Volume 16 Tower of Babel Chapter 861: Notes from the Last Survivor
"Tunnel Dweller... This name is quite descriptive. As soon as you hear it, you know that it is a creature that lives in tunnels." Sanshisan looked at Ke Lan, but found that the latter's face turned very ugly. He asked in surprise, "What's wrong? Is there any other... unexpected information?"
"Tunnel dwellers... they may not be mutated from irradiated rats... they... they used to be the residents of this nest city." Ke Lan said in a somewhat uncertain tone.
"What?! Could this be the 'disaster' that Neto mentioned?" Thirty-three felt as if his heart skipped a beat. When he looked at the five tunnel dwellers trapped in the space cage, the look in his eyes had changed drastically compared to before.
"No... they are the ones who 'escaped the disaster'..." Ke Lan shook his head.
"What exactly do the memory fragments that were unlocked in your mind say?" Thirty-Three asked.
"It's a note. Judging from the tone of the narrative, it seems to be written by the last survivor of the hive." Ke Lan thought for a moment and said, "In addition to the tunnel dwellers, there are some other things. I'd better read the whole article to you."
[Content of memory fragment: A fragment of an unsigned note]
I call those people "Tunnel Dwellers".
This is not a derogatory term. I have always had the highest respect and admiration for them.
They are the most sober people in the hive. When disaster strikes, they do not panic, nor do they throw themselves into the arms of "Him" like some cowards and weak-willed people.
They have strict thinking logic and almost harsh discipline. Any member infected by the disaster will be ruthlessly eliminated... But it is useless. The power of "Him" is too terrifying and difficult to understand with our cognition... Even the blind, deaf, or even vegetative people cannot escape the disaster.
The disaster is like a super virus that can transcend the limitations of time and space, spreading wildly throughout the hive.
His will sweeps across everything, praise the great true God...
No, damn...
Why I Praise Him...
It seems... the erosion is a little deeper than yesterday... I don't know how long I can stay awake... Maybe, when I blink next time, I will become part of the disaster.
I thought I had a strong will, but in the face of disaster, I realized I was just a weakling...
No, not even a weakling...
His will... His will alone is enough to crush our entire civilization...
This is the complete suppression of low-dimensional creatures by higher-dimensional creatures... To Him, we are like little people painted on a canvas. He can arbitrarily change our appearance into strange creatures, or simply erase us completely.
No one can compete.
No... I can't waste any more time. I should record everything as much as possible... If someone else sees this record later, perhaps it can help them.
If there are any latecomers.
Although the "tunnel dwellers" tried their best to resist the erosion of the disaster, the results of their efforts were minimal... The entire nest city has become a paradise for the dance of the disaster, and the territory belonging to the awake ones is being eroded every day...
Even fighting is impossible.
People controlled by the disaster will be driven by instinct to "infect" more sober people. If you want to stop them, you must organize an army and build a defense line... However, in the face of the disaster, both the army and the defense line have become consumables .
The consumables here do not refer to normal combat losses... but no matter how many soldiers are deployed, these soldiers will inevitably be swallowed up by the disaster.
They are merely the price used to slow down the spread of the disaster.
One third of the soldiers will be "infected" the first time they witness the disaster. From this time on, their humanity will enter a countdown, and the remaining soldiers will also be unable to avoid the fate of being "infected" in the process of fighting the disaster... The only choice for the entire army is to fight the disaster until the last man.
What makes people sigh is that these troops were sent into the battlefield as consumables, and the soldiers who remained conscious at the end often died at the hands of their comrades who had fought side by side with them not long ago.
I know, that feeling must be very uncomfortable...
But what was even more regrettable was that the torn body could not be thrown into His arms and become a part of His supreme consciousness and body...
This loss is unbearable...their lives have lost all meaning...
I...what am I talking about?
How much time do I have left?
(The following is a long period of blank space and silence. In the middle, Ke Lan heard a rapid breathing sound and the sound of a sharp weapon piercing through the flesh.)
I pierced the tumor on my shoulder with a bayonet, and the severe pain made my brain clear for a short time.
I always felt that it was not a tumor, but a developing head, my second head.
I can even make out its facial features... It's not mature yet, but it already has a will of its own. I can see it smiling at me, and the twisted lips under the mucous membrane are split open, revealing its white teeth stained with blood.
Perhaps I should have cut it off when it first grew out... But at that time, Dr. Bosen told me that the tumor contained several large arteries, and if it was removed rashly, it would likely cause uncontrollable heavy bleeding.
By that time, we had lost the hospital and all the medical supplies, and everyone, including me, had been "infected"... It was only a matter of time before we died or became part of the disaster.
There is no point in resection, no point in treatment, no point in survival, and no point in civilization.
Today was the longest I've been awake in a few days...but I don't think I'm getting better...
In my eyes, those who have become strange and bizarre seem to be becoming more and more normal, while those who are not infected seem so scary, horrible and ugly in my eyes. There is always a voice in my heart telling me to turn those people into our appearance...
But I know, I am a monster, I am a monster, I am a monster.
My body is full of tumors... My body is full of brains...
But I don't want to cut them off. As a human being, it is normal only if the body is full of heads... and a human with only one head is a monster.
