“…I can’t believe it. When something so terrifying happened, when Everly had a high fever and needed you the most, you were damn well holding Rachel’s insurance money and drinking that damn alcohol of yours!”

“What else could I do! It’s all because of that kid—Rachel left me! Every time I see her, I think of my beloved Rachel. If it weren’t for the kid, she wouldn’t have gone out alone by car!”

“Shut up!”

Everly was awakened by the sound of a fierce argument.

Her body ached, her head was dizzy, and her throat felt dry, as if it were being roasted over a charcoal fire. Every breath brought a searing, burning pain.

Everly knew she had a fever. Terrified, weak from being a premature infant, and after that nightmarish evening, she had been trapped in a continuous high fever, at its worst even ending up in the ICU.

During that time, she had woken up a few times, but due to the high fever, her consciousness was never fully clear. She only vaguely remembered that stormy, rainy night, trembling in fear in the darkness for what felt like forever. It wasn’t until dawn began to break that the piercing sound of police sirens finally tore through the endless night, the incompetent police arriving far too late.

The scene was cordoned off, bodies were cleared from the hospital, and only a dozen or so survivors, including Everly, were taken by police to another hospital in a neighboring town for temporary care.

The chaos lasted for a long time. When Everly opened her eyes again, she was lying in an unfamiliar hospital room, her small hand hooked to an IV drip, and electrodes attached to her belly to monitor her vital signs.

Under the meticulous care of the medical staff, Everly was out of life-threatening danger and slowly began to recover. Yet the image of Nancy, her eyes wide open in death, full of resentment and unwillingness, haunted Everly like an unshakable nightmare. In the half-dream, half-awake haze, that figure repeatedly appeared in her mind—standing in the shadows, silently staring at her, as if reproaching, questioning, or offering a wordless invitation from hell. It made the infant’s high fever come and go, never fully subsiding.

Everly breathed painfully, her eyes rolling in their dry sockets, and looked toward the side of the bed. Standing there, arguing, were two men. One was not yet thirty, tall and thin, with mid-length golden—or perhaps white, Everly could not yet distinguish the two—curly hair tied in a braid at the back of his head. Dark, tired circles marked his eyes, giving him a disheveled, artistic air. This was the father of the body she now inhabited, named Shelly.

The other man arguing with him was an elderly figure, his hair completely white, around fifty or sixty years old, tall and broad, with a robust build. When he spoke, his voice was booming and full of presence. Everly had never seen him before, but somehow, seeing his furrowed brow and tightly drawn mouth, she felt an inexplicable sense of closeness deep in her heart.

Perhaps he was a relative of this body…

She let out a small hum and weakly stretched her arm. The sound was barely noticeable, yet it immediately caught the attention of the enraged elder. Seeing that Everly had awakened, he swallowed the curse he had been about to utter, left Shelly behind, and took a few steps toward the bed. He crouched beside her, carefully inspecting her face.

“Poor Everly, it must hurt so much… I’ve already made the call. Once [someone] comes to [help] you, you’ll definitely be fine.” His face remained stiff the whole time, as if he didn’t know how to smile, yet his words came out gentle and tender.

Shelly immediately objected: “I don’t agree! All this [ritual stuff] is nonsense! Put away your old-fashioned ways. In this day and age, people only believe in science. Everly is just too weak—after some more treatment, she’ll recover on her own. There’s absolutely no need to bring in any [rituals]!”

There were too many obscure terms for Everly to understand what they were arguing about. Her physical discomfort also left her with no energy to probe further. However, by nighttime, she came to understand exactly what the old man had meant by “[rituals].”

“Uwaa…” She lay in her hospital bed, blinking curiously at the small old man dressed entirely in black before her. It was the kind of priest robe she had often seen in movies and TV shows, completely different from the black cloak worn by the figure at the hospital that night. The robe’s clean-cut lines and solemn, dignified style exuded gravity and steadiness.

