Super Spender

The lad remained silent, and so did Finn, who just plodded behind him. He must be a survivor. But Finn did not drop his guard. On Earth, he had been influenced by countless post-apocalyptic novels and movies like Resident Evil. In such an apocalyptic world, the civilization and order humans had built had already collapsed. Sometimes, the zombies outside, or the Parasite Humans, were not the most terrifying things.

The most terrifying were these surviving humans. Although the lad had risked danger to rescue Finn, he shouldn’t be a bad person. The lad didn’t know that Finn could at any time leave this six-dimensional space, and had Zero as a powerful backer.

“Alright, we’re almost there.” After about ten minutes, the lad suddenly spoke.

Finn grunted in response, without saying additional words. After turning around the corner, a hint of light suddenly appeared, shining a tiny bit of brightness into the gloom of the sewer tunnel.

“Ting ting,” two crisp knocking sounds suddenly came from ahead. The lad reached out his hand and knocked on the wall a few times, too. Only then did someone poke their head out from the place where the light was seeping out.

“Come here.” The lad looked back at Finn and hesitated before speaking.

Finn nodded and calmly walked forward. After he turned into the illuminated tunnel, he found, somewhat surprised, that it was different from his imagined survivor gathering point. This was a dead-end tunnel. At the connection with their tunnel was an iron door, possibly used for sealing the tunnel in the past.

Probably about tens of meters long, one end of this tunnel had collapsed and been thoroughly sealed off. On the other side, there was this sealing door, which could close off to create a small room.

As Finn walked in, the lad had already approached the child in their “room” and stood to block her behind him. Then he just stared at Finn. It was a little girl, and the lad who had just brought Finn back was a little boy. Both of them were young, the boy being at most thirteen or fourteen.

The tunnel fell into silence for a moment. After about ten seconds, Finn softly spoke, “Thank you for saving me.”

“You’re welcome.” The leading boy glanced at Finn and responded softly, but those eyes under the glow of a broken kerosene lamp still shone with caution.

“That… My name is Finn Lewis. What are your names?” Finn continued in Federation Language.

“My name is McDon, and hers is Laura Rhodes.” The boy introduced themselves.

“McDon, thank you.” Finn said earnestly. From the situation here, their lives were not very good, but they had still risked their lives to bring him back. Even though Finn hadn’t spent a lot of time in this world, he had seen TV and read novels. He understood how hard it could be in a world like this.

“No need to thank, but… why did you attract so many Parasite Humans?” McDon hesistantly asked after giving a comforting pat to Laura’s hand, which was holding onto his clothes.

“Well… alright, I’ll tell the truth. You may have noticed that my clothes are not ordinary.” Finn had quickly made up an excuse in his mind.

Finn had noticed earlier that although the kids are young, their harsh life had made them mature. Since the moment they entered the tunnel, McDon had been eyeing Finn’s clothes. The protection suit he wore was obviously not ordinary. After all, he had just jumped into the Stinky Water Pool and swam out. However, his clothes didn’t show any signs of having been in water. It was also not like ordinary clothes. Now, his protection suit was no longer casual in appearance but had returned to its original tight-fitting state.

“Yes,” McDon nodded, agreeing with Finn’s explanation.

“In fact, I am a soldier from a secret project of the official department. During an experiment, I was frozen until yesterday when I was liberated from the cryo. Unexpectedly, when I woke up, this world had changed completely—all people acting as if they were mad…” Finn narrated his lie based on the plots of various movies he had seen on Earth.

There was no way to tell how long this world had been in this state. If it has been too long, the children would have been much younger when it all started and hence they wouldn’t have stood a chance to survive. But it also hadn’t been too short, because many of the roads outside were covered with stubborn weeds.

Finn didn’t know whether McDon believed his explanation. Though McDon’s caution relaxed a bit, he stayed vigilant to some degree, but asked curiously, “Didn’t you know what happened?”

“Not sure. What has actually happened?” Finn knew only bits of the cause from Zero, but details like what kind of creature the alien Insect Species were weren’t told.

“It was aliens. About two years ago, a meteor fell. But when it was about to hit the ground, it slowed down. It cracked open on the ground and Insect Species crawled out. Many people were parasitized by insects about the size of a thumb. After parasitization, they lost consciousness and became like the living dead, biting everyone they saw and living on swallowing humans who hadn’t been parasitized…” As McDon recounted this, he shivered, clearly recalling some unpleasant scenes.

Finn listened silently. These Parasite Humans’ behaviors were quite similar to the zombies from movies. The only difference was that Parasite Humans’ weak point was not only their heads. If you hit other parts of their body, they would also die—but only the host body. The parasite was still alive. It would crawl out of the dead host body and instinctively seek other hosts.