86_86324 walked into the building, and the milky white floor tiles were covered with dust. The iron door to and from the unit building is closed, but it is not locked. I pushed the door open, and the winter sun slowly shone inside, allowing us to see through the aisle. As soon as I walked a few steps away, I was shocked by the sound of metal hitting behind me, which made my neck shrink. Could it be that the figure just caught up? I said uneasily in my heart. Duan Ke and I turned around and saw that it was the sound of the iron door closing automatically, and I breathed a sigh of relief, and felt that this sudden noise was the whole building welcoming me home.

Further inside, there is the area where you are waiting for the elevator. The elevator was definitely not working, so I turned around the corner next to the elevator, pulled the open and closed wooden door, and walked into the temporary corridor. Fortunately, my family lives on the eighth floor, which is not too high, and it won't take long to walk up. Sunlight shines through the windows on the wall, so the visibility in the hallway is not bad. However, every step down can step on the dust in the corridor, mixed with bursts of rancid smell, which is somewhat overwhelming.

Step 10, Step 11, Step 12...... I counted silently in my mind. As my steps increased, so did my heart beat, and for the first time, I felt that going home was just as stressful.

After stepping through the stairs and turning the stairwells one after another, Duan Ke finally reminded me that I had arrived when I counted the one hundred and sixty-eighth steps.

I pushed open the wooden door and walked out of the hallway. The steel plaque with the figure "8" printed on it was taped to the wall in front of us, and although I had noticed it had been pasted down before, it did not affect our recognition in the slightest. There are two security doors opposite the building plate, and inside one of them is my house.

As soon as it was, I unconsciously slowed down and walked towards the door. I don't know if it was the exhaustion caused by climbing the stairs, or if I was too excited inside, I couldn't stop gasping for breath, and I felt like my heart was about to jump out. Walking to the door, I wish I could hear something coming out of the door, whatever it is. For a moment, I could hear my mom stir-frying in the kitchen, my dad pacing in the living room, or the news on the TV in the living room.

But when I came to my senses, only my heartbeat was pounding.

I exhaled, reached out, knocked lightly on the door, and put my ear to the door. There was an immediate chill in his ears. After more than ten seconds, I didn't hear anything, but my heartbeat slowly slowed down. Could it be that they are still sleeping and not heard? Still fantasizing, I knocked on the door a few more times, repeating what I had done, but still to no avail.

I had no choice but to unhook my backpack, touch it a few times, and take out the key. The key is inserted into the lock hole, and when it is turned again, the sound of the door lock being opened. I held the key still in the lock hole in one hand and the doorknob in the other, hesitated for a few seconds, but pulled the door open.

There was a "squeak" and the door opened. I took a few steps back and looked inside, where the familiar furnishings came into view again, and at the same time, a smell that had been closed in the room for a long time came out. I instantly understood what was going on, but my mind had stopped thinking and just walked in mechanically. Although my brain was blank, my eyes still didn't forget to look around the room.

I caressed the wall, walked past the dining table, passed the kitchen, and if I turned the corner in front of me, I could walk to my parents' bedroom. I leaned one hand on the corner and looked at the bedroom at the end of the hallway, the door closed. After looking at it for a while, I decided not to go in now, or rather, I didn't dare to go in. I turned and walked into the living room and sat down on the couch.

Duan Ke had been following me, and when he saw me sit down, he also sat down beside me in a regular manner, his eyes rolling around, and he was curiously looking at the room in Yiqiē. I fumbled around my body several times before I could find the cigarette. Lighting the cigarette and the rising smoke finally helped me dilute the rancid smell a bit.

Duan Ke didn't complain this time, and quietly moved his position.

I pulled the ashtray that my dad used to use from the coffee table and flicked the ashes inside. Several cigarette butts in the ashtray had dried up, and at a glance it was clear that they were cigarette butts left behind many days ago. I looked at the soot that had been newly flicked in, and my brain was starting to work again.

The smell that filled the house could already tell what was going on. My parents must be sleeping in the bedroom now, and yes, I still refuse to use the word "dead." Ten days ago, I was sitting in my dorm room, facing a post-mutation world, planning that going home was my only hope. Ten days later, I sat at home as I wished, but I didn't dare to push open the bedroom door to face what I feared the most. It suddenly occurred to me that what I had hoped for was nothing more than a dose of morphine, just a moment of relief. I felt like I had lost hope again. Should I go in or not, or do I smoke all the time? But when I think of what I will see when I walk into the bedroom, I feel infinitely repulsed.

I watched the ashtray and was distracted until the filter of the cigarette in my hand came to the temperature, and it was only when my sanity was burned back.

I quickly extinguished the cigarette butt and stood up. I finally made my decision. The parents are just a few meters away, and they have to face it, and it has happened, and I, as a son, no longer expect to do anything for them, but at least, I should go to see them one last time, if I can still recognize them.

"You wait for me here, I'll go in and I'll come out in a while." I say to Duan Ke.

Duan Ke nodded at me with a shallow smile, wondering if he was encouraging me.

