Falling into the Abyss

The Fifth Space Station was a rich and beautiful sky garden. Most of the people living here were people from the middle or even upper class. Many important government ministries were also located here, including the residence of the president. However, after the outbreak of the plague, this area was the first to suffer from it. This was because several people who initially contracted the disease had utilized their connections and escaped from the isolation area, spreading the disease to this former paradise.

The president was the first to be transferred out, followed by the key governmental officials. People were scrambling to give up their homes in a bid to escape to a safer space station. Those who did not have time to escape were completely sealed inside and monitored by the military to prevent anyone from escaping. All ships that tried to leave after the blockade was formed were destroyed.

There were no reports or photos, and no one knew what the Fifth Space Station had become. Tens of thousands of people just evaporated out of thin air. No one knew what happened to them.

Under such critical situations, what happened here was the norm. Everyone was in danger, and they could only hope that they were not the hapless ones trapped in the isolation zone.

Ethan’s spacecraft slowly moved into the jurisdiction of the Fifth Space Station without any obstruction. However, he knew he was being watched.

It was a spherical space station with a rotating diamond core in the middle. Many super long channels extended from the core and formed a honeycomb-like architectural network in the outer layer. The light blue atmosphere that surrounded the whole space station was still quietly rotating. It seemed that the life support system in the core that drove the operation of the entire space station had not been damaged.

Looking at the quiet blueness, Ethan slowly exhaled from his chest. A slight sense of sourness and astringence surged in his throat. A feeling of nostalgia mixed with slight timidity entangled his heart.

It had been a long time since he came home, the home he dreamed of. However, he didn’t expect to come back under such circumstances.

He was suddenly a little scared.

Originally, he thought that this feeling of fear would die off with his past self after he woke up, but now it seemed that normal human emotions were still retained in him.

He was afraid of what he was about to see.

And all of this was caused by him.

His spaceship slowly sailed into the once prosperous international spaceport he knew well, but at this moment, only his spaceship crossed through the several routes to enter the empty terminal. There were several ships covered with dust and some greasy oil sleeping in the docking bay. There seemed to be something wrong with the gravity system. A lot of debris and repair tools were quietly suspended in the air, disturbed by the cyclone brought by Ethan’s ship.

The quiet light blue air made everything appear very spacious and quiet. Ethan came out of the spaceship and took a deep breath of the air of his hometown, but subsequently frowned.

He remembered that when he worked in the Energy Bureau and needed to travel to other space stations, he boarded his ship here. He liked to eat the fried noodles and drink the milk tea at the Chinese restaurant on the left, and then slowly carry his suitcase to wait for boarding. But now, the tables and chairs in that restaurant were in disarray, the kitchen was empty, and the stone lions that used to decorate the entrance of the gate had disintegrated into powder.

After leaving the space terminal, he was faced with the desolate scene of a doomsday. Many dual-purpose vehicles and aircraft that had been there for who knew how long were piled up in the middle of the road. The bodies of many vehicles were seriously deformed. It was apparent that they collided with each other and crashed in the air. The middle of the road was a mess, covered with a lot of parts and debris. The empty buildings on both sides were buried in the light mist, making them appear sad and desolate.

Ethan stayed fixed in place for a moment, looking at everything before him and vaguely remembering the past here. But after just a few months, it had become like this.

He walked slowly along the greasy road and found a whole aircraft along the way. The driver was still sitting in the driver’s seat, but his head and limbs seemed to have been torn off by something. There was a large hole in his stomach on his rotting body from which his intestines were flowing out of it. Ethan stretched out his hand and pulled out the broken body. He sat in the vehicle, ignoring the mucus spreading on the seat. He found a spare key from the drawer in front of the passenger seat and inserted it into the groove beside the console. A series of buttons appeared on the screen immediately, and a steering wheel was also projected in front of him.

Fortunately, the aircraft had a panel that relied on solar energy for charging. Otherwise, even if there was no electricity leakage after so many months, Ethan wouldn’t be able to operate it with the remaining power.

Driving the broken spaceship, he quickly flew in the direction of his home. Not the apartment he rented, but the beautiful hut surrounded by wormwood he grew up in. He landed a few blocks away from his home when the solar power had been exhausted. He walked on the street leading to his home, which was once a high-class residential area. Weeds sprang out of the connected courtyards and raged onto the initially straight and tidy roads. The road was filled with crisscrossing and uplifted cracks, and more than half of the houses had collapsed. Both the plants and the ruins were covered with a layer of black grease-like material, on which colorful oil colors flickered in the light. The plants were withering and decaying, giving off a stench. The metal and cement of the house had also puffed up with blisters from the black substance, and it looked a little distorted.

The courtyard of his family was deserted like the other courtyards. The daylilies had become a pool of mud, and only some traces of roots could be seen. The cobblestone path was now out of sight, and rotten plant leaves covered everything like a carpet. The concrete steps leading to the gate somehow became very crispy. As soon as he stepped on them, they scattered into a pile of gravel. There was a thick layer of rust on the door handle, which looked like the color of blood. He placed his hand on it, and the piercing cold flowed deep into his bones.

