Doomsday Wonderland c1-855

by N. Heller

  Lin Sanjiu was terrified. She turned and raced for the door. She pulled open the door in one smooth movement and ran out to the corridor. She did not close the door behind her properly, so it opened with a click behind her, revealing the dark crack between the door and its frame—the light had somehow been switched off again.

  "I can't... This place isn't safe anymore." She took a few rapid gasps of air, barely hearing what Mrs. Manas was saying. She rushed to Douglas's room and was just about to knock on the door.

  Just as she raised her hand, she finally understood what felt wrong.

  It was only then that Lin Sanjiu could suddenly hear Mrs. Manas' alarmed and furious words, "Did you hear me? I want you to get out of this hotel!"

  Before her brain could even respond to the events, Lin Sanjiu's body already reacted first. Her whole body felt freezing cold. Her footsteps echoed as she ran down the stairs and sprinted out of the front door without stopping.

  After Lin Sanjiu got out of the hotel, Mrs. Manas edgy voice relaxed a little, but she was still angry and scared. "Are you an idiot! You clearly caught a glimpse that something was amiss yet your conscious mind didn't register anything at all, you had to look for me in your subconscious to realize that something was off—"

  As Mrs. Manas said this, a few images appeared in her mind, beyond her own volition.

  This was another function of her high consciousness, but she didn't have the mood to think about that now.

  The images showed the situation back at the electronics store. After browsing two shelves unhurriedly, she incidentally spotted a backroom of the store. The door was ajar, and Lin Sanjiu could see through the door crack that it was dark inside. Somehow, the room made her feel uneasy so she retreated backward and avoided it.

  Through that crack, Douglas's eyes stared straight ahead. His face was contorted and his skin was hard, as he had died quite some time ago.

  Apparently, the thing he lost in the store was actually his own body.

  Chapter 190 - Don't Go to Bamboo Grove Mountains Scenic Site (1)

  In retrospect, Lin Sanjiu realized how naive she was for thinking that she could go against this world just because she destroyed a human-sized cardboard standee. Lin Sanjiu lowered her head silently; her jacket was useless against the cold, so she would try her best to endure.

  At that moment, someone opened and peeked out from the window of the second floor. The person fixed his emotionless eyes on Lin Sanjiu, with his lips curled and a wide smile, "Where are you going? Don't you want to play some video games?"

  That window was neither from room 205 nor room 207—it was Lin Sanjiu's room. The Teru Teru Bozu was still hanging from the ceiling. Looking up, Lin Sanjiu could only see a black outline of it, slowly spinning above Douglas's head. There wasn't a glimmer of light in Douglas's eyes. Apart from his stiff, perfect smile, his face was like that of a mannequin; he stretched his neck out of the window.

  Right now, he looked just like those students and their teacher at Mausoleum Elementary Station.

  "Why didn't I realize this before?"

  Now that she thought carefully about it, that perfect wide smile that almost reached his ears had been plastered on his face for almost the whole day. " Isn't that very abnormal?"

  "Why are you standing here stupidly, run!" Mrs. Manas' fierce voice rang out in her mind. When Douglas raised his slightly puzzled eyes, Lin Sanjiu couldn't stand it any longer. She turned and ran. Her surroundings were dark, and she was too fl.u.s.tered to consider her route, as she couldn't see clearly. The only thing on her mind was to run away from the hotel. Unfortunately, her body had stiffened from the cold and was not cooperating. After running for less than ten minutes, she felt her lungs burning and she had difficulties breathing.

  "Where-where did I run to?"

  There was a death-like silence behind her. No human or object was chasing behind her. But, of course, the lights from the hotel far away had already been switched off. Lin Sanjiu held her knees, bending over, panting. All her rigid limbs were numbed by the cold, and she felt as if her athleticism had returned to the level before she evolved.

  Lin Sanjiu didn't know when she was surrounded by patches of forest. Even though they were clearly a design feature of this city, she didn't see any streetlamps around. Through her intense gasps of air and tightly-strung nerves, she turned to look behind. Luckily, the cold didn't affect her eyesight. She peered straight into the darkness and suddenly jumped up; she was speechless.

