C26 He's in My Head

When they reached the photo studio, the sun was about to set. The middle-aged man stuck his head out of the half-closed door.

"If you had come a little later, I would have really left. This street is not peaceful after dark."

The middle-aged man looked across the street at the homeless and the junkies.

"What's wrong with the picture?" I followed him into the studio.

"Hey, I've never seen such a strange photo in my life, look —"

The middle-aged man took out a stack of photographs and picked out two of them. "This one was salvaged from one of the damp rolls of film, and when I washed it I discovered that the date of production was 1965, and since the film could not have been made for more than five years, I would assume it was taken in 1970 — and this one was the film inside the camera, which was relatively intact and much clearer. The date of production was 1975."

"Then the interval between these two photographs should be at least five years —" The middle-aged man placed the photo under the lamp. "But you see, he hasn't changed at all?"

Under the lamp were two pieces of family property.

On the chair sat Maria and Johnson, with a child between them.

"Logically speaking, this is the period when children grow up. There should be changes no matter what for five years. Do you think they are the same person? Or am I seeing things? "

The child standing in the middle was Alpha.

1965, 1975 to 1988. He hadn't grown up at all.

In the relatively clear picture, he wore a short-sleeved striped shirt. The exposed arm was full of wounds, and there was a blurry number tattooed on one of them.

43.

Blonde hair and blue eyes, always wearing long sleeves, not as sensible as any of the same age children.

When he held the blind kitten in his hand, he said emotionlessly:

"If you don't kill others, others will kill you."

"In order to survive, you have to disregard everything. Only with this will you be able to face this cruel world."

That was what the Nazi doctor had said to the two children who had passed the test in the game room of the Spring of Life.

His talent for chess and his ability to quickly learn a new language are not because of his outstanding intelligence, but because he has lived longer than any of us.

Maybe he would have.

Lina looked at the floor of Room 608 and lamented that she didn't have any toys when she was young.

Of course he had no toys when he was a child, a child raised by the Nazis as the strongest warrior in Aryan. His only toys were pistols and knives.

I quickly recalled that night when he had asked me what I was afraid of, pointing to the deformed image of the infant's skull.

I gave him a perfunctory reply, but he told me exactly what I was thinking: You, afraid, you, will, live, down, one, strange, or something.

In that moment his eyes shone like wild beasts in the darkness, and he peered into the deepest depths of my fear.

And then I had that nightmare.

There was also the picture of Lina hugging the monster that was folded in half.

He was the one who could control dreams and read minds.

He had walked out of the Spring of Life alive, and his body was eternally fixed at seven or eight years old.

Lina is very dangerous!

"Do you have a phone! Call me! "Give it to me!" I was already mumbling incoherently as I frantically grabbed onto the middle-aged man's collar.

Startled, he pointed behind the counter.

I quickly dialed the home number, and the few dozen seconds I waited for the call to go through felt like a thousand years to me.

"Hello?" Lina's voice came out from the phone.

"Hey!" Lina! Listen to me … Listen to me! "Leave immediately …"

"Lei, what happened to you? …"

Bang bang bang! Just as I was about to speak, I heard a burst of hurried knocking sounds coming from Lina's side!

"Lei, don't hang up. "I think …"

"Don't open the door!"

"I'll take a look from the peephole …"

My heart was pounding uncontrollably!

Alpha's voice came out faintly from the other end of the phone, and actually started crying outside the door:

"Lina! Lina! Save me! Grandmother has gone insane! "

"Don't... "Don't go out!" I shouted into the phone!

"Lei …" Oh my god! Maria held onto his blade! She wanted to drag Alpha into the house … Alpha was calling for help outside! I have to save him! Hurry up and call the police! "

There was the sound of a door opening on the other end of the line.

"Lina, don't go out!" I shouted, but there was no sound from the other end of the phone either.

My heart felt like it was about to jump out of my chest, time stopped … 10 seconds … 20 seconds … 30 seconds...

"Bam!"

I heard a gunshot, followed by a heavy echo, coming from the depths of the corridor.

From the distant sky came the sound of muffled thunder, followed by a torrential downpour. I sprinted back to the Joshua Tower.

It was dark when I ran into the lobby.

There was a power outage.

The security room was empty.

There was no elevator, so I had to go up the security stairs.

The corridor on the second and third floors was filled with wholesale goods. I struggled to get through the gaps between the goods. There were no windows and no lights.

I don't know how long it took me to get to the sixth floor.

The corridor was so quiet that the only sound was the patter of rain on the glass dome. Lightning illuminated the surroundings from time to time.

The door to the apartment was open. I went in.

"Lina?!"

No one answered.

The apartment was littered with toys as before. The only source of light was the dim wall lamp on the wall.

"Lina! Are you there? "

I step on a wind-up toy, and it creaks.

"Ugh …"

There was a groan from the bedroom.

The last time Lina came over, the bedroom's door was always closed, but now it was actually ajar.

Inside was a large baroque bed with more dusty toys beside it.

Why was there only one bed? Could it be that Alpha and Maria were still sleeping together?

The coffee table next to the big bed had been turned, and vases and sundries were strewn all over the floor. It seemed that someone had fought here before. The room was dark, but I smelled blood. My heart leaped.

Suddenly, a black shadow moved on the ground.

"Who?!"

"..." "Hilfe …" A voice I had never heard before came from the mouth of the man on the ground.

A bolt of lightning flashed through the window. In the light from the window, I could see that the one who had collapsed was Maria.

She had been shot in the chest near her shoulder blade. The wound was very serious, and blood was flowing all over the ground. Although this shot wasn't fatal for a normal person, it might not be fatal for an eighty to ninety year old woman.

I threw myself over and grabbed her shoulders. "Where's Lina? Where is Lina?! "

"Hilfe!" Hilfe! " Maria looked at me in fear as he spoke in German.

I suddenly felt that this Maria is different from what I normally see.

In my impression of Maria, there has never been such a "real" expression. I remembered the first time I'd seen her through the peephole. Her face was expressionless, and my first thought had been that she was dead.

His voice was strange, and he spoke word for word. The smile on his face would only appear on his face after a long time of waiting. It was like a lifeless machine.

So at that time, Lina and I came to the same conclusion that she suffered from the side effects of a stroke.

But this Maria in front of me, she made me feel...

Like a man.

Her face was filled with fear, the kind of expression only flesh and blood can have.

Although she spoke in German, her words did not have the distinct sense of pause, nor did they have that mechanical, strange tone.

Maria grabbed onto my leg and struggled desperately. I couldn't react in time and pressed down on her left hand. It was obvious that the burn from last time had not yet healed, and a few blisters immediately popped.

"Orch!" "Schmerz …" she cried, her face pained.

She was in pain.

I let go of her shoulder.

Maria didn't seem to recognize me. When she realised that I could not understand, he immediately switched to lousy English:

"Save me …" "Save me..."

"Who are you?"

I knew it was a stupid question, but I couldn't help asking it.

She is not the Maria that I know.

She didn't answer my question. Instead, she kneeled on the ground and hugged her head in despair.

"He's in my head... "Please kill me …"

Maria trembled, the moment she got excited, the bullet hole in his shoulder started to bleed out.

What do you mean? I was getting more and more confused.

"Tell me, who's in your head?"

"That twin, he's in my head, controlling me... SehrLiebHaben... Only thunder will leave... "Kill me …" Maria opened his eyes wide in shock:

"He will come back!" He will come back! "

She raised her arm and pointed to a small door at the far end of the bedroom.