Beyond the Timespace · Chat

Muddy water trickled down his cheek; Xu Qing didn't bother wiping it away. He crouched behind the shattered wall of a ruin, gripping a piece of dry ration stripped from a corpse—as hard as stone. The wind whistled in his ears alongside the distant, unrecognizable howls echoing from the forbidden zone. He took a bite of the dry ration, chewed a couple of times, and tasted nothing but the foul stench of mud. Suddenly, a gust of wind swept past the broken wall, carrying a damp, sticky stench. Xu Qing’s hand froze. He remembered this scent. When he was six years old, he had crawled out of a pile of dead bodies while smelling this exact stench. On that day, a fissure tore across the sky above, and a colossal face hung suspended above the clouds, its eyes half-open and half-closed. The entire city was crushed as if by an invisible hand; buildings collapsed into dust, and people on the streets fell one after another, their skin turning black, their bodies twisting into grotesque shapes. His mother had shoved him into the ash pit beneath the stove, using her own body to block the collapsing roof beam. His father shouted once from outside, and then there was only silence. He huddled in that ash pit for three days; when he finally crawled out, the entire city had been reduced to scorched earth, and he was the only one left breathing. "What are you daydreaming about?" Captain Lei's voice, raspy like sandpaper grinding against sheet metal, yanked him back from the ash pit. Xu Qing didn't look back, merely loosening his right hand from the hilt of his blade: "Nothing." Captain Lei walked over, squatted down beside him, pulled a waterskin from his coat, and offered it. Xu Qing glanced at it but didn't take it. Captain Lei didn't pull back either, keeping it held out. "Drink." "Not thirsty." "Your lips are cracked." Xu Qing fell silent for two seconds before taking the waterskin and gulping down a mouthful. The water was lukewarm and tasted of rust, but it did soothe his throat. As he handed the waterskin back, his gaze drifted past Captain Lei’s shoulder toward the bonfire crackling in the center of the camp. The firelight illuminated several quiet faces: Old Zhao was whetting a blade covered in notches; the cripple leaned against a broken stone pillar, wrapping a wound on his arm layer upon layer as if it would never end; two half-grown kids crouched near the fire, staring unblinkingly at half a beast leg boiling in the pot. "We head east tomorrow," Captain Lei said, stuffing the waterskin back into his coat. "Heard there's a forest that way; might find something to eat." "The east is a forbidden zone." "I know." "A place where the god's broken face opened its eyes." Captain Lei turned his head to look at him, the scar across his face flickering in the firelight: "If you stay here, you starve to death tomorrow. If you go east, you might die too. But what if you don't?" Xu Qing shoved the last bite of the dry ration into his mouth and stood up. Looking down at Captain Lei, he said, "I'm going." Over by the fire, Old Zhao looked up, sparks scattering from his whetstone. The cripple's bandaging hand paused for a fraction of a second. Both children turned their heads simultaneously, their gazes trailing Xu Qing's back as he walked to the edge of the camp, sat down against a crooked stone pillar, and closed his eyes. The wind blew in from the forbidden zone, laden with the metallic stench of impending blood rain. Xu Qing dug his fingernails into his palms. The ash pit from when he was six, the second eye-opening when he was thirteen, the ashes of two cities—they all weighed down upon him in the darkness, one after another. He did not open his eyes.