Global Evolution

by Steffen Schmidt

  Jing clearly knew that she would be a burden for Chang if she stayed, so once she jumped off his back, she went to Qing Shui. Surprisingly, the whole process didn't distract the giant dog’s attention from Chang a single bit.

  “Mr. Li, leave with Jing! Even with the three of us, we still can’t even take one slap from it.” Holding the spear, Chang gradually felt sadness overcome his heart. In this situation, he would definitely die. As he slowly accepted this fact, his sadness slowly turned into solemnness. For the first time in his life, he decided to do something heroic.

  “I’ll deal with it, so just run as far away as you can,” Chang sighed.

  “Sure.” Qing Shui’s answer was so simple that it completely ruined the heroic atmosphere. Then, Qing Shui lifted Jing and without looking back, they disappeared into the fog. Although Chang was solemn and Jing was crying, it didn't matter to him at all as he ran as fast as he could.

  “… He really rational, but sometimes his calmness scares me.” Seeing the figure of Qing Shui slowly fade into the fog while he stood still in front of this beast, Chang felt that the fog had unprecedentedly become bloody.

  “So this is it.” Confronting the two twisted-face wolfhounds, Chang didn't know whether he should runaway or fight them – if he chose to flee, he would definitely be slower than this giant beast. However, if he chose to fight, he would be extremely small and fragile in front of this monstrous dog.

  Being so close to death, he knew that he had to face these cruel choices, despite neither of them being desirable.

  Fortunately, Chang didn't need to spend more time on making a difficult decision – his opponent made the first move.

  It literally rushed towards Chang as if it was going to crash into him.

  Chang completely abandoned any thoughts in his mind. Facing the black shadow running at him, he raised his spear in front of his chest horizontally as defense.

  Bang!

  The spear was strong enough to block the first strike, but it was bent into a V shape when the wolfhound collided with him. Chang wasn't able to bear such a powerful attack, and his arms went numb upon receiving this shock and subsequently, he let go of the spear. The shock was so great that he flew back three meters and rolled into the bushes.

  Almost at the same time he fell on the grass, the smaller wolfhound leaped forward and firmly bit him; its sharp and hard teeth ripped off his long pants and poked through his skin, slowly burying into his muscles.

  “Ahhhhh, f*ck!” The extreme sensation of piercing pain made him fight back. He kicked away the small wolfhound, but the giant beast pushed aside the bush and started its second attack.

  “Son of a b*tch!” The giant wolfhound attacked from the behind this time, and while Chang flipped over on the grass to dodge, he also sliced open its front paw with his scalpel; although the cut wasn’t deep at all, he unfortunately enraged the beast even more.

  The wolfhound howled loudly and its mouth snarled widely to try to snap off Chang’s head; Chang clearly knew that if the beast ever caught him in its mouth, he would most likely be separated into two pieces.

  The force of this wolfhound should have increased according to its size, so one bite would be fatal no matter where it bit him.

  Therefore, he was ducking in and out from the bushes as if it was a cat-and-mouse chase. Chang’s body wasn’t as weak as it used to be, but the size of beast was much larger than him. He somehow managed to run around without getting caught, but because of the difference in their stamina, getting caught was just a matter of time.

  Struggling with death was painstaking; he knew he was going to die soon, but he didn’t know when. However, Chang never thought of giving up on his life, which was why the stress of dodging and hiding became both physically and mentally torturing.

  However, the merciful god was kind enough to open a path to life for him – when he was tumbling around, he saw a manhole cover of a sewer on the pavement. It wasn’t round and there was a bulge at the center; it was probably destroyed from the inside.

  A manhole cover meant that there must had to be a sewer. Chang looked around in panic, and sure enough, there was a dark shadow beside the cover in the grassy bush.

  The dark shadow was very dazzling at that moment and made Chang desperately want to get into it. In those few seconds, he put himself in a risky situation where he might’ve been bitten by the small wolfhound, but he crawled towards the shadow and tumbled into the world of stench.

