Doomsday Wonderland

Panda Novel

Woyu had a good night’s sleep. The bed was so comfortable, he felt as if he was sleeping in a baby’s cradle. When he left his bed unwillingly and headed to the washroom, he concluded something with his muddled brain.

‘I shouldn’t have had the fourth cocktail…’ He unzipped his pants and began to take a leak.

Suddenly, he stumbled back with an oomph. Sprays of yellow liquid sprang into the air and peppered the brim of the toilet bowl and the floor. He hastily grabbed the curtain and attempted to keep his balance.

Those cocktails were sweet, but the aftereffect was strong.

His brain was messed up with the dizziness and the alcohol in his body. When he finally zipped his pants and was ready to wipe the toilet bowl, he stumbled once again and smacked his forehead hard against the sink. For a moment, he saw nothing but stars. As he sucked in air to ease the pain away and the stars ebbed out, he finally realized it wasn’t his body but the house that was swaying.

‘Am I too drunk or is there an earthquake?’

The thought appeared in his mind as he tottered down the corridor towards his room. The silver lining was that the distance from the washroom to his room was pretty short, so he reached his room very soon.

Unlike Yu Yuan, who was given a luxury suite since he had been registered as a guest in the system, his bedroom was small, like the room of a budget hotel. As Woyu groaned inwardly and opened the door, Silas’s voice rang out along with the light that poured out of the room.

“Climbing.” This was the first time Woyu heard Silas make an announcement in another language. This was one of the languages that he spoke, but he couldn’t understand the meaning of it. “Exodus’s current altitude: 3,000 feet from the ground and continue climbing. All passengers please be seated.” Silas’s plaintive voice percolated throughout the air, getting lower and lower with each passing second until it drifted out of the end of the corridor entirely.

“Hey, Silas! What is happening?” Woyu yelled, but Silas did not give him a response at all. Woyu cursed inwardly and then put on his slippers, which he grabbed from behind the door. After that, he walked out of his room. Woyu had no idea why, but Silas would only respond to his demands in certain blocks like the dining block, the bar, and the walking trails. If he called for her from other blocks, Silas would just ignore him.

Just as he stepped into the corridor, he heard a series of approaching footsteps from the other end of the corridor.

‘The two of them have returned?’ Woyu’s eyes lit up.

“Finally! I must have Lin Sanjiu to register me in the system!” He picked up his pace. The footsteps were approaching fast towards him as well; the heavy steps echoing loud in the corridor. However, before he could come across the person, Woyu’s second sight kicked in. He dove into a spot on his right and laid himself down, taking advantage of the shade to cover his figure.

Not long after, a man appeared in his vision. He wasn’t Yu Yuan.

Lying prone on the rubber floor, Woyu’s eyes were wide open in shock. He stared at the man as he slowly disappeared from the fringe of his vision, his breathing shallow and quick.

Woyu had no idea why, but the man didn’t ride on a maglev pod. Perhaps his destination was near, so the pod was not needed? Right now, the man was striding towards the dormitory block, which was located on Woyu’s left side. His bedroom was there.

Woyu had a feeling that the man was definitely not one of Lin Sanjiu’s comrades.

While Woyu was trapped in his thoughts, the man’s voice rang out of the corridor; he spoke in the same language as Silas. “Silas, tell me who is in Exodus now.”

His tone was casual. It was as if he was the owner of the house.

“There is a prisoner in the prison and a pet in the living block,” Silas replied.

It took Woyu awhile to realize he was the pet. His brows rose high.

“Prisoner?” Apparently, the man didn’t care about the pet at all. He paused for a few seconds and laughed. “Fine then, the prisoner could live a little longer. I will take care of him myself after a new landing point is found. Let this be my compensation to the woman for buying Exodus.”

Even though Woyu did not understand what the man meant by “landing”, it did not prevent him from moving backward.

“Looks like I won’t be needing this anymore,” the man mumbled. Woyu wondered what ‘this’ referred to. The man gave another command before he doubled back, “Lock all the doors.” Soon after the man made his move, Woyu flattened himself against the corner of the wall after getting out of his hiding spot. He quietly tailed the man after he walked past.

Woyu walked barefoot into the main walkway, as he was forced to take off his slippers due to the noise they produced while wearing them. The heavy and unfamiliar footsteps ahead had gone out far, leaving only a faint echo in the corridor to point the way. Woyu looked into every passage when he passed each of them just to make sure, but apart from the vibration that was getting softer and softer under his feet, everything else remained normal as usual.

There was no doubt that Silas was aware of his movement the whole time. Woyu was grateful that she did not warn the man about his presence.