Ethan slammed the door open and took in everything in his home.

It suddenly occurred to him that this was the nightmare he had entered when he was in the Forbidden City.

At that time, he didn’t know that he was the culprit of all this, and he didn’t know what he would become.

This was his home, originally carrying all the memories from his birth to the age of 18. No matter what painful incidents had happened, he could return here.

It was gone.

The wallpaper had decayed, and the tables and chairs were covered with mold. A rotten stench made his eyes ache. He numbly entered the room, looking at the familiar furnishings that had rotted beyond recognition. The rotten furniture was all quietly looking at him.

He saw the armchair that his father often sat on. Because the cotton had rotted, it turned black. The robot model he made when he was a child was scattered on the ground, and the baking utensils carefully maintained by his mother were covered with a thick layer of rust. All his memories were rotting here. He opened his empty and unfocused eyes, laughing at the death of his memories.

It was only at this time that he knew what he had given up when he accepted the terrifying darkness in his body.

“Making yourself at home?” traveled from outside the door with a trace of banter. Ethan suddenly turned around and saw council member Aguda, whom he had seen on the screen previously. She was wearing a tightly wrapped protective suit, and her voice came out of a microphone attached to her coat. Behind her, many heavily armed soldiers were pointing guns at him.

Ethan asked, “Where’s my father?”

Aguda coldly hooked up the corner of his mouth and took two steps back.

Two soldiers pointed a gun at a man whose neck and hands were locked in a pair of steel manacles. It was a white-haired, sallow-faced, and rickety male Alpha. His eyes were tainted with a thick hue of blood, he was panting heavily, and the skin on his arm was gradually turning black. Everything told Ethan that this was a patient in the early stages of infection.

But it was as if Ethan was struck by a bolt of lightning after seeing the familiar features.

His father, the once tall, handsome, and proud man, was staring at him with a pair of blank eyes. In that pair of empty eyes, it was difficult to find the once familiar light of self-confidence.

Ethan’s Adam’s apple slid up and down, his mouth open, but he could not speak.

“Your father has been here for a long time. He was finally infected a few days ago,” Aguda said slowly, “If we can’t develop the antidote as soon as possible, he will soon become a monster like the other infected people.”

Ethan wanted to take a step forward, but the two soldiers immediately placed their guns against Adrian’s head, while the infrared points of several other sniper guns also floated around Adrian’s body. Maybe he could kill the two armed soldiers in an instant, but how could he deal with the snipers when he wasn’t aware of their hiding locations?

Adrian’s head was slightly tilted, but he didn’t even struggle. His eyes were fixed on Ethan, unblinking.

Ethan had no choice but to halt his footsteps, his eyes aching due to the dryness. He took a deep breath and tried to say in a calm voice, “What do you want me to do?”

“We want you to inject this in yourself,” Aguda said, throwing something to the ground. It made a crisp clash and rolled to Ethan’s feet.

It was a familiar light blue injection.

The solution of the God of Order’s egg.

Ethan was stunned. He didn’t expect the Eves to give such a luxurious gift to the Earth Union. Was it because they knew that he couldn’t finish the ritual to allow the descent of the god, so they wanted to wipe him out?

Was this Nyarlathotep’s intention? Or was there any other means through which the Earth Union could have gotten the God of Order’s eggs?

“Why do you have this?” Ethan asked.

Aguda raised her head arrogantly. “All the Eves’ God of Order’s eggs were found on the newborn planet. What they can do, our Earth Union can do too. It’s just that we couldn’t control these things previously. But after the Mars experiment, we know that you can control it. That is to say, anybody who was infected initially can do it.” She paused a little before continuing, “Well, maybe they can only do half of your work before they die because of the decomposition of their bodies. But anyway, they can’t be saved. We just helped them seek relief earlier.”

Ethan’s fists were clenched, and his joints turned white. “My father……all of you infected him! Am I correct!”

“If we didn’t, how would you cooperate? What’s more, it’s only when people who are important to you are infected that you will realize the evil you have done and will cooperate with us to find an antidote. Don’t worry, the God of Order’s egg’s solution we gave you is diluted. According to what you experienced previously, it should not kill you,” Aguda said in a matter-of-fact tone, “Now, it’s time for you to make a choice.”

For a council member, this meeting was considered very risky. If Ethan decided to ignore Adrian, all of them would die. Even if the military had time to detonate the nuclear bomb buried inside the space station to kill this monster that appeared like a human, they would also lose the opportunity to use the infectious source to study the antidote.

Ethan looked at Adrian. The latter was looking at him. He suddenly opened his mouth and said, “Go……”

It was just a word, but Ethan’s eyes moistened.

With this word, he knew that his trip was not in vain. He squatted down slowly and grasped the injection……

T/N: Translating this chapter left a bitter taste in my mouth. I really hate the higher-ups of the Earth Union.