Doomsday Wonderland

Just as Nüwa said her last word, Lin Sanjiu turned around and ran.

In her higher consciousness form, she did not actually know how she would move around. Without wasting a single second, she stared out into the dark space ahead and simply sped forward as quickly as she could.

Unfortunately, it became apparent to her that a person’s movement speed in the Astral Plane was determined by the strength of that person’s higher consciousness. As the person with the weakest higher consciousness in the entire starfield, Lin Sanjiu felt as though she was being chased in a nightmare. Although she ran as hard as she could, she just couldn’t move fast enough.

A split second later, she felt the glow of a warm, dazzling, cherry blossom pink star.

To make things worse, that wasn’t the only star creeping close to her. With the corner of her eyes, Lin Sanjiu spotted various other stars of different colors chasing behind her. Even though her struggle seemed meaningless, she knew she had to clench her teeth and press on. Letting out a soft grunt, Lin Sanjiu rushed forward without giving much consideration to the situation behind her.

Then, she suddenly stopped. She managed to stop herself before colliding with a star directly in front of her. She found herself surrounded by a group of stars. Lin Sanjiu didn’t even know when they had appeared. Her heart sank as she watched multiple stars, glowingly coldly in front of her.

“This one is not bad. You guys get lost first,” the voice growled coldly from the white star. “You guys can come after I had my fun.”

“To be honest, I am sick of you, you lunatic,” a grating voice like the sound of nails scratching blackboard came from the star glowing with a cherry blossom pink. “Do you know we’ve been putting up with you?”

“Rather than a lunatic, he’s more like a pervert. A pervert doesn’t care.”

Another mellow voice sounded from behind her. Lin Sanjiu did not actually know how many stars were chasing behind her. Blood was rushing to her head as she turned a deaf ear to the voices around her. She stared at her feet—though there was only an empty darkness where her feet was supposed to be. She thought to herself that maybe she could escape the moment she spotted an opening.

“She barely has any light. How are you going to play?” a husky female voice laughed. The way these people were discussing about Lin Sanjiu was as if she wasn’t even there with them. With a similar attitude, the female voice continued, “This person was brought in by Nüwa, shouldn’t that deter you a little?”

“Deter?” the pale white star seemed to find the woman’s comment hilarious. As he spoke, he moved to one side, facing the direction where the husky voice came from, “All of you surrounded her, so does that deter you?”

“Now!” Lin Sanjiu clenched her teeth and plunged herself through the dark void again. Lin Sanjiu’s timing was impeccable. In that split second, with everyone’s guards down, she rushed out and covered quite a distance.

Just as she felt relieved, the pale white star flashed before her eyes. The white star let out a scoffing laugh as Lin Sanjiu tried to desperately to change directions to escape. However, she had barely moved when she heard a loud bang the next second. She had collided into a wall.

“Wall?”

Lin Sanjiu instantly felt an aching pain around her nose and tears hovering from the corners of her eyes. When she looked up, she realized that she was already in a house. When she looked down, she could see her arms and her whole body once again.

Her heartbeat, her blood coursing through her veins… These sensations quickly returned to her. She could even feel the cold from outside. Goosebumps quickly formed on the exposed parts of her skin. It was as if she was in her real body.

“I guess you are hell-bent on making me angry today,” the voice from the white star rang out from outside the house.

Lin Sanjiu rushed to the window and looked out. Just then, she saw the white star landing on the wooden walkway outside. The white light from the star faded and coalesce into a single human figure facing away from her, and she realized that they were still surrounded by the starfield. From her perspective, it was as if a house had been torn from its foundations and thrown into space. Unfortunately, she was in that house.

“I’m not only going to irritate you today. I will continue irritating you whenever I see an opportunity. That’s because I don’t like a person like you, who is sick in the mind and body,” the husky voice suddenly chuckled. “I’ve already placed her in that house. You can try to enter if you want,” the woman said in a soft-spoken voice, almost coyly.

