Deep Sea Drifter Diary

深海流窜日记

deep-sea-drifter-diary

Chapter 37

As soon as those words were spoken, it resonated with far more people than the earlier "a bit hungry" comment from Mediterranean Circle. Almost everyone raised their heads and exclaimed in surprise, "I'm not the only one?!"
"I thought my mental stress was causing me to feel anxious, stuffy and sweaty!" Beer Belly lifted his hand to wipe the sweat from his forehead and said, "So it really has gotten hotter and more stifling?"
In many situations, when people encounter something unpleasant, they will instinctively seek reassurance from others. If they find they are not the only unlucky one, that others are "suffering together" with them, the sense of dejection in their hearts will be alleviated to some extent. This may be a kind of comfort that can't be openly acknowledged but is indeed effective.
But now, the people huddled in the stone cave all had the same thought in their minds - this time they really wished they were the only ones suffering!
Seeing the others responding one after another, they didn't feel the slightest bit of relief. On the contrary, their hearts sank. Because if everyone felt the stuffiness and heat, it meant this stone cave was finally going to shed its title as a "refuge".
"It's not bad, thanks to that meteorite that crashed at the front cave entrance..." Dennis comforted himself, trying to focus his attention back on the oscilloscope.
The reason they were able to hide safely in this cave for so long was indeed thanks to that fallen meteorite. If it hadn't smashed and completely blocked the front cave entrance, at a time like this, with both front and back entrances ventilated, the smoke and dust would have entered the cave ages ago.
Everyone more or less understood that the conditions they were experiencing now were most likely the aftereffects brought by the previously falling meteorites. They weren't sure how big this world they were in was, but no matter the size, based on the dense flower-like falling pattern earlier, the meteorites that crashed down were enough to affect everything--
Not to mention the thick dust particles in the air, the continuous friction and compression of air by the meteorites and the raging fires everywhere would cause the overall temperature of this world to skyrocket, plus the mixing of countless gases unfavorable for breathing into the air... and so on.
Just thinking about it made one feel chilled to the bone.
The more nervous one gets, the more oxygen is consumed. In this situation, the stuffiness becomes even more unbearable. Moreover, Dennis and Protruding Ears were still busy working, literally sweating buckets. Middle-aged, overweight people like Mediterranean Circle and Beer Belly were even less able to endure such an environment.
So very quickly, the breathing sounds in the stone cave became much heavier, rising and falling, influencing each other, practically churning out the effect of summer cicada chirps, making people feel irritated. Among them, only three people's breathing remained relatively steady--
Shen Lan, Xia Chuan, and little Allen.
The former two were very calm by nature, basically never batting an eye unless seeing the Grim Reaper. As for Allen, he was too young to understand the implication of the adults' words, so he still maintained fairly normal breathing in the stuffiness, only occasionally leaning over to Laura's ear to softly mumble that it was hot.
Amidst the restlessness all around, Xia Chuan stood up, glanced in the direction of Dennis and Protruding Ears, then called out to everyone, "Tear a piece of cloth from your body, there's a water pond next door."
His words were brief, but everyone immediately understood his meaning - once they went out, the air outside would be too thick with smoke and dust. Covering their mouths and noses with a wet cloth could filter out some of it.
Just as everyone was getting up and heading next door, following Xia Chuan's instructions to prepare the wet cloths, Dennis and Protruding Ears finally raised their heads and shouted, "Done!"
Xia Chuan and Shen Lan, who were leaning by the fork holding the cloth strips they had prepared for them, quickly walked over upon hearing this and asked, "How did you modify it?"
"Um... you can't really tell by looking at it." Dennis and Protruding Ears took the cloth strips while handing the oscilloscope to Xia Chuan and Shen Lan, explaining simply, "Anyway, it should be a bit more sensitive than before."
Shen Lan caught a word in there: "Should?"
Dennis shrugged.
"What if the sensitivity becomes worse instead?" Shen Lan looked the oscilloscope up and down suspiciously. The originally tightly sealed black box had been forcibly pried open by them, and even though the back cover was put back on, two corners were still broken. Through the broken parts, the crisscrossing wires inside could be seen, all messy, not inspiring much confidence.
However, Protruding Ears lifted his chin and guaranteed, "If it really becomes worse, I'll cut off my head and give it to you to kick around like a ball!"
Shen Lan swept a glance at him like he was looking at a lunatic, then stuffed the oscilloscope back into Dennis's hands, not bothering with it anymore.
Xia Chuan, on the other hand, reminded again, "Pay attention to waterproofing it."
"Oh right!" Dennis was so focused on bragging about the thing that he almost went out directly holding it like that. Hearing Xia Chuan's words, he abruptly remembered he hadn't wrapped it in a waterproof bag. He paused his steps and rummaged through the black backpack on his chest, carefully sealing the opened oscilloscope in a waterproof bag before following Xia Chuan and Shen Lan towards the exit with peace of mind.
Since the cave had already become stuffy and hot, continuing to stay here would really be just waiting for death.
The group gathered at the entrance of the third fork. Professor Linton translated the information he gleaned from Xia Chuan and Shen Lan's expressions for everyone and reiterated some precautions.