  As he fell into the sewer, the huge head of the giant wolfhound also chased after him; it tucked its head into the relative small hole as it wanted to catch Chang. However, its body was too big, so only his head went through the hole. It tried a few more times by withdrawing and rushing into the hole, but it couldn't pass through, so it only fretfully roared. The smaller wolfhound also jumped up and down with saliva dripping from its teeth. However, it didn't have to courage to jump down into the sewer from the ground. Hence, Chang was safe temporarily.

  Knowing that the dogs wouldn't be a threat to him, he stood up from the muddy and stinky water. The first impression of this place was dark.

  It was literally pitch black.

  The visibility of the outside world was low due to the red fog, and the world down here was even darker since there wasn’t any form of light. Even though Chang’s vision was better than others, he still couldn't see anything in the sewer.

  The only light source of this place was from the manhole. The circle of light was so thin and weak that it simply couldn’t light up the sewer; Chang stood right under the halo and listened to the wolfhound’s barking. He carefully tried to feel around to understand the layout of the sewer while hearing the sound of water flow.

  Human were vulnerable in the dark, and it induced fear. The first thought that flashed in Chang’s mind was those tentacle monsters that lived in the sewer.

  Then, he imagined maggots and flies, as well as a variety of parasites. Although these were just his imagination, he also noticed that the wound on his leg was bleeding.

  Slowly, his imagination and reality began to merge. He was bleeding and the smell of blood was strong; in a dark sewer like this, the smell could attract those tentacle monsters to him, as if the blood was a blazing beacon of light that gave his location to the monsters. The result would be obvious. He would be attacked by a tentacle or something and his body would be smashed into pieces of flesh and he would be devoured. The remaining residues of his body would be left here forever and become a home for mutated flies. All those little maggots would digest his body, leaving him as a pool of pus.

  Chang shuddered; with all these reasonable possibilities, he started to realize that his imagination was convincing.

  Chapter 35: Fear

  Chang hesitated.

  Everyone feared death, but the ways in which people dealt with death were completely different – a lot of people learned to live with the fact that they would be burned to ashes after they died, but no one wanted to be torn into pieces by disgusting tentacles in the stench of the sewage and rot with maggots covering their body.

  If this was what Chang would face when he died, he would rather be gnawed to death by the giant dog – at least it sounded like a more decent way to die.

  He wanted to get out of the sewer, but facing death wasn’t as easy as he thought.

  Therefore, he looked up and down for the halo on top of his head and the dark sewer… It was a great dilemma for him.

  The fear of death and prospect of choosing how to die was probably the worst feeling anyone would ever have. It was like asking a convict how they wanted to be executed, “Do you want to be shot or beheaded?”

  The fear invaded his heart bit by bit; in the darkness, even a slight sound of dripping water could make him become tense; the barking from the manhole made him even dizzier. He didn’t even have the courage to go further in the sewer to look for another exit because it was too dark down here. The darkness seemed thick and dark, tempting him to move closer. As if he
was reaching the end of his life, he imagined numerous tentacles lurking on the sides, just waiting to tear him apart without ever being heard from again.

  Chang was scared, so he stayed inside the beam of dim light from the manhole, as if it was warming Chang. He began to fade from consciousness as past memories flooded his mind–

  He thought of the college entrance exam, recalled his three year high school life and subsequently, his teenage and childhood memories.

  Hanging out with friends, staying up late playing video games, reading numerous novels, watching anime and studying occasionally…

  The homemade braised pork he ate, the basketball field covered in sweat…

  His stable and worry-free life, and the lanterns that he lit up with his childhood friends in Mid-autumn festivals…

  His nagging parents, and the smell of his home…

  Chang never clearly knew how happy his life had been before this moment – he had been living in heaven! He used to complain so much and gotten bored so easily. He even pitied himself for living such a stable life…

  He used to argue with his parents because he didn’t want to study, and he even ran away from home and pitied his own life while sitting on the ancient city wall…

  “Would what I’m currently experiencing be different if I studied harder?” Chang curled up under the light and started sobbing.

