Apocalypse Park

The Ten Minutes Spent with Mom

“You shameless bastards! You sit in your cars with the AC on while we suffer out here! I’m going to kill you all!”

“Ah?”

A muffled thud came from the car door, followed by a slurred shout from the street. Emma was so startled by the shadow that she lost control of the car, slamming the brakes to the floor. The vehicle screeched loudly but managed to avoid crashing into the roadside barrier.

Looking back, she saw a shirtless man, drenched in sweat, furiously throwing bricks at the red Mazda she had just passed. As he hurled the bricks, he cursed, “You… you’re all no good! Get out here, you bastards! Get out—” But before he could finish his sentence, he collapsed and fainted.

Clearly, she had just been caught in the crossfire.

Breathing a sigh of relief, Emma turned her gaze away from the rear view mirror, still feeling a bit shaken.

Rage-induced delirium, fainting, and sometimes even hallucinations—these were all signs of severe dehydration caused by extreme heat.

Taking a deep breath, Emma pressed the accelerator, heading straight for Amanda’s apartment complex.

She had been to Amanda’s place many times before. Twenty minutes later, when the headlights illuminated the words “RJ Complex,” Emma slowly brought the car to a stop and turned off the engine.

She removed the keys, grabbed her bag, and switched on her flashlight, walking toward the entrance gate of the complex.

The area was somewhat remote, and there were usually few people around. At this hour, it was as silent as a ghost town.

But just as Emma was about to reach the large iron gate, she suddenly felt a chill run down her spine and stopped in her tracks.

She glanced around, seeing nothing out of the ordinary. Cautiously, she waited for another two minutes. When everything remained calm, she breathed a slight sigh of relief.

It seemed her “keen intuition” wasn’t always 100% accurate.

RJ Complex was an old apartment building from the 1990s. Like all old buildings, the entrance had a guard post. Because the area wasn’t very safe, the iron gate was locked after midnight.

However, if someone returned late at night, they could simply knock on the gate, and the security guard on duty would come with the keys to unlock it.

Emma checked her watch—it was exactly 2:30 AM. She walked up to the gate and shook it. The heavy brass lock clanged loudly against the iron bars, the sound gradually fading away.

Yet the surroundings remained eerily silent, with no sign of life.

“Security guard, are you there? I’m here to visit someone in Unit 2. Could you please open the gate?” Her clear voice echoed through the quiet night.

But despite the hope in Emma’s voice, there was no response from the guard post.

Sighing, she resigned herself to the situation.

Emma looked up at the iron bars above the gate, which were designed to prevent climbing. Her head started to ache. The complex might be old, but the gate was newly installed and solidly built, leaving no room for shortcuts.

Hesitating, Emma placed her hand on the gate.

“Store it away!”

With her whispered command, a white light flickered in her palm. But this time, the light seemed to struggle, flashing several times in her hand before the gate remained unchanged.

This was Emma’s first attempt to transform something so large and heavy. She could feel her heart rate increasing, her breathing becoming labored, and her muscles starting to ache.

It felt as though her body was weighed down by thousands of pounds of iron. Emma’s arms began to tremble.

Just as she was about to give up, the umpteenth white light finally flickered out with a “snap.”

The iron gate vanished, transforming into a card that fell to the ground.

On the card was a crude crayon drawing of two iron gates, with the caption in the bottom corner:

[Iron Gate]

· Installed in RJ Complex in 2012.

· Heavy with no redeeming qualities.

· Function: No special abilities. Can’t stand upright unless embedded in the wall.

The guard post behind her remained pitch black and silent.

When Emma finally stood in front of apartment 401’s door, she was panting heavily. Storing away the gate had drained her energy, and climbing four flights of stairs had left her trembling. Her voice shook as she called out, “Amanda… Are you there? It’s me, Emma!”

Apartment 401 was also silent. Emma’s heart sank to her stomach. If Amanda had fainted inside, she didn’t know what she would do. Since midnight, she had already transformed three items: Ethan’s corpse, his hair, and the iron gate. She only had one chance left today, but Amanda’s place had two doors!

