Jin Qiang awoke like a man drowning, air shoving itself back into his lungs.
His chest heaved, heart pounding, head in a daze, and tears slipped down Jin's cheeks before he could stop them.
He blinked wildly, adjusting to the dim yellow light.
He was back in the same room at the inn where he had checked in before the event. The same narrow creaky bed, old desk, small window, faded wallpaper, and water-stained ceiling.
And the scent of mild dew and old wood hit his nose
"Am… am I dead for real now?" he muttered in disbelief, voice hoarse.
Just then, his cursed phone floated towards him, a cartoonish POP and sparkly visual glitch filled the screen, and Xiao Hei burst into view, his arms thrown up like a cheerleader.
"CONGRATS QIANG-GE!!! 🎉 Your first official GH.ST livestream is a huuuge hit!" Xiao Hei's voice cracked through the quiet room.
Jin blinked at him. "Huh? I…What?"
"You should've seen the chat! Screams! Cheers! Soul Coins! You crushed it!" Xiao Hei said happily like a kid high on sweets, and won a race, as the phone floated around the place.
Jin tried to steady his breath. "Wait… Didn't I die?!"
Xiao Hei grinned ear to ear, glitching slightly. "You almost did, hahaha! And it was quite an epic scene Qiang-ge! It's the highlight clip from yesterday's stream, and it's trending, both on the internet and undernet~ You even had me worried for a second, I thought you failed and died. But here you are! Alive and a rising star~!"
"So I completed the mission? But how?… All I remember is going numb and losing consciousness… then I had a dream or something... It seemed like it was a memory of the playground. I saw how Mengmeng and that clown died..." Jin slumped, overwhelmed.
"Ohh wow~! She likes you, Qiang-ge! Spirits don't usually share unless they want to~ Takes a lot of trust and interest! This is interesting~ "
Jin looked down at his hands, still slightly trembling from the memory.
"Highlight footage loaded!~" Xiao Hei then announced with a chirpy tone, "Here~ relive your near-death trauma in 1080p~!"
The phone hovered inches away from Jin's face, with the words:
📽️ GH.ST Replay: 'Clowning Around with Death' — Final Moments
The footage then began with a low, handheld camera angle behind Jin Qiang, catching him mid-sprint. The world tilted violently with every unsteady step he took. Fog curled around his legs like ghostly fingers, and the playground's jungle gym loomed like a skeletal monster in the background.
The camera bobbed as Jin ran through the uneven terrain. His breath rasped in the mic—short, panicked bursts—like a hunted animal. Behind him, the unmistakable sputtering roar of a chainsaw revved to life, echoing through the fog.
Cut to: First-person view.
Jin tripped.
His breath caught.
The world twisted sideways. The ground rushed up to meet him, the camera jolting with the impact.
THUD.
Dust and gravel sprayed into the lens as he groaned and scrambled to his knees.
The screen glitched briefly, and red streaks flashed across the feed.
A close-up then focused on his ankle, the joint swelling visibly beneath his torn pant leg. The muffled crunch of torn muscle.
The camera then zoomed out and showed Jin gritting his teeth, trying to stand, but he barely made it two limping steps before collapsing again.
Static fluttered across the screen. The clown's silhouette was there behind him.
Framed in perfect symmetry, it loomed behind him in the fog, hunched and still, like it had just emerged from his nightmares.
The camera did a slow zoom-in on Jin's eyes, wide with horror, then quickly cut to a close-up of the clown's boots as they scraped against the gravel. Another step. Then another.
The camera then switched to different angles, as Jin slowly turned his head around.
And once he had… The footage then showed the clown's gnarly smiling face, and then Jin's shocked and terrified face.
Their faces were just inches away from each other, the lens slowly pushed in, making the distance between them feel suffocating.
DING.
A system notification bloomed across the screen, transparent but cold.
[PASSIVE SKILL TRIGGERED: FAINTING – EMOTIONAL OVERLOAD DETECTED]
Jin's breathing then became ragged, and his vision blurred.
The screen pulsed in and out of focus, as though the camera was losing signal.
The camera shook slightly as Jin's head slumped forward, chin hitting the dirt.
The lens is now angled sideways, half-buried in gravel, giving a skewed view of the scene.
His fingers twitched.
And then came a whisper, that was barely audible but raw with desperation.
"...Chen... Mei…"
Time Limit: 00:00:08
Then, through the lens, movement could be seen.
Shoes.
White, dusty Mary Janes stepped into frame.
Time Limit: 00:00:05
A reverse wide shot.
The silhouette of a little girl stood in front of Jin's collapsed form, small and calm. Her shadow stretched long across the dirt like a guardian's.
The fog began to retreat around her feet.