No matter how fast he was going, the distant footsteps quickly deadened, and soon enough, he could not hear anything anymore. Woyu lost his target halfway. He became dazed and look around blankly. The corridor that looked like a bow suggested that he was now at the inner edge of Exodus. The curved corridor stretched out far and disappeared at the end of his vision.

Exodus was a ring-like structure. The inner side of the ring was connected to an open-air garden, walking trails, a training ground, and all sorts of other blocks that required a wide space. All these blocks occupied the central part of the ring. ‘I doubt he’s in the mood to take a walk in the garden right now,’ Woyu thought inwardly as he tiptoed to the connecting bridge and pressed the button on the wall.

The metal door that enclosed the connecting bridge gradually dissolved into several geometrical blocks and slid into the wall. He deftly slipped through the connecting bridge. His muscles were pulled taut, ready to hide himself in case he bumped into the man. Fortunately, he saw no one along the track and he soon arrived at the open-air garden.

After a short bout of hesitation, Woyu turned around and opened the door to the garden.

Even though the garden was known as an open-air garden, that was not the case in reality. The entire garden was covered in a translucent geodesic dome that was forged by an unknown material. It acted as a shield to protect the trees and flowers from the corrosive wind. Woyu wondered if the brains of those rich people were different from an ordinary person like him. If they did not choose to build this house in a canyon, then there would be no need to…

Woyu’s thought came to a jarring halt as he saw the scene in front of him.

The scene was similar to that of when he looked up from the canyon. The sky was still black and dotted with countless stars. The wind continued to ravage across the canyon, slapping sand onto the translucent dome from time to time. The reason he was frozen still was because of the view below the dome.

The canyon was gone.

Woyu allowed his gaze to travel out below the garden, but what greeted his gaze was only darkness and nothing more. The rocks that used to support Exodus were nowhere to be seen. Overhead, wisps of greyish smoke paled and pulled apart by the ravaging wind. Woyu’s eyes followed the smoke and looked into the horizon. It was only then that he realized those clumps of smoke were actually clouds and Exodus was floating above the atmosphere.

“Holy sh*t! What the hell is this? Why is Exodus flying?!” Woyu shouted instinctively. He darted to the edge of the garden and looked downward. However, aside from clouds, he couldn’t see anything.

Just as his brain was all at sea, several beams of light blasted out, prompting Woyu to squint his eyes. Another ball of light whizzed overhead, but before he knew it, it disappeared abruptly.

However, that split second of light was more than enough for Woyu to clearly see the shape in the dark.

It was an aircraft. ‘Is the aircraft tailing behind Exodus?’

He did not know why the aircraft flashed at him. He shielded his eyes with his hand and looked out through narrowed eyes. Even though the sky was dark, he knew what he was looking for and he could vaguely make out the shape of the aircraft amidst the darkness since he had already seen it once.

Just when Woyu lost himself in abstraction, the mantis-shaped aircraft suddenly tilted its nose down and dove straight towards him, eliciting a half-suppressed scream from his throat. Nevertheless, before he could take cover, the aircraft made a sharp U-turn and flew up before it could crash into the dome. At the same time, a blast of light spilled out of its body.

It was only when Woyu saw a familiar figure amid the ball of light that he realized the hatch on the aircraft was opened.

He saw half of Lin Sanjiu’s body exposed in the air. She placed her hand close to her ear and made a gesture. At first, Woyu did not know what it meant. It took him a few seconds before he realized that Lin Sanjiu was talking about the communication device.

Very soon, both her and the aircraft disappeared in the dark.

Everything had happened so fast, Woyu thought he was having a hallucination. He remained blank and zoned out for a few full minutes before getting snapped back into reality by another two flashes of light. He glanced into the sky and then bolted towards the connecting bridge.

The communication device was in the dining block, so he had to go back there now.

Be that as it may, it seemed like the goddess of luck was not standing on his side this time. The second he stepped into the arched corridor, familiar heavy footsteps rang out behind him once more.

‘Where did he come from?’

Woyu knew his own strength very well, so he knew he couldn’t take on the man all by himself. He looked around and tried to find a spot to hide; however, the curved corridor was empty and there was no corner or other corridors connected to it. The footsteps were getting louder and louder. In desperation, Woyu held his breath and ran on his tippitoes, trying his very best to get out of the corridor before the man arrived.

“Silas,” the man called out, sounding pretty happy, “Set the course to this location. Also, send me a maglev pod.”

Woyu’s eyes went black and he inwardly cursed himself for his bad luck. He heard Silas reply to the man, “Alright.”

However, it seemed that that was not the end of his bad luck yet.

“Prepare me dinner. I am going to the dining block now.”