Panic is a primal force, a wildfire consuming reason, leaving only the scorched earth of instinct. And my only instinct now, raw and screaming, was to run.

  The terrifying, ear-splitting hiss still echoed in the hollow spaces of my skull, a sound so unnatural, so filled with ancient malice, that it seemed to vibrate the very air around me. I didn't dare look back. I scrambled, half-crawling, half-running, away from the cursed depression, away from the milky, churning pool, away from the monstrous, impossible snakeskin hanging like a grotesque banner of death upon the rock.

  My lungs burned with the effort, each ragged gasp drawing in the cold, damp, fog-laden air that still carried the lingering, nauseating stench of something ancient and reptilian. Thorns tore at my clothes and skin, unseen roots snagged at my ankles, sending me stumbling, sprawling onto the slick, muddy ground more than once. Each fall sent a jolt of fresh terror through me – is it coming? Is it behind me? – but the primal need to escape propelled me back to my feet, adrenaline masking the pain, leaving only the frantic drumbeat of my heart against my ribs.

  The dense vegetation clawed at me, branches whipping my face, wet leaves slapping against my skin like cold, dead hands. The fog swirled, thick and disorienting, transforming familiar shapes into monstrous silhouettes. Was that twisted tree always there? Did that crumbling wall lean at such a menacing angle before? The world warped and shifted around me, amplifying the terror, making me question if I was running in circles, trapped in another, more visceral version of the Ghost Wall phenomenon.

  The horrifying drag mark – I stumbled across it again in my blind flight, nearly pitching headfirst into its smooth, deep groove. The sight of it, confirmation of the colossal thing that had passed this way, sent a fresh wave of icy dread washing over me. I veered wildly, scrambling sideways through thick undergrowth, heedless of the scratches and the mud, just needing to put distance between myself and that terrifying sign.

  My mind raced, a chaotic jumble of images and sounds: the leathery, milky snakeskin, impossibly vast; the churning, opaque water; the deafening, furious hiss; the old man's hollow-eyed warning, "No one… can… live…!!". He knew. He knew what lurked by the water source. And I, driven by a reporter's foolish curiosity and the desperate need for water, had ignored him. I had disturbed it.

  It knows I'm here now. The thought was a physical blow, stealing the breath from my already aching lungs. It saw me. It smelled me. It hissed at me.

  How long did I run? Minutes? An eternity? Time lost all meaning in the fog-shrouded, fear-drenched landscape. My legs burned, my vision swam with exhaustion and unshed tears, my body screamed for rest. But the echo of that hiss, the mental image of that colossal skin, pushed me onward, far beyond the limits of my endurance.

  Finally, through the swirling grey, a familiar, dilapidated shape began to emerge – the broken silhouette of the house where Xiao Zhang and Meiling had taken refuge. Hope, fragile and desperate, flickered within me. Company. Shared terror was still better than facing this alone.

  I stumbled towards the crooked wooden door, my breath coming in ragged, painful sobs. My hands, scraped raw and caked with mud, fumbled with the makeshift barricade they must have put back in place.

  "Xiao Zhang! Meiling! Let me in! Please!" My voice was a hoarse croak, barely recognizable as human.

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  Silence answered me. A heavy, suffocating silence that felt different from the earlier quiet, weighted now with a palpable despair.

  "Please! Open the door! Something… something happened!" I pounded weakly on the warped wood, my knuckles hitting rotten timber.

  After what felt like an age, I heard a faint shuffling sound from within. The barricade scraped against the floor, and the door creaked open a few inches. Xiao Zhang's face appeared in the gap, and the sight of him nearly made me recoil.

  If he looked terrible yesterday, he looked like something unearthed from a grave today. His face was utterly devoid of color, a waxy, yellowish-grey. His eyes, though open, were completely vacant, staring through me as if I wasn't there. A thin line of drool trickled unheeded from the corner of his slack mouth. The manic energy, the fearful anger from yesterday – all gone, replaced by a terrifying emptiness. He looked… broken. Utterly and irrevocably broken.

  He didn't seem to fully register my presence or my state. He simply stood there, a hollow shell, blocking the doorway.

  "Xiao Zhang… let me in…" I pleaded, leaning heavily against the doorframe, my legs threatening to buckle.

  He blinked slowly, recognition dawning faintly in the depths of his vacant eyes, but it was mixed with a profound apathy. He shuffled aside, allowing me to stumble into the dim, foul-smelling room.

  The stench hit me first – stale sweat, unwashed bodies, the lingering odor of fear, and something else… something cloyingly sweet and rotten, perhaps spilled food or drink left to fester. The air was thick and heavy, difficult to breathe.

  Meiling was still huddled on the bed in the corner, wrapped tightly in the blanket, facing the wall. She hadn't moved. She didn't react to my entrance, didn't even flinch at my ragged breathing and mud-streaked appearance. It was as if she had retreated so far into herself that the outside world no longer existed.

  The fragile hope that had propelled me back here shattered into a million pieces. There was no comfort here. No shared terror to lessen the burden. Only two souls already lost to the encroaching madness, mirroring my own potential fate. My isolation felt more profound now, in their presence, than it had when I was truly alone facing the horror by the spring.

  I sank to the floor, my back against the rough wall, pulling my knees to my chest, trying to control the violent trembling that wracked my body. The image of the snakeskin was seared onto the inside of my eyelids. The sound of the hiss echoed relentlessly in my ears.

  "I saw it…" I whispered, the words torn from my raw throat, directed at no one in particular, perhaps just needing to voice the impossible truth. "The snake… the snakeskin… it's real… It's huge…"

  Xiao Zhang remained by the door, staring blankly into the fog outside. He didn't react.

  Meiling let out a low, soft whimper from under the blanket, the only sign she might have heard.

  The silence stretched, thick and suffocating, broken only by my ragged gasps and Meiling's quiet whimpers. The weight of my discovery, the confirmation of the legend, pressed down on me with crushing force. The White Snake Granny was real. A creature of impossible size and ancient power lurked near the water source. And I had provoked it.

  I fumbled for my camera, needing the tangible proof, needing to see the images I had captured in my panic. My hands shook so badly I could barely operate the buttons. Finally, the small screen flickered to life. I scrolled through the photos.

  There it was. Blurred from my trembling hands, partially obscured by the fog, but undeniably there. The colossal, milky-white snakeskin draped over the dark rock. The sheer scale of it, even in the small, pixelated image, was breathtakingly terrifying. It wasn't a dream. It wasn't a hallucination. It was real.

  A cold certainty settled in my gut, heavier and more terrifying than any fear I had felt before. We were not just trapped in a cursed village. We were trapped in the lair of a monster, a creature out of nightmare and ancient legend.

  And it knew we were here.

  The door, though closed and barricaded, suddenly felt utterly useless. The thin walls of the dilapidated house offered no protection. There was nowhere to run, nowhere to hide.

  The echoes of the hiss seemed to slither through the very air of the room, a promise of the horror yet to come. The Curse of the White Snake wasn't just a legend anymore. It was our reality. And escape seemed less likely than ever.