Magic Space: Struggling to Survive in the Apocalypse-Chapter 16: Rainstorm, Poisonous Moths
The sixteenth floor was a restaurant. The moment Evelyn Ford stepped inside, she was stunned by the scene before her.
Seven or eight human skeletons lay toppled on the restaurant floor. Tattered clothes hung loosely from their bones. Some skeletons still had sinews and blood vessels attached, which poisonous moths were crawling on and gnawing away at. The air reeked of rot and the thick, metallic tang of blood.
A single, swollen arm was all that remained on the skeleton at the very back.
Weaving past the skeletons, Evelyn Ford cautiously made her way to the kitchen. She wanted to see if there were any supplies left to collect in the storage room. The sticky goo from the crushed moth carcasses on the floor clung to the soles of her shoes like taffy, making every step a struggle.
A wave of putrid smells hit her as she entered the kitchen. Evelyn Ford saw moldy buns in a steamer, and the nearby pot of congee was filled with the bodies of dead moths.
The bowls in the sterilizer were clean. After a quick check, Evelyn Ford collected them all. When she reached the storage room, she found it locked. However, the door was made of wood. Evelyn Ford pulled a mountain axe from her inventory and swung with all her might, hacking a hole in the wood. She reached through the opening and unlatched the door from the inside. The poisonous moths behind her swarmed forward, trying to get in. Evelyn Ford placed a burning Pine Torch in front of the entrance, blocking the hole she had made. Once inside, she quickly shut the door.
’Good.’ The storage room hadn’t been breached by the moths. And it was packed with supplies. A quick glance revealed it had everything from rice and flour to grains and oil, like a miniature supermarket.
There were dozens of bags of rice alone, each a hundred-jin bag of high-quality polished grains. In a corner, Evelyn Ford also found a brand-new pressure cooker. She stored all the supplies from the room into her inventory. Instead of leaving right away, she took out some bug spray and gave her hazmat suit another coating. She swapped her shoes for a pair of hiking boots, put on two more face masks, and only then did she open the storage room door. 𝐟𝕣𝗲𝕖𝕨𝗲𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝗲𝚕.𝗰𝚘𝐦
The acrid smoke from the burning Pine Torch was pungent. As expected, the moths didn’t dare approach, merely circling about ten feet away.
Grabbing the torch, Evelyn Ford left the restaurant.
When she reached the seventeenth floor, Evelyn Ford’s eyes practically glowed green at the sight of the sign for the "Herbal Medicine Storeroom." She eagerly pushed the door open, but her heart sank the moment she saw the human skeleton and the dense, dark swarm of moths on the floor.
Evelyn Ford had no time for the moths. She went straight for the medicine shelves and breathed a sigh of relief when she saw that the herbs were all securely sealed.
She was tempted to take everything, but a thought gave her pause. ’Once the disaster spirals out of control, the government will send people to look for supplies and medicine to send to the survivor bases. What if they come here and find the storeroom empty?’ But then another thought came. ’What if the people who come looking for supplies aren’t from the government, but one of the criminal gangs that have emerged since the disaster? If these things fall into their hands, it’s just arming the wicked.’ Evelyn Ford agonized over the decision for a long time before finally deciding to take it all.
She took the cabinets along with their contents, storing everything in her inventory. By the time she had cleared out the entire storeroom, Evelyn Ford was exhausted. Time had flown by. She had left at seven, and it was now midnight.
Evelyn Ford didn’t linger. After a two-minute rest, she continued to the eighteenth floor. This was the storeroom for finished pharmaceuticals developed by the company. Fortunately, just like the floor below, everything was stored properly, so the losses weren’t severe.
The finished drugs had been sent over from the factory. There wasn’t a huge amount, but there were still several dozen boxes.
Hours later, Evelyn Ford reached the twenty-third floor. After a whole night of work, the worst part wasn’t the fatigue, but the biting cold. She took out a thermometer and checked it—already ten degrees below zero. A clap of thunder rumbled, and Evelyn Ford walked to the window just in time to see a bolt of purple lightning tear across the night sky. A torrential downpour immediately followed, accompanied by more thunder and lightning.
The sound of CRACKLING and SHATTERING filled the air. Evelyn Ford knew it was the sound of glass being struck by lightning.
After looting the department manager’s office, Evelyn Ford went into a small cubicle to rest for a while. As she took off her filthy hazmat suit, the sight of what was smeared on it made her stomach churn. She washed her hands quickly, then connected an electric heater to a storage battery. The small cubicle warmed up instantly.
Evelyn Ford placed a cushion on the floor and sat down. She stared blankly at the glowing heating element, but her mind was elsewhere. ’Could there be other survivors in this building?’
After all, she had found skeletons on nearly every floor since the restaurant.
Once feeling returned to her hands and body, Evelyn Ford took out a boxed meal and a portion of lamb soup. After eating her fill, a pleasant warmth spread through her stomach, and she felt her strength returning. But she didn’t go back out to scavenge. Instead, she closed her eyes, planning to get some sleep.
’Fifty-eight floors... even if I’m fast, it’ll take two or three days to clear the whole building. No need to rush. I should get some sleep first.’
Evelyn Ford woke up three hours later. Even though it was eight in the morning, the sky outside was a murky gray, almost as dark as night.
She put away the electric heater and battery, applied a new Warm Baby, and put her hazmat suit back on. Then, Evelyn Ford began another day of scavenging.
The twenty-fifth floor was a gym, its high-end equipment now destroyed and overrun by moths. The twenty-sixth held a library and a coffee shop. Evelyn Ford couldn’t help but sigh at the sight of the ruined books.
On the twenty-seventh floor, Evelyn Ford found another storeroom untouched by the moths. It was filled with office supplies—paper, pens, and ink. Looking at the boxes upon boxes of blank paper put her in a surprisingly good mood. She carefully stored it all in her inventory. When she came out and saw the moths on the wall again, her feeling of nausea seemed to have lessened somewhat.
By seven in the evening, Evelyn Ford was so tired her legs felt like jelly. She looked at the sign for the forty-second floor, kicked open the fire escape door, and staggered inside.
She found a clean office and immediately took out her heater. The Warm Baby on her body had frozen solid. Her hands were red and numb, and her toes were even starting to itch. Worried about frostbite, Evelyn Ford took off her shoes and socks to warm her feet by the heater, then pulled out a tube of chilblain cream and rubbed it on the itchy spots.
The warmth made her drowsy. As she warmed herself by the heater, she drifted off to sleep. Half an hour later, she woke up with a full bladder.
The thought of the moths in the bathroom made Evelyn Ford run her hands through her hair in frustration.
Half an hour later, Evelyn Ford returned to the office, looking utterly dejected.
After eating and quickly washing her face, she had just taken out her sleeping bag when she suddenly heard footsteps.
’Someone’s here?’
She switched off the heater, held her breath, and listened intently to the sounds outside.
The footsteps were coming from a distance, and it sounded like more than one person.
As they drew closer, Evelyn Ford could vaguely make out their conversation.
"I’m so cold and hungry, I’m going to lose my mind." The voice was young, male, and edged with frustration.
"If only I hadn’t stayed to work overtime on April 1st... If only I’d believed the warnings online and hadn’t come to work that day..." The speaker was a young woman, her voice choked with tears.
Evelyn Ford’s expression hardened. She stored everything in her inventory and pulled out a dagger, gripping it tightly.
