Apocaly Utopi apocaly utop

Chapter 6 escape

"You're new, you don't know yet—" Shirley spoke urgently, her words coming much faster than before. "To adapt to the New World, humanity has developed two evolutionary directions—"

"Gurgle...?" A sound, as if squeezed from a throat, tinged with confusion, came from the guard booth again.

"You, me, Jack—we belong to the first type of evolution. There's another kind, which we call the 'Fallen Ones'—"

Emma looked up in confusion, still not fully grasping what was happening.

"Right, you're new, you wouldn't know," Shirley continued, her words tumbling out even faster. "To adapt to the New World, humanity has developed two evolutionary directions—"

"Gurgle...?" The same throaty, confused sound echoed from the guard booth once more.

"You, me, Jack—we belong to the first type of evolution. There's another kind, which we call the 'Fallen Ones'—"

As Shirley's words grew more urgent, the doorknob in the guard booth slowly turned under the beam of Emma's flashlight, emitting a creak as the door opened.

Shirley took a deep breath, her words spilling out like a burst of gunfire—"The Fallen Ones will do anything to survive. Right now, I have no combat ability at all, so defeating this Fallen One is entirely up to you, otherwise none of us will make it!" Before Emma could even react, Shirley leaped up and disappeared into a nearby tree.

Emma stared dumbfounded at the spot where Shirley had vanished, then looked down at Jack on the ground.

Jack gave a helpless smile, revealing a pair of sharp, rabbit-like teeth—"Big sis, I can't move either... Stop looking at me, the Fallen One is coming out!"

The flashlight beam quickly swung back to the guard booth, and as soon as Emma's gaze landed on the doorway, her retort of "Stop calling me big sis!" was swallowed back down.

She had never seen anything so disgusting in her life—

Deep brown, wrinkled, sticky skin clung tightly to a skeletal frame, bunching up in folds at the joints. The once-human body had shrunk to half its size—nothing remained but skin and bone, as if all the flesh and blood had been s*ck*d dry. But the most skin-crawling part was the head, where the nose and mouth should have been. In their place was a long, needle-like proboscis, like that of a mosquito, dripping with saliva as the Fallen One moved.

This thing, which barely resembled a human anymore, was still wearing a security guard's uniform—though the uniform was far too large for its shrunken frame, and it fell off after just a few steps. Its lidless eyes swiveled, locking onto Emma.

"Gurgle... You're so pretty..."

From that mosquito-like proboscis, human words buzzed out. "Your skin is so elastic... It must be very moist, right?"

Emma froze in place. Suddenly, a low voice came from the ground beside her: "Big sis, it's all up to you!"

But the voice wasn't Jack's—Emma turned to see that the figure pinned under the gate was no longer the handsome young man, but a rosy-cheeked, simple-looking girl of about ten, like a child from the countryside.

It seemed Jack's ability included metamorphosis, and the forms he took likely changed based on the target...

This thought flashed through Emma's mind, and she muttered angrily, "I'm injured too, you know!" She quickly took two steps back. As she moved, Jack was exposed, and in the dim light of the flashlight, his small face was on the verge of tears.

When the Fallen One with the mosquito proboscis and mummified appearance saw Jack, it visibly paused.

Emma quietly shifted a bit to the side.

"Little sister?" The mummy suddenly took two steps forward, startling Emma into retreating another meter, her guard fully up—but the mummy didn't even glance at her. Its exposed eyes were fixed solely on Jack. "Little sister, what are you doing here?"

The mummy was too close, and before it even finished speaking, saliva from its proboscis dripped onto Jack's face.

Jack visibly shuddered in disgust, but his expression remained perfectly controlled: "Big brother, I came to find you... Save me, save me... The gate is crushing me, it hurts so much..."

The "little girl's" clear eyes even welled up with tears. "Brother, help me move the gate... I want to get up."

"Little sister, you shouldn't have come, you shouldn't have come..." The mummy paused, as if remembering something, and ignored Jack's pleas, signing in a low voice.

Seeing that the mummy's attention was fully occupied, Emma quickly waved at the tree where Shirley was hiding, making a few gestures—while signaling, she quietly backed away.

Shirley silently jumped to a nearby tree, slid down the trunk, and quickly ran toward Emma's position.

Thankfully, this monster still retained some intelligence and humanity, otherwise things would have been much harder... Just as this thought crossed Emma's mind, the mummy suddenly tilted its head back and let out a series of intense buzzing sounds. Its sharp proboscis whipped through the air several times, sending droplets of saliva flying in all directions—

"But little sister, I'm so happy!" The mummy's buzzing voice was almost deafening, and there seemed to be a hint of joy in its tone. "The bodily fluids of family are a great supplement for me... I'm so happy, you didn't have to come all the way home, you came to me yourself!"

