Chapter 3 (1/2)

Chapter 3: The Crowbar and The Rat

“How did these sparrows become such monsters?” Gazing at the gloomy b.l.o.o.d.y fog, Chang had a heavy heart.

“How is Saner?” The student who was shouting to the daring student ran out. He looked like he was a good friend of that daring student; they probably came from the same high school. Otherwise, no one would take the risk of running into that dense fog.

Unfortunately, the daring student died, and his blood smeared everywhere.

“I want to go home to see my parents, I don’t know what may have happened to them…” Looking at the mess weakly, Chang muttered to himself.

“You ‘d dare go into this fog?” Gla.s.ses didn’t seem to have recovered from the horrifying state.

“I have to go, even though it’s miserable.” Chang took out his cell phone and called his mother again—still a busy signal.

“Can you guys see if you can make a call with your phone?” Chang put his phone into his pocket and tried calling his parents using Gla.s.ses and another student’s phone. “I have to go home to see if my parents are okay,” Chang said after he found out the signal was completely blocked.

“Don’t go out, it’s dangerous,” Pangzi squeezed over and said.

“I have to, I’m worried about them.” Chang hesitated for a moment, then walked out of the cla.s.sroom. Entering the fog, he found that it was denser than in the cla.s.sroom. As if the fog was alive, it kept trying to get into Chang’s eye sockets. The whole world was full of b.l.o.o.d.y darkness, and without the sun, his visibility was less than 5 meters.

Chang wasn’t able to see anything three steps away, not even the main gate of the school. He could only focus on the brick floors, moving forward bit by bit by tracing their texture.

“Gra.s.s is growing out from the rock’s crevices.” Because he could only see his own feet, he particularly focused on everything within his visible range.

Chang noticed that between edges of the brick floors, gra.s.s was growing out. It wasn’t an illusion, but they were getting taller at a rate noticeable even by human eyes. With this speed, the sidewalk would soon become a meadow in less than an hour.

“What happened….?” Stepping on these tenacious gra.s.s, he carefully went all the way to the school gate and opened it. What welcomed him was more b.l.o.o.d.y darkness.

The sky and the horizon was connected seamlessly; the world is completely silent.

No car was honking, and no pedestrians were screaming. There was only some distant m.u.f.fled sound. The strange fog seemed to be able to absorb sound waves, so sounds could only be heard within a certain range.

In this soundless b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l, Chang carefully sought for the direction towards his home, relying on his familiarity of the bluestone brick flooring.

A few meters away, he saw a car stopped in the middle of the street, but the driver was missing.

It wasn’t a surprise; in this mysterious situation, the driver could only see from the cabin to the very front of the car, so there was no way anyone could drive forward in this fog.

Chang looked into the empty cabin and found some blood stains on the steering wheel. There were also dents on the door—obviously, they were signs of a scuffle. Just thinking of the danger that Saner encountered, Chang decided to look for a weapon to defend himself.

“Click”, the door was unlocked. Chang turned to a crowbar in the cabin—the kind of crowbar that would be used to change a tire. It was flat and pointy, sharp as a small shovel, round on one end, and had a half meter long solid iron bar.

Grabbing on the round end, Chang continued his way home. This was a small town in North China, so Chang’s family wasn’t far away from the school. Usually 20 minutes was enough for him to walk home.

Walking alone on the sidewalk, it wasn’t like the doomsday pictured in games and movies, where the world was lifeless. Instead, every few minutes Chang walked, he could see some small groups of people gathered. Some were on the streets, while some stayed in their yards; some were even brave enough to surround a corpse and try to figure out what was going on.

Every face was filled with doubt, uncertainty, and fear. Chang didn’t join any of them. Communication had been cut off, including cell phones and TV signals, so he didn’t know whether equipment with transmission lines were still functioning or not, but the entire radio transmission was definitely malfunctioning.

Carefully carrying a crowbar, Chang continued investigating forward. Unexpectedly, a homeless dog sprang in front of Chang with its crimson eyes and crushed teeth.

The dog stared at Chang, emitting a “whining” sound of threat.

Think of Saner’s experience, Chang clenched the crowbar. He too, stared at the dog while keeping up his guard.

The two were stuck in the confrontation for a while. A moment later, the homeless dog seemed to recall its fear of human; it shook its head and tucked its tail, then ran away with deep whimpers.

“Ha……” seeing the back of the dog, Chang was relieved. He continued to follow the brick floors while paying close attention to the movement around him as he slowly continued back home.

After about 15 minutes, he finally reached his house. Although the gra.s.s on the ground was about an inch tall, they didn’t completely conceal the ground.

Chang’s home was a house enclosed with a courtyard, and the yard was usually groomed neatly and tidily. But now standing at the doorway, Chang saw that the home he was familiar with had changed its appearance—the yard was covered with moss and the house was wrapped in ivy. Apparently, these plants with insanely strong vitality grew here.

In the yard, Chang ripped off some vines on the door handle and inserted the key to open the door.

“Mom, are you here?” He entered the house. The fog in the house was a lot thinner than outside, so Chang’s eye felt a sudden discomfort as he had gotten used to the b.l.o.o.d.y darkness on the street.

He called, but no one answered.