Chapter 619

This place seemed to have been forgotten for many years; except for the necessary corridor lights at the stairs, there was no light anywhere else, and then, he saw the sign for the restroom.

Even when forced to such a point, he hadn't forgotten the basic social etiquette, such as not spitting everywhere.

With a "wah" sound.

Adam vomited his entire dinner into the sink, and then, amidst the burning pain in his esophagus and violent coughing, he felt much better.

When life is in crisis, the human body secretes a large amount of adrenaline, and now, the effects of those precious hormones had passed, and the aftereffects of excessive exercise were slowly emerging.

He couldn't run anymore, but listening to the sound, it seemed... no one was chasing him?

This is very abnormal.

If the entire orchestra had been replaced, why would the monsters let him go?

He couldn't help but question himself: was that thrilling experience just some sudden mental illness?

Raising his trembling hand, Adam lit a cigarette.

Instantly, smoke filled the narrow space, bringing him some comfort and allowing his thinking to return temporarily.

Adam had no history of mental illness, and in his family lineage, no relative had ever suffered from such a disease.

But what he saw on stage was too much like the dream-like delusions and transcendent hallucinations seen by people who have fallen into madness.

But if it wasn't a mental illness, what could it be?

Adam thought about it, and his meager relevant knowledge reserve only reminded him of rumors about addicts; some creators with dry inspiration would use illegal drugs to get material from hell.

It is said that the world seen after taking hallucinogens is so crazy, so chaotic, and so illogical.

But Adam had been self-disciplined since childhood, fearing that those chemical substances that act directly on the nervous system would destroy his senses, make his fingers dull, and cause his ears to lose the ability to distinguish sounds.

So... it wasn't what he thought.

What he saw, heard, and touched was mostly "truth," that there was a problem with the world, not that his cognitive system had failed.

And there was one point that could not be refuted—Luján broke his violin.

When the violin was destroyed, his heart almost stopped; the pain, loss, and shock at that time could not be fake.

His relationship with Luján was limited to cold professional interaction, but Luján as a professional, and anyone in the orchestra, should not have committed the act of destroying a precious instrument.

Undoubtedly, things were far from normal.

Everything was wrong.

Except for himself.

He threw the cigarette butt into the toilet, pressed tightly against the edge of the sink, and stared at himself in the mirror.

As his vision gradually focused, he was surprised to find that what was reflected in the mirror was not his figure.

It turned out that the mirror above the sink had been randomly painted with a huge black rectangle, and from it came a low mechanical roar, as if from a distant sawmill.

"!"

Adam hurried out of the restroom, closed the door hard, leaned against the opposite wall, and vigilantly watched the closed door, as if something would open the door and chase him.

At this moment, a new detail emerged in his memory:

There was also a blacked-out area on the wall of the dressing room, right behind his seat, facing the back of his head.

Logically speaking, no matter when, he should have been able to see it sitting there, but he didn't.

Not only that, there was the same black mark