Apocalypse Forecast

Hurry up, Huai Shi.

Hurry up, or else, everything will be too late.

Huai Shi panted, gripping the iron pick in the moonlit darkness.

Exerting all his might, shoveling the soil beneath his feet, drenched in sweat, yet he dared not stop, pulled by an invisible fear, unable to pause.

The shadow behind him expanded under the moonlight, grinning silently.

As if overlooking, it stared at him casting aside soil, sinking bit by bit, like digging his own grave.

Until his shovel suddenly struck some invisible object, sparks flew.

Huai Shi paused for a moment, reaching out a trembling hand, parting the soil, and glimpsed the iron stone heart already cold beneath the earth, someone chuckled softly.

So mocking.

When Huai Shi retreated in terror, a hand suddenly shot out from this self-dug grave, gripping his wrist tightly, amid the soil and dust, his own face emerged, looked up, and smiled at him:

"Huai Shi, what are you looking for?"

Darkness descended.

Torrential rain began, the distant sound of a train roared, the cemetery was desolate.

Huai Shi stood before the tombstone, gazing at his grandfather’s photo on it, hearing the sounds of argument behind him, a man and a woman, hysterical, impatient, debating each other like they wanted to blame each other for all the world’s mistakes.

Even though the funeral was not yet over.

Diligently discussing every detail of the inheritance distribution.

When Huai Shi finally summoned the courage to turn around, those voices disappeared without a trace.

Only two skeletons nestled in the light rain remained, black eye sockets quietly watching him.

Huai Shi’s vision darkened, he tiredly covered his face, yet suddenly mocking laughter rang out again from all around.

During the interlude after class, those boys surrounded him, laughing sarcastically, pushing him, kicking him, inspecting the wooden person with his head down, anticipating his bold defiance.

"He’s just a thief! He’s been here several times!" A middle-aged woman impatiently grabbed his collar, yanking out the things in his hand: "And you lied to me, where did you get the money to buy things!"

The collar suddenly grew teeth, devouring him from within, he opened his eyes and saw the world twisting and contracting, everyone convulsed, skin cracked like lotuses.

Within the lotus, plasma surged, swallowing him.

...

Nightmare, endless nightmare.

In the endless grayness, Huai Shi felt as if invisible tendrils were wrapping around him bit by bit, contracting, pulling him layer by layer, dragging him to the deepest part of the mire.

Reliving all pains.

Endlessly.

Huai Shi calmly stared at everything, from beginning to end, without uttering a word.

Quietly waiting.

Until returning once again to that desolate world, in the decaying forest, seeing once more the haggard man on horseback.

Wandering aimlessly.

But this time, behind his horse, there were countless staggered figures.

Like walking corpses.

Numbly moving forward, empty pupils devoid of brilliance, filled only with gloom and pain.

Alongside that man, turning back, looking at Huai Shi.

Once again, humble plea.

"Please, mourn for him..."

That hoarse entreaty echoed like thunder from the depths of the soul, continuously reverberating, filling every corner and will, not allowing him any more thought or rebuttal.

Huai Shi closed his eyes.

Deeply, deeply, taking a breath.

Earnestly and solemnly.

Offering a response.

As if in a comic, Barbarian King Detective Conan, lost in the night, encounters a former villain organization researcher who has also been injected with a muscle-enhancing potion and turned into a giant.

Across the long distance, roaring at the opposite party:

"—Mourn for you!"

Instantly, violently breaking free, escaping the shackles of the dreamland, clenched fists, putting all his strength into a punch of anger at the other’s face.

Boom!

At that moment, the fragile dreamland shattered under the gaze of Raven’s eyes, Huai Shi awakened from the endless nightmare.

He breathed heavily.

Only hearing the sound of wheels rumbling.

In this brief daze, he felt his body gently swaying, as if sitting in a carriage, without realizing where exactly he was.

The long dream had exhausted all his energy, he wiped the cold sweat off his face, feeling a bout of fatigue, his limbs weak.

Finally understanding why those survivors had gone mad... but now, he suspected he was already insane too.

He found himself sitting in a tricycle, with the sound of wheels rumbling, his body swaying along with it.

Moving forward in a dark, lengthy corridor.

The small friendship dog sat opposite him, wagging its tongue, chewing on part of a long bone, not knowing where this was, and without any vigilance.

A deep voice sounded from the other side.

"Hey, hey, you’re finally awake."

That voice said: "You were going to cross the boundary at that moment, right? Almost ran into those ghost things’ ambush..."

"Huh?" Huai Shi was momentarily dazed.

"When I found you, I almost thought you were dead too. Are you feeling alright? Want one?"

Accompanied by a crunching sound, a skeletal hand held out a peeled cigar in front of him.

Huai Shi looked up in a daze and saw... half a skeleton?

Yes, just the upper half of a skeleton, as if it had just crawled out of formalin, still carrying a pungent smell.