"Alright, let's go." After Professor Linton finished speaking, he did some simple leg and foot exercises, gave Laura a thumbs up, then covered his mouth and nose with the wet cloth and called for everyone to climb out of the cave.
For people with small statures and slim figures, the cave entrance was just barely the right size. But for tall and sturdy people like Shen Lan, it was quite a squeeze. Of course, Shen Lan wouldn't have the patience to slowly wriggle out of the cave. Just imagining such a stupid-looking action made him feel sick.
So without further ado, he took the lead position and, without any warning, gathered his strength and kicked the thinner stone wall by the cave entrance twice.
His strength had always been astonishingly great. Xia Chuan and the others were used to it, but the other people in the cave were not. They gaped at the enlarged cave entrance after the rubble rolled away, unable to utter a word for a long time.
Shen Lan naturally wouldn't wait for them. With a single hand, he vaulted out of the hole, then turned back and crooked a finger at Xia Chuan in the cave.
Xia Chuan: "..."
Of course, Shen Lan wasn't actually teasing or anything like that, but reminding Xia Chuan not to dawdle, that they could begin.
The group was still shocked by the fact that he had kicked open such a large hole with just two feet. Seeing his gesture, they couldn't react at all.
As a result, while they were still dumbfounded, Xia Chuan had already unceremoniously grabbed one of them and started stuffing him towards the hole. Outside the hole, Shen Lan caught the person tumbling out, then let him roll to the side. He also gave Xia Chuan a thumbs up, like Professor Linton had, indicating: Great cooperation!
Shen Lan had gestured to Xia Chuan while still in the cave - letting this group of crooked melons and cracked dates, bald and pot-bellied folks, dither at the hole's mouth, they'd be crawling out until the year of the monkey or the horse. Tossing them would be much faster!
The facts proved that the cooperation of Shen Lan and Xia Chuan was indeed much faster than the group climbing out themselves. In the blink of an eye, the group rolled out like a bunch of round watermelons, piling up in a heap outside the hole.
Inside and outside the cave were like two different worlds!
Earlier, when peering out from inside the cave, their field of vision had been limited and unclear. Now, truly standing in the heavy dust haze, the group realized the situation was even worse than they had estimated while in the cave.
The dust haze was almost blotting out the sky, and the visibility was so low it was appalling. Apart from the people and tree trunks nearest them, they couldn't see anything. The horizon was a gloomy stretch of black, as if the world was perpetually stuck in that not-quite-light, not-quite-dark color of 3 or 4 AM. Other than that, it was a dead silence... a dead silence that made one feel uneasy and fearful.
Before fleeing into the stone cave, this world had been full of strange and ferocious beasts everywhere, large and small, from dinosaurs to insects, seemingly nowhere they could provoke. And they were the only humans in this world. They had thought that kind of species loneliness was already oppressive enough... but now, they found that it was nothing at all.
In the current dead silence, they couldn't even hear the sounds of those beasts and insects anymore. The tall trees and vegetation had become sparse, shadowy, and blurry. This was no longer just a loneliness of species, they even suspected that apart from the eleven of them, no other living things could be found in this world anymore.
"Are they... all dead?" Laura hugged Allen in her arms, murmuring.
Her voice was muffled behind the damp cloth, as blurry and indistinct as the tree shadows in the dust haze, making everyone feel a hollow emptiness in their hearts.
At a time like this, it was still Xia Chuan who spoke first: "Let's go."
The arrangement of this eleven-person team was similar to the previous four-person team, with Shen Lan at the front and Xia Chuan at the rear. The people in the middle were tightly packed together, jostling as they walked forward.
If it were normal times, in stuffy and hot conditions, no one would enjoy rubbing against others, but in this situation, they all felt more at ease with physical contact.
It was as if the constant contact kept reminding them: I still have companions, I'm not alone.
In the heavy dust haze, it was completely impossible to determine direction. Fortunately, they had the oscilloscope that Dennis was cradling like a baby.
He stared at the oscilloscope screen almost the entire time, relying only on his peripheral vision to watch the road under his feet. There were people on both sides and in front and behind him, protecting him perfectly in the middle.
The waveform on the screen kept jumping. Some curious people craned their necks to take a look, but couldn't understand anything, so they had to give up, withdraw their heads, and obediently follow the main group.
Xia Chuan had paid attention and listened. Since leaving the cave, the oscilloscope still hadn't made that "zz zz" sound, but Dennis could still determine the direction to proceed just by looking at the waveform.
He pursed his lips tightly, following at the very back of the crowd, constantly paying attention to the surroundings, even though all he saw along the way were the corpses of giant beasts.
Dennis was the one controlling the general direction, while Shen Lan relied on his hearing to control the small directions. He accurately led the group to avoid several patches of raging fires, as well as a collapsing mountain.
However, the further they walked, the more their hearts sank - because the corpses all over the ground seemed to be confirming their guess that there really weren't many living things left in this world.
How long they had been walking, even they themselves couldn't calculate. They only knew to keep mechanically moving their feet, following behind Shen Lan.
