They had not yet escaped danger, and were still effectively in “enemy territory,” so this so-called rest could not bring any real relaxation.
Just then, the firewood inside the cabin ran out.
It was raining in the forest, making it impossible to find any dry wood. Without fire, everyone could only switch on their flashlights, placing them around the cabin for illumination, then wrap themselves in thick sleeping bags and lie down fully clothed in the foul-slling interior. They tried to use the fabric to block out the cold wind seeping through the cracks in the walls, as well as the steadily dropping temperature brought by the storm.
Cold… it was so cold…
Even with a waterproof mat, sleeping bag, and thermal blanket providing triple protection, strands of cold still seed to grow legs of their own, seeping up from the ground and into their bodies. The icy sensation penetrated deep into their bones, making them shiver uncontrollably, even their breath turning pale white.
Beyond the cold, exhaustion also clung to them like a parasitic worm, tornting everyone inside the cabin.
Perhaps because of her stronger ntal resilience, Everly was actually in the best condition among all of them.
She let the others rest and volunteered to take the night watch, sitting alone in the center of the cabin wrapped in a blanket, struggling against the triple pressure of cold, stench, and fatigue.
And she kept thinking—what had she missed?
Why had they already searched almost every corner of the cabin and still found nothing?
Had her assumption been wrong? Was the source of the perceptual distortion not the cabin at all, but the cultists hiding in the forest… or even the strange creature with octopus-like tentacles and hooved legs that Martina had seen?
The more she thought about it, the more her head hurt—yet the strange stench in the room kept forcing its way into her nose.
Because of mories from infancy, Everly had a strong psychological aversion to foul slls. She pinched her nose and tried to breathe only through her mouth, gasping slightly as she irritably wondered where exactly the stench in the cabin was coming from.
If it was caused by the raven corpse, that corpse had already been disposed of. The ground had been scraped over once, and even the gaps in the wooden walls had been carefully cleaned by Everly’s group. They had already searched the entire cabin thoroughly—
No. Wait. They hadn’t.
There was still one place they had not checked.
Realizing her oversight, Everly’s heart began to pound violently. She nearly jumped up on the spot.
It was an extrely strange feeling.
When Everly had been focused entirely on finding the source of the perceptual contamination, she had thought of inspecting the walls, digging into the ground beneath them, and searching the area outside the cabin. She had considered nearly every possible hiding place—except the ceiling, which she had unconsciously dismissed as a matter of course.
However, the mont she shifted her focus from “the source of perceptual distortion” to “the origin of the foul sll,” it was as if a veil had been suddenly ripped away from her vision. She could now clearly perceive the ceiling that had been right above her all along.
It was obvious that, without anyone noticing, everyone in the cabin—including Everly herself—had been affected by another round of perceptual distortion. This new distortion had selectively erased the ceiling from their awareness. Even after searching the entire cabin inside and out, no one had ever thought to simply look up.
Everly suddenly rembered sothing: when viewed from the outside, the cabin clearly had a triangular pitched roof. Yet from inside, the ceiling above them was flat.
That ant there was likely a hidden attic-like space between the roof and the ceiling. The source of the perceptual contamination they were searching for was, nine tis out of ten, inside that space.
Thinking of this, Everly could no longer sit still.
This cabin is seriously strange. The longer they stayed inside, the more their stamina drained, and even when they were “resting,” they were barely recovering at all.
Because of this, Everly had no psychological burden at all. She directly woke everyone up and had them gather to think about how to access the hidden space above the ceiling.
“What do you need to go up there for?”
“Wait… are you saying the source of the perceptual distortion is above us…?”
“So that makes sense. We never searched the area above our heads! That’s so strange—why didn’t any of us think of that before?”
After hearing Everly’s request, everyone went through a progression of emotions—from shock and confusion, to disbelief, and finally to the realization of what had been missed, followed by a cold sweat creeping up their backs.
“So this is what perceptual distortion feels like… it’s terrifying. Earlier, when you and Teacher Harriet were talking about it, I didn’t really believe it. I never thought sothing like this could actually be real!”
The students were still shaken, each of them lifting their flashlights to sweep across the ceiling above.
Soon, one observant student discovered a hidden hatch in the ceiling, along with a wooden pull ring painted to match the timber.
A girl contributed her selfie stick, while another student produced a stainless-steel climbing hook. After so improvisation, they assembled a makeshift extendable hook. The tallest boy in the group took it, stood on his tiptoes, raised the hook upward, and pulled—
Creeeeak…
With a harsh, teeth-grating chanical sound, the hidden hatch opened, unfolding into a foldable ladder that extended downward at an angle.
“Ugh… it stinks!”
“I can’t take it anymore, it’s so bad I’m tearing up!”
As the hatch opened, an unprecedented stench poured down like a waterfall from the opening in the ceiling.
The sll was similar to the stench that had already been filling the cabin—but far more intense, magnified countless tis. It was like the mixed rot of spoiled at, left sealed in a plastic bag under the scorching sumr heat for days, then drenched with foul, murky sewage water crawling with flies at a drain opening.
Even though everyone below imdiately clamped their hands tightly over their mouths and noses, the odor still stubbornly forced its way through the gaps between their fingers, clinging to their hair and clothes, impossible to shake off. It churned their stomachs violently and made veins throb at their temples.
Everly felt sowhat relieved that she had prepared for possible snow on the trip and brought a mask and ski goggles in advance.
She took out her gear from her backpack and put it on, finally shielding her eyes, nose, and mouth from the stench. Then, holding a flashlight in one hand and gripping her defensive equipnt with the other, she took the lead and climbed onto the folding ladder.
Horror Movie Survival Rule #11: Never split up or act alone.
