Doomsday Wonderland c1-855

by N. Heller

  First round: it was a complete wipeout.

  Translator Note: [1] This is a real viral Chinese song called Little Apple ().

  Chapter 25 - It's a Universal Law that the Main Character Must Die? (2)

  In the dark, Lin Sanjiu could feel something pressing uncomfortably against the back of her head. Half a day had already passed. She felt exhausted and did not feel like moving, so she just flipped sideway hazily.

  The next second, she woke up abruptly from her dream, panting heavily.

  Lin Sanjiu lowered her head and saw her trembling hands. [Dead? Am I dead? Is everyone dead?] She turned her head looking vacantly, she found Marcie and Luther sleeping alongside each other quite close to her. Both of them were frowning as if they were in a sort of nightmare. Even though they were still asleep, she could see the movement of their c.h.e.s.ts. That was enough proof that they were still alive and well.

  [So, was that just a dream?] Lin Sanjiu stood up from the floor. Her hands and feet still felt cold, and her whole body was weak. The moment that she died, the moment all the bones and organs in her body were crushed, the moment when she slipped into a boundless darkness, that almost unbelievable pain… was that all a dream? She shivered.

  She opened the door and stepped out of the bus. She desperately needed some fresh air so that she could clear her mind. Just as she stepped outside, a deafening “You are my little, little apple” rang out loudly, tearing the tranquility of the night. Lin Sanjiu paused for a moment. She heard it again, just like the previous time… or more rightly, in her dream. The noisy ringtone did not last as long as in her dream; instead, someone stopped it quickly before even two lines of the song. The darkness returned to a dead silence.

  Lin Sanjiu gazed quietly at the direction of the Citroën, motionlessly. Even after a while, Voley did not come out to wake them. She felt a little impatient and decided to take a look, but suddenly she heard a soft cry of shock from the bus, following which, Marcie called out, “Luther! Xiao Jiu!”

  Lin Sanjiu immediately rushed into the bus, at the same time, Luther woke up gasping and sitting upright. The three of time exchanged glances, finding that each of their faces was pale.

  “I dreamed that I died!”

  The three of them suddenly said together when they matched glances.

  “Huh… how could that be?” Luther was the first to react, “Both of you also dreamed of your own death?”

  “Not only me…” Lin Sanjiu’s face darkened, “I dreamed that the four of us all died. Why don’t you tell me about your dream first!”

  Following the order of their deaths, Luther was the first one to speak, “My dream just now was simply too realistic. I dreamed that we were on the way to an industrial park. Suddenly, a duoluozhong jumped onto the top of my vehicle. It smashed the windows on the other side and all of a sudden… my stomach...“ His face turned pale, and he looked like he could not continue.

  “Huh? How can that be? In my dream, you were attacked by a duoluozhong, so you turned your truck, and I collided with you…” Marcie was shocked as her light brown eyes widened, staring at Luther. “I was badly injured and was trying to climb out of the driver’s seat when…”

  “There was a sudden explosion, and you died as well,” Lin Sanjiu interjected with cold sweat all over her body.

  “How did you know?”

  “That’s because I was around when it happened…” Lin Sanjiu shut her eyes, returning to that scene. “When both of you died, my truck rolled backward and crushed Voley and myself… It was as if heaven played a prank on us. We were all killed just like that!”

  “How is this… this possible… Our dreams were all connected?” Luther mumbled to himself.

  [Did he have the same dream?]

  Almost as if to verify their thoughts, Voley poked his head in and said, “I want to tell you something but don’t scold me. I just had a dream where every one of us died. I am not trying to jinx us, but we have to be careful today! That dream was just too realistic! Hey, what’s wrong? Why are you looking at me like that?”

  Lin Sanjiu could feel a head-splitting headache. She beckoned for Voley, “We had the same dream… Come in, let’s make sense of the matter.”

  Voley agreed and quickly climbed up the bus. The four of them sat in a circle. Everything was pretty straightforward. For some unknown reason, the four of them shared the same dream—the surprising thing was despite them dying in their dreams at different times, each of the details in their dreams matched up perfectly.

