Chapter 1556 Under the Sea

Li Huoyue opened her eyes and saw the high roof. The room was pitch black, with the blue sea light shining through the floor-to-ceiling windows making everything feel hazy and quiet.

There was a low whine outside the soundproof glass, which was the sound of the wind howling.

I couldn't tell whether it was sea water or rain washing the floor-to-ceiling windows. The sea outside the house was surging continuously. The wind was blowing and the closed parasols on the balcony were shaking. The lounge chair was soaked. Rain kept hitting the wooden armrests and was blown by the strong wind. It was pulled and flew into the sea and disappeared.

Li Huoyue sat up from the bed. Her whole body was soaked with sweat. The sweat stuck the thin silk pajamas to her skin, giving it a water-soluble texture. Along with the sweat, strong exhaustion flowed from her skin.

She was resting normally, but when she opened her eyes, she could feel intense sleepiness and fatigue. This was her normal condition.

Sleeping time, which was originally the only way to let go of everything and forget all the worries, has now become torture.

Li Huoyue sat on the bed for a long time, holding her forehead slightly with her left hand and lowering her head in silence.

It's the same nightmare again.

Li Huoyue got up from the bed with unbearable fatigue on her face. She tore off the soaked sheets, crumpled them into a ball and threw them in the corner of the room. She got out of bed and walked to the floor-to-ceiling window, looking at the violent storm outside. , her own face reflected in the glass.

No matter how you get used to it, no matter how many times you repeat it, a nightmare is still a nightmare and you can never get used to it.

Everyone said that after a great revenge is avenged, there will be infinite emptiness and loss of purpose, but until now, the unspeakable nightmare has been haunting her, but it has given her an illusion that everything is not over yet.

The burden that is entangled in her body still tortures her all the time. This torture does make her resist and suffer from the heart, but it is ridiculous. It is this kind of nightmare and the torture that makes her now have A sense of reality, a trace of mocking satisfaction.

The will of the Holy Will.

Li Huoyue never mentioned its existence to anyone, and even she herself was not sure whether the Holy Will that appeared in the nightmare after the Holy Will had been stripped from her chest was real or a fantasy that she tortured herself.

Because as time passed while she was awake, her memory of her dreams became increasingly faint, like traces on the beach diluted by the tide.

here we go again.

It was like this every time. Those memories gradually became blurred. She could only remember the bloody faces that flashed before her eyes, those wailings and cries, they surrounded her and whispered to her. Past mistakes.

Li Huoyue held her right hand on the floor-to-ceiling window to help herself stand more steadily. Her palm overlapped with her reflection in the glass. She frowned and closed her eyes to try to remember, trying to find some impressive parts from the fading memory.

In the dream, she seemed to be resisting, seeming to be fighting her way out of the siege. She was faced with many obstacles in the mountains of corpses and seas of blood. There seemed to be a voice that was teasing her and persuading her to give up, until finally she seemed to be overwhelmed by the souls of the dead and sank completely. , just like the ending of every nightmare.

But no matter how you try to recall it, the part of your brain that controls dream memories seems to be rapidly degaussing. Those fragments are constantly falling apart, and you can't remember the important parts.

She opened her eyes and found a moist feeling on her cheeks. She raised her hand to scrape it and stared blankly at the wet marks on her hands.

Medically speaking, there are many reasons for the inability to remember dreams, including overwork, mental stress and neurasthenia. However, the more convincing reason is that the stimulation intensity is too low. The brain's memory events need to be stored in the nerves. During the activity, if the stimulation level is too low, the nerves will not produce obvious activity, and the memory will not function normally.

So every time after Li Hueyue woke up, she always had only a rough and vague memory of the nightmare, only a vague sense of sadness, pain and escape.

And that kind of negative emotion will become more and more intense as the consciousness wakes up, until it destroys the bottom line of will and spirit.

She forcefully opened the floor-to-ceiling windows and walked onto the stormy balcony. The strong wind and heavy rain hit her body, temporarily suppressing the heat and negative emotions that made her almost crazy.

The black ocean was everywhere as far as the eye could see, and the strong wind was blowing the sea surface endlessly. Only those manic natural roars could suppress the nausea and discomfort caused by the nightmare. Those bloody figures kept appearing in front of her eyes, which made her a little anxious, her heartbeat was too fast, her heartbeat was irregular, and she even had breathing disorders and the pain of moaning involuntarily in her throat.

It is an uncontrollable feeling of heart palpitations, unbearable trembling all over the body, disorder of the body's neuroendocrine system and imbalance of neurotransmitters, and uncontrollable panic. Even if reason keeps reminding myself, I am safe now. , nothing bad will happen, but the feeling of doomsday is spreading over me like a tide.