“I’ve got to stand on this pervert’s side. You’re such a busybody,” the cherry blossom star remarked crabbily, glowing outside the house.

“No one asked for your opinion, old man.”

Surprisingly, the cherry blossom star kept quiet after the woman retorted back. The other stars started discussing quietly between themselves. After deciding that they had reached a deadlock situation, they seemingly decided to give up. “Let’s go,” someone in the group suggested. With that, some of the stars left in groups, disappearing into the boundless dark horizon.

Watching them as they left, Lin Sanjiu heaved a sigh of relief. She wondered how she even managed to escape and survive now considering the speed of their movement.

The shadowy human figure outside the house gradually materialized into a more corporeal form. Finally, Lin Sanjiu could see the man’s appearance. The man’s head was completely shaven. There was a tattoo like a chapel on the back of his head. As the man did not turn around, Lin Sanjiu could only see the man’s checkered shirt from the back.

The chapel tattoo suddenly moved. As the man lifted his head, the tattoo became deformed along with the folded skin at the back of his head.

“It’s just a house. Even with your ‘rules’, how long can you stop me,” the man’s voice sounded more muffled than before, as if the walls of the house had blocked some of the sound waves. The man laughed creepily, “Look at this wooden floor. Do you sentimentalize the life of those normies? Why don’t you come to me? I can help you strip you of your higher consciousness. Don’t worry. After I catch her, you’ll be next.”

The female voice grew silent for a moment. She did not respond to the man. Unexpectedly, she suddenly chuckled at Lin Sanjiu, “I’ve given you a good house. Don’t let him enter and catch you, alright?”

Shocked, Lin Sanjiu slammed her palms against the window, subconsciously shouting through the glass window, “You’re leaving?” After Lin Sanjiu said that, she froze for a second. She stared at her own hands and then at the window.

As she was anxious, she didn’t control her strength. Logically speaking, the force she exerted would have caused the window to shatter. However, there was only a palm print on the window. Right now, she was just like a normal human before the apocalypse. Her palms even felt slightly numb from the recoil.

The husky female voice disappeared before Lin Sanjiu realized, as if the man’s threat had worked.

Through the grime-covered window, Lin Sanjiu saw that the man on the walkway slowly turned around.

There were no lamps in the walkway, so the only light source was from the many stars outside. As the walls of the house blocked out most of the light, its interior was very dark. With the limited lighting, Lin Sanjiu thought that the man was wearing a mask when she first saw his face. However, when she saw it close through the glass window as he approached, she nearly screamed.

The person seemed to be Caucasian. His knobby uneven skin was pallid white. Lin Sanjiu wasn’t actually certain of the person’s ethnicity because half of that man’s face was like melted wax. His eyes were merely two long narrow black openings on his horrifying, rotting face.

“What’s wrong? You don’t like my face?” The man’s muffled voice came from behind his surgical face mask and through the glass window. His voice dripped with ruthless glee. “I do like my face ruined by late-stage syphilis. Especially the reaction women show when they see my face.”

Lin Sanjiu felt nauseous just hearing that man utter the word “syphilis”. However, she didn’t avert her gaze. Lin Sanjiu moved her slightly trembling fingers around the window frame. Click. She locked the window.

“Oh, you noticed? You aren’t slow,” the man looked as though he wanted to lift his eyebrow but he no longer had any. He straightened his back and slowly took a few steps backward.

Lin Sanjiu looked around. Then, she saw the wooden door at the same time as the man. Both of them rushed for the door. As the door rattled in its frame, Lin Sanjiu pressed her body against the door and gripped the turning doorknob tightly.

Unfortunately, she could not match the man’s strength. Even though she had tried her best, the doorknob started turning again. Knowing that the man would soon open the door, Lin Sanjiu quickly noticed the door chain and grabbed it. The door opened slightly and she staggered a few steps backward, however, she barely managed to latch the door chain and it now held the man back.

