Crackle-crackle-

A few orange sparks exploded from the blazing bonfire, and though they were quickly vanished in the cold night, they were enough to revive her soul, which she didn't know where to go.

The bonfire she had built was small, even small—the flames swaying around in the leaky room looked pitiful, and could be extinguished at any moment.

But the tiny flames of fireworks could always sway in the cold wind to stabilize their weak figures, so strong that people couldn't help but feel sympathy and pity—but they didn't really need them.

Most of the fires were burning with artificial plastics, dusty old garbage that would emit thick black smoke and pungent mist as they burned in protest against an unjust fate — but she didn't care about the smoke that kept her eyes open, because she couldn't find anything else to burn.

She just wanted warmth – warmth.

She rubbed her shoulders in the extremely cold air, but she was ruthless, and suddenly stepped on the warm campfire.

So the flames, which had been swaying happily in the darkness a moment ago, were now completely silent.

The sparks quickly dispersed and faded, and some of the melted plastic stuck to her shoes and finally became solidified, jet-black lumps - but she didn't care much about them.

The empty storage room was once again in the silence and darkness that had enveloped it for eternity, so quiet that only the faint sound of her breathing and burning gaze remained.

There were some staggering footsteps outside the rusty door—maybe straight for here, or maybe not—and she didn't care, as usual.

Filling the magazine of the bolt-action rifle with bullets as cold as night, she clenched the fiberglass dagger in her hand and quietly melted into the clammy shadows.

The not-so-solid iron door was soon rudely pushed open by a walking corpse, shaking out a shallow cloud of dust from the wall.

It dragged its dislocated left leg with the smell of decay, its limp twisted figure stretched by the obscure moonlight shining through the door, casting it far above the opposite wall.

It shook its skull, which had lost most of its flesh, its pale teeth that had no lip to cover it grinded up and down, and its highly decayed, white-eyed balls only occasionally turned, revealing that it was still a living creature peeling off its skin and dried flesh.

It is the messenger of hell, seeking the endless light of blood.

It was hungry—and it followed the steps and trails of its prey. It was so eager to fill its swollen belly with something to quench the painful hunger that emanated from its gut, but a dagger with a glittering cold light pierced the darkness and pierced its neck with great speed, severing its spine with precision and grace.

Disgusting grunts kept pouring down its throat, and black, viscous blood trickled down the delicate dagger onto her hand—visible from the darkness, she just flipped the sharp dagger mercilessly, slowly stirring its brain, until it lost its voice and became a corpse that should have been laid to rest on the ground - it wasn't a hunter, she was.

She glanced out, put away her bolt-action rifle and dagger, and walked out of the utility storage room in one of the corners of the second floor of the huge building, clutched onto her coat.

The moonlight was pleasant tonight, but the endless moonlight seemed a little blurry through the dense glass that covered the sky, and even became a little dim when it spilled on her brown hair, but it also seemed to be softer and more affectionate.

The well-preserved glass always shines at a certain angle, and the small openings that are missing the cover reveal the pure deep black of the night.

In this way, these random blocks of color fill the tiny windows divided into thousands by a massive interlaced steel skeleton that spans the night, making them mosaic-like pictures in the eyes of lovers, and faintly discerning the colors and noise that have faded over time.

It's probably a huge mall. It used to be full of people and loud noises, but now it is still closely accompanied by gray cement and bare steel bars, and all that remains is all kinds of flourishing plants.

So it's always quiet and quiet, except for the occasional walking corpse that wanders here for some unknown reason, slowly and aimlessly among the knee-high weeds that grow under the dome of the huge building, stirring up small insects and flying floc that hide in the crevices of the blades of grass.

The air here is dreary.

Unhurried and unhurried, she swept through the cold moonlight like a ghost, and walked through countless neat but empty shops, leaving only a little dust swirling on the ground.

Walking through the empty mall corridor, she jumped down a broken staircase, trampling on the soft mud and bringing down a patch of sparse tall grass that had withered yellow.

The dust carried by the breeze has accumulated for nearly a hundred years before the smooth tiles that completely obscure the ground, and the vast area of fertile and thick land is scattered with water-filled craters that glow brightly in the moonlight, nourishing the fragile but tenacious flora and fauna that surround them.

This unique, slightly enclosed ecological community has been repeating its rise and fall in concrete and steel—perhaps in the dreary summer months, she can still see countless cute fireflies flickering and flying from the darkness in this bleak wetland.

As she stepped over a tall thicket of reeds, several particularly thick poles playfully scraped her clothes, as if they had taken something from her waist—something did hang from the reed poles—her identity card.

She sighed very softly, and reached for the tiny alloy document.

Although most of her life history is mounted on a small chip around her neck, the alloy sheet used as a secondary identification still has some basic information about her in the world of Seventeen engraved with a laser.

