The Borrowed-Life Formation in the Wilds

While working away from home, I get the news that my grandfather has passed away, so I return to the mountain village I left many years ago.

I thought I was just coming back to clean out the ancestral home and take care of the funeral. But the moment I stepped into the village, I realized that something strange was going on everywhere.

Footsteps circle endlessly outside the wall in the middle of the night. Gray-white hems quietly peek through cracks in the earthen walls. Behind the window paper, a lifeless eye stares out.

Grandfather left behind a tattered notebook containing only a few scattered warnings. The village elders are tight-lipped, hinting at the truth but refusing to reveal it.

Slowly, I learn that what my grandfather guarded all his life was a mountain-village life-borrowing scheme buried beneath the old house.

Something is hidden within the walls, and the village is a cage.

From the moment I set foot in my ancestral home, I became prey caught in the scheme.

Night falls again and again, and evil spirits come to drain people’s souls every night. With nothing but a stub of old chalk left by my grandfather and a chipped woodcutter’s blade, I struggle to survive while digging into the truth behind his death.

What exactly has been laid out in this silent village: an evil formation that steals lives, or a decades-long con?

And will I make it out of these mountains alive?