Within a few steps, I reached the door of my parents' bedroom, and there was no doubt that the source of the stench was behind the door. Turning the cold doorknob, I pushed the door open without further thought. I ran to wake them up in the morning, like I did when I was a child, and I put my head in the middle of the door and looked at the qiē in the door.

Needless to say, my eyes fell to the bed in my bedroom and I saw the last thing I wanted to see.

I can't bear to describe what I saw, I can only say that through the folds and undulations of the quilt, I can know that there are two people lying on the bed, but they are lying on the bed forever. My heart was beating so hard that I wanted to close the door and run downstairs, rush out of the neighborhood, flee from here, and never come back. Even so, my legs had already stopped listening and I was already taking steps towards the bedroom.

The soles of my shoes made a sound against the wooden floor, as if they were pounding my chest. Because with each step, I saw the situation in bed more clearly.

Finally, I stopped, stood in front of the bed, and looked down at the two bodies on the bed, the bodies of my parents. As Uncle Wang said, the virus hit this kind of city at night, and my parents must have passed away in bed at the time, in their sleep. I don't know if this is a blessing in misfortune, because at least they are asleep, and they don't have time to have a little attachment to the world.

Despite living in such a world for half a month, I have never observed a certain corpse so closely and closely. On the bed in front of me, my parents, or rather, two corpses, were no longer recognizable as they had been alive. Perhaps the reason why the air circulation here is not very good, and the decomposition of corpses is much slower than outside. The two bodies had swelled and leaked some disgusting fluid, staining the sheets and quilt yellowish-brown, and there were many small bugs crawling around on the bed. The most disgusting thing is that maggots that are born from nowhere, wriggling on the face that has rotted and swelled.

If I didn't know that these two bodies were my parents, I would have cursed and vomited. But even though I was thinking like this, trying to restrain myself, and constantly diverting my attention, I still couldn't beat the most instinctive physiological reaction, and I bent down and retched. But in order not to make the already disgusting scene in front of me even more disgusting, I closed my lips and forcibly swallowed the upwelling vomit back.

It is disrespectful to do such a thing in front of the remains of your parents. However, if my parents knew that they were like this, they would have forgiven me.

I walked to the closet in my bedroom, opened it, pulled out a random piece of clothing, and covered the remains of my parents. I can't be like Uncle Wang, I can only cover you with the last piece of cloth and send you on your last journey, you should treat this as the last filial piety of your son, I said in my heart.

With a dress covered in the bed, the disgusting things were no longer visible, and I turned my attention to the rest of the bedroom. On the bedside table, there is a photo and a mobile phone, I don't know if it is my father or my mother. I picked up the photo and found it as a group photo of our family. I don't remember when this picture was taken, but I was very young, only five or six years old, and it looked like I was in some kind of zoo in the background. The parents in the photo were very young at the time, and they were holding me together.

Then I remembered that I hadn't taken a picture with my family since I was in high school. Thinking of that happy moment in the photo, and comparing the two corpses in front of him, the three people are already separated by heaven and earth. Thinking of this, very suddenly, my vision was blurred by tears.

Wiping away the spilled tears, I picked up the phone on the bedside table and flipped through it in my hand. This must have been the last time they communicated with me, and I remembered my dad's calm tone on the phone that day, perhaps he was comforting me in the most fatherly tone while looking at the group photo.

I can't bear to think about it anymore, since I was a child, my dad told me that the man who cried his nose was the most wretched, even if he died one day, I only shed a tear was enough. Now that he's really gone, I regret that I didn't do what he said and shed more than a tear.

Anyway, the bedroom is not the scene of the memorial service, and there is no point in staying here any longer, and continuing to remember will only make me more sad. Besides, my nose couldn't hold the smell anymore. I stuffed that precious group photo into the compartment of my backpack and wanted to keep it safe. But when I plugged it, I felt that there was something else in it. I pulled it out and shook my head and laughed, it was a letter I wrote to my parents in the dormitory.

That day I thought I would die in the dormitory, and then waited for my parents to come to school to open the letter, but I didn't expect that the opposite thing was what I thought, and the letter was also sent to my house. I didn't look at the letter again, I just folded it and pressed it against the bedside table with that phone.

Looking around, I felt that I had seen everything I needed to see and done, so I walked out the door, took one last look at the bedroom, and closed the door.

As for the content of that letter, I have forgotten most of the things I have experienced in the past ten days, but the end is always engraved in my heart.

"When I think back on my twenty years or so, there are only a handful of things that can be counted as giving back to you. In the past, I always thought that what you did for me was an obligation. But I was wrong, no one in this world is obligated to do anything to anyone. By now, by the time I really wanted to do something for you, I found out that it was too late, and I didn't even know if you were still alive. However, you are certainly alive and waiting at home for me to come home.

I may not survive tonight and not be able to go home again, but you must live, even if you adopt a son in the future.

Mom, Dad, maybe this is the last time I'll call you. Please forgive me, I can only use pen and paper to write my truest thoughts to you, and I can call you father and mother seriously.

If only I could do it all over again in this life. ”。