The sky was not yet bright.

While Mom was still in the kitchen, I went into the bedroom to feed my brother's pet.

My brother was a passionate enthusiast of crawling pets. He kept a palm-sized tarantula named Meatball in his bedroom.

True to its name, Meatball had a swollen abdomen, its eight legs plump and fleshly like a hamster, surprisingly intelligent for a bug, begging for food and interacting with people by crawling onto their palms.

After my brother's death, I often treated Meatball as my brother and talked to it.

After feeding Meatball with mealworms, as I was about to leave, I suddenly noticed something behind the terrarium.

All of my brother's possessions should have been accounted for. What else did he have that we hadn't discovered?

I moved the terrarium and found a diary.

My brother's diary!

I flipped open the black cover and from the dates, it started a week before his death.

"The intervals of my lucidity are getting longer, which is not a good sign. While I'm awake now, I must write down what I remember."

I furrowed my brow and continued reading.

"It's 3 AM now, about four hours since I was last awake. I don't know what I did during those four hours."

"My stomach feels awful right now, and my mouth is full of a bloody taste. Judging from what's in the trash can, I might have eaten a piece of raw pork."

"There was indeed a piece of meat missing from the fridge before. Mom even asked if we had eaten it."

"I can hear its voice now, though it's only one sentence, 'Go to sleep quickly.' I must hold on. I can't let it have my body."

"It's been 12 hours since I last woke up. My sister told me the neighbor's dog is missing. I suspect that dog might be inside me. There's a taste of dog in my mouth, I feel like throwing up."

"It spoke again, always repeating that it wants to kill me. I won't be defeated."

"It's getting stronger. It's definitely going to kill me! I don't want to die, save me! Save me, save me, save me!"

"Sister, run away!!!"

The last sentence was written very hastily, as if my brother was losing consciousness. The three exclamation marks almost tore through the paper.

From the diary, it seemed likely that my brother suffered from severe schizophrenia before his death.

And his alter ego was aggressive, always trying to take over his body, with a penchant for eating raw meat.

I hadn't noticed any of this before.

I suddenly thought of how my brother died.

The way he died, it's like his body was trying to escape from his head...

No, it's impossible.

After being beheaded, a person would only have simple muscle reflexes, absolutely incapable of complex movements like crawling.

I shook my head to clear these messy thoughts and planned to go check on Mom in the kitchen.

As I turned around, I was startled by a greatly enlarged face!

Somehow, Mom had silently appeared behind me, hunching over, extending her neck, her face right next to mine, eyeballs rolling in their sockets.

Her eyes were unnaturally wide, mouth gaping, almost showing all of her teeth in a smile.

Unconsciously, I took a step back, feeling my scalp crawl.

Then Mom straightened up to her normal posture.

"Rong Rong, it's time to eat."

Her voice still cold.

I followed her out of the bedroom and into the dining room.

There were two bowls on the table, filled with chopped raw chicken.

The stench was like a slaughterhouse, nearly making me gag.

But Mom didn't seem to think there was anything wrong. She picked up a piece of raw chicken with feathers, put it in her mouth, and chewed. I heard the crunch of bone breaking.

"Mm, delicious," she praised, yet her face showed no expression.

After swallowing the raw chicken, she looked at me straight in the eyes. "Rong Rong, why aren't you eating?"

"Eat quickly. Mom worked hard to make this for you."

"It's delicious. Hurry up and eat."

"Good child."

I stared at the bowl of minced meat and felt extremely nauseous.

This wasn't the first time. After my brother's death, Mom changed completely. Every day, the dishes she brought to the table were minced raw meat.

The doctor said it was due to a severe emotional shock and advised me to go along with her.

So these days, I always pretended to study, took the food into my room, and fed it to Meatball.

I thought of how my brother's alter ego also loved eating raw meat. Could this be a hereditary disease in our family?

"Mom, I still have an online class. I'll take it into my room to eat."

With that, I picked up the bowl and went into my bedroom.

Even as I closed the door, Mom's gaze remained fixed on me.

The atmosphere at home was too oppressive.

I reached the table, opened the terrarium, and reached inside.

Meatball sniffed my scent and crawled out from the sand, rubbing against my fingers, rolling over to please me.

I threw a piece of minced meat into the terrarium, and Meatball immediately began to gobble it up. Soon, two-thirds of the bowl was gone.

Meatball's body became rounder, its dark head stained with crimson chicken blood.

I checked the clock.

Six o'clock.

The day should be brightening.

My room's window faced the balcony. Meatball disliked light, so during the day I kept the curtains drawn, keeping the room dim.

I was about to go open the curtains to see how bright it was outside when I noticed a figure outlined behind them.

Was it Mom?

When did she start standing outside the window?

I pulled back the curtains. Mom was soaked through, wearing the down jacket, her hair loose, resembling a water ghost.

Her eyes stared at me intensely, pupils twice their usual size, with only a bit of white left, tinged with a bloodshot color.

"Rong Rong, why aren't you eating?"

I was startled by her appearance and forgot about the doctor's advice. I shouted,

"Whether I eat or not is none of your business! You're scaring me like a crazy person, do you know that?"

Mom's mouth mechanically opened and closed, "You must eat. You have to eat."

With that, she opened the window and clumsily climbed in, like a puppet being manipulated by an unskilled puppeteer.

She came down from the window and then stared at Meatball, asking, "Is it because of this that you're not eating?"

"My business is not for you to manage!" I retorted.

Mom reached out and grabbed Meatball, smashing it against the wall.

Meatball's round body flew like a hit tennis ball, creating a radiating green blood flower on the wall.

Mom kept muttering, "You must eat, not eating isn't an option."

She picked up half a bowl of minced meat and grabbed my neck, intending to force-feed me.

I then noticed how incredibly cold her hands were. Even though it was the hottest time of the year, and she was wearing a down jacket, her hands felt like slippery, icy eels.

"Ah!" I screamed, pushing her away and running out of the house.