"QIANG-GE!!" Xiao Hei's ghostly figure flickered into the corner of the screen, distorted and frantic, eyes wide.
Time Limit: 00:00:04
The clown, who had been standing eerily still, twitched.
Time Limit: 00:00:03
The clown tilted its head. Its shoulders shook, like it was laughing silently. It slowly lifted the chainsaw as it screeched back to life, the blade spinning with a mechanical scream.…
Cut to: slow motion of the dust kicked up from the ground as the chainsaw blade revved.
Then, the screen split briefly, one half showing the clown's face, the other showing the girl's.
She didn't flinch.
Instead, she knelt beside Jin's unconscious body, her fingers gently brushing over the dirty, scratched surface of the action figure clenched in his right hand.
Time Limit: 00:00:01
The girl touched it.
And the screen blasted white.
Sound cut out completely—a visual boom—as though reality itself had been punched in the stomach.
From the merry-go-round in the distance, a shockwave of ghostlight exploded outward in concentric rings.
The clown's body snapped backward, chainsaw flying from its hands. Its limbs contorted unnaturally mid-air like a ragdoll in zero gravity. Then, it flew, yanked by an unseen force, straight toward the spinning carousel.
SLAM
A final wide-angle drone shot showed the clown colliding with the central pillar of the merry-go-round. The horses reared violently as the entire structure twisted into motion—spinning, churning—sucking him in.
The clown screamed. A distorted, multi-layered shriek that warped through the speakers. But the sound reversed itself, like a tape being rewound.
He was gone.
Time Limit: 00:00:00
The footage then ended in dead silence.
Xiao Hei was vibrating with excitement. "She HEARD you! She came! You survived by the barest thread, but that's what makes it cinematic!"
Jin Qiang just stared blankly at the screen.
"Chen Mei…" he whispered again.
Xiao Hei floated closer, blinking eagerly. "Sooo~, How did you figure out her real name?"
Jin blinked… then said, "I didn't."
The two stared at each other.
Then Xiao Hei burst into hysterics. "It was a FLUKE?! HAHAHA~ then what were you thinking of?"
"I was cursing… I couldn't figure out her name trying to remember what Mimi showed me, all I could think of was that candy pill that tasted like dust and strawberry, so I thought it would be 'Cao Mei' but it wasn't so I kept repeating it in my head trying to think of a name that derived from those words but then I suddenly felt weak and I guess I mumbled 'Chen Mei'"
Xiao Hei wheezed, "Oh wow~ Qiang-ge you're really something aren't you Hahaha~"
After laughing, Xiao Hei floated in front of him, blinking eagerly. "Wanna go back and take another look? Now that the zone is stable, you can visit safely."
Jin hesitated. The fear hadn't left him, but there was something else there, too. A weight in his chest.
A pull.
The curiosity.
He looked at the flickering screen and then replied.
"…Yeah. Let's go."
After washing up and changing into a new set of clothes that he had packed, they had returned to the playground past 11 a.m.
The sky was clear and blue, a slight breeze passing through the rusted swings.
A broken sign above the gate swung in the breeze, creaking softly.
Jin stepped through the warped gate.
Ding!
[System Notification: You have entered a Haunted Zone.]
The playground looked different in the daylight.
No fog. No giggles. No ominous clown.
Just… Trash scattered around, and vines creeping into the cracked pavement.
An ordinary, forgotten ruined playground.
Jin walked ahead slowly. The air was lighter than before, but still held a ghost of something... not malevolent, just lingering.
He approached the merry-go-round. Its paint was chipped, its horses dull and lifeless.
Then, opened his bag and laid out the snacks he had packed. Juice boxes, candy, and a half-melted chocolate bar. He gently placed them on the ground near the merry-go-round. Like an offering.
He then closed his eyes, praying silently for a few seconds.
And when he opened them again, he saw a small and familiar figure, sitting quietly on a painted horse on the carousel.
His old action figure.
"…Chen Mei," Jin said under his breath.
Mengmeng then appeared, sitting quietly and holding the action figure.
She was smiling softly now, her eyes no longer just black pits, she looked exactly as she did in the memory Jin saw.
She then giggled as she vanished, leaving the action figure on the seat, and reappeared closer to him, standing before him in her simple frilly white dress. "Gege~ You came back~"
Jin smiled awkwardly as he was surprised for a second, but then warmed, as he nodded.
"Thanks for the doll!" she said.
He scratched his cheek. "Mm…Sorry… I didn't bring a pretty one."
Mengmeng shook her head. "No… I quite like it. You're different from the others…"
"…Others?" Jin asked, confused.
Mengmeng nodded. "Uhuh~ The ones before you... A lot of them failed. Some survived. My friends accepted them… and I was the last one."
Jin then noticed more dolls placed beside the action figure now. Worn, strange, a mix of handmade and store-bought ones. Some clean. Some burned. Some familiar from last night and some not.