  He always thought that he was the kind of person with a strong mind. Even in the apocalypse, he was stronger than most of the people he had met. But in darkness, he still felt the urge to cry when he thought of his parents and the life that he had before.

  He started losing sense of time in his sorrow…

  It was a chaotic moment for Chang, but it was broken by sudden erratic barking from above, followed by a few gunshots.

  “Chang!”

  “Chang!!”

  After the gunfire, Chang heard two familiar voices. He sprang up after he recollected himself and carefully stared at the circular halo to confirm that it wasn’t his hallucination.

  “Am I saved?”

  “Chang!!” The same shouting came from above, and he knew who it belonged to – Jing.

  There was no longer any barking and there were people he knew at the other end of the light.

  Jing’s voice gave him hope, so he immediately refocused himself. He grabbed onto and climbed the iron staircase as fast as he could as he climbed from the darkness to the light of hope.

  Step by step…

  “I’m here!!!” Chang was unable to hold himself back despite not fully climbing out of the sewer.

  Someone followed the voice of Chang and they parted the grass in front of him – it was Jing, Pang Zi and Qing Shui.

  He was familiar with everyone he saw here.

  “I didn’t die!! Hahaha, I didn’t die in the sewer!” Chang jumped out of the sewer and picked up Jing, giving her a big hug. His voice was loud and clear, “I can’t believe that I didn’t die down there!!”

  “You survived!” Chang’s joy rubbed onto Jing, and the trace of anxiety on her face turned into joy as she laughed cheerfully and innocently. Her happiness made the long scar on her face less noticeable.

  “It’s great that you’re still alive, bro.” Pang Zi patted Chang’s shoulder heavily and he glanced at Chang’s face. Noticing his red eyes, he asked, “Did you cry?”

  “No way… why would you think that I cried??” Chang laughed. “It was the stench coming from the sewer; it made me tear up.”

  “You climbed out of the sewer?” Qing Shui stood to the side. He took out of some pills and a bottle of rubbing alcohol, but he was puzzled, “You’re such a bad ass… to be able to slide into the sewer while fighting the beast, I thought you were dead already. To be honest, you should have…”

  “Should have?” Chang took the rubbing alcohol and sprayed it on his wounds.

  “You should have died!” Qing Shui’s word shook Chang’s hand, and he dropped the bottle. “What do you mean by that? You wanted me to die??”

  “That’s not what I meant! I went back to the base first and came back for you immediately. It has been an hour since I left, and you were bleeding all over in the sewer. In fact, you should have been dead because of how long it has been and where you were.” Qing Shui pinched his chin. “These factors could have caused a serious and fatal infection; it doesn’t make sense to me.”

  “I don’t care about whether it makes sense or not. Maybe I was lucky, but I survived, and that’s all the matters, doesn’t it?” Chang waved merrily, “I’ve never felt so grateful to be alive.”

  “I need to find an explanation; I…I need to go down to the sewer and check out what happened,” Qing Shui said.

  “Wait… what? Oh please, I just managed to escape from there. You could easily die if you go down.” Chang cleaned his wounds and took an antibiotic pill, and then put the half-full bottle of rubbing alcohol back into Qing Shui’s backpack. “Oh, I totally forgot to ask. How did you drive away the dog?”

  “I traded 15 kilograms of dog meat to get the help of six soldiers with guns. Their rifles were powerful and the loud gunfire apparently scared away it.”

  “Where are they now?” Chang looked around and didn’t see anyone else.

  “They went after that beast; It’s a great target for them anyway. The dog is probably more than three or four hundred kilograms, so if they can catch it, all of the soldiers at the base can have meat for dinner.” Qing Shui glanced in the direction they ran, and added, “Unfortunately, it’s impossible for them to chase the dog. Even if they make it, compared to how strong the dog is, those rifles won’t be able to kill it. It’s a pity since the soldiers may die.”

