Apocalypse Park

This New World

Under Emma's guidance, Landon drove the car to the bottom of the 38th-floor apartment and found a quiet spot to rest.

After all, it was a top-tier community, much less crowded compared to the outside.

Even in this world that had turned upside down, the garden still looked serene and unique.

After a moment's hesitation, Emma covered the broken car window and turned on the air conditioning. With Amanda no longer around, there was no point in saving fuel or electricity.

The cool environment not only helped her recover faster but also benefitted the wound on her neck, preventing inflammation and infection in the heat. Although she understood this, she still felt a bit melancholic when the cold air hit her.

Landon noticed her expression, sighed, and said, "Don’t be too sad. At least your friend didn't die at the hands of a Fallen One."

"Taken from 'Three Cups of Wine from the Mortal World'?" Landon immediately pouted, "I lose when it comes to names. How about I call you Little Wine? By the way, why do you have a towel wrapped around your neck?"

"Oh!" Emma was reminded and quickly removed the wet and hot towel, revealing the bloody wound underneath. Seeing it, Landon gasped, and even Ethan raised his eyebrows, looking at her in confusion. Emma opened a bottle of purified water and began to clean the wound while explaining the story of Ethan.

Perhaps it was because these two had saved her once in a critical moment, but Emma was very willing to trust them at this time.

Unlike Landon, who stood there with his mouth agape, Ethan remained silent, frowning, and suddenly pointed at the bottle of purified water, saying to the startled Emma, "Let me do it. I did study medicine for a few years." After saying that, she pulled out a roll of bandages and some antibiotics from her waist pouch.

Did the personality split out also have its own complete life experience? Emma glanced at Landon in confusion but said nothing, obediently swallowing two antibiotics.

With Ethan’s skill, it didn’t take long before the wound on her neck was properly treated.

Landon, still processing the story, was a bit stunned: "I’ve heard about this man-eating ability before, but I never thought it was real. This Ethan probably hadn’t been evolved for long, which is why you managed to take him down so easily. Otherwise, who knows how powerful he could have become!"

"Thank goodness we never encountered someone like that," Ethan said quietly.

After spending half the night together, Emma had somewhat figured things out. Though Ethan couldn’t fight, she was agile, calm, and had extensive experience (?), making her seem more reliable than Landon.

"Can you explain this world to me? What exactly is going on? How many worlds are there?" Emma couldn’t help but ask Ethan.

"Why are you asking Ethan and not me?" Landon protested from the side.

Ignoring him, Ethan asked Emma a question in return, "Have you ever heard of the parallel universe theory?"

Emma nodded, "Outside of our universe, there are countless parallel universes. Every measurement or even every choice made by a person could split off or, rather, create a new parallel universe?"

She had read enough science fiction novels to know this much.

Ethan nodded calmly, "Let me clarify first, this is just a hypothesis. Some evolved beings support it, while others don’t. As for me? I support it. I don’t know how many people are in your world, but in ours, there are 4.3 billion people. Every choice made by every person in their life splits off into a new space. If you chose the left path this morning, then in another space, you chose the right path. And in the new space, each person continues to create new spaces.

So how many worlds are there? No one knows. The number is infinite."

"Originally, we all lived our lives in our own spaces, never encountering people from other spaces in a lifetime. But for some unknown reason, some parallel spaces began to mutate, like this one."

As Ethan paused, Emma quickly asked, "Are all the worlds like this, turning into extreme heat environments?"

Landon, with a rare serious expression, answered, "Not necessarily. In our world, it was because of a virus experiment leak. More than half the population died from the epidemic caused by the virus."

Emma suddenly thought that he might have lost loved ones in his world too.

Ethan hesitated, as if trying to find the right words.

"By the 14th month, Landon and I had already adapted to that new world, filled with epidemics and Fallen Ones. The change occurred on an otherwise ordinary night."

"Landon and I woke up to find ourselves lying on a battlefield. Can you imagine? We had just opened our eyes, not knowing where we were, when a bomb dropped fifty meters away from us," Ethan added.

"Although we couldn’t figure out what was happening at the time, we quickly realized one thing: we were no longer in our original world. We asked around and finally learned that the world was called the Bloodstained Black Land. In that war-torn world, we struggled to survive for another 14 months.

Then, on the last day of the 14th month, the same thing happened again," Landon's voice sounded distant.

In the cool air of the car's air conditioning, a drop of sweat ran down Emma's forehead.

She understood.

Before Landon could speak, she gently said, "You came here."

Landon sighed and nodded, "To the Extreme Heat Hell."

Extreme Heat Hell!

Emma opened her mouth to speak, but Landon seemed to already know what she was going to say: "It's not just me. In both worlds, almost every evolved human I’ve met gets sent away on the 14th month."

"And it seems that each person goes to a different place every time."

Her heart pounded, and Emma was almost in disbelief, "So, in 14 months, I will also..."

"Go to another new world," Ethan said with certainty. "Probably because I’m a split personality, I just follow Landon’s actions. But our other companions have all been scattered."

The flood of unimaginable information filled Emma’s mind. It took her a while to process it before she suddenly realized, "Wait, you just said that each evolved human goes to a different place, meaning we’re randomly thrown into endless apocalyptic worlds?"

This meant that once she left, she might never return to the place where she was born and raised for the rest of her life.

No, it also meant that in 14 months, Landon and Ethan would be sent to God knows which world, and they might never meet again.

Having just met two people she could trust, only to be told they would soon part ways—it was a strange feeling.

The car windows were already covered in a fine layer of condensation. Clearly, in just the time they had been talking, the temperature outside had climbed again. Emma turned down the air conditioning and suddenly realized another possibility. "Wait, according to the parallel universe theory, there are countless versions of me. So, does that mean I might meet another version of myself in another world?"

Unexpectedly, Ethan shook her head firmly.

"Just like Darwin's theory of evolution, the parallel universe theory is only the best explanation we currently have for these apocalyptic worlds, not the truth. But what you just said is actually a flaw in the parallel universe theory; in another new world, there is simply no other you."

Emma felt a little dazed. The information tonight was too overwhelming, and she leaned back in her chair, her mind filled with thoughts of the new world, leaving her speechless.

Suddenly, there was a soft swishing sound in the car. She looked up to see Ethan's fingernail transforming into a long steel claw. She looked at Emma with hopeful eyes, "Now, can I draw your blood?"