The kitchen wasn't large. The most prominent feature was the cabinet, which held all manner of delicious-looking food — except everything was wrapped in cling film, and a significant portion had already gone bad.
"Why store food in a cabinet when there's a fridge?"
There was no time to dwell on such questions. The drunkard rushed to the gas stove and stared at the exhaust fan mounted on the wall.
"This exit…"
Whether it was a deliberate design choice or simply the family's peculiar habits, the exhaust fan installed in the kitchen was larger than a standard one — the vent opening was just big enough for a child to crawl in and out of.
"There's no window in the kitchen, so they installed an oversized exhaust fan?" The drunkard climbed onto a chair and wrenched the fan off with brute force. He stared at the vent opening, his expression shifting between hope and dread.
The exit was far too small for an adult. If he got stuck halfway, the consequences would be unthinkable.
"What do I do?" While he was wrestling with the problem, his eyes fell on the bone-chopping cleaver resting on the cutting board — bone fragments and streaks of blood still clung to the blade.
He looked up at the vent, then down at the cleaver. A bizarre thought crept into his mind: as if this entire scene had been arranged by someone.
The vent was narrow for an adult, but if he broke his collarbone and crushed his hip bone, he might just be able to squeeze through.
He reached out and grabbed the cleaver. The handle was sticky — a sensation that made his stomach churn.
As if to press him further, just as he hesitated, the sound of a door opening echoed down the hallway, as though someone was going from room to room.
"Even if I escape through this vent, I have no idea what horror waits outside. Butchering myself would be the stupidest thing I could do." The drunkard gripped the cleaver with one hand, bit down hard on his lip, and thought of another way.
"Fake an escape through the duct, then hide somewhere. When the owner comes to check, slip out." He looked around the kitchen, then walked over to the refrigerator.
The kitchen was modest in size, but it housed an enormous double-door refrigerator.
He opened the top compartment. It was stuffed with all sorts of deodorizers and air fresheners — some unopened, others clearly used.
"That's way too many…" He had never seen anyone use a fridge to store deodorizers before.
He crouched and opened the bottom compartment. Inside were several black plastic bags.
"Please don't tell me these are bodies…" The drunkard was out of options — the fridge was the only place in the kitchen that could hide a person.
He pulled the black bags out and stuffed them into the top compartment. During the transfer, one of the bags snagged and tore open. A dog's head tumbled out.
"Dog meat in here?" To avoid leaving evidence behind, he picked the head up off the floor. But just as he was shoving it into the upper compartment, he caught a glimpse of the dog's face.
Its eyes were full of fear. The more he looked, the more the dog's face resembled a human's — he couldn't explain why, but it didn't feel like a dog's head at all. It felt like a frozen human face.
"This is seriously messed up!" He refused to look at the dog head any longer and crammed every last black bag into the top compartment.
*Bang!*
The moment he was done, the kitchen's doorknob was twisted from the other side. After several failed attempts to open it, the force increased.
The door shuddered on its hinges, and the table behind it rattled in sympathy.
"They've found me!" He shoved the chair directly beneath the vent opening, then climbed into the bottom compartment of the fridge with the cleaver in hand and pulled the door shut.
The wooden kitchen door was slammed into several more times but still didn't open. The thing outside seemed to give up.
The footsteps gradually receded, and the entire room fell silent in an instant.