This statement nearly made the three of them faint on the spot. No one had expected Jack to suddenly become an unprotected piece of meat—as the mummy excitedly raised its proboscis, Jack couldn't help but scream: "Shirley, save me—!"

"No!" Emma couldn't stop her in time as Shirley rushed forward from behind her. Frustrated, she stomped her foot and immediately turned to run in the opposite direction.

But Shirley's reaction was the right one—just as the sharp proboscis was about to pierce Jack's chest, her long steel nails slammed into it with full force.

The proboscis was knocked aside, and Shirley's nails, which looked fierce but were actually only useful for drawing blood, shattered into pieces, scattering across the ground.

Faced with this minor obstacle, the mummy's exposed eyes swiveled toward Shirley. It clearly had no interest in her, buzzing, "Get out of here! Fake blood, fake flesh... Little sister, I'm coming..." She looked down again and paused: "Huh? Who are you? Where's my little sister?"

In the span of a single breath, Jack on the ground had transformed into a shriveled, deep-brown mummy with a giant mosquito proboscis.

The two mummies stared at each other for a few seconds.

"Did you absorb my little sister?" The mummy's intelligence seemed low, and its proboscis vibrated furiously: "Gurgle... ah... gurgle... ah... I'll kill you..."

This time, its proboscis shot forward with incredible speed. Shirley reached out to block it, but the mummy swung its arm, sending her flying through the air and crashing to the ground some distance away.

As the sharp proboscis descended again, Jack closed his eyes, waiting for death—

But instead, there was a loud crash, and the expected stab never came. Jack opened his eyes just in time to see Emma skid to a stop next to the gate in her Audi—the mummy, having been rammed by the car, was flung two or three meters away—

Emma jumped out of the car, one hand on the gate, and shouted in Shirley's direction: "Shirley! Get in the car!"

The mummy angrily got to its feet and began striding back. The collision seemed to have left it completely unharmed, and its furious buzzing only grew louder—but Shirley was faster. The moment Emma got out of the car, she had already sprinted over.

White light flashed continuously from Emma's palm, and she looked as if she were standing beneath a cascading stream, drenched in sweat. Her arms trembled more and more violently, but the gate showed no sign of disappearing—

Shirley leaped into the car, one hand opening the back door, and shouted urgently: "Hurry, hurry! It's coming!"

"I'm trying!" Emma's words came out strained, and finally, with a flash of white light, the gate disappeared for a second—but then it reappeared, slamming back down onto the ground and sending up a cloud of dust. "I can't do it!" She gasped for breath, nearly collapsing.

"Get in the car!" Jack's voice suddenly rang out from behind.

Taking advantage of the brief moment when the gate had disappeared, Jack had already rolled out. He scrambled into the back seat, but as he turned, he saw the mummy's proboscis suddenly extend, shooting toward Emma—"Dodge!"

Emma didn't have time to turn around. She threw herself to the ground, and at the same moment, Shirley kicked the car door open, perfectly blocking the proboscis—it struck the window, shattering the glass into countless pieces. In that brief pause, Jack frantically pulled Emma into the car, not even bothering to close the door, and shouted urgently: "Go, go, go!"

As the mummy lunged forward again, Shirley yanked the steering wheel, and the car narrowly missed the mummy, the sound of its body scraping against the vehicle sending shivers down their spines—

With the accelerator pressed to the floor, the Audi quickly left the mummy behind.

Once the door was closed, the three of them finally caught their breath, their hearts still racing. Emma's phone had been lost somewhere near the entrance of the complex, and now she and Jack leaned over the back seat, looking behind them. In the faint light of the phone's flashlight, they saw the mummy stagger after them for a few steps, but as the distance grew, it finally gave up. It seemed to pause and think for a moment, then turned and walked back into the complex.

It seemed there would be no survivors in the Veteran Community.

"It seems the main weakness of the Fallen Ones here is their slow movement," Shirley said, glancing in the reflection mirror and wiping the sweat from her brow.

Emma handed out bottles of water she had stored in the car, and after gulping down half a bottle herself, she sat in stunned silence. Everything that had happened in the past few hours felt like a dream...

"Thank you," Jack said suddenly, his voice shy, as he took a sip of water and flashed his rabbit-like teeth. "You could have just run away, but you risked coming back to save me..."

"And it seems we make a pretty good team!" Shirley added, raising an eyebrow in the mirror, reflected with a smile.

Looking at the two people who, despite being strangers, had just fought alongside her, Emma smiled softly for the first time that day: "Yeah... Now let's talk about this crazy world."