Under normal circumstances, her actions would be laughable considering a posthuman’s strength. However, this time it helped Lin Sanjiu gain some precious minutes. The man kicked the door violently for a few times, but it did not budge. In the end, he stopped.

“Even though this house forcibly ‘reinstates’ us back to our ordinary human states before the apocalypse, you know your struggles are useless,” the man placed his mouth near the ajar door so that his voice could be heard clearly. Meanwhile, Lin Sanjiu pushed a sofa toward the door with much effort.

“Do you know how I got syphilis?”

Once he said that, he was pushed back by a large force from inside the house. Something hit the door and closed it. Next, the door was locked rapidly.

Lin Sanjiu felt a little breathless even though the only thing she did was to push the sofa to the door. She almost couldn’t believe how weak she was before she evolved. Without making a sound, she turned around and surveyed the house.

As she couldn’t summon her [Ability Polishing Agent], everything around her was swallowed by the darkness. She could only see the outlines of some things in the room. Despite that, with the little light from the starfield, she could see the open-concept kitchen and a dining table at the other end of the living room. There was a corridor between the living and the kitchen which lead to a bedroom and a washroom. It looked like a normal studio apartment.

“In the Soviet prison, your tattoos determines your rank.”

There was contentment in the man’s voice as he reminisced. He walked toward the window again. Lin Sanjiu was startled. Wasting no time observing her surroundings, she carried the large vase in the living room and rushed to the window. A smile grew slowly on the man’s rotting face as he looked at her through the grime-covered window.

“You might wonder how is it possible to get tattoos in a high-security prison?” He took a few steps back as if he was gathering his strength. “You can make a handmade tattoo gun with an electric razor and a needle. You create the dye with burnt rubber and urine. You get an intricate tattoo over the years, using that needle used by dozens, no, hundreds of men before you…”

Crash. The sound of shattered glass pierced the silence. Broken glass laid strewn near the window. Lin Sanjiu felt her heart miss a beat. She raised the vase without hesitation and tried to smash it on the black shadow that was coming through the broken window. However, the vase hit the windowsill. When she looked up, she realized that though the man broke the window with a kick, he quickly withdrew his feet.

The cold frigid air from the dark starfield flooded into the house through the broken window. Lin Sanjiu’s breath instantly turned white as she grasped a broken fragment from the vase firmly in her hand. Lin Sanjiu looked out of the broken window and noticed that the man was no longer standing at the wooden walkway.

“No matter what happens, I must stop him from entering.” Lin Sanjiu sprinted to the kitchen but she could not find a knife. She found a shelf full of red wine instead. With no other choice, she took a bottle of red wine and ran to the back of the house. Since they were now ordinary humans, she had to consider the natural disparity in strength as a woman. Right now, the protection from this house was her only advantage.

Lin Sanjiu kicked open a few doors in the house and locked a few more windows. Yet, Lin Sanjiu could not find any trace of that man.

“Mrs. Manas, please come out now…” she mumbled to herself as she lifted a mattress and placed it against a window. “Please come out now… I can’t die here. I still need to find my grand prize…”

No matter where she went, there was only silence. Lin Sanjiu took a deep breath and ran out of the master bedroom hurriedly. When she turned her head around, her blood froze. The back door of this house was a glass door.

“How is this a good house!” she cursed as she rushed to the backdoor. Thankfully, the back door was locked and she didn’t see any sign of forced entry. It was only then that she felt a slight relief.

When she looked out of the glass door, she saw a wooden walkway, just like the front of the house. The wooden walkway was wrapped around half the house. Outside this incredibly ordinary and everyday building was the scenery like that of outer space, filled with stars.

The glass reflected the faint lights from the stars far and near. Lin Sanjiu looked a few times outside the house. Then, she froze.

Without moving, she shifted her gaze slowly to the side.

She saw a white breath floating right above her shoulder in the cold, frigid air.