Light City had been under a week of light rain. Just as people caught a glimpse of brightness through the overcast sky and began to feel a surge of hope, the drizzle turned into showers, and then into a violent thunderstorm.
The sky rumbled nonstop, as if someone were beating gongs and drums right beside everyone’s ears. Lightning lit up the heavens, each bolt of electric light curving across the sky as though it meant to swallow the entire city.
The sky shifted again and again, one moment bright as day, the next swallowed by dark, oppressive clouds.
Light City Hospital was packed beyond capacity. There were far more patients than usual, the corridors and entrances were crowded with people, and the nurses struggled to weave through the mass.
Unable to cope with the workload, the hospital had deployed over a dozen robots to help with screening. Without exception, everyone who came in was there for fever-related symptoms.
All the treatment pods were occupied. Some patients had already been burning with fever for five days, and like the rain outside, there was no telling when it would stop.
Times had changed. Technology had advanced rapidly, and humanity had long since built a fully developed technological society. Above the steel skyscrapers, military patrols could often be seen circling.
Everyone carried their own iris ID, a symbol of personal identity. By scanning it, a person could enter hospitals, register, and book appointments, after which robots or medical staff would handle the rest.
Unless surgery was required, minor illnesses could be treated directly inside the medical pods.
“Why have so many patients turned up all of a sudden? This weather is terrifyingly gloomy. These people came in soaked through, which only made their conditions worse,” a nurse muttered while preparing medication.
These past days they had been working nonstop. Even eating and drinking had to be squeezed into stolen moments. Despite that, the number of patients kept climbing, never falling. No one knew what was going wrong.
“It’s like the sky’s been torn open. Five days of light rain, five days of heavy rain… the city really is turning into an ocean. Who knows when it’ll finally stop.”
Xiao Tian finished dispensing the medication and opened a small window. The room was crowded and the air had grown stifling. But the moment the window opened wider, the wind outside howled violently, and rainwater rushed in so hard it looked like it would flood the room in no time.
“Someone’s going to have to fix this, but fix it with what? So annoying. This weather is driving me crazy, I’m honestly getting depressed just looking at it,” Xiao Tian muttered. She picked up the tray and left, forgetting to close the window in time. The wind, carrying rain, slammed it open again, and before long a layer of moisture had pooled across the floor.
In the corridor, more and more patients were groaning in distress. In this weather some people coughed without stop, while others already had feverish, flushed faces. From their exposed necks, blue veins gradually darkened to purple. One man, unable to bear it any longer, stopped a nurse.
“Doctor, how much longer until my turn? Something feels wrong with my heart,” he said. His eyes were bloodshot, and his hand trembled uncontrollably as he grabbed at her. The nurse was startled by his condition and quickly tried to calm him.
“It’ll be soon, soon. I’ll go check for you. Have you taken the fever medicine?”
The change happened in an instant.
The open window shook violently in the wind. Another powerful gust slammed it, and with a sharp crack the glass and wooden frame broke loose and fell into the dispensing room. Rainwater flooded in without restraint.
In the corridor, shattering glass and screams erupted at the same moment. The already crowded hallway grew even more congested, so packed that not even water could pass through. Someone fell and couldn’t get up in time, immediately swallowed by the crowd. Behind them, someone shouted in panic, “Rabies! He’s got rabies!”
The man who had stopped the nurse now had purple-black veins spreading from his chest, coiling up his neck and across his face. In an instant his eyes turned blood-red, swirling with a terrifying, bloodthirsty intent.
He struggled, a grotesque grin on his face, muttering, “Nurse… the medicine doesn’t work… my heart, my heart hurts… blood… I want blood.”
The tray slipped from the nurse’s hands and crashed to the floor. Facing his transformation head-on, she froze in terror and screamed at the top of her lungs, “Someone help! Help! Doctor, Doctor!”
Her voice cut off abruptly.
The man had already bitten into her neck.
His sharp teeth pierced the skin. He could hear the flow of blood, beautiful, intoxicating. His hands had turned dark blue, his fingernails blackened. He was becoming something no longer human, something between man and monster.
A few people tried to step in and help, but the next second they were bitten as well. In less than a minute, many had already been attacked. Their skin rapidly lost its color, purple-black veins spread across their faces, and their eyes turned blood-red.
“Run!” someone shouted.
The sudden turn of events snapped the people in the corridor out of their shock. Those who hadn’t reacted in time were jolted into motion and fled in panic. Thunder rumbled, lightning flashed, and torrential rain poured down like an orchestral backdrop, throwing the fear on every face into sharp relief.
For a brief moment the city seemed turned upside down beneath the rain, roars, collisions, and screams overlapping. People finally realized this was not just a simple “hole in the sky leaking rain,” but the arrival of the apocalypse.
Humanity was now facing a life-or-death reckoning.
Lin Qiu sat in front of her computer. Beside her were three empty milk tea cups, three different flavors, all drained. The room was lit only by a small night light, most of the glow came from the computer screen.
With technology advancing so fast, electronic devices had become far more sophisticated. Wearing a smartwatch, for instance, gave you virtual interfaces, one tap and a screen appeared in front of you to operate. Information was fully globalized, and everyone “surfed” within the same shared network space.
But compared with all that, Lin Qiu still preferred desktop and laptop computers. She liked the feeling of her fingers pressing the keyboard, each keystroke producing a crisp little sound.
