became. By the final few entries, it could no longer really be called a diary. It was more like the random scribblings of a madman.
Everly sped up, skimming ten lines at a glance. Once she confirmed there was nothing useful, she put the diary and backpack back on the ground. She then raised her flashlight and turned around, heading back the way she had come.
The long neck was gone.
That long neck, along with the clown’s head behind it that had been blocking the entire passageway, had vanished as though it had all been an illusion.
Everly had found the backpack and diary on the ground not long after crawling out of the esophagus. She was certain they had not been far apart, yet she walked for a long time along the route back without seeing any sign of the head.
This proved that what Emil had written in his diary was true. The things that appeared in the corridors could suddenly disappear or turn into something else at some point once they left one’s field of vision.
Everly immediately became alert. She pulled out her pen and drew an arrow on the wall pointing in the direction she was heading.
From then on, she decided to draw a mark on the wall at regular intervals as she continued forward. In hindsight, this had been an oversight on her part. Everly had never considered that the strange things in the corridors could disappear. Without any landmarks for reference, it was indeed very easy to lose one’s sense of direction while walking through an unchanging corridor.
Of course, Everly wasn’t going to be like Emil and randomly walk around in circles for no reason. But she could still run into all sorts of accidents—such as being chased and attacked by a monster, getting knocked flat on the ground, or doing thirteen somersaults in a row just to dodge a monster’s attack…
Looking at it that way, leaving markers was actually pretty important.
After drawing the arrow, Everly turned around and got back on the correct path. She passed the backpack and diary she had left behind earlier and continued forward.
As she walked, she thought about the information revealed in the diary.
Information One: This corridor is endless, with no proper entrance or exit. The only way to escape is to find the “cracks” hidden in the walls.
Everly believed she could disregard this information. The witch’s poem had said that what she needed to do in this trial was “walk along a straight, pitch-black road.” Compared with the words of Paul, an ordinary human, the witch’s poem was naturally more credible.
Information Two: Beware of “living” anomalies. They are humans who have completely mutated, and most of them are extremely dangerous.
This information was probably true.
So far, Everly had encountered two anomalies that gave her the feeling that they were “alive”: an array of wooden mannequins that reacted to light, and a crying clown’s head.
The former was extremely dangerous. Even the slightest contact would turn a person into wood. The latter was less physically harmful, but its mental contamination was incredibly powerful. Everly considered herself to have a strong tolerance for such things, yet when the clown’s head began to cry, she had still nearly been sick enough to vomit.
Information Three: The corridor contaminates anyone who remains inside it. The longer one stays in the corridor and the more frequently one comes into contact with anomalies, the faster the body mutates. Eventually, the human being will turn into one of the dangerous monsters inhabiting the corridor.
This was true as well.
Because Everly had already begun to change.
Ever since encountering the sofa monster, she had occasionally felt a slight dryness and itchiness on the backs of her hands.
Everly was wearing waterproof gloves, so she couldn’t see the backs of her hands. And with the corridor full of danger and her nerves constantly on edge, she hadn’t thought to take off her gloves and check.
Only after finishing Emil’s diary and realizing that something was wrong did Everly take off her gloves and look at her hands.
Her fingers were still long and slender, and her palms were still unmistakably human. But covering the backs of her hands were patches of translucent, pale-blue fish scales.
They had grown directly from her flesh. Each one was about the size of a fingernail, with a smooth surface, razor-sharp edges, and semicircular patterns. Under the beam of her flashlight, they reflected a faint, eerie sheen.
Everly tried to grab one of the scales and yank it out.
A wave of excruciating pain shot through her.
Using sheer force, she managed to tear the scale free. Several strands of flesh resembling plant roots had grown from its base. When they were first pulled out, they were still writhing like maggots. But the moment they came into contact with the air, they rapidly dried up and shriveled into pieces of “jerky” only a few millimeters long.
Blood streamed from the wound, quickly spreading across the back of her hand through the gaps between the scales and her skin, outlining each scale with a bright-red web of blood.