  The “pop” sound that Marcie heard was probably the sound that the duoluozhong which killed Luther made. The duoluozhong must have had run across the bus and landed on the top of the truck. Then, it attacked Luther. Even the event where Lin Sanjiu was hungry mid-way and ate a cookie or the jokes that Voley told Luther. Their recollections corroborated with each other’s.

  Hearing the other three of them discussing intensely, Lin Sanjiu raised her head frustratingly, feeling perplexed. She took a deep breath and paused for a moment. “Wait!”

  “What’s the matter?” The three of them looked at her in confusion. “Did you get a sudden insight?”

  Unexpectedly, Lin Sanjiu asked a totally random question: “Marcie, what is the bus route that public bus takes?”

  Marcie thought for a while, “If it isn’t 89, it’s 90. I can’t really remember, but it is those two numbers.”

  “Was I wrong? Is this bus number 2?” Marcie looked at Lin Sanjiu, puzzled. “But Xiao Jiu, is this very important?”

  Lin Sanjiu stared at the numerical “2” for a very long time. Suddenly, she jumped up and swore. “What the f*ck!”

  “What’s the matter?” the rest of them asked in succession.

  “I was thinking that this looked really familiar. I remembered!” Lin Sanjiu could feel the hair on her neck stand as she continued, “In my… my dream, I saw this! The only difference was that in my ‘dream’, that was a 3 and not a 2!”

  She glanced at the three of them, and her tone turned even more serious, “I have lived in this city for many years, and I’ve never seen this sort of thing. All the public bus should just have a bus route! That is to say, this number only appeared afterward!” Almost as if she remembered something, Marcie exclaimed, “Ah!” and covered her mouth.

  Lin Sanjiu’s tone was heavy as if it weighed a ton. “You still don’t understand? This means that we are either dreaming right now or the fact that we died was not a dream!”

  Luther unconsciously pinched his own arm and responded, “I am a 100% sure that I am not dreaming… That’s weird! If we really did die for one round, why are we still alright now?”

  Lin Sanjiu wanted to speak, but her attention was drawn to Voley’s quiet voice.

  “Those numbers… The previous time was a 3, now it is a 2… Is that a countdown? Does that mean that we have 2 more chances?”

  She took a deep breath and said, “I have the same sentiments.”

  The atmosphere became tense again as everyone fell silent.

  “Is there a time limit to this thing?” Luther held his arm, being the first to break the silence, “If there is one, we can just wait here safely until it is over before we continue our journey. “

  Marcie sighed, “I’m afraid it isn’t that simple. Sticking to the main topic, what exactly is this? Why is such a thing happening?”

  Before Marcie finished lamenting, Voley suddenly interrupted her and spoke in an exceptionally resolute tone, “I feel that we definitely can’t just sit here. How would we know if there is really a time limit to this? If we continue waiting, will something else happen? These are all unknown variables. But if we follow our previous path, we already know what the dangers are… so from my perspective, we should set off as before but just be more careful.”

  Lin Sanjiu couldn’t help looking at Voley again. No matter how many duoluozhongs they would kill, or how many times they escaped death during a dangerous situation. One thing was certainly clear: Everyone that is aliv
e is not dead.

  Yet, Lin Sanjiu did experience death once, just now. It was true as can be. It was a death where she lost both her body and consciousness. The shock of death could not be compared to anything she had experienced. Death was a gray cloud which loomed over every human ever since their birth, it was the unavoidable ultimate fear of the end that no sage could escape.

  Lin Sanjiu still shivered when she recalled the moment of her death. On the other hand, Voley could still calmly analyze the situation. She couldn’t help praising him: “Voley, I really couldn’t tell that you were a person that could still remain so collected after what we’ve been through.”

  After he heard her praise, he instantly regained his usual demeanor and gave an unctuous smile, “Hey, I am just an unimportant person, I just have this life. I am happy just to survive, why would I even dare to be weak?”

