People are scared in America, my uncle is Dante

Chapter 124 Nicole's Research Diary

During the day, sunlight shines on the streets of the town.

Suren and Black Sheriff Boyd walked back to town side by side.

On a road in the small town, a bus was leaning against the side of the road with its door open.

Blood splattered all over the car and the ground around it.

The town's residents gathered in twos and threes, their expressions numb, as they cleaned up the corpses.

"Boyd? You're back?!"

A Chinese man with a gun tucked into his waistband strode forward.

This man is Kenny, the town's deputy sheriff.

He looked at the disheveled Boyd, then warily eyed Suren who was following behind him.

"Didn't you take Sarah to the forest to find a way out? Where is she?"

Boyd stared at the battered bus for a long time in silence.

"We were attacked by spiders in the forest, and then we got separated after we went through a tree hole."

"A tree hole?! What does that mean?"

"Kenny asked."

"After I crawled into that tree hole, I was teleported to another place. I think Sarah was teleported to somewhere in the same way."

Boyd explained.

Kenny looked at the other person with some suspicion.

After Sarah killed several residents, Boyd went on to protect her.

The young deputy sheriff had already lost faith in Boyd.

Kenny looked at Suren behind Boyd, noticing his similar face, and asked.

"This is?"

Boyd introduced, "This is Suren, he's here to see Nicole."

"Nicole?"

Upon hearing the name, Kenny put his hands on his hips: "You mean that woman who drives around in that beat-up van all day?"

He pointed to a dirt road at the other end of the town.

"Her beat-up car is parked on the edge of town and hasn't moved for days."

Black Sheriff Boyd patted Suren on the shoulder: "You go ahead and take a look. I want to go back and see my son."

Suren nodded and walked in the direction Kenny pointed.

He hadn't gone far when a slightly plump middle-aged woman in a floral dress suddenly jumped out and blocked his way.

"Hello, new face. I'm Donna."

The woman gave a numb smile. "I am the manager of the communal housing."

Donna pointed to a building on one side and continued.

"Here, there are many single people or people who have lost their families. We gather together to eat and do laundry."

"After you've dealt with your friend's matter, remember to register at the police station and choose your place to stay while you're at it."

Everyone who comes to the town has to make a choice: whether to live in a group or to live alone.

Suren glanced at her calmly and nodded slightly.

Arriving at the edge of the other side of town, Suren spotted the bread truck parked by the woods in the distance.

He opened the car door and got in.

This was his first time entering Nicole's bread cart.

The front of the van still has the normal driver's seat, but the rear seats have been removed and replaced with a small worktable.

It was covered with all sorts of wires and parts, as well as a laptop computer that was in sleep mode.

The computer was not turned off, and there were two or three PDF files on the desktop.

He opened a file named "Small Town Residents".

Inside are Nicole's investigations and private interviews with each resident.

Scroll to the bottom, and you'll find Nicole's analysis.

She said that everyone who stumbled into this town had suffered deep and unhealed trauma before arriving.

For example, Sheriff Boyd and his wife were both former soldiers who suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder after their discharge.

Deputy Sheriff Kenny felt guilty because his father, who suffers from Alzheimer's, had gone missing.

Even the town's priest indirectly caused the boy to be beaten to death by his father because he refused the boy's request.

"To bring a group of people like this together —"

Suren's fingers slid lightly across the computer's touchpad, lost in thought.

This familiar formula... if Alessa hadn't been inside him...

He seriously doubted whether this was a branch of Silent Hill.

Suren opened another file named "Town".

What came into view were various cut power lines and streetlights.

Nicole discovered that the wires behind these sockets only had a single layer of insulation, with no internal battery cells; the circuits seemed to have appeared out of thin air.

Based on this, she deduced that the town was likely a virtual world, or a closed experimental field set up by some powerful being for some purpose.

The next page of the diary mentions the distant tree.

This is also the tree that the black sheriff described earlier, where people were teleported after passing through it.

Judging from the picture, the tree trunk is split open vertically, resembling an eye that is opened vertically.

Nicole made several attempts to enter the tree hole to test it, including using stones and mechanical objects.

She discovered that anything without intelligence that went in would simply fall from the sky.

Left with no other option, she had to take the risk. After numerous attempts, Nicole finally reached a conclusion—

The seemingly random teleportation of these distant trees is actually influenced by the human subconscious.

If, when you enter the tree hollow, your mind is filled with fear of the town and a desire to escape.

The tree hole often teleports you to dangerous places.

For example, the inside of a stone.

Therefore, Nicole specifically used bold font in her diary to issue a serious warning:

[When teleporting, be sure to clear your mind and try not to think about leaving the town.]

Suren looked at the warning and was surprised that Nicole had figured out the hidden rules of this thing.

Continue scrolling down.

There is also a record about a tree in the distance.

It was a tree with branches covered in glass bottles.

Through Nicole's experiment, this tree will transport people to a new place called the Lighthouse.

Nicole speculates that the lighthouse might be the key to solving the mystery, or even leaving this place.

But the entries in the log did not go smoothly:

[When I reached the base of the lighthouse, the previously calm sky was suddenly filled with lightning and thunder.]

Amidst the raging winds and torrential rain, all sorts of never-before-seen monsters surged forth like a tidal wave.

They attacked me frantically, as if desperately trying to stop something.

Although I eventually reached the top of the lighthouse, unfortunately, it was completely empty.

Below the lighthouse entry, there is a brief note about a little boy—

During my exploration, I occasionally saw a little boy wearing a white shirt.

He seemed to be trying to direct me to do something, but I ignored him.

The last file was unnamed, and its editing time was stuck a week ago.

This part of the content made Suren's expression turn serious.

Nicole wrote: "These monsters appear in town precisely every night; they are slow-moving and only ever appear at night."

At first, I thought they were just enjoying the hunt.

But later, I discovered that something was wrong with them.

They don't seem to be fanatical about hunting itself, but rather seem to enjoy the fear that humans exude when they face them.

[Are they collecting this kind of emotion?]

Furthermore, their leisurely wandering posture reminded me of humans driving cattle and sheep back to their enclosures with whips at dusk.

Suren frowned.

From this perspective, these monsters are not hunting, but rather seem to be—

They've essentially kept the town's residents captive!

Those so-called rune stones, rather than actually stopping them, now seem more like a lock without a keyhole, locking humans inside the house.

No wonder he didn't feel anything from the rune stone; it was just like an ordinary stone.

Does this mean that something even more terrifying is lurking outside at night?

Or are there other unknown clues?

He continued scrolling down, only to find that the record had reached the bottom.

Finally, Nicole's words echoed Suren's thoughts: "Today, I will try to enter that distant tree with the bottle hanging from it at night."

After reading all the records, Suren leaned back in her chair and rubbed her temples.

"Truly a genius."

He couldn't help but sigh.

The things behind this town are so complex and intertwined that they could drive any newcomer to a mental breakdown.

Even he, as the sole person in question, only had a vague understanding of what was behind it all.

But I didn't expect Nicole to have almost figured it out completely.

Suren felt that if she had arrived a few days later, she might have been able to solo this eerie town.

"Since she has now left these things behind—"

Suren closed his laptop; all he had to do now was wait for nightfall.

Then, based on the map Nicole left behind, find the distant tree with the bottle hanging on it, and go inside to see what she discovered.

"Knock knock knock".

Suddenly, there was a knock on the car window.

Suren snapped out of her daze.

Black Sheriff Boyd stood outside the car, looking at him with a serious expression.