It wore an orange-yellow miner’s hat, and its skeletal frame was haphazardly draped with a heap of gold chains, iron pieces, and other random things, even two limited edition cigarette cards shoved in there.

Now, it was looking up at Huai Shi, leisurely chewing on a cigar.

Not even lighting it, just crunching away.

From the hollow, black eye socket, a timid little white mouse poked its head out to glance at Huai Shi, then quickly shrank back, hiding inside its empty skull.

"...Did the corpse just talk?" Huai Shi was dumbfounded.

There was no doubt, it was indeed a skeleton, and judging from the color of the bones, it seemed long dead. No brain, no flesh, no internal organs, and no source fluctuation.

Yet it could still move, chew a cigar, and despite having no vocal cords, produce sound.

"Wow, it’s really rude to talk like that," the skeleton said, spitting out the tobacco leaves from its mouth: "This thing doesn’t taste good at all. Why do so many people like it?"

"Uh, that’s supposed to be lit..."

"Huh?" The skeleton paused: "Really?"

"Yes, you’re supposed to cut one end, light the other end, and inhale it..." Huai Shi explained for quite a while before it finally understood, finding a lighter in the junk inside the tricycle, lighting it under Huai Shi’s guidance.

Trying to take a deep drag.

But naturally, with no lungs, it couldn’t inhale a thing.

Yet in such a place, this seemed perfectly reasonable.

However, even if it did manage to inhale, the bony frame had no nose or flesh to absorb nicotine...

The skeleton regretfully glanced at the smoking cigar, muttering as if enlightened: "So that’s how it works? I kept thinking something was off... Anyway, thank you."

"Uh, no problem, no problem."

Huai Shi forced a smile, looked at the surroundings, and tentatively asked: "Did you put me on the cart?"

"Yeah, I almost thought you were dead, wanted to bury you, but your friend told me you were still alive, just needed to be hydrated, so I brought you back."

The skeleton looked at him with its eye sockets: "You seem quite spirited, not like the others who went mad after waking up.

Are you feeling uncomfortable anywhere? Need some medicine?"

"Medicine?"

"Yeah, let me see... I’ve got..." The skeleton rummaged through the trash on the ground, pulling out a bunch of unlabeled potions: "I picked these up from a warehouse, should be effective for you?"

"Uh, no thanks." Huai Shi rubbed his nose, trying to collect his thoughts.

Figuring out the cause and effect.

Basically, Huai Shi, the little overlord of Tanbo, had come to space, arrived at Helios, was tricked by teammates, chased by monsters, almost alerted some strange thing, barely escaped after hiding for a long time, and then fainted, only to be picked up by a skeleton?

"Hey, buddy, help me out—"

The skeleton suddenly spoke, interrupting his thoughts: "Can you tell your friend... to give me back my large trochanter?"

"Huh?" Huai Shi was stunned for a moment and looked over at the Broken Dog, only to find it was gnawing on the skeleton’s pelvis!

After a lot of hassle, he finally managed to snatch the bone back from the dog’s mouth and reattach it to the skeleton. The skeleton let out a sigh, struggled to twist its legless lower body, looking much more comfortable as if relieved.

"...So, buddy, there’s a question I don’t know if I should ask." Huai Shi scratched his head, tentatively asked: "Excuse me, what exactly are you?"

"Huh?"

The skeleton was momentarily stunned, then responded loudly: "I don’t know either!"

???

Huai Shi’s expression started twitching.

Ten minutes later, the skeleton was breaking apart a piece of starch it found, feeding the little white mouse living inside its skull while explaining to Huai Shi: "I woke up half a month ago from a pile of corpses, looking just like this. I don’t know what happened, feels like I just popped out of nowhere.

I wanted to find someone to ask what I am, but everyone was dead, no one to talk to... Apart from you two, the only living thing I’ve found is this little creature.

But I asked it for a long time, and it seems it can’t speak."

The skeleton shrugged regrettably, making a crunching sound: "I was hoping you knew, wanted to ask you, but who would’ve thought you know even less than I do."

Saying this, its tone darkened: "Could it be that I’m the last of my kind?"

No no no, as for corpses, the entire Current Circumstances has countless of them.

Just none of the skeletons can move and talk like you do.

Huai Shi observed carefully and discovered... it seemed to be some kind of alchemy product, but couldn’t imagine who would create such a thing.

Couldn’t think of anyone so bored.

Most importantly, it lacked any mystic ritual traces, as if created naturally...

What is this supposed to be? A resurrection of the dead?

Huai Shi scratched his head, curiously asked: "Then... do you remember your name?"

"Huh?"

The skeleton hesitated, scratching its skull making a banging sound.

As if it had never thought about this question before.

"My name is... what was it..."

It mumbled blankly, seemingly trying hard to remember, yet unable to confirm, whispering: "Seemed like it was... Pub... something Pub? Slavery?"

Amidst Huai Shi’s sudden shock, the skeleton brightened up, snapped its fingers: "I think I was called Publius!"

"...What?!"

Huai Shi exclaimed in shock.