  At the side of this road, not far behind her, there was a convenience store...

  And at the entrance of the convenience store stood a cardboard standee of a beautiful air stewardess.

  Unlike the previous time, the air stewardess wasn't looking in the direction of the train station. The air stewardess's eyes seemed to be following Lin Sanjiu. Right then, Lin Sanjiu turned over to face the standee straight on. The air stewardess's smile was just as beautiful before, revealing eight white teeth in the darkness.

  Ignoring other matters, after seeing that the convenience store was behind her, she realized that she was now on the road leading to Bamboo Grove Mountains.

  "Don't go to the Bamboo Grove Mountains."

  Lin Sanjiu didn't know why, but she could still remember this particular sentence that Douglas said to her very clearly.

  "This world is just too strange and incomprehensible. You should defend yourself with your higher consciousness," Mrs. Manas said weakly. Mrs. Manas logically knew what Lin Sanjiu was thinking about. Like a drowning person who had suddenly managed to grab on to a driftwood, Lin Sanjiu immediately followed what Mrs. Manas had taught her previously and activated her newly mastered skill, [Defence Forcefield].

  "Every bit of your higher consciousness is required for your survival now, so I won't embezzle it from you right now." Mrs. Manas sounded extremely solemn, "my presence also uses up your higher consciousness. While you activate your [Defence Forcefield], I will temporarily disappear so that the forcefield will be stronger."

  If Mrs. Manas disappeared, Lin Sanjiu knew that she would be all alone in the darkness. Lin Sanjiu nodded her head with some difficulty. When she didn't receive a reply even after a few seconds, she suddenly realized that Mrs. Manas already disappeared. She activated her [Defence Forcefield] wordlessly. As expected, a white light illuminated her whole body. It flashed for a few times and it quickly became dark again. Lin Sanjiu gritted her teeth and that white light appeared abruptly, only to fade into darkness even more quickly.

  If Mrs. Manas had not vanished without a trace, she would certainly be sighing right now.

  At its first stage, a properly activated [Defence Forcefield] would cover the user's skin with a faint light which others would not notice without scrutiny. Unfortunately, Lin Sanjiu was like a flickering defective lightbulb right now. This fully ill.u.s.trated that she lacked practice in this aspect.

  Lin Sanjiu had to control the 'flow' of her higher consciousness so that she could direct a steady stream of higher consciousness to maintain her Defence Forcefield. Meanwhile, Lin Sanjiu also had to move quickly as she did not dare to remain in one place for too long. No matter how hard it was for her, Lin Sanjiu had no choice but to struggle on with each passing minute.

  "Everywhere is the same to me, right?" She forced herself to calm down and tried to use her logic to analyze her current situation. "It seems to me that everything related to 'humans' is dangerous... so I might as well enter the mountains."

  "At least, there are no human cardboard standees and no clothes that have been worn by the deceased..."

  However, Lin Sanjiu had only walked a few minutes on this dark, dusky road when she discovered that her [Defence Forcefield] had a critical flaw. She smiled drily. This ability wasn't bad but the flaw stemmed from her poor proficiency at controlling her higher consciousness. Once she activated her ability, her whole body would flicker like a bad light bulb, sometimes the white light surrounding her would be far brighter than what it should be, and when i
t was dark, there would be totally no light.

  Anyone who had used a mobile phone in the dark would understand this situation. Whenever one looked away from the edge of that bright screen, the room they were in would appear darker than usual.

  This is especially true for Lin Sanjiu right now. With the flashing light, her eyes did not have sufficient time to adapt to the lighting of the environment which was constantly changing. Lin Sanjiu couldn't walk quickly as she had to be extra careful since she couldn't really see what was ahead of her. She walked in this manner for five minutes before she suddenly hit her own head. She was on the verge of cursing herself.

  How could she forget after activating her [Defence Forcefield] that she still had her [Ability Polishing Agent]!