For example, her name is Kaede.

The names of the two dignified ones sounded good, and there was a distinctly ancient Asian twist on them — but she had almost forgotten about them.

Rubbing the metal in her hand, she seemed to suddenly remember something, and some chaotic memories came flooding back.

She couldn't remember what happened that day—or maybe she chose to forget it for some special reason.

All I remember when she opened her eyes again that day, she had been put into a rudimentary escape pod - by her goddamn agent.

She really wanted to greet this slut with only money left in her face with her fist, because he remembered leaving her an old-fashioned bolt-action rifle and half a bag of bullets in the cramped cabin - it was most likely just to humiliate and make fun of her - because how could a guy like her, who grew up in a shining world, know how to fiddle with such an old antique?

The old escape pod with a single route was finally maliciously thrown into this marginal world by the cold-blooded mongrel, so with a brilliant fire briefly carved when the capsule passed through the atmosphere, the nameless planet in the D37 star field welcomed another unfortunate adventurer - interestingly, those self-righteous fools were bombed into tens of billions of cosmic dust by the AI ships that happened to patrol here, and most of the shipwreckage that disintegrated in the huge explosion was finally captured by the planet's gravity, There's even a spectacular meteor shower that can be seen in most parts of the Northern Hemisphere – which isn't bad.

But she could never go back—on this wild planet that was on the verge of death.

But it doesn't matter, she doesn't have anything to worry about anyway, and it's not as boring as it seems.

She only occasionally felt a little lonely in the quiet of the night—just a little.

Trudging through the dense grass, she finally turned into a secluded passageway, carefully groped her way over the mountains of cement blocks, and slammed open the small metal door at the end of the passage that had long been brittled in the wind and rain.

The moonlight that suddenly rose behind the door shook her eyes, and when she got used to the bright light, she completely lowered her right hand that was blocking it.

Today's fair moon is unusually beautiful.

The moonlight, unfiltered by the gray glass of the mall, was sprinkled down from the sky, affectionately and tenderly taking her and everything around her into her arms.

But from her vantage point, there was no trace of human activity in the city, even though it was once the center of the city.

It seems to have always been a paradise for plants.

She just stopped for a moment under the light moonlight and walked to a car parked not far from the entrance of the mall.

It stands to reason that it shouldn't have just stopped in the small square of this luxury mall anyway - especially since some careless person had knocked down a number of beautiful sculptures and fountains standing in it - such a scoundrel should be strongly condemned, but since she herself was the initiator, these pointless accusations should be avoided, and you should not expect her to run away stupidly and turn herself in.

She had never touched the car before—not at all, at least she had seen it when she was visiting the vehicle museum alone—and she remembered that the potato chips she had clutched in her hand at the time tasted good.

Is it Cassandra-flavored — or Randy-flavored?

She had forgotten something.

In short, you shouldn't force her to be able to distinguish between clutch and brake as soon as she sits on a moldy leather cushion – even if she's a genius like her, it always takes time to learn something new – at least it took her an afternoon to learn how to light the light and step on the gas.

She fumbled around her waist and used a rusty key to open the door of the only van she had found in the mall parking lot - the driver's door was so rusted that it would have taken her a lot of effort to pull it open - and the damn door squeaked open with a screeching sound that gave her goosebumps all over her body.

After throwing the car door, she sat on the moldy leather mat that would cause yellow spores to emerge when she pressed it slightly, and the hollow thing actually screamed, which sounded very funny, and made her laugh out loud.

But it didn't seem to be that funny—why was she laughing if it wasn't that funny?

By the light of the moon, she carefully fastened her seatbelt, which had been worn out over the years, and kindly fastened the seatbelt of the bolt-action rifle she had placed in the passenger seat—she had a relationship with the old-fashioned bolt-action rifle, which she liked to call "Mr. Survivor" on many occasions.

She set the car on fire in a somewhat rusty way, and turned on the car's high beams — the left highlight, to be exact, because the right high beam was scratched by an eyeless sports car parked on the side of the road as she tried to pull the van out of the parking lot — what a bad luck!

But the high beams on one side were enough – the orange glow was enough to illuminate her path.

She was leaving—leaving forever the ancient city that had fallen into complete silence, quietly waiting for death at sunrise and sunset, and going further afield to pursue the dreams and hopes she longed for.

She put her hands on the steering wheel, which had accumulated another layer of dust over the past few days, slowly released the clutch of the car, and lightly stepped on the accelerator.

She had been preparing for this day for a long time—a determination and determination that could be easily seen in her clear eyes, which reflected the beams of high beams.

But the car was just a meal, and the engine went off - strange, what was going on?

Confused, she thought back to the process of starting the car — oh — she seemed to have forgotten to let go of the handbrake.

But this should also be a small problem that often happened to ancient people...... Cease?