So the old man thought she was possessed and wanted to bring in a priest—or maybe a minister, Everly couldn’t tell the difference—to perform a ritual?

Everly found it rather fascinating.

She carefully studied the little old man in the priest’s robe. He was not tall, barely over 1.7 meters, with sparse, unruly hair that looked almost comical at first glance. Yet when he performed the ritual, his expression was serious.

The little old man held a Bible in one hand, while raising a small bottle of water in the other. Half-closing his eyes, he murmured quietly, reciting words as he moved the bottle in the air above Everly, drawing crosses in a regular pattern. Each time, a few drops of crystalline water fell downward.

Trapped in her nightmare, Everly was awakened by the droplets landing on her forehead.

Cold, but not unpleasant.

“…In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God…”

Everly lay in her hospital bed, listening to the old man recite scripture. At first, her attention drifted for various reasons, but gradually, the baby’s eyes seemed drawn by some mysterious force. They began to follow the priest’s hand, tracing crosses in the air alongside him.

The old man’s movements were slow; each gesture harmonized with the rhythm of the verses, radiating an indescribable sense of holiness and sacredness. His drooping eyes and furrowed brows carried both a mother’s tenderness and a father’s strictness, as if the light around him imbued him with some divine aura. The droplets of holy water falling from his fingertips felt like gentle breezes, dispersing the fog that clouded her consciousness, and at the same time like a heavy rain, extinguishing the endless blaze burning within her body.

She lost track of time. Eventually, the old man closed his book, producing a soft “snap.”

The sound acted like a signal, pulling Everly back from that deeply mystical state. She took a deep breath and realized the weight that had lingered in her chest for so long had somehow disappeared. Her body, once so heavy, now felt light as air.

It was as if… some burden that had clung to her had been removed.

“All done, child. The one following you has now departed. Sleep…” The old man reached out, covering Everly’s eyes with his hand. His palm was warm, carrying a hint of sunlight, and it made Everly feel deeply safe.

Though she had only just woken, Everly felt unusually exhausted. A wave of drowsiness swept over her, and she surrendered to it, closing her eyes. Before long, she drifted into a calm, sweet slumber.

The high fever that had plagued her for more than ten days was dispelled in a way that was… not entirely scientific.

…

The next day, when Everly woke, she felt refreshed and, for the first time in a long while, genuinely hungry.

Her father, Shelly, was absent—probably out drinking again. By the wall, dozing at her bedside, was the burly old man she had met the day before.

The old man didn’t sleep very soundly. The moment Everly let out even a small hum, he would jolt awake from his nap, lean over to check her forehead, then fetch a cup and some formula to prepare her milk.

Perhaps because he frowned often, a deep crease ran between his brows, and even while feeding her, his tightly pressed mouth never curved into a smile, giving him a stern appearance. Yet Everly had a good impression of him—he used warm water, never cold, to make her milk, and after feeding, he would skillfully lift her, pat her to burp, completely unlike her absentee father, who she rarely saw.

John took care of Everly diligently. After the previous night’s “exorcism,” Everly’s body had improved significantly, and she was awake for longer periods. With time on her hands, she would play with her hands while listening closely to John and the people around him.

Although her English was still limited, by listening more, Everly gradually learned that this man named John was actually her maternal grandfather. Over ten years ago, her mother, Rachel, had a falling out with her father for some reason and left home alone to “pursue her dreams.” Since then, she had completely severed contact, not even informing him of her marriage. By the time John heard any news of his daughter again, more than a decade later, it was already too late—the two had long been separated by death.

It was a truly sad story.

Apparently having heard some complaints from Rachel, Shelly was extremely hostile toward John. Whenever they encountered each other at Everly’s bedside, a few words were usually enough to ignite an argument. When John suggested taking Everly to raise her himself, Shelly flatly refused. To dissuade his father-in-law from such a notion, Shelly even went so far as to stay at the hospital for several days, pretending to be a “reformed and devoted father.”