  Considering that she would soon have some light around, Lin Sanjiu heaved a sigh of relief and took our her [Ability Polishing Agent]. At the same time, she also took out her Vibroblade. Holding her 'lamp' in one hand and a knife in the other, accompanied by the intermittent white light from her [Defence Forcefield], Lin Sanjiu felt more confident in herself.

  However, this confidence didn't last for long.

  After walking for a while, she kept feeling that something was amiss. The spot behind her, on her left, seemed especially dark. She slowly turned her head behind.

  His flat, sheet-white face, had no facial features and it was now facing Lin Sanjiu directly.

  Sure enough, no one should walk in the darkness, because they would never know what followed behind them.

  Chapter 191 - Don't Go to Bamboo Grove Mountains Scenic Site (2)

  Lin Sanjiu swung her vibroblade violently. Garden of Eden Laboratories had specifically designed the knife so that it was extendable. That swing extended the vibroblade to its maximum length at once. Lin Sanjiu swept its almost two-meter length blade at the creature, yet under the dim light, she felt the blade hitting nothing. Lin Sanjiu wasn't sure if she managed to cut that 'thing'.

  There is a folklore from medieval Europe which describes a tall man without any facial features. Supposedly, there were still eyewitnesses even today. People who had been stalked by him in the forest, or woke up seeing him by their bed, would disappear forever.

  Of course, this was just some ghost story and shouldn't apply to reality.

  "Because in reality, that was not a 'man' per se."

  Lin Sanjiu's [Ability Polishing Agent] was lying on the floor as Lin Sanjiu dropped it when she was scared just now. It rolled to and fro on the ground, so the light from it wasn't stable. Under this unreliable, wavering light, Lin Sanjiu stopped with her knife still in her hands—because the tall man had suddenly disappeared.

  With the forest around her and the darkness, the man could simply disappear into the forest, and sneak up on her later at some unknown time. Lin Sanjiu stared in the direction where he disappeared off into. Then, she quickly crouched down and reached out for the small bottle of [Ability Polishing Agent] on the ground with her trembling fingers. She knew she couldn't stay, so she turned and quickly ran back down the road leading to this forest.

  It wasn't that the road leading here was any safer, but Lin Sanjiu just happened to glance at the forest on the mountain slope in the distant when the light from her [Ability Polishing Agent] was still wavering. There was a white circular shape above every tree. Even though they didn't have any facial features, those were obviously faces—and trees don't have faces.

  In the mountains, as far as she could see, there were numerous tall 'men' staring at her quietly, standing shoulder-to-shoulder.

  Her fear caused her [Defence Forcefield] to glow brighter. Her upper body was shining brightly, while her legs were totally dark. However, Lin Sanjiu couldn't really care about controlling the flow of her higher consciousness right now, and instead subconsciously tuned her [Defence Forcefield] till it maximum effect. She felt a few bursts of warmth from her c.h.e.s.t while she ran forward as fast as she could.

  There was only one main road from the Bamboo Grove Mountains scenic site to the station's public square. Most of the hotels and residential buildings were built along the two sides of the road. Lin Sanjiu rushed down the mountain road, she ran past the convenience store—she didn't see the cardboard standee—and just before she reached the hotel she was staying before, she stopped abruptly.

  Through her labored breaths, Lin Sanjiu squinted and surveyed the dark surroundings around her; she didn't want to miss any sudden movements. All the lights from the hotel had been switched off, but the window from which Douglas had looked out was still opened. The room was dark, and there wasn't a single silhouette in sight.

  The old cloth shoes, Douglas, and many other things spying on her could be hiding anywhere. In this pitch-black darkness, it was basically impossible for Lin Sanjiu to attend to every direction with just the dim light from her [Ability Polishing Agent]. To make things worse, she felt a constant stabbing in her head, as if that was a sign that she had almost used up all her higher consciousness.

  Lin Sanjiu didn't know what she should do if she didn't even have that little bit of protection. She felt that she was breathing so hard now that someone on another street would hear her. Yet, other than herself, the 'things' around her seemed to be playing deaf.

