I didn't seem to have slept for long before I was woken up by a rustling noise.

I reached for my phone by the bed and took a look. It was 3 AM.

The tarantula is a nocturnal animal. I thought it might be Rou Rou coming out for activity, so I turned over and continued sleeping.

Suddenly, I realized that Rou Rou had already been killed by my mother this morning, hadn't it?

Instantly, my hands and feet grew cold, and my hair stood on end.

I continued to carefully discern the source of the noise. It seemed to be coming from the next room.

That was my mother's room!

Could it be a thief?

But my family isn't wealthy, and even if it were a thief, they wouldn't dare to stay in a room with a corpse in the middle of the night.

It was then that I belatedly remembered that my mother had suffered from sleepwalking for years, so we installed surveillance cameras at home!

I trembled as I opened my phone and clicked on the real-time monitor for my mother’s room.

In the video, my mother's corpse was lying peacefully on the bed, with no abnormalities.

But I felt something was off.

I zoomed in on the picture and carefully inspected it.

I finally discovered that it wasn't my mother's corpse on the bed; it was a skin filled with cotton!

Shaking, I covered my mouth, gritting my teeth to prevent myself from screaming.

What kind of monster had sneaked into my house in the middle of the night and skinned my mother?

Could it be some deranged killer?

He might still be in the house. Where could he be now? Bedroom, living room, kitchen?

Or maybe, right now, he's in my room?

Closet, or under the bed?

Fear swallowed me, nearly suffocating me.

I pinched my thigh hard, the pain bringing me back a bit of my senses.

I tried to remember if I was woken up by the noise from my mother’s room, which meant he was still in my mother’s bedroom when I woke up.

And after waking up, I didn't hear the door open, which meant he was still in my mother’s room!

With this deduction, I calmed myself a bit and started looking for places in the monitor where the person could hide.

Under my mother's bed was sealed, and the wardrobe was open-plan, leaving almost no place to hide.

Suddenly, I noticed a few vague fine threads floating in the monitor, like hair.

Because the threads were too close to the lens and out of focus, I didn't notice them at first.

"Plop".

The sound of liquid dripping onto the floor was exceptionally clear in the silent night.

In the monitor, I also saw clearly a drop of deep red liquid rapidly falling down.

Then, a dark shadow slowly appeared in the monitor, like an inverted sunrise.

I nearly bit through my own thumb to stop myself from screaming.

With my eyes wide open, I watched as a skinned face slowly occupied the entire monitor screen.

It was my mother.

She, or it, had two eyeballs rapidly rolling around with no rhythm, and her lipless mouth reached exaggeratedly to her ears.

In my mind, I pictured this monster, like a lizard, clinging to the ceiling and peering upside down at the camera.

Just as I was feeling utterly hopeless, the fast-spinning eyeballs suddenly stopped and stared fixedly at me through the screen.

"Hee hee hee hee hee hee hee hee hee hee hee hee".

A creepy laugh simultaneously echoed through my phone and from my mother's room.

“Rong Rong, I’ve come to find you.”

As soon as she finished speaking, my mother immediately climbed along the wall like a lizard towards the window.

The balconies of my room and my mother's room were connected. She intended to come in from the balcony!

I sprang from my bed and dashed to the window to close it.

But I was a step too late; my mother was too fast. I only managed to close most of her body out. One of her arms reached through the window gap, grabbing my arm tightly. The other arm clung to the window, engaging in a tug-of-war with me.

"Hee hee hee hee hee hee hee hee hee hee".

My mother's piercing laughter grew louder.

“Rong Rong, be a good girl, let mommy in.”

“No, I don’t want to! You get out! Monster!”

I cried out in despair.

My mother's arm was as flexible as boneless but incredibly strong. Her fingernails were black and long, almost embedding into my flesh. Her neck turned nearly 180 degrees, with her mouth above and eyes below staring at me.

“Rong Rong, my dear, my sweet child…”

My mother screamed, her skinless face revealing dark pink muscles that wriggled and shifted with her screams.

In a daze, I saw her face changing rapidly between mine, my brother’s, and my mother's.

Maybe because her palm was drenched in slippery blood,

with all my strength, I finally pulled my arm free and dashed out the door in a blind escape!