A Nearsighted Girl’s Journey Through a Horror Game

I quickly grabbed the charcoal woman’s burnt hand and tugged it gently, concern in my voice. “Ma’am, your skin’s so dry. I made a cucumber mask earlier, want to try it?”

She froze mid-rant, then stammered, “Ah… o-okay.”

Of course, what woman doesn’t want to look better? When I actually brought out a bowl of sliced cucumber and started applying the mask, the old man wasn’t pleased.

“You wicked hag,” he snarled. “Weren’t you supposed to scare off the new daughter-in-law?”

I stared at the Headless Boss and shrugged. “So you had a previous wife, huh?”

His face fell.

Black smoke curled from him as he nonchalantly unscrewed the charcoal woman’s skull and tossed it aside.

He gave me a crooked, half-guilty smile. “No, she never came in. Lily killed them.”

The charcoal woman awkwardly screwed her head back on, patted the cucumber on her face, and fixed the old man with a deathly glare. “You blabby old fool. Go cook.”

He shut up right away, dragging the burlap sack and the spill of intestines on his belly toward the kitchen. Wherever he walked, the floor turned blood red again.

Lily picked herself up and politely tried to decline. “Grandma, sorry. I think Grandpa’s cooking is… bad. Maybe he shouldn’t—”

Before she finished, the old man yanked at his belly, flung out a length of intestine like a lasso, and wrapped Lily up in an instant. He cackled. “Oh my dear granddaughter, come help Grandpa cook.”

I looked at the mess of guts on the floor and went back to my room to hunt for crochet tools. “Ugh… Why doesn’t Dad sew up this sweater himself?”

By the time the old man finished cooking, I’d found my crochet hook. I dutifully set the table for him, then grabbed him by the arm. “Here, let me mend this for you. It’s annoying dragging yarn around, and the colors are fading. I just mopped yesterday, you know?”

The four weirdos exchanged glances. The livestream chat suddenly lit up with a new realization:

【Turns out she’s not brave—she’s blind.】

【No, she does know where she’s going. I bet she’s severely nearsighted.】

【I’ll call her Nina the Miracle. She just opened a totally new way to clear this scenario.】

【Quiet—actually, she might be genuinely clever.】

No sooner had that scrolled by than I grabbed the old man’s intestines and started sewing. Keeping some distance, out of respect for the whole in-law thing, I still couldn’t tell exactly what I was handling, only that it was wet. I muttered, “Why’s this yarn still damp? Dad, did you drop the vegetables in the sink?”

He looked flustered and replied, flatly, “Ah… probably.”

Once I finished stitching up the old man’s belly, everyone sat down at the table in what could only be described as an awkward kind of harmony.

When no one moved, I took the initiative and picked up a piece of what looked like ‘chicken feet’.

As I brought it to my mouth, all four of them stared at me, their gazes dark and twisted.

“My good daughter-in-law,” the old man croaked, grinning. “Your father brought that up fresh from downstairs today. The meat’s from someone who died just last night.”