Worried about going up alone and encountering danger, Everly specifically called Misha to follow behind her. Behind them, after Harriet finished instructing Ted to take care of the remaining nine students, she also climbed up the ladder.
The three of them ford a single line, stepping on the creaking wooden rungs as they entered the hidden attic space one after another.
Inside the attic, it was very dark.
Due to the structure ford by the two slanted roof panels, the edges of the space were extrely narrow and could only hold miscellaneous items. Only the triangular area at the very center of the roof provided enough room to stand.
Naturally, the first thing anyone stepping into the attic would see was that central area.
And on the floor of that space, there was a massive dark-red ritual array.
The formation was highly complex. Within a nearly two-ter-wide circular main array were countless smaller interlocking sub-arrays and looping pathways. Dense carvings of natural totems and incomprehensible arcane symbols covered its surface, beyond the understanding of ordinary people, all etched in blood. The entire magical array radiated a mysterious and dangerous aura.
At the center of the magic circle stood an inverted triangular wooden fra. On it, a long-dead corpse had been fixed in place with barbed wire.
It was a middle-aged man, around forty years old. His body was naked. Both his eyes and mouth had been sewn shut with jet-black thread. Dark red bloodstains remained around his ear canals, suggesting his eardrums had once been pierced.
The man’s body was covered in wounds.
The most severe injury was on his back. Soone had used a blade to cut open the flesh along his spine, broken the ribs on both sides, and forcibly pulled out the lungs, stretching them outward and fixing them onto the fra—forming a pair of “wings” made of flesh and blood.
Everly had seen similar descriptions in certain literary works before. It was said to be a Viking form of torture known as the “Blood Eagle.” The victim would eventually die from prolonged exposure and imbalance in lung pressure.
In addition to the injuries on his back, both his arms and legs had been broken as well. The severing points on the arms were above the elbows, while the legs were cut at mid-thigh. The cuts were clean, and the exposed bone ends still bore parallel groove marks, as if they had been sawn through.
Beneath the severed limbs, four sections of black goat hooves had been stitched on. The sa black thread used on the man’s face was used for the stitching. At a glance, the dense seams resembled countless tangled parasitic worms, making one’s skin crawl as though insects were creeping beneath it.
The corpse had clearly been hanging there for a long ti. Its skin had turned a horrifying dark purple, and the exposed organs and flesh were in an advanced state of decay. The stitched joints between the limbs and the goat hooves had begun to split, leaving only small portions of flesh still held together by thread. As a result, the four hooves dangled loosely, swaying beneath the severed limbs.
Putrefied bodily fluids dripped down from the rotting flesh and hooves, trickling onto the magic circle below. They pooled into four small puddles of tar-like, black, foul-slling liquid.
“It’s too cruel…” Misha’s voice ca out muffled.
Everly understood what she ant.
The corpse’s face was frozen in a grotesque expression of agony. The triangular fra that bound him, along with the surrounding ceiling and walls, was splattered with blood. On the ground nearby lay scattered tools still stained with blood—most notably a steel saw. From this, it was clear that all the injuries he had suffered were inflicted while he was still alive.
Everly could hardly imagine the pain of having one’s limbs slowly sawed off, eyelids sewn shut, and lungs torn out. Perhaps the man had been unable to endure the torture and died from the pain itself.
Unable to look any longer, she moved her flashlight away and swept it across the rest of the ritual site.
Aside from the man who was clearly the sacrificial victim, the magic circle was filled with various ritual objects: clay jars filled with unknown seeds; specin bottles containing unidentified organs—inside one, a flesh-colored organ shaped like a winged inverted pear, vaguely resembling a crudely drawn uterus; a severed goat head; a bundle of black hair; and a mummified human infant curled into a fetal position…
Everly examined everything, but she still could not determine which deity the ritual was ant to summon. That was not surprising—after all, the United States was vast, and cults operating within it were as countless as stars in the night sky. As an outsider, it was impossible for her to recognize them all.
Outside the circle, the ground was littered with bloodstained tools, and a rusted iron bucket had been placed nearby. Inside the bucket remained an unidentified substance, sowhere between grease and at broth. The severed limbs taken from the man were inserted into it like bottles in an ice bucket, standing at odd angles, already thoroughly decayed. Up close, the entire bucket gave off a suffocating stench.
The odor that had plagued everyone inside the cabin for two full days was coming from the ritual circle—and from that bucket.
“Ugh… ugh, I’m going to throw up…” Misha clutched her chest and let out a pained groan.
Everly was also close to having her head explode from the stench.
She forced herself to endure the foul air and continued searching the rest of the attic space with her flashlight.
The outer edges of the attic were relatively low and contained very few objects. After sweeping the beam around, she found only a few wooden candlesticks used for lighting, a pile of blood-soaked clothing bundled together, and a dusty backpack.
Everly first walked over to the candlesticks. She removed her mask, leaned in, and sniffed the faint yellow residue left in the tray at the top. The sll was foul, reminiscent of kerosene.
After that, she walked around the magic circle and approached the clothes and backpack casually thrown into a corner. Using her trekking pole, she lifted the clothing and examined it carefully.
Judging from the style, it was n’s clothing—an outdoor jacket, quick-dry shirt, and other personal items including underwear, socks, and shoes.
When she lifted the jacket, a soft clack sounded as a hard-cover ID card slipped out of the pocket and fell to the ground.
The photo on the opened ID faced upward, revealing the expressionless face of a middle-aged man. In the background of the card, the watermark “SAI” was clearly visible.
Everly hesitated for a mont before picking up the ID and walking back to the center of the attic to compare it with the corpse.
Although the corpse’s face had already decomposed severely, there were still faint similarities between its features and the man in the photo. It was clear that the ID indeed belonged to the victim of the ritual.
So the brutally murdered man… was actually a Special Affairs Investigation agent?!
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