Doomsday Wonderland

Streamlets of blood trickled down her forehead, seeping into her eyes. The sudden pang of stabbing pain had made Lin Sanjiu close her eyes. She ran her hand over her affected eye to wipe the blood off. When she unglued her eyes again, she saw nothing in the walkway. The high heels were gone.

Was she having a hallucination due to her injuries?

The pair of black high heels rang the bell in her mind. Yet, she couldn’t remember where she’d come across that similar pair of high heels before.

Every breath she took felt like an invisible chainsaw grazing at her chest cavity. Enduring the pulsating pain that undulated over her entire body, Lin Sanjiu scrambled her way to the border of the walkway and leaned herself against one of the pillars.

The inferno grew more abundant, faster, wilder. Like a hungry beast on its hunger hunt, it swept through half of the living room in a twinkling of time, inflaming everything that crossed its path. The crackling of the fire was loud, and the firelight was brilliant; it had cast a scarlet red on her body. The sweltering hot air baked her cheek, and her back was wet with sweat.

Now, she could leave the house and return to her higher consciousness form, but she did not dare to make any move. Without the protection of the house, she would be hunted, like a sheep surrounded in a pride of lions. Though staying in the house meant she could only be a normal human being, at least she still had the chance to fight for her survivability.

The flame had spread to the front of the living room, and judging from its speed, it wouldn’t be long before it reached the walkway. Even though she was fully aware that this house was not a real establishment, Lin Sanjiu felt she should stop the fire from spreading further.

As she’d made up her mind, she mustered up strength and propped herself up. She made a detour, lurching her way via the walkway and entered the house through the glass door at the rear of the house.

When she ran into the house with her nose and mouth covered, she found that her vision was greeted with a sea of flame. Both living room and kitchen were full of fire; blazes of flame pressed their ways into the space that had yet to be inflamed. The blistering heat wave and thick smog almost pushed Lin Sanjiu back into the walkway, yet she held on. She looked around, and her eyes glowed as if she had found an oasis amongst the desert. Then, she dove into the washroom.

The washroom was the only spared land, free from the onslaught of the relentless flame, for the time being, at least. She hurried to open the shower curtain and grabbed the shower from the wall. She then turned on the water tap, and to her surprise, there was water!

She stepped and applied pressure on the shower hose and pulled the shower head. A blast of water shot out from the tube and quenched the few blazes of fire that were sparking to life outside the bathroom. As if it wasn’t enough, she removed the shower curtain to block the opening of the drain pipe in the water basin and on the bathroom floor. In the meantime, she turned all the water faucets to their maximum degree. She even pulled the flush pipe out from the back of the toilet. Soon, the bathroom floor was filled with water, and after that space could no longer contain the mass water body, it slowly flowed into the area outside the bathroom.

She couldn’t save the front part of the house but, with the water barrier she had put up, she could at least prevent the fire from spreading further into the deeper region of the house. In consequence, she was able to secure a piece of land to shelter herself.

Lin Sanjiu heaved a sigh and plopped herself on the puddles of water as the water pillar continued to send more water into the surroundings. She was drenched from her head to her toe. There were cuts and burns here and there around her body, shards of glasses jutting out from her wounds. Whenever the water rippled past those wounds, it caused her so much pain that it brought her out in a cold sweat. When she realized the fire was getting under control, she found herself a water hose and began to clean her wounds.

Suddenly, a series of wobbly footsteps came from the dark. Lin Sanjiu’s heart shuddered, and before she could make any retaliation, she was pounced to the ground by a shadow that barged into the bathroom. The water on the floor instantly filled her nostrils and mouth, choking her and causing her to flail fiercely like a fish out of water. She slammed the assailant with the water hose in her hand for a few times, and then one of her attacks suddenly connected, hitting the assailant in his face. The man loosened his grip, and Lin Sanjiu seized the chance and rolled free before clambering from the floor.

…If the face that had been deformed by syphilis was a scene too ghastly to look at, then the appearance of the man right now was terrifying enough to make any seasoned posthuman weep in fear. On his charred skin were countless of large burn scars and avulsions, caused by the fire and explosion. If it weren’t for his opened eyes, nobody would think he was a living human specimen. Even then, his eyes were half-opened, as his eyelids had slid down after being melted by the heat of the flame.

“Give me your Potential Growth Value, give me your Potential Growth Value…” Instead of saying that he was talking to Lin Sanjiu, it was better to say he was mumbling to himself. He extended his arm and reached out to Lin Sanjiu. His mouth quivered, wanting to say something, yet the words that came through his burnt tongue carried no meaning at all, “These injuries… I can…”

Overwhelmed by fury and fear, Lin Sanjiu blinked and dodged to a side. She was now being trapped in the little leeway between a toilet and a bathtub. Seeing that there was no way to run, she lifted the heavy ceramic lid from the water storage tank behind the toilet. She waited, and when the man charged at her, she slammed it hard on his face.

She somewhat had infused all her emotion in the “smashing” action. With the weight of the lid plus the strength that she had erupted, she smashed the cover heavily on the man’s face, again and again. When she finally had grasped her reason and stopped, she couldn’t tell which part of the man was his head and his body. The man had been reduced to mere blood and meat pulp, just like a crushed ant.

Duang.  The ceramic lid covered in the blood dropped to the floor and water splashed in all direction. Lin Sanjiu sloped down with her back leaned against the wall. As she panted, she closed her eyes.

The water continued to flow. The fire was getting smaller and smaller as there was nothing left that could keep the fire alive. Suddenly, Lin Sanjiu opened her eyes. She fired a deadly glare at the door of the bathroom.

From the direction of the aisle, came a strange noise.  Click-clack, click-clack , it sounded like the staccato beat of high heels echoing off the marble floor.

Her body wrung up as she waited. However, nobody showed up.

“No matter who is it, he or she is just a normal human being here,” Lin Sanjiu mouthed a few words and calmed down her racing heart. Then, she forced herself to sit straight and peered at the badly mutilated dead body, “…Just now he said he wanted to absorb my Potential Growth Value?”

In fact, she had heard more than once from the man saying that he wanted to absorb her Potential Growth Value.

“He said something like his injuries would get better after he’d soaked up himself with my Potential Growth Value? Is this the reason so many posthuman chases after me? So I am a can of Potential Value Growth that couldn’t even put up a decent resistance to them?

Lin Sanjiu continued to study the corpse as she didn’t know what to do.

“How should I extract the Potential Growth Value…?” She muttered. She tentatively placed her hand over the corpse but, to her dismay, nothing happened.

“Oh silly girl, you need to extract it with your Higher Consciousness.”

A titter that suddenly appeared had caused Lin Sanjiu to jerk up in fright. Driven by her instinct, she grabbed a water hose from the floor and quickly spun around. There was a woman, with a head full of wavy hair, leaning against the door frame. As of that moment, she was hugging herself and smiling at Lin Sanjiu.

Her head of wavy auburn hair was draped over her shoulders in a disheveled mess. She wore a lot of jewelry, her attire had two oversized and soft sleeves, and she was bare-footed. She reminded Lin Sanjiu of the Indo-Aryan ethnic group, Gypsy, a nomadic tribe best known for their unconventional, usually artistic lifestyle. When she once again parted her lips, her distinctive husky and saccharine voice instantly sparked the memory in Lin Sanjiu’s mind of who she was, “I couldn’t believe you have actually killed “Syphilis”… Half of my house for the death of this disgusting man… Hmm, that’s a pretty good deal.”

“You—,” Lin Sanjiu rose from the ground and put on a defensive stance. She swallowed the words that were on the tip of her tongue and changed, “…Thank you.”

“Don’t mention it.” The corner of her lips curved upward under her curly hair; her smile was as seductive as her raucous voice, “You’re the one who pulled it off. I, on the other hand, just provided you a field. The name’s Bohemia, that’s what they call me in the astral plane… Peradventure, they called me by that name probably due to my outfit. Anyway, you can address me with that if you want.”

Lin Sanjiu nodded in assent hesitantly. When the woman stepped into the bathroom, her muscles tensed up again.

“Don’t fear me,” Bohemia chuckled as she twirled her finger around her hair. “Though the house is mine, the “corresponding condition” is one-size-fits-all; it treats everybody in it equally. So, I’m a normal human being now. Don’t you want to absorb that person’s Potential Growth Value? I can show you how.”

Lin Sanjiu didn’t say anything. She moved two steps toward the side when the woman walked further into the bathroom.

The anklet on Bohemia’s foot released a soft and soothing ring along as she walked. She stopped a few steps away from Lin Sanjiu before offering her a warm grin, “The bodies you and I have now are the imaginary figures formed by our Higher Consciousness according to the image that our sea of psyche think that’s the most suitable for us. Close your eyes. Don’t use your current body; imagine it, feel it with your higher conscious form. Now, can you see it?”

As she spoke, Lin Sanjiu slowly closed her eyes. However, the moment her eyes were closed, she shuddered and unglued her eyes.

Bohemia’s smiley face froze. Her face, which was a few times larger than it was previously, stopped a few millimeters away from the tip of Lin Sanjiu’s nose.

“… As easy as that,” Bohemia’s frozen smile thawed and began to spread across her face.

Lin Sanjiu released a low guttural roar as she yanked her arm free, throwing the water hose in her palm toward the woman’s face. Taking the opportunity as Bohemia ducked to avoid her attack, Lin Sanjiu slithered through the small gap between Bohemia and the concrete wall and darted outside.

“I have helped you, don’t you think you should respond me with gratitude?” The woman husky yet erotic giggle rang out behind her. Then, the jingle of her anklet followed after, “Since you have killed Syphilis, I’ll have half of your Potential Growth Value.”

Lin Sanjiu escaped from the bathroom in an unstable gait. There was nothing in her mind besides her own screaming. Even if Bohemia was restricted by the rules of the house, it was certainly not as she said; her restriction must be lighter than other people’s. After all, how could a normal human suddenly appear in front of her as if she was teleporting?

Lin Sanjiu couldn’t utter any sounds. She swerved, darting into another direction toward the glass door at the back. Since the walkway outside had been burned down by fire, she had no other choice but to return to her higher consciousness form and float into the cosmos. She didn’t dare to stop for even a minute, flying at full throttle and making half a circle around the house before shooting into it again.

However, to her surprise, Bohemia didn’t follow after her.

Hiding beside the door, Lin Sanjiu looked around for a few seconds but she saw no figure of the woman with curly hair. It felt like Bohemia had forgone her attempt to chase after her the moment she reached the walkway.

“As long as I can keep an eye on both of the front and rear entrances, I would be able to see the moment Bohemia came out, and then I can easily thwart any ambush Bohemia throws at me,” Lin Sanjiu talked to herself as she suppressed the doubt in her heart. Then, she capped her mouth and her nose with her hand as she took in the surrounding while snuck her way to the bathroom—she wanted to take back the Potential Growth Value she left at the bathroom.

Even if she could only mend her injuries by absorbing the Potential Growth Value, she still had to give it a try.

… What Lin Sanjiu didn’t expect was that Bohemia had really stopped at the walkway.

“Magus,” She looked at the woman who was sitting at the balustrade, offering her a big grin. However, Lin Sanjiu could hear the faint trepidation in her voice, “What day is it today. What made both you and Nüwa come here?”

As the owner swayed her delicate, glistening black high heel in the air, she snorted. A smile found its way onto the corner of the rouge color lips of that golden hair woman clad in a black blouse.

Upon closer inspection, one could notice that her facial features were not flawless as the age had left its impress upon her skin. However, like a bottle of fine wine, her feminine charm became better and more intoxicating with age.

“Don’t be so shocked; I’m here because of that screwball,” the woman known as Magus lifted her chin and a lock of golden hair rolled down her cheek. “That’s a toxic notion you have there. If you think you can dismiss me by saying that name, you can drop that thought now.”

“… That’s not what I meant,” Bohemia was stunned. She paused for a second before answering with a weird expression on her face.

“I have no interest in you and your little play friend,” Magus interjected. She gestured her fingers that coated in bright red nail polish at the air and said, “Get it done quickly.”

Bohemia didn’t understand what did she mean. She didn’t make any move.

“Didn’t you ask what day is it today?” Crooking her head, Magus offered her a smile—a kind of pitiful smile that came from an empress towards a low plebeian, “…For you, today is not a good day.”

When Bohemia saw the smile on Magus’ face, her expression changed. Before she even realized where the danger was coming from, she had darted toward another side of the cosmos. Her speed was lightning fast, yet she still couldn’t run away from the danger.

An eye-blinding green light burst forth from the walkway and engulfed half of Bohemia’s in a split of a second. Cursing aloud, Bohemia accelerated and flew toward the starfield like a drowned mouse, congealing into an auburn star. The star gave off an intense starlight at first, gleaming in great brilliancy like a gold medallion in the cosmos before it dimmed down powerlessly in the next second.

Then, the house suddenly fell apart, crumbling into numerous pieces of rubbles.

“… You look rather dull today,” floating amongst the rubbles and dust, Magus looked at Bohemia, who was in higher consciousness form now and laughed. Then, she turned her head around.

In the dark universe on her other side, there was a small star glowing in a deep emerald brilliance. The star wasn’t any brighter than the other star and it was particularly small in size. Nevertheless, as if it was breathing, the star was pulsating its deep emerald beam in the darkness.

As if she had seen something funny, Magus suddenly tossed her head back in a great fit of laughter. She wiped off the tear that dangled at the corner of her eyes and spoke in a tone as if she had witnessed the best movie in her life, “What a turn of events! You guys thought she was a steak, but never did any of you expect you would be eaten by this piece of steak… I suppose you have lost a quarter of your Potential Growth Value, right?”

Bohemia didn’t say anything. Instead, she turned into a meteor and dashed toward the horizon.

Magus didn’t chase after her. With a smile, she looked at the green starlight.

“I heard you’re looking for me?”

The green light blinked twice before turning into a woman, who seemed unable to control her own body very well. She was Lin Sanjiu.

With a surprised look on her face, she looked at the deep emerald glow on her body before shifting her eyes toward Magus.