Desperately, Emma continued to pound on the door, her anxiety mounting.

When she had gotten out of the car, she had noticed the temperature seemed to be still rising. Judging by her increasingly uncomfortable body heat, it was definitely hotter than 56 degrees now. Could Amanda, an ordinary person, survive this?

After calling for a while, Emma’s throat was burning, and she had to stop to drink some water.

As she put the bottle back in her bag and raised her hand to knock again, the door to apartment 401 creaked open just a crack.

“Amanda, are you alright?” Emma breathed a sigh of relief and quickly shined her flashlight through the opening.

But the person who opened the door wasn’t Amanda. Instead, it was a middle-aged woman, about fifty, with an oval face.

Startled by the sudden light, the woman raised her hand to shield her eyes. But in that brief moment, Emma had already seen enough.

With a “thud,” Emma’s phone slipped from her grasp and hit the floor.

She stared at the half-hidden face behind the door for a long moment before she finally reacted. Scrambling to pick up her phone, she shakily aimed the flashlight back at the door. Emma’s voice returned in a trembling whisper, “Mom?”

Her mind was a complete mess. “Mom, what… what are you doing here? Are you alright? What’s going on?”

Emma was so disoriented that her mother had to lead her inside by the arm.

Standing in the hallway, Emma’s mind swirled with a thousand thoughts, yet she didn’t know where to begin. As she stood there in a daze, her eyes fell on a waist-high white shoe cabinet beside her. She knew this cabinet all too well—she had bought it with Amanda.

A question burst out of her, “Mom, what are you doing in Amanda’s place? Where is she?”

Emma’s mother wiped away her tears, pulled up a chair, and motioned for Emma to sit. Once Emma was seated, her mother began to speak, choking back sobs, “Ever since the weather turned so strange, I’ve been worried sick about you. When I heard the power grid failed here tonight, I rushed over. I couldn’t reach you by phone, so I came to Amanda’s, hoping to wait for you.”

“But… but Amanda doesn’t seem to be doing well.”

Emma’s mother choked back a few sobs before continuing, “She’s a good girl. I know you two are close, but please don’t be too sad.”

Emma didn’t move, remaining silent for a moment before switching off the flashlight on her phone.

The room was once again plunged into darkness.

“I prepared myself for this on the way here,” Emma mumbled in the darkness. “If the heavens want to take her, there’s nothing we can do. But the fact that you’re safe, Mom, that’s the most important thing.”

Though her mother knew her daughter couldn’t see her, she still nodded. Wiping her face, she smiled and said, “Your dad’s fine too; he’s resting in the bedroom. I’ll go get him.” With that, she turned to leave.

“I’ll come too,” Emma quickly stood up.

As her mother walked, she nodded and reached to push open the bedroom door. “Hey—”

Before she could finish her sentence, a rush of air whooshed behind her. Unprepared, Emma’s mother was struck hard on the head with a loud “clang.” She immediately collapsed to the ground, revealing Emma’s figure behind her.

Emma, who had been holding the chair high above her head, nearly couldn’t keep her arms from buckling under the strain. She quickly set the chair down but didn’t let go, gripping it tightly and staring warily at the bedroom door, ready for anything.

For a moment, the only sound in the room was Emma’s heavy breathing.

Then, footsteps approached from behind the bedroom door, and with a sudden jolt, the door was flung open.

A tall, broad-shouldered man stood in the doorway, glaring at the scene with shock and fury. In the dim light from outside, his face was just barely visible, and it bore a striking resemblance to Emma’s.

“What the hell are you doing?! That’s your mother!” he roared.

Facing him was a face eerily similar to his, but her expression was cold.

“I wish more than anything she really was my mother,” Emma said, taking a deep breath. She could feel her fatigued muscles in her arms and legs throbbing painfully. “But my parents died in a car accident ten years ago. I handled everything myself, from identifying the bodies to the burial. So, who the hell are you two? And where is my friend?”