  Chapter 26 - It's a Universal Law that the Main Character Must Die? (3)

  “Firstly, we must have a grasp on that duoluozhong’s movement,” Lin Sanjiu said with a serious face as she looked at her companions, “it all started out when Marcie heard a “pop” sound, right? Where did it come from?”

  At this point, their group of four vehicles was parked at the side of the road, in the same succession as before. The four of them stood atop the bus, frowning intensely. Marcie closed her eyes to recall the details, “I was driving and I heard a sound, but I couldn’t tell where it was from. I only knew that it sounded muffled, I think the source was some distance away from my driver’s seat.”

  [That would mean that it was from the mid-back segment of the bus…] Lin Sanjiu strolled over to the mid-back of the bus and suddenly exerted her strength and leaped upward from that spot. With her enhanced body—her ability to jump had reached a level that shouldn’t be underestimated—she managed to jump to the height of an a.d.u.l.t human. Thereafter, she landed heavily on the metal roof of the bus, but it only made a dull thump.

  “It is not possible to hear a sound at this volume if you were driving.” Lin Sanjiu concluded, “A duoluozhong is at least half my weight, right? With this line of reasoning, the fellow must have jumped down from a very high location.”

  From a very high location, the few of them frowned as they recalled their previous journey, trying to remember if they had seen any tall buildings.

  Suddenly, Marcie asked, “Since the duoluozhong had already landed on my vehicle, why didn’t it kill me? Instead, it abandoned the nearest target and decided to kill Luther. I mean the bus has a large windshield, it would be easy for me to spot it.”

  “It probably planned to create a pileup?” Voley looked to his left and right, “If the second vehicle meets with a mishap, the subsequent two vehicles would be in trouble. My car collided with the back of your vehicle… but I was alright.”

  “If it wanted to create a pileup, wouldn’t it be faster if he targeted Xiao Jiu?” Luther retorted with a question.

  Voley took a deep breath, he thought about it a while longer before giving up. “Who knows? Maybe that duoluozhong is crazy so it just randomly chose you.”

  “Don’t overthink matters.” Lin Sanjiu walked over and patted his shoulder in a consoling manner. “I think it shouldn’t be too hard to avoid this accident… At least we are certain about the location where it happened. We can stop before we reach the slope. We can survey the area, patrol it. Any duoluozhong we spot, we’ll kill. I don’t believe we can’t overcome this!”

  Her resolute and decisive tone immediately raised the confidence of the people in her party. After all, it was just a single duoluozhong!

  “That’s right! This time round, we will make a preemptive strike!” Voley agreed with a smile.

  After they had made their preliminary plans, they continued with the journey as the scorching night continued. To avoid any other complications, their vehicles were in the same formation. The only difference now as that they had learned a lesson from their previous experience. The windows in their vehicles have been winded down, and each of them now had a weapon beside them which they could readily grab.

  They drove slowly throughout their journey, and no one spoke a word. Everyone was fully alert and listened carefully to their surroundings. They did not want to miss even a small hint of unusual activity. Feeling her parched throat, Lin Sanjiu swallowed a mouthful of saliva. Just then, Marcie whispered over the walkie-talkie, “It’s here!”

  “Stop your vehicles!” Lin Sanjiu shouted into her walkie-talkie. She pressed down on her brake, switched off the ignition, and jumped out of her truck holding her police baton.

  The slope where the four of them met that untimely end was just in front of them. The four vehicles were now parked at the bottom of the slope. At the same time, Luther, Marcie, and Voley rushed out of their vehicles. They surrounded the bus with weapons in their hands, and all of them looked up at the roof of the bus at the same time.

  There were no street lights in that night deprived of human civilization. However, with the headlights from the Citroën and their evolved night vision, the few of them could see clearly: on the top of the bus, there was a crouching figure of a dark shadow. Seeing that long, constantly moving mouthpart… what else could it be other than a duoluozhong?