The sight was both bizarre and nauseating. Even knowing that it was her own body, Everly still broke out in goosebumps.
After examining the back of her hand, she remembered that she had experienced bouts of dryness and itching in other parts of her body as well. Frowning, Everly lifted the hem of her clothes and carefully checked her abdomen, lower back, calves, and other areas.
Without exception, she found more scales emerging from her skin.
It seemed that the danger of this corridor wasn’t limited to the anomalies. The physical mutations were a threat in themselves.
As for why a trial like this had been designed…
Everly thought about it briefly and quickly figured everything out.
First, there was one premise that needed to be established: she was searching for the Fountain of Youth. But merely reaching the island was only the beginning. To earn the right to ascend the staircase, she had to pass a series of “Aurelbis’ trial,” just like the protagonists in countless movies about searching for ancient ruins and hidden treasures.
The first trial was a jungle and a vast lake teeming with prehistoric creatures.
To successfully pass this trial, formidable combat skills, keen powers of observation, and a sharp mind were all indispensable. Only the very best of humanity could make it to the cave on the other side of the lake.
The second trial was the corridor before her.
The endless trek, the unchanging scenery, the bizarre and uncanny anomalies, the “living” monsters… All of these worked together to create an environment that was lonely, oppressive, disorienting, and deeply abnormal, instilling an overwhelming sense of helplessness and unease.
Imagine that, while surrounded by all these negative emotions, you suddenly found a note and a diary as you walked through the corridor.
You read the words on the pages and discovered that every piece of advice left behind by these human companions warned you that staying in the corridor was extremely dangerous. If you didn’t leave as soon as possible, you would gradually transform into a monster as time went on.
Inspired by what you read, you examined your body and discovered that you had indeed begun to turn into a monster.
What would you do then?
The answer was obvious: you would leave.
The mutation had only just begun. If you left now, you would merely lose your chance to obtain the Fountain of Youth. If you were fast enough, you should be able to escape the corridor before your body completely transformed. By then, perhaps you might even be able to return to your original human form.
But if you stubbornly continued forward, sooner or later you would become a monster and remain a permanent part of the corridor.
Of course, there was another possibility. Just as the diary had said, perhaps the corridor had no exit. Once you entered, even if you chose to turn back, you might not necessarily be able to escape.
But as long as there was even the slightest hope before you, you would still make that choice.
Because you wanted to live.
You wanted to preserve your human form and continue living as a human being…
Having made the above assumptions and then worked backward from the outcome to determine the purpose, Everly quickly reached her conclusion:
Everything bizarre she had experienced so far was meant to frighten her into retreating from the corridor.
In other words, the purpose of the “Crossing the Cave” trial was to test a person’s willpower.
This speculation was not without basis.
If you examined the note left behind by the sofa monster carefully, you would notice something strange, assuming the sofa monster really was Paul. Paul knew that the way to leave the corridor was to find a “crack,” and he also knew that the corridor was endless. Under those circumstances, if he wanted to warn those who came after him, he should have told them to return to the wall where he had originally “fallen into” the corridor and find the invisible door there.
Instead, he had written something along the lines of, “Hurry, go! Don’t keep going…”
Because the corridor Paul had fallen into had no distinction between “front” and “back.” No matter which direction one walked, as long as one failed to find the door, staying there long enough would result in mutation.
It was the road leading to the Fountain of Youth that had a distinction between going forward and going back.
And the thing Paul’s note was trying to frighten away were precisely the people who were currently searching for the Fountain of Youth.
Once her thoughts reached this point, Everly suddenly felt as though everything had fallen into place.
She didn’t know what others would do, but for the sake of the only family member she had left in this world, Everly had a reason she absolutely had to obtain the Fountain of Youth.
So she would not turn back.
No matter how many terrifying things she encountered, even if her body became covered in scales and transformed beyond recognition, she would still drag her twisted, mutated body through the pitch-black corridor and keep going until the very end!