  "Douglas, I don't know if you have realized this," Lin Sanjiu tried her best to keep her voice steady while she probed and took one step forward, "but you're actually dead. You died in the electronic store. I-I can give you a proper burial..."

  Her mind was in such a muddle that she even recited what she heard on tv, "I can give you a proper burial, and I will even burn paper offerings. Can you just rest in peace?"

  There was still only silence around her. Lin Sanjiu wasn't sure if Douglas could hear her from the hotel—that's if he was in the hotel. Lin Sanjiu listened carefully.

  Darkness clouded everything around her, but she heard nothing. Lin Sanjiu's heart pounded and she decided to take this opportunity to run and leave this area first. However, she would never anticipate herself slowing down after just a few steps. Not far from her, there was a small little white cloth bundle lying on the floor. When Lin Sanjiu saw it, she instantly felt a burden off her shoulders and relaxed quite a bit.

  "Who threw this here," Lin Sanjiu snatched a quick gasp of air and bent down to pick up her Teru Teru Bozu, but didn't dare to stay a second longer. "Nevermind, it's fine as long as I get it back!"

  With her Teru Teru Bozu, she was no longer afraid that she would use up all her higher consciousness on her forcefield. Lin Sanjiu suddenly had a destination in mind and she dashed toward the train station.

  As expected, when she was about to enter the public square outside the station, she saw a bit of white light coming out from the station entrance. The lights in the train station were still on! The train station was now like a lone lighthouse in the dark. Being drawn to light was just human nature. Thus, Lin Sanjiu immediately felt a lot safer.

  Once she leaped over the gantry and reached the station platform, she deactivated her [Defence Forcefield]. After all, her higher consciousness was very valuable; if she used it all up, she might faint on the spot. The train platform seemed the same. It was quiet, spacious and empty. A display screen showed the time in red digits; it was only six in the evening. Just when Lin Sanjiu was wondering where she could find a ladder so that she could hang her Teru Teru Bozu Defense System, she noticed something peculiar.

  It wasn't her paranoia... She slowly turned her head.

  Outside the glass wall of the train station, she saw Douglas standing in the darkness. He was smiling at her. He raised his hand and pointed to the gantry. His smile grew wider while he nodded to Lin Sanjiu and started walking toward the platform. He was wearing the pair of old cloth shoes.

  "Douglas is coming! Just like those students!"

  Every hair on Lin Sanjiu's body was standing on end; she froze for a second. Just then, the other end of the platform was suddenly lit by a strange white light. Then, without warning, she heard a loud rumbling
noise. Almost as if it could sense that a passenger was on the platform, a train pulled into the station from the other end of the tunnel.

  "Should I board?" Just when that thought surfaced, she heard the click from the gantry. A human-shaped shadow was just around the corner.

  "I'll board!"

  Lin Sanjiu didn't have time to think so she just rushed into the familiar train carriage.

  Chapter 192 - With Much Anticipation, Lin Sanjiu has Died

  This was indeed the train 'familiar' to her, but it wasn't exactly the same as the previous time. When Lin Sanjiu looked down and saw a squished newspaper between the crevice of a green seat, she felt a little perplexed. Even without reaching for it, she knew what was written on it. The handwriting on the surface of the newspaper matched her memory exactly. The only thing that was different was that the paper had a lot more wrinkles which were caused by Lin Sanjiu. After almost a day, Lin Sanjiu found herself on the same train she took when she came.

  Noting this point, Lin Sanjiu was still very confused because that would mean that after she alighted, someone must have boarded the train, picked up the crumpled newspaper she randomly threw on the floor and stuffed it back in the crevice of the seat.

  It almost seemed as if it boarding the same train wasn't just a mere coincidence. She was mystified and thought about it for some time, but finally gave up. After all, her current priority was to protect herself and not solve mysteries.

  This time, Lin Sanjiu decided to do something different. Since the train had protected her from those spooky things twice, she was quite certain that being in the train was safer than being out there. That was probably the reason why the woman wrote the words, "don't alight". As for the large words that gave a different warning, there could be many reasons for it. Perhaps, it wasn't even written by the same person, so Lin Sanjiu decided not to think about it for now.