  Discovering that it was surrounded, the duoluozhong immediately stood up. It turned and ran toward the back of the bus. Lin Sanjiu widened her eyes and inhaled.

  For it to reach such a state, how many victims did it have to fully drain? Even its speed was the same as a normal person… If it wasn’t for the long mouthpart, Lin Sanjiu would have thought that it was a normal person.

  “Trying to escape after you’ve killed me? Dream on!” Luther was the first person to react. He gritted his teeth, and once his feet pushed away from the ground, he lunged forward like an arrow. In a blink of an eye, he was already some distance away. Lin Sanjiu and Marcie followed suit quickly.

  The only person without much fighting capabilities, Voley, ran a few steps after them before stopping to pant. He yelled out toward their back, “I will just keep a lookout here! All of you! You can do it!”

  The duoluozhong’s speed was almost on par with a normal person, but were the people chasing it even considered normal? Within half a minute, the three of them had already blocked its path and surrounding it.

  The duoluozhong stared at the three of them without moving. The three of them stood on guard. For a moment, nobody initiated any attacks. Facing their enemy in close proximity, the three of them immediately felt a wave of nausea.

  The duoluozhong was apparently male, and its body was well-hydrated. Just looking at its body, it was entirely like a normal human being. Not only his body, but it still retained its eyelids over its long slit eyes, its high forehead was also flat and smooth… It looked really normal without a single disgusting feature. However, the undeniable fact was that it had a mouthpart—attached to its normal clean male face. There was a black hole where his nose and mouth should have been, and a large mosquito-like mouthpart extended from the deep hole.

  It looked as if it was exactly designed to display such a strange contrast so much so that Lin Sanjiu would rather look at Wang Sisi.

  “Why do all of you seem prepared?” a human voice came from the male duoluozhong’s mouthpart, there was even a revolting hint of a smile in its eyes. “I just arrived, and all of you stopped your vehicles at once? Who sent you a message?”

  [Why… does it seem like it was implying that there were other duoluozhong?]

  This was a new technique she had developed after testing her ability multiple times.

  As she waved her left hand, she threw out five thin cards which immediately flew straight ahead following her intentions. They rapidly close in on the duoluozhong. Next, the five cards dispersed in mid-air, arranging themselves to target the duoluozhong’s anterior.

  That’s right. Lin Sanjiu could control the speed and trajectory of the cards in mid-air. This was a formidable technique; unfortunately, there was a great limitation. A
t her current state, she could only control the cards for five seconds…

  Quicker than words could describe, and before the duoluozhong realized the situation it was facing, the five cards accelerated and directly headed toward the duoluozhong’s vital points. Just when they were about to touch its skin, the five cards turned in sharp razor blades at the same time.

  As it dodged and countered, not all five blades struck their target, but one of the razor blades pierced deeply into the duoluozhong’s left eyes. A sharp shriek rang out in the night sky, and the duoluozhong’s mouthpart trembled uncontrollably in mid-air.

  “Quick! This is our chance!” Luther rushed forward brandishing a police baton. He landed a heavy strike. With a dreadful sound, the duoluozhong’s chin was shattered.

  It was practically clear that the duoluozhong had to die here today. As that thought rose in his mind, Luther suddenly saw a reflective shine from the corner of his eyes.

  It was immediately followed by an explosive “bang!” which sounded like a gunshot. The reflective shine extended into a straight line and shot towards Voley’s c.h.e.s.t like a meteorite.

  The color drained from his face, and he desperately reached for his mobile phone. But just as he summoned it out, a mist of blood burst forth from his c.h.e.s.t cavity, and his body and phone fell heavily to the ground at the same time. Subsequently, Voley snatched his last breath with widened eyes as his mobile phone disappeared with a white light on the spot.

  Lin Sanjiu was about to poise herself to chase after it. Suddenly, an alarm exploded in her mind. Before she could even respond, she dropped to the ground and rolled to a side. Another gunshot rang out. There was now a hole in the ground where she was previously standing, and white smoke rose from it.