The hunger in their bellies went from vague, to gradually more noticeable, to impossible to ignore, and then seemed to pass hunger and gradually go numb, feeling nothing. The soles of their feet were sore and painful, and in the end, even a slight movement made their muscles and bones feel stiff.
But these were not the hardest things to endure.
The hardest thing to endure was that the surrounding temperature kept climbing, not a sudden change, but rising bit by bit like boiling a frog in warm water. This heat was not the scorching heat of the sun, but more like being trapped in a sauna room, with the temperature too hot but unable to get out, unable to find a vent.
Everyone was sweating, but not the refreshing kind of drenching sweat, but a damp and sticky feeling that stirred up a sense of helplessness and agitation in their hearts that couldn't be dispelled.
Even more unbearable was the similarly increasing lack of oxygen, which made them suddenly feel like they were in a dream, dreaming that they were trapped in a large clay pot, unable to breathe at all, until they woke up startled and found that they had smothered themselves in the blanket.
But reality was cruel. They would only have a process of continuous stuffiness, but not the result of waking up startled and lifting the blanket to take a deep breath of fresh air.
"I feel like I want to vomit..." Beer Belly was the first one who couldn't take it anymore. After struggling to take two steps, he leaned against a tall tree. The trunk of the tall tree was clearly covered in dense bristles, but he didn't feel it at all on his palms. He just bent over and dry heaved a couple of times, but unfortunately, having not eaten anything for so long, his stomach was already as empty as it could be, and there was nothing to vomit.
He rolled his eyes and slumped down against the tree, waving his hand at the group: "You go, I... ugh... I can't walk anymore."
The group stopped in their tracks, their faces not looking much better than his.
"If you still have the strength to talk, how come you don't have the strength to walk?!" Shen Lan, who was in relatively better shape, walked up to him and tugged on his arm.
Shen Lan wasn't tired, but rather parched... In all the years he had lived in this world, he had never been away from water for such a long time. When he was running through the forest with Xia Chuan and the others before, the air was humid, so he could endure it for a bit longer. But now, the sea of flames all around had long evaporated that moisture, leaving the entire air bone dry, making him feel like his skin was cracking with every move.
Actually, compared to finding an exit, that illusory thing, he was more eager to find a water source to jump into and recuperate.
However, even so, it would only alleviate the dryness issue... Plesiosaurus also breathe with lungs. His current level of oxygen deprivation was no less severe than the others. If he reverted to his original form, it might become even more serious...
"Let's go, don't waste time on me..." Beer Belly was always loud and boisterous, his voice never lowering, but this time he spoke as softly as a mosquito's hum, nearly inaudible. As he spoke, his eyes were half closed, as if once he slumped down without support, he fell into a state between dreaming and waking.
"Sleep my ass!" Seeing he couldn't pull him up, Shen Lan slapped him.
However, he still sat there slumped as if he didn't know pain, and only hummed a reply after a long while, "Sleepy..."
These two words were extremely slurred, as if his tongue no longer had the strength to move, and his eyelids drooped down, closing as if they could no longer stay open.
Xia Chuan, walking at the rear, circled to the front, frowned as he looked, then lowered his hand to check under Beer Belly's nose. After a moment, he withdrew his hand and shook his head at the others. He could be considered as having the best stamina except for Shen Lan, but at this time, his face was also a sickly pale, his breathing equally heavy.
Shen Lan, seeing his appearance, knew he also didn't have the strength to speak.
So he looked at the dust fog ahead, then at Beer Belly who had collapsed under the tree, and waved at the others, "...Let's continue."
But after saying this, he himself didn't immediately lift his feet to move, but raised his hand to grab Beer Belly's clothes and arms, shifting him upright a bit, before leading the others to continue forward.
After walking a few steps, someone looked back and saw Beer Belly, who had been shifted upright, sitting with his back against a tall tree, his head hanging very low, leaving only a hazy silhouette in the dust fog, as if he had merely found a comfortable place to lean against and sleep due to the fatigue of the journey...
Although they had seen countless corpses along the way, watching a companion fall by the wayside for the first time, even if they weren't that close, still made their hearts sink, making it even harder to take another step.
After walking for a good while longer, Shen Lan's ears twitched, his expression slightly brightening as he said in a low voice, "There's water."
The severe oxygen deprivation and thirst left him without the energy to say more, but just these two words were enough for people to understand - not far ahead, there was a water source.
Perhaps only at times like these do people experience the instinctive connection between water and life. Even though merely drinking some water wouldn't provide much recovery for them, upon hearing this word, they felt a burst of energy.
Shen Lan was indeed not mistaken. After the group walked about a hundred meters, they really saw a river in the dust fog. In that instant, even their footsteps seemed to become less heavy.
But at the same time, Xia Chuan and the others also saw two black shadows lying by the riverside.

Deep Sea Drifter Diary

Deep Sea Drifter Diary

Chapter 37 - Chapter 37

Windwalker