  “Wait, do you think the dog will come back?” Chang wanted to leave this dangerous place as soon as possible.

  “I don’t think so, and I know that the soldiers will come back, since they can’t run as fast as the beast. Let’s wait for a few more minutes.”

  While Qing Shui was talking, Chang heard the rustling sound of shoes stepping on the grass. A moment after, six unhappy soldiers carrying their rifles walked out.

  Chapter 36: Roots

  “It ran away.” The soldiers shrugged at Qing Shui.

  “Yeah…it’s difficult to catch.” Qing Shui smiled to them.

  “Well, I feel like even if it wasn’t running, it would still be hard to deal with.” One of the soldiers that seemed more mature than the others spoke. “It ran too fast and it had a strong body. I doubt our rifle could wound it! The fog was dense too, so we didn’t fire too much in case we got injured.”

  “We agree,” the other soldiers nodded. “I could only see within three meters, and to be honest, even if it was standing in front of me, I still wouldn’t be able to see what it looks like clearly since it was huge. We were lucky that we didn’t get ambushed.”

  The soldiers started discussing the chase they had, and the sulky look on their face gradually turned into a horrified one.

  “I’m glad that we didn’t catch up with it, otherwise we probably wouldn’t be able to come back alive.” The mature soldier made a conclusion and smiled at Qing Shui and Chang. “You guys really have a hang of it, don’t you? The military also sent troops to try to hunt, but we didn’t even see any animals. These domesticated animals seemed to have gone wild after they mutated, and their alertness was far too high to us to even get close to them.”

  “Same…it was difficult to look for anything in this fog; we were lucky to even run into one. But see, he almost died for it.” Qing Shui pointed at Chang, implying that hunting was difficult for them too.

  “So he is the guy you wanted to rescue.” They carefully observed Chang, “Fortunately he isn’t seriously injured. The mission is way easier than we thought!”

  “Totally, the captain says that each of us will get half a kilogram of meat; for god’s sake, I haven’t had meat in so long…”

  “Glug!” A soldier swallowed a mouthful of saliva and said, “it was actually only a few
days, but the key is that we haven’t had proper food in days!”

  The soldiers became excited when they were talking about the meat they were going to get. Obviously, the food they had these days were also hardtacks and canned food. Although they might have had bigger portions to have energy to fight, they were still starving.

  Qing Shui borrowed a flashlight used for night patrols from one of the soldiers and then pulled Chang aside so that those exciting soldiers wouldn’t notice them.

  “Will you follow me?” Qing Shui hinted to Chang with his eyes, then turned his head in the direction of the manhole behind the thick fog.

  “Are you serious?” Chang frowned. “I just escaped from there, and I have no clue what is inside the sewer.”

  “I want to see what exactly happened down there.”

  “Why you are so curious?” Chang furrowed his eyebrows. “This doesn’t sound like something you would do. A rational person like you would normally avoid risks.”

  “To be able to predict danger is what a rational person would want to do; I really need to see what happened.”

  “Okay, go by yourself then, I’m not coming.” As he just got out from that desperate and dark world, Chang refused to have that experience again – especially since going in again seemed totally meaningless to him.

  “That’s fine then, I’m going by myself.” Qing Shui’s voice slowly softened as he carefully climbed down the iron ladder.

  “Where is he going?” Seeing Qing Shui disappeared into the fog, Pang Zi walked to Chang and asked.

  “He went down to the sewer. I don’t understand what he was thinking.” Chang shook his head, but he still stared in the direction Qing Shui had disappeared. He waited for about ten minutes, but there was still no sign of Qing Shui. He shook his head again, “I need to go in; I can’t leave him alone.”

  “Then I am going with you.” Jing was staying close to Chang silently, but when she heard Chang speak, she spoke hastily, “I’ll go to wherever you go.”

  “No…you aren’t going, stay here.” Chang slightly pushed Jing to Pang Zi and said, “Look after her. I’ll go to call Mr. Li out.”