Why would I pierce that head on my shoulders? Why would I do that?
Why do I have this thought?
No, I am a monster…those scary and ugly people are the normal ones.
I used to be like them.
I should write all this down and tell...who should I tell?
(Long passages of blank space and silence, heavy breathing, and the sound of sticky flesh moving.)
(In Ke Lan's memory fragments, the image he could see was just an illusory, borderless "paper", but the words written on it were extremely standard printed fonts. Apart from that, he could also hear some intermittent sounds, which were probably the ambient sounds when the author of this note was recording.)
They fought and retreated, and finally their soldiers were exhausted... No one was willing to take up arms anymore... They thought resistance was meaningless.
But they didn't give up.
(After discovering that the notes were still being written, Ke Lan breathed a sigh of relief. The blank space in the second paragraph was longer than that in the first. Ke Lan once suspected that the author of the notes had lost his mind... But fortunately, "he" had not given up either.)
(The words on the "paper" are still increasing, and Ke Lan continues to read to Sanshisan.)
They retreated with the last hope of the hive city into the passage originally used to transport garbage. Although they knew that the lower city had already fallen in the disaster, this passage was relatively safe.
There is no one in the garbage channel. Without people, it is safe...People are the carriers of disasters and the most direct means of spreading disasters.
However, when they retreated into the garbage channel, the place where there were no people before became populated.
This is a paradox. Where there are people, it is not safe. Therefore, there cannot be people in any safe place.
From a human perspective, there is no safe place.
Some people became desperate and blew up the passage, choosing to resist the disaster by dying... But those who entered Passage No. 4 made a new discovery.
There was no one in Channel 4, but there were some things that were not usually noticed by the residents of the Upper Town.
This was originally a garbage channel used to transport energy waste from the upper city. A large amount of radioactive material remained in the corners of the channel, turning the entire channel into a heavily radioactive area.
But the severe radiation zone is not equivalent to a life-forbidden zone... The greatness of life lies in the fact that it can create miracles in any desperate situation.
Those creatures underwent huge mutations under the influence of radiation, but the mutations not only did not kill them, but instead gave them the ability to survive the radiation.
In a sense, this is not mutation, this is evolution.
The sober people who entered Channel No. 4 blocked the entrance and exit of the channel and reversed the direction of the one-way valve on one side. In this way, no matter whether they entered the channel from the entrance or the exit, when they reached the first one-way valve, they would be pushed out of the channel by the force exerted by the valve.
They were safe, for now.
But if no one is outside to replace the one-way valve with a new energy module, this safety zone can only last for five years at most.
I don’t know how many attempts they made in these five years... but in the end, they chose to edit the genes of those mutant creatures into their own gene sequences.
They would rather become monsters distorted by radiation than become puppets of the disaster.
They succeeded, but they also failed.
In the end, they did not become slaves of the disaster, but they were completely reduced to mindless beasts.
This is an attempt that represents human determination and dignity. I shouldn't laugh at them. I can't laugh at them.
I should pay them the highest respect.
They may have found a solution to the problem, but they may be just one step away... just one step away...
Maybe this is fate.
Except for them who have become "tunnel dwellers", everyone in the entire nest has been completely swallowed up by the disaster.
If later generations can read this note, perhaps they can find some clues to solve the problem from the "tunnel dwellers"... They are the ones among us who are closest to success.
(The third paragraph is left blank, with deliberately suppressed, nervous breathing and rustling sounds.)
I heard footsteps downstairs, and it seemed that someone was awake. I couldn't let him know that I was hiding here, but I couldn't let him choose this house as his temporary hiding place either.
When I am awake, I must find a hiding place that is secret enough... I move around in various buildings. In the process, I must not only be careful of those who have become minions of the disaster, but also avoid those who are awake like me.
Because I don't know when they will fall into chaos.
When I lose consciousness, I change from prey to hunter... Although I don't know what I did during that time, I woke up several times to find that my limbs were covered with blood, minced meat, and even fragments of internal organs...
Some of my own, and some of others’.
The distortion in my body became more and more serious, the time I was awake became shorter and shorter, and the frequency became less and less... When I could no longer wake up, that would be the time when I would completely become a part of the disaster.
That might be a kind of liberation...giving up my own consciousness and merging into His mind...perhaps I can find the truth that humans have been searching for for countless centuries...
No...I shouldn't think like that...
He is tempting me... He just needs the nourishment to grow stronger, not...
There are no gods or believers in this world. There are only predators and prey.
The strong prey on the weak; this is an unshakable law of nature.
So-called civilization has deceived us for too long, making us mistakenly believe that we can solve problems by means other than force...
Our civilization is like a joke in the face of His power.
I don't know what the situation is like in other hives right now, maybe better than ours, or maybe worse.
(Ke Lan was stunned for a moment, "Other Hive Cities"... Does this mean that there is more than one Hive Cities?
Did this suspected human civilization that once lived on Alpha build many shelters like this one?)
Our nest has completely fallen... Fortunately, we had sunk it to the bottom of the sea before this, and no one can take the disaster out of this place... Anyone who leaves will be crushed by the sea water...
This is the last thing we can do.