She knelt and sat on the edge of the balcony facing the roaring sea. She only thought that this was the sequelae of nightmares, which she had experienced countless times.

But she didn't know that this near-death experience has an official medical name, called "panic attack."

In other words, no one discovered, no one knew, not even Li Hueyue herself, that she had actually been suffering from a very serious acute anxiety disorder for a long time, which was a clear and intense fear countless times. This attack generally lasts for 5 to 20 minutes and is relatively short. After remission, the patient will feel that everything is normal, but it may suddenly relapse soon after.

It was a very bad feeling, as if someone had strangled her throat with their hands, making it difficult to breathe. She couldn't help but want to hold onto something with both hands. To the extreme, when she couldn't bear it, she would even beat her with all her strength. Walls, using pain to stifle that panic. So self-harm, even suicidal behavior, can be a consequence of a panic attack. (I have only experienced it once. I don’t know the cause. It was also after waking up from sleep. The feeling was sour and refreshing.)

Li Huoyue lay on the wet balcony, feeling the sting of the rain scraping her cheek like a steel knife. She let out an unbearable howl and punched the wooden balcony. The dragon scales spread across her arms in an instant. And the bright red mist diffused from the corner of the mouth, which directly collapsed the structure of the entire balcony, and the whole person fell into the rough sea along with the swimming pool and the platform.

The sound of water entering filled my ears, and my eyes were pitch black, just like that dreamland.

The heat on her body was instantly reduced by the temperature of the sea water. The water waves that kept hitting her body were like hands tearing her apart and slapping her. She let go of her consciousness and swam away, suppressing those negative emotions in her heart and letting them go. Fight the waves as much as possible.

Those fading nightmares gradually dissipated with the lapping of the waves, covering them with a thin film that seemed so distorted.

The memories of those dreams faded away like a tide, leaving only painful panic.

She didn't know why the actions she took were meaningful. She kept swimming forward as hard as she could, as if she was following an instinct, as if the sea had an end, and she could find peace as long as she reached the ruins.

But where is that tranquility?

Is that tranquility really hidden in the memories of those fading nightmares and dreams she chases?

She had no answer, and she didn't know that this instinct to obey was actually called escape or seeking peace of mind.

At a certain moment, she suddenly stopped moving.

There was a violent storm overhead, lightning and thunder.

She looked around and saw the boundless sea. She seemed to be in the center of the storm, isolated and helpless. The whole world was roaring at her, and the waves were lapping at her back one after another.

The panic gradually ceased.

Li Huoyue floated in the sea for a long time, and gradually lay on her back on the windy sea, staring blankly at the rolling dark sky, feeling the fear of dying gradually subside.

The memories of those nightmares finally completely dissipated, and the sense of panic subsided, leaving behind tranquility, as quiet as death.

The rain hit her face. It wasn't until her breathing finally became much easier that she stepped back onto the water and returned to her normal position. Looking around, she found that she had already lost her way. When she looked up at the sky, there were only dark clouds, making it impossible to judge based on the stars. position.

No. She seems to have a way to find the direction to the shore.

But the moment this thought came to her mind, her heart contracted suddenly, and she lost control as if she was electrocuted. When the wind blew, the waves covered her head, completely submerging her underwater.

Plunging into darkness, the noise of the waves and wind in her ears suddenly disappeared, and she fell into endless silence. She clutched the pajamas on her chest with her right hand, and a pinprick of paralysis spread to the heart under her chest. The numbness instantly spread to every corner of her body, and a cramping feeling spread and exploded in the center of the needle. She began to lose consciousness in a short period of time and her pupils began to dilate.

Unable to keep treading water, Li Hueyue couldn't even control her body's center of gravity and gradually sank to the bottom of the sea. The deeper she went, the storm on the sea became farther and farther away from her, but the darkness got closer and closer to her.

Li Huoyue's widened eyes stared at the waves of the sea getting further and further away from her, feeling a little startled.

She thought about her own death, but never thought that she would die in such a ridiculous way.

drowning.

On a stormy rainy night, I had a panic attack and swam to the depths of the sea. My heart suddenly palpitated and became paralyzed, and then I sank into the sea.

Probably one of the stupidest ways to die of the year.

She opened her mouth to shout something, but all that came in was salty water.

Her consciousness gradually dissipated. The nightmares that she could not chase when she was awake returned when her consciousness was blurred. The tide surged, and the bloody faces in her dreams passed before her eyes. After passing the huge shadow, the hatred swept over her but passed her by. She kept falling until she passed through all the memories and reached the deepest part of the darkness.