"There were a lot I rejected…." she said. "They offered boring toys. But yours…" she giggled again, "yours was interesting, Gege~"
"Interesting?" Jin asked, unsure if he really wanted to know.
"We have things in common. That's why I liked it."
Jin Qiang then smiled softly, his eyes lowered, as if remembering a bittersweet memory. "Yeah… I guess we do."
"Yup~ hehe~" she chirped as she looked over at the snacks laid as offerings.
A brief silence took over and then Jin asked the question he's been wanting to ask since he woke up from that memory.
"Chen… Mei… Did you… show me your memory last night?"
"Yes~" Mengmeng answered back as she was happily eating a chocolate bar's essence.
"I see…." Jin said shortly, "Why… did you show me?" he continued after a beat of hesitation.
Mengmeng then stopped what she was doing and looked at him as she said, "Well… Just because…"
Jin waited for her to finish her sentence, listening to every word she spoke.
"Because… It felt like you wanted to know gege… so I did."
Jin blinked, confusion on his face. "I… What?"
"Well~ let's just say, I wanted you to know" She said as she continued to eat the chocolate bar.
Jin watched her and stayed silent, while his mind was busy with questions he wanted to ask, like was she okay? Did she have any regrets left? Or maybe a wish? And other thoughts, like, should he console her? What happen after she died? And so many more.
But he couldn't ask, he didn't want to pry any longer, afraid of making a mistake that could make the little ghost sad.
Then she spoke, "Gege… Just ask… It's okay… I'm okay now, it's already been so long. It's just a memory now." She said with a gentle smile on her face.
Jin stared at her, as his heart felt a Pang of slight ache when he heard her say that.
And all of his previous thoughts now changed.
(It's not… It's not just a memory. You say you're okay now, but it's also okay not to be, with that kind of memory. But if you really are okay, then that's good…. Even if I'm not okay, after witnessing that.)
With thought rushing through his mind, Jin looked up at the sky and stared at it for a moment, not knowing what to ask first.
Mengmeng watched him and smiled, finding it funny for a grown man to be so concerned about a ghost's feelings.
"That clown…" She started to say, as Jin was still contemplating and staring at the blue sky.
"Has killed a lot of children… and I was the last one. As you know why… After they found our bodies the next day, the playground got shut down. The clown's spirit and all the souls of the other children he killed like me, stayed here... We couldn't pass on due to lingering feelings."
Jin listened to her, but couldn't look at her. He was afraid that the tears would come pouring down once he did.
"But even though the playground was shut down, people still wandered around here, some accidentally, some not, some by curiosity and some with bad intentions… Gege… You know… I have seen so many things since I have died… Things that make you lose all hope in humanity and trust in people…. This place was abandoned, forgotten, and it became a grave."
Jin stayed quiet, unable to say a word as each word Mengmeng said got him all choked up. She spoke in a serious and calm tone, as she reminisced, telling him a story of the past.
"The killings never stopped, and death lingered here. Bad people like the clown made this place theirs, and after that, most people who wandered here for fun or curiosity fell victim to the clown, and not even their souls were spared… And when lesser people came here, the clown started to terrorize the souls of the children he killed that stayed here…. Except me, I could keep him inside the merry-go-round's center as long as I was in it too. I could go out but only for a limited time. So I decided to protect the others until everything ended."
Silence then passed between them for a while.
Both were unable to say a word, as one finished reminiscing and one listened to an unbelievably sad and horrifying story that he wasn't prepared for.
Jin Qiang slowly lowered his head and glanced at Mengmeng who was standing still before him and was also looking up at the sky with an unreadable and calm expression.
"So… are you free now?" He finally said.
Mengmeng's expression then brightened, surprised by the unexpected question.
"Yes…" She nodded, "We all are now…" she said as she looked behind her, and Jin followed.
From behind her, where Jin's old action figure sat on a painted horse ride of the carousel with a few other dolls, glowing shapes began to appear. Dozens of translucent little souls of children, smiling, laughing softly as they gathered near the merry-go-round.
Then, one by one, they disappeared. Dissolving into the air like fireflies in sunlight.
Mengmeng turned back to him, smiling.
"Thank you…" She said with a bow.
Jin found himself smiling softly at her gesture.
"Come again to play, okay, Gege~?" Mengmeng shouted as she faded.
And Jin's smile froze.
"…Play again?"
POP!
Xiao Hei reappeared behind him, laughing. "Of course! They're free now. They can choose to move on, linger… or to play! And looks like you made a new friend, Qiang-ge~! Hahaha~"
Jin's smile then turned wry.
He had the expression of someone who had seen too much and made it through anyway.
And this wasn't the end.
This was only the beginning.