I Revived My Maid, Now She Hungers for My Blood
Chapter 297: “I”

I shook my head almost instantly.

He called me a coward—a gutless boy too scared to face fear. “Damn, you’re no man at all!”

I didn’t argue. I just lowered my head and kept organizing my books.

He scoffed, slung his bag over his shoulder, and left. A few classmates who’d overheard the exchange shot me looks—some curious, others tinged with the same mockery.

I ignored them. Because I knew the truth: those absurd, outlandish horrors described in urban legends…

They were real. Just like this man-eating ghost tale.

But no one else knew. No—that’s not quite right. No one else remembered.

No one remembered that the class roster had changed three times this semester.

First time, shortly after the semester started, three people vanished. Second time, last month, one more gone. Third time, just last week, two more.

When the teacher called roll, they’d skip those names. The names weren’t even in the register anymore—as if those seats had never been occupied. Their textbooks, their homework, they’d all disappear from the classroom. Their desks were seamlessly taken by newly transferred students. Their parents never seemed to realize they’d ever existed.

No one asked questions. It was as if someone had taken an eraser and gently rubbed out every trace of their existence from the world, leaving only smooth, blank paper.

And I was one of only two survivors from that first disappearance. The other was Clara.

We were the lucky ones.

That day, due to some coincidence, we’d been at the very back of the group. We saw… those things.

But Clara doesn’t remember. Or rather, she only thinks of it as a nightmare that felt all too real—one that faded into blurred fragments the moment she woke.

Except for me.

I remember every detail. The viscous darkness, writhing like something alive. The hair-raising, stomach-churning sound of chewing bone. The three classmates, their faces frozen in ultimate terror just before the darkness swallowed them whole. We hid our trembling silhouettes inside the rusted metal cabinets of the old campus.

I know those “legends” are real.

That was the fourth time someone’s invited me. The ones invited the second and third time… they’ve all disappeared. No survivors from either of those.

So, in a sense, I’m lucky. But also unlucky.

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I feel a deep, aching regret for the fates of those vanished classmates. And alongside it, something more complicated—an emotion I’m a little ashamed to admit even to myself.

I know the truth, but there’s nothing I can do.

I tried, after the first time. I brought it up carefully with my parents. At first they looked confused, then worried, and finally they sternly warned me to stop spouting nonsense. They said if I kept talking like that, they’d seriously consider taking me to a doctor—or worse.

I felt helpless. And lost, right down to the marrow of my bones.

Just as I was sinking into that sorrow, a gentle voice sounded beside me.

“Are you okay?”

I looked up. Clara. She’s the most beautiful girl in our class. The girl I like.

Her golden hair caught the sunset’s glow with a warm luster, and her blue eyes were clear as autumn lake water.

She doesn’t remember that day. Just thinks it was a dream. But her attitude towards me seems slightly better than towards other boys. Maybe because, in that “dream,” we’d faced fear together?

“I’m fine.” I fought to keep my voice steady.

She blinked, a playful smile gracing her face. “So… are you free tonight? I heard a few great dessert shops opened up on Firefly Lane, three blocks over. The crepes and hot chocolate there are supposed to be amazing! Want to go together?”

Firefly Lane. I knew it. That street used to have a lot of food stalls. Very lively. But I hadn’t been there in a long time. The reasons were complicated.

I looked into her eyes, so full of anticipation—and a hint of nervousness she couldn’t quite hide. I couldn’t bring myself to refuse.

“Sure.” I heard my own voice answer.

Her eyes lit up instantly, like stars had fallen into them.

……

The sunset was a hazy yellow, the sky dyed a warm orange-violet, the edges of clouds gilded with gold.

Clara and I walked side by side toward Firefly Lane.

The closer we got, the more complex the smells in the air became. The charred aroma of roasting meat, the cloying sweetness of syrup, and the grease-slick scent of fried food—a uniquely appetite-stirring note.

Clara was all excitement the whole way. She tugged gently at my sleeve, pointing toward the lights flickering on ahead. “Look! Right there!”

In her eyes, this was probably the perfect romantic backdrop for a youthful summer evening. The sky a warm canvas of orange and violet. The old-fashioned electric streetlamps—built to mimic gaslights—flickering on one after another along both sides of the street, casting halos of soft amber glow.

The air thick with the tempting aromas of various foods. The laughter of crowds, the enthusiastic shouts of stall owners, weaving together into a vibrant, living tapestry.

She pulled at my hand, eyes sparkling like a kid who’d discovered buried treasure.

But in my eyes, it was nothing like what I remembered. Nothing like what Clara saw.

The light those streetlamps gave off wasn’t warm. It was viscous. Dark red. Like blood about to congeal, slowly “dripping” from the edges of the lamp housings, creeping down the lampposts, splashing on the ground—then vanishing into nothing, unnervingly.

The people’s laughter and chatter rang hollow and distorted in my ears. Like they were being played from an old scratched gramophone record, an ominous monotonous syllable repeating over and over. “Ha ha… ha ha… ha…”

Beneath the heavy food aromas, I could clearly smell the unsettling undertones they were meant to mask. The scent of musty old book pages piled for decades in a basement. Mixed with rust. And… something sweetly rotten. Indescribable.

My stomach began to churn.

……

“Wow! Those hot dogs look amazing!”

Clara pointed excitedly at a stall. A perfectly ordinary hot dog cart. The vendor was a middle-aged man in a white chef’s hat and a greasy apron, briskly flipping sausages on the griddle with a pair of tongs.

In Clara’s eyes, those were probably beautifully charred, sizzling, mouth-watering delights.

In my eyes…

What lay on that griddle weren’t sausages. They were segments of pink, soft-bodied creatures, squirming slightly, their surfaces covered in fine, blood-vessel-like veins. They curled and coiled, seeping translucent slime, sizzling under the heat of the griddle—but that sound was closer to a kind of pained, hissing shriek.