Later, probably realizing that Shelly would never willingly let him take Everly, John left behind a sum of money and carefully hung a simple, old-fashioned cross necklace around Everly’s neck. One early morning, he quietly departed on his own.

Once John was gone, Shelly immediately dropped the act.

By this time, Everly had passed the most fragile stage of her premature infancy, and her illnesses had healed. After consulting the doctors, Shelly gleefully took Everly out of the hospital that very afternoon and brought her to his home in the old district of a neighboring city.

Of course, his joy wasn’t born of genuine paternal affection—it was simply that the hospital bills had been too expensive, and he didn’t want to spend any more money. Once he brought Everly home, he naturally treated her like a hot potato to be pushed aside.

He didn’t have much money, which was evident from the cheap furniture scattered around the house. Although some compensation came from the driver and the insurance company after Everly’s mother, Rachel, died in a car accident, the premature infant had been an expensive patient—most of the insurance money had already been spent in the hospital. To save costs, Shelly didn’t hire a nanny, and all matters relating to Everly—feeding, changing diapers, and so on—were entirely his responsibility.

But that was all he was willing to do. Everything else—turning her over, putting her to sleep, teaching her to speak—Shelly refused to touch. Even bathing her had to wait until her body smelled unbearably; only then would he drag her to the shower with a look of disgust, hoisting her up like a cat and randomly rinsing her under the water.

Apart from these few minimal acts of care, the rest of the time Shelly either sat staring at a photo of his deceased wife, Rachel, drowning his sorrows in alcohol, or holed up in his studio, wildly smearing paint across canvases in the name of “art” that made no sense. As for his own daughter, Everly, he basically followed the “out of sight, out of mind” principle.

Fortunately, Everly had an adult mind inside her tiny body. She had some ability to manage herself—crying when hungry, signaling when she needed a diaper change, and being extra careful not to get too close to the edge of the bed or do anything risky near it. Otherwise, judging from Shelly’s negligence, it was easy to imagine that one day the baby could crawl off the bed and meet a fatal accident.

In short, under her “attentive” father’s care, baby Everly’s life after leaving the hospital was nothing short of a struggle through fire and water.

<< TOC >>

The post Rules Ch.2 first appeared on A Wandering Potato.

“Bang bang! Bang bang bang!”

A series of violent knocks on the door jolted Everly awake from a sweet sleep.

She blinked in confusion. Through the transparent incubator, she stared at the all-white ceiling. Her sluggish brain lagged behind by half a beat before slowly forming a single question: Why would anyone be banging on the door of a newborn ward?

Yes, a newborn ward.

Everly—perhaps she had another name in her previous life, but when she woke again, born into this world, most of her past had already faded. She simply decided to go by the name people around her called her—Everly. She was a premature baby, born from a tragic traffic accident. Her mother, a strong and determined young woman, struggled to give birth to her in the wreckage of a car, but could not survive until the rescuers arrived and lost her life.

All this information she had pieced together from the occasional idle chatter of the medical staff caring for her.

Because she was born over a month early, Everly was physically weak. For as long as she could remember, she had always lain in a newborn incubator.

Except during visiting hours for the infants’ parents, the ward was almost always quiet. Even when babies cried, the sound was soft, barely louder than a mosquito’s hum. After all, most of the children lying here had various health issues.

And now, the long-held silence of the newborn ward was shattered by urgent, aggressive pounding on the door.

“Open the door! Open the door! Damn it, those two little b*tches locked it from the inside!”

“Hey, don’t rush, Frank. Did you forget? The entire hospital is under lockdown—sh—nowhere they can escape…”

“Exactly! Just thinking about—sh—sh—I get so excited—sh… My Lord will—sh—sh—bring terror—sh—hahaha…”

The pounding on the door paused for a moment. Through the relatively soundproof door, muffled voices reached her—snippets of conversation interspersed with malicious laughter and unpleasant curses.