With her resolve strengthened once more, Everly hoisted her backpack onto her shoulders and continued forward.
As she pressed onward, she encountered all kinds of suspicious and terrifying anomalies. Once, she even nearly lost her way. Fortunately, remembering the diary’s warning, Everly had been regularly marking the walls, allowing her to successfully find her way back to the correct path.
And then she encountered Emil, who had completely transformed into a fungus-covered human.
He waved his mycelium-covered limbs as he sprinted wildly around, spraying dangerous spores in every direction. Anything the spores touched, whether organic or inorganic, immediately sprouted mold, decayed and decomposed, and crumbled into powder resembling soybean pulp.
Fire was effective against Emil, but unfortunately, Everly didn’t have enough fuel. Once she discovered that bullets couldn’t kill him, Everly had no choice but to run.
Fortunately, because his limbs had become too soft and pliable, the fungus-covered human was slow, and his stamina was poor.
After sprinting through the passage at full speed for a while, Everly successfully shook off Emil’s pursuit. However, she had lost most of her equipment along the way. In addition, although her face was protected by a gas mask, the pants she was wearing had accidentally been corroded through when Emil brushed past her, leaving several holes.
Through those openings, the mold spread up Everly’s legs, driving its mycelium deep into her flesh.
It was a long, hopeless death by slow deterioration.
Everly tried cutting it out with a knife and burning it with fire, but neither worked. The mycelium had already burrowed deep into her body and was spreading to the rest of her body through her bloodstream.
At the same time, her physical transformation was accelerating.
As time passed, more and more scales pushed through her skin, covering her entire body. Like fish scales, they needed to be kept constantly moist with water. Otherwise, they would dry out and curl up, causing Everly unbearable pain.
After the scales came the gradual deformation of her limbs. The bones in her hands elongated, her fingernails became sharp claws, and the muscles and bones in her thighs melted away, leaving her unable to walk. She became a monster that could only crawl along the ground like a snake.
A long, snake-like creature covered in green mold and pale-blue scales.
Like chocolate that had melted and collapsed, the shape of Everly’s head was changing as well. She didn’t dare imagine what she must look like now.
“Hiss… hissss…”
Her transformation accelerated faster and faster. Everly’s vision gradually darkened until all she could see was a field of gray and white. At some point, she even lost the ability to speak.
But she continued crawling forward.
[Walk along a flat and pitch-black road,
where there is neither high nor low.
At the foot of the mountains encircling the world,
Aurelbis has laid down Its trial.]
Her lower body was too weak to move, so she used her arms, her body, even her chin…
All she had to do was keep moving forward.
Forward, forward, forward.
No turning back. Never.
…
“Crack… crack-crack…”
It was impossible to say how long she had crawled through the darkness in her monstrous form when, all of a sudden, an almost imperceptible sound of breaking came from all around her.
Her heavy, clumsy body abruptly returned to its light and agile human form, and her lowered, crawling field of vision suddenly shot upward.
In a daze, Everly realized that she was standing in a yellow corridor, flashlight in hand.
She turned her neck and quickly scanned in every direction. The yellow corridor before her was covered in countless spiderweb-like cracks, just like a shattered mirror, with huge sections collapsing and peeling away.
As the yellow layer fell away, the real world was revealed before her.
Moist, rough rock walls surrounded her overhead and on either side, while the uneven ground beneath her feet was full of pits and bumps. Sunlight from outside streamed through the cave entrance, illuminating the area around the opening.
Further inside the cave entrance was a pitch-black cavern.
This was…
Everly looked around, as if realizing something, then abruptly looked down at her wrist.
Her watch showed that only 1 hour and 43 minutes had passed since she landed on the island.
Just a few seconds ago, with the help of the aquatic creatures, she had successfully crossed the giant lake and entered the rocky cave inside Pudding Mountain.
So the long journey through the corridor had been nothing more than a fleeting dream lasting but an instant.