She curled up in her computer chair, hugging her legs, her face resting on her knees. With one hand she scrolled through messages from readers. She was an online novelist, registered on the writing platform for ten years now, with a modest amount of success to her name.
She tugged at her pajamas and kept reading. Many readers were urging her to start a new book, it had already been three months since her last completed work. Lin Qiu let out a soft sigh. Writing wasn’t easy, sometimes inspiration came quickly, and sometimes it left just as fast.
Still, the past three months hadn’t been wasted. Several reference books were stacked on her shelf, all on apocalyptic themes. She had studied TV series, films, and even sci-fi channels in depth. This time she planned to write a story set in a post-apocalyptic world.
She let her legs down and stretched lazily. Based on the material she’d gathered, she was sure this new story wouldn’t draw as many complaints from readers as before. Thinking back to her last completed xianxia novel, it had been picked apart from beginning to end.
She reached for a bottle of cola, took a big gulp, then immediately opened her document and started typing with enthusiasm. The keyboard clacked rapidly as she worked. With a hint of a satisfied smile at the corner of her mouth, she finally finished writing the synopsis at 3 a.m.
More than six hundred words, written over three hours.
After checking that nothing was off, she uploaded it and switched on the red packet (cash-reward) settings. She set down the mouse and dashed to the bathroom, she’d been holding it the whole time, and could finally relieve herself.
When she came out and checked the backend, there were no messages at all. She paused in confusion. Normally, every time she posted, a flood of comments would pour in. Seeing zero comments like this was rare.
She yawned. She couldn’t hold on any longer. These past days she had been reading research materials until her head spun, and she hadn’t been getting enough sleep. After washing up, she went straight to bed.
She set an alarm for 8 a.m., a robot would deliver supplies then. Some of the items needed refrigeration, and if she waited until after waking up to fetch them, they would definitely spoil.
At 8 a.m. Lin Qiu forced herself awake and turned off the alarm. Her head hung low, her long hair covering her face completely, making her look like a headless ghost. Irritated, she brushed it aside. Dark circles hung under her eyes, which were so dry they hurt to open.
In her cartoon pajamas, she got out of bed and used her smartwatch to operate the system. The wall opposite her began to split apart, revealing a real door, a plain white door. Beyond it was the living room.
The living room was spacious and bare, with only a TV, a sofa, and a table. Forward and to the right was the kitchen, with the dining area connected beside it. It was a moderately sized apartment, three bedrooms and a living room.
Dust had collected throughout the home. Lin Qiu didn’t like cleaning and rarely used the outer rooms. The curtains were always drawn, leaving no natural light inside. As she came out, she switched on the lights.
She went to the door and looked out through the peephole. It was completely quiet, not a sound. But it had always been like this before, so she hadn’t thought anything of it.
She placed her hand on the doorknob, it unlocked automatically. The moment she twisted it open, a sudden force shoved inward. Caught off guard, she staggered back several steps. Even her slippers couldn’t keep up, left behind where she’d been standing. With a dull thud, a battered robot and a barely living man half-collapsed into her home.
Lin Qiu was both confused and alarmed. The robot was charred black and gave off a burnt smell. Dark-red and black specks, she couldn’t tell what they were, dripped from its body. What truly frightened her, though, was the unconscious man.
She hurriedly turned back, grabbed a coat rack from inside the room, held her breath, and cautiously poked at them with one foot while gripping the rack. No response. She poked harder, still nothing.
Strange. Far too strange. She needed to call the police.
She hadn’t brought her phone out, so she dialed with her smartwatch instead. A string of busy tones came through. After waiting a moment, all she got was a message saying the line was busy. She tried for an ambulance next, maybe the man could still be saved, but it was the same: every line occupied.
She didn’t give up. She dialed every number she could think of, one after another, but none of them connected. The silence around her felt unnaturally heavy.
Slowly, she straightened from her hunched posture. A cold gust of wind swept through the room. Something was wrong, very wrong.
Normally, whenever she opened the door, she could always hear some noise from her neighbors. The apartment itself was well insulated, but the entrance was the weakest point for soundproofing in the whole house. Today, though, she hadn’t heard a single sound, even the neighbors’ televisions were silent.
The heavy rain and thunder had stopped too. Apart from her own breathing, the world was terrifyingly silent.
Her mind went blank. A little nervous, she cautiously stepped forward. The robot must have taken a severe impact to end up like this. With today’s advanced technology, robots were built from high-grade materials, and this one had delivered her supplies many times before.
Her bare foot pressed against the cold tile floor, and she shivered. Goosebumps rose along her arms, and unease crept into her chest. In her mind she silently chanted, “prosperity, democracy, civility, harmony,” [1] the Core Socialist Values, Chinese netizens half-jokingly recite them like a protective mantra to steady their nerves when spooked jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_2285201_1_1').tooltip({ tip: '#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_2285201_1_1', tipClass: 'footnote_tooltip', effect: 'fade', predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: 'top center', relative: true, offset: [-7, 0], }); trying to calm herself, then shakily gripped the doorframe and leaned half her body out.
She lived in an old residential complex. Many neighborhoods in Light City had already been redeveloped as the city grew, but hers hadn’t been slated for anything yet. Her neighbors often discussed how much compensation they might get if a demolition order ever came through.
She lived on the fifth floor. Three households per floor. The building was too old to justify installing an elevator, and with demolition rumors going around, no one bothered to renovate anymore.
At the end of the corridor she saw shattered glass scattered across the floor. Only the window frame remained, swaying precariously. The ground and walls were splattered with blood.
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