The people outside were speaking English. It wasn’t the language Everly had used in her previous life, so although some fragments of past memory lingered, she couldn’t fully understand what they were saying. She could only sense that something was wrong, and the feeling of unease settled heavily in her chest.

As a newborn, there was very little she could do. She lay on her back in the incubator, struggling to engage her still-undeveloped neck muscles. Slowly, painstakingly, she twisted her head just enough to glimpse toward the ward door.

A newborn’s eyesight was poor. From her distance, all she could make out were two blurry white figures leaning against the door, breathing heavily, their arms and legs trembling.

One of the figures fumbled, holding something in their hands that looked like a phone, tapping it desperately. The voice trembled with despair: “It’s no use, it won’t go through! The signal’s blocked here!”

From the quivering voice, Everly was able to connect this figure with a gentle nurse who often came to check the ward.

“What do we do… we’re dead, everyone’s dead… those—sh—are completely insane! What do we do, Nancy? Help me, I don’t want to die…”

The voice came from another figure next to the nurse. She held her head in her hands, her back arched, like a prey animal cornered at the edge of survival, letting out hysterical screams from her throat.

Everly recognized her as another nurse from the station. She wasn’t assigned to the newborn ward, but occasionally came here to gossip with Nurse Nancy. They got along well, and she had even made faces at Everly across the incubator before.

“Bang! Bang bang!”

Just as the two nurses were sinking deeper into panic, the pounding on the door erupted again—this time with even greater force. The impact made both nurses, pressed against the door, sway back and forth with each strike.

“No, no! I don’t want to die!”

The nurse from the neighboring ward was the first to break down. She abandoned Nancy, who was still desperately trying to make a call for help, and the white figure screamed as she stumbled past Everly’s incubator. Everly’s neck was too weak to turn; she couldn’t see what was happening behind her. She strained her ears, following the sound of hurried footsteps moving backward, until they stopped at the window, which was pushed open with a loud crash.

“No! You’re crazy! This is the eighth floor!”

Nancy reached out in panic, but it was too late—she couldn’t grab anything. A few seconds later, between the next two thuds on the door, Everly heard the faint but unmistakable sound of something heavy hitting the ground behind her.

Thud.

Like a ripe watermelon smashing to pieces, a life ended so simply, so carelessly. Everly’s mouth fell open, and her fragile heart thumped violently in her chest.

What was happening? What could have scared them so much… had a criminal broken into the hospital?

Everly’s tiny brain couldn’t make sense of the situation. Before she could piece it together, a deafening crash rang out. The metal door of the ward, battered by the relentless pounding, finally gave way and collapsed inward under the pressure.

“Ah!” Nancy screamed as she was caught off guard, falling forward to the ground.

“Waa waa waa…” The other babies in the ward were startled by the noise, their tiny cries rising in a chorus of fear. Amid the chaos, four figures cloaked in black entered in single file through the gaping doorway.

The figure at the front was tall and broad, massive like a black bear. He held a gleaming dagger in his hand, his gaze sweeping across the room before quickly locking onto Nancy on the floor.

“Hahaha, little b*tch, keep running—running won’t save you, you’ll end up in our hands anyway…” He sneered, bending down and reaching toward Nancy.

“Ah!”

In the moment of crisis, an unprecedented surge of strength erupted from Nancy’s slender frame. She let out a scream, kicked the black-cloaked figure with her left leg, using the momentum to push him back, then scrambled to her feet and ran deeper into the room.

“F*CK! Little b*tch! B*tch!” The black-cloaked man staggered from the kick, snarled viciously, raised his dagger, and gave chase.

Everly’s eyes widened as she watched the scene unfold. In her heart, she silently prayed for Nancy—‘Hurry, faster, run…’ But tragically, Nancy tripped near Everly’s incubator and fell once more.

This time, luck was not on her side. Everly saw the black-cloaked figure reach her, grab Nancy by the hair with one hand, and slam the small nurse down onto the incubator. By terrible coincidence, it was the very incubator Everly occupied.

Smack!

The impact sent a dull, harsh sound reverberating through the incubator. Nancy’s body blocked the overhead light, and through the transparent plastic, Everly came face-to-face with Nancy’s eyes, wide with fear and despair.

It was the first time tonight that Everly truly saw…

She saw crystal-clear tears rolling down the nurse’s eyes. She saw her trembling lips, opening and closing, silently muttering something. She saw the black-cloaked man raise his hand and drive the dagger into Nancy’s throat. And she saw… a twisted, snake-like strange totem flick past the man’s sleeve as he withdrew the blade.

That totem burned itself into her retina like a brand.

Immediately after, a dark flood erupted from the nurse’s neck, a thick gush that splattered over the incubator and blocked Everly’s view. A newborn’s visual cells weren’t fully developed yet and couldn’t distinguish colors, but even in the black-and-white world she saw, Everly knew—that was blood.

Warm. Viscous. Foul-smelling. Blood that meant life and vitality…

A wave of nausea hit her. She couldn’t bear to watch any longer and squeezed her eyes shut in terror.

Nancy, lying in the pool of blood, soon went completely still. Yet the black-cloaked intruders lingered in the neonatal ward even after ruthlessly killing one nurse. They seemed to be searching for something, splitting up to stop at each incubator, inspecting and lingering over every baby.

“Born in June… June… June…”

One of the cloaked figures stopped not far from Everly. Through the incubator, she could hear him muttering the same words over and over.

At first, she didn’t understand what “June” meant—until the black-cloaked figure circled around and came to her incubator.

A soft rustling sound came as the medical record card hanging on the incubator was flipped. Seeing Everly’s birth information, the cloaked figure exclaimed with delight: “Ah, found her! The baby girl born in June…”

Everly barely had time to feel a sense of dread before she heard the figure toss the record aside, cursing violently:

“Damn it! This incubator is covered in blood! Frank, you barbaric idiot, your head’s only the size of a bullet! I told you not to make such a bloody mess—I hate getting my robe dirty!”

“But you were excited when I killed her, weren’t you?” Frank’s coarse voice shot back.

“Nonsense! I was only satisfied because my Lord is about to get the blood and—sh—”

“Cut the act. You’re just a—sh—!”

Just as it seemed the two were about to start fighting, a third black-cloaked figure hurriedly spoke up:

“Hey, you two, calm down. The mission is important. There isn’t just one baby who meets the requirements. Eli, look—here I’ve found one…”

The figure called “Eli” paused his search, flipping through the incubators. After a moment of thought, he let out a dismissive sigh and stepped away from the blood-soaked incubator.

The sound of footsteps—tap tap, tap tap—echoed as he walked away from Everly’s crib. Not far off, an incubator opened, and the wailing of a newborn broke out again.

The four black-cloaked figures lingered in the ward for a while longer. Whatever their purpose, they selected three babies from the continuous cries, checking their birth month and gender. They wrapped each infant tightly in strange black fabric. Curiously, the babies who had been crying immediately went silent the moment they were swathed in the cloth, not making a sound again.

Over ten minutes later, as if carrying something dead, three of the black-cloaked figures each held a wrapped bundle. They moved swiftly, following the strongest and most brutal of them all—the black bear-like Frank—leaving behind a neonatal ward in utter chaos.

Rumble!

Somehow, a heavy rain had begun outside. Amid the thunder and lightning, the incandescent lights inside flickered crackle for a moment before suddenly going out.

Darkness swallowed the entire neonatal ward. In the dead silence that followed, Everly lay face-to-face with the nurse’s lifeless body. She didn’t know how long she remained there, until the dizziness grew unbearable, and she finally drifted into an uneasy sleep.

TOC >>

The post Rules Ch.1 first appeared on A Wandering Potato.