Doomsday Wonderland

“I can finally see why you refuse to take this thing down… Oh, this feels good…”

Yunqian let out a long contented sigh as he whispered. His eyes were closed, his head leaning over the handle of the sofa. There were a few metal sheets on top of his forehead, flickering in the ill-lit room filled with soft white light.

At the very far end of the room, the teenager sat on the bed, allowing the shadow of the curtain to hide his presence. He silently stared at the man on the couch.

Yunqian opened his mouth slightly and let out a low moan of contentment. Starting from his fingertips, his body quivered as if a flux of electricity had shot up his spine and coursed up and down every cell in his body. He curled himself up like a frozen shrimp reaching the climax of his euphoria. He remained in such a position for a long while before gradually loosening up again.

The teenager lowered his feet down on the floor and stood up silently.

Suddenly, Yunqian peeled back his eyelids, prompting Yun to lower his head. Yunqian’s eyes were bloodshot. Gone was the solemn and severe president. He stared at the teenager, giggling with a husky voice, “You finished, too?”

There were several similar metal sheets on top of Yun’s forehead. He kept his head low as he nodded silently, not wanting to exchange glances with the president. Unlike Yunqian, whose eyes were red with blood, the teenager’s eyes were black and white.

Towards the end of the “Golden Era”, this gadget had become a trend amongst the folks in Mistral. According to the manufacturer, the effect was divided into five or six different “flavors”, which could induce different levels, varying intensity, and various types of autonomous sensory meridian responses (ASMR) and ecstasy by stimulating one’s nervous system. Due to its unique attribute of having almost no toxic side effects, it was pretty addictive. In a sense, it was a perfect substitution for drugs.

The only side effect was that after each “wave”, the user’s eyes would turn red for some time.

Yunqian did not use the metal sheet often. Perhaps he was intrigued by Yun since he kept this gadget on his forehead all the time, so Yunqian gave in to his curiosity at last and decided to try it out today, which in turn gave the teenager a chance to take a breather from the never-ending torment he received every night.

Bathing in the yellow light that hovered over the gloomy room, the president once again closed his eyes. His usually well-pressed suit was now a disheveled mess.

Tick, tick, tick, tick. The electronic clock on the wall wouldn’t stop ticking, a monotonous pace that went on forever, which would get on the listener’s nerves. Since the teenager refused to open the window or the curtain, the air in the room was permeated with a musty smell. Everything in the dark seemed to have frozen in time. The man huffing on the sofa and this foul-smelling room—it seemed like it would exist for eternity.

Seeing that the man was once again engulfed in the pleasure brought forth by the metal sheet, Yun turned his head to look at the door and tapped on the bed twice with his finger.

A second later, the door slid open quietly. Lin Sanjiu was standing outside the door. After a moment of suspense, she moved aside, revealing a tall and lanky human-esque figure behind her.

A Vindice clad in black leather pushed the door very slowly and slipped into the room.

Yun’s face was growing pale. He gestured with his chin towards the man sitting on the sofa.

The Vindice turned his body mechanically and began to move towards the sofa. His movement was slow-gaited. He would land on his heel first before pressing his entire foot firmly on the ground. The teenager followed behind the Vindice, his lower jaw tight. It looked like the toll of controlling a Vindice was visibly tiring him out. With each step the Vindice took, cold sweat oozed out of his forehead.

Even though the Vindice was very careful not to make any noise, his leather still uttered a slight squeal when he moved. Yunqian spun his head around half-way and cracked open his eyes a little as he muttered, “Hmm?”

The Vindice stopped moving in an instant. Yun quickly feigned a deep voice, “I… I’m just getting some water.”

Hearing his voice seemed to please the man very much. Yunqian licked his lips and murmured in a husky, nasal voice, “Come closer, sweetheart.” After that, he closed his eyes and again wallowed in the sensual pleasure induced by the metal sheet. The teenager’s heart hammered a fearful cadence as all color escaped from his face. He kept his mouth shut tightly to press down the bile that rose in his throat and the sickening nausea that churned his stomach acids. After that, he resumed walking forward, followed by the Vindice.

When they were a few steps away from the president, Yun stopped, but he commanded the Vindice to continue to move closer to the couch.

The glitter around the teenager’s eyes dimmed down and became two halos of dark circles. His eyes seemed like two dark tunnels; there wasn’t any light in them.

He stared at Yunqian for a considerable amount of time. After the clock ticked four more times, he whispered, “Kill him.”

Yunqian opened his eyes abruptly, and at the same time, countless black tubes appeared from beneath the Vindice’s skin.

Yunqian never expected to be welcomed by a Vindice the moment he opened his eyes. The Vindice pointed all the black tubes at him. However, Yunqian’s reflexes as a posthuman were something to be reckoned with. He kicked the floor and fell to the back of the couch, using the couch as his shield from the blast of white powder that was discharged by the Vindice.

The Vindice charged in. He grabbed the couch and moved it out of his way while showering the back of the couch with a blast of white powder, filling half of the room with a sea of whiteness. Yunqian closed his mouth and nose with his hand as he stumbled his way to the door, but the Vindice and Yun were not going to give him a chance. The moment he moved, the ruthless AI blitzed him down with a salvo of white powder, turning him into a snowman. Yunqian fell to the floor, and his body could not help shaking. It was just that this time when his body shivered, it did not come from pleasure anymore…

“You, you are crazy…”

Yunqian wiggled and squirmed like a worm on its death throes. His hand had fallen away from his mouth, and his eyes rolled back till they showed white. White foam bubbled at the corner of his lips. He mustered up all the remaining strength in his body and shouted his loudest shout, “You are gonna die, too!”

Yun calmly wiped off the white powder from his face. He inspected the white powder that lingered on his fingertip and said in a low voice, “I’m willing to take the risk.”

The Vindice only ceased attacking after the white powder completely covered his target and seeped into his skin. For a moment, no one in the room talked or moved. Yunqian squirmed and groaned as he continued to crawl his way to the door. Goo oozed out of the pores in his face as his throat gurgled. He could not speak any words with meaning.

It was as if somebody was clutching his neck. The rattling from his windpipe and the ticking of the clock created a symphony that resonated throughout the room. Not long after, the ticking of the clock was the only sound that remained in the room.

But Yun knew that he wasn’t dead yet.

In truth, this was why he chose to kill the president with a Vindice.

He wanted to see him waste away and die in agony.

Yun crouched beside the contorted human figure, offering him a gentle smile. “Do you like it, Mr. President?”

The exposed skin beneath the white powder had turned black like burned charcoal, and Yunqian’s face with his strong jawline was disfigured as if licked by a flame. At a glance, nobody would realize that this was actually a man. Not only had he lost all human features, but there was also yellow pus percolating through the pores on his face.

“I know you can still hear me, Mr. President.” Yun took down the metal sheets from his forehead and threw them into the room, striking a jangle note as they dropped on the floor. Then, with an ever-soothing voice, he said, “Although I wear them every day, I have never once used them. It saved me a goddamn lot of work when you said you wanted to try them out to let off some steam. Do you still remember the day before yesterday? When you saw me shivering so much and asked me if the sensation was that pleasant, and I answered yes?”

The teenager lowered his head to get closer to the man at the gates of death. Wearing a malefic mask on his face, he hissed into Yunqian’s ear, “That day is the day my ability evolved.”

The human body on the floor quivered a little bit. It was so light that it was almost imperceptible to the naked human eye.

Feeling contented, Yun smiled. “Since the AI is capable of self-decision making to a certain degree, I could not control them in the past. You knew about this, so you did not worry about me at all, didn’t you? Do you feel surprised now, Mr. President? What? What are you saying? I can’t hear you quite clearly. Can you please speak louder, Mr. President? What? Die? Are you saying you don’t want to die? Oh, you silly old man. I won’t let you die so easily. Don’t you know how much I love you?”

After that, he got up to his feet and turned to the Vindice, commanding him with an expressionless face, “Give him a bath and treat him.”

The Vindice strode up towards the man on the floor. He grabbed him by his ankle, attempting to lift him, but little did he expect that the powder had corroded so deep into his body; his ankle fell off as if it were made of maize syrup. Yun came to a sudden halt for a moment before chuckling. “Just treat him here.”

However, this time, the Vindice did not go and do his bidding but just stood stock still on the floor.

The teenager glanced at the AI, seeming unsurprised. His face was ashen white and his body wet with sweat. He stumbled a few steps back and collapsed on the floor.

Yunqian had been controlling Yun with his power. Since his ability had just evolved and the Vindice was not technically a “doll”, after commanding the Vindice to do so much of his bidding, he had finally exhausted his energy.

Sitting on the floor, Yun looked at the distorted human body and burst into a loud and continuous laughter. His smile grew bigger and his laughter louder until it turned into a whimper and finally became a wail like the howl of a lonely wolf that lost its pack in the middle of the night.

Yunqian was still alive, but he was not far away from death.

Yun had gotten his revenge, but he felt so empty. The teenager curled up in a fetus position on the floor and bawled his eyes out. His face turned red as he muttered the word “why” again and again and again.

Standing outside the doorway, Lin Sanjiu buried her face in her hands and wept silently.

“All the grief and pain in life is meaningless. There is no ‘why’. You have to remember that it’s God who wanted to torture you.”

The moment she lowered her head, a voice rang out from the door, knocking them out of their reverie. They raised their heads in unison and realized a person was standing at the door.

“It’s you?” Yun jerked up from the floor. His body tightened up. Right now, the president’s body was on the floor, exposed to the sight of the comer. Yun tried to make the Vindice move, but it was in vain.

The comer was somebody Yunqian trusted a lot. If he summoned other people to this room…

The teenager’s face turned pale at the thought.

“Relax. I just want to give you something,” the comer smiled. He bent his body over and placed a device on the floor.

That was the device Yunqian used to play the tape.

Before Yun could rush out to stop him, the man had already turned around and left, leaving his voice echoing in the corridor. “Watch the tape. I’m confident you will come to me eventually after you have watched it.”

Throughout the entire confrontation, he did not even bat an eye at the president.

Looking at the familiar figure, Lin Sanjiu froze as if a bolt of lightning hit her.