The blood moon hangs over Jinghai City like a ripe abscess.
Scarlet light barely penetrated the grilled windows of the Qingshan Mental Hospital ward, casting mottled shadows of the cage on the cement floor.
Shen Wan was awakened.
Not because of the moonlight, but because of the sound coming from next door.
A constant, gut-wrenching scraping sound.
Fingernails, or something harder, were scraping against the cement wall over and over again.
Squeak... Squeak... Squeak...
The sound was very rhythmic, not like a meaningless vent.
It was slow and halting, like an off-key lullaby.
No, not a lullaby.
Shen Wan's temple twitched violently. It was a requiem melody that was dug out from a rotten corner of his memory.
He didn't know why he knew it. He just felt that the melody should have been played by an ancient pipe organ instead of being scraped on the wall with fingernails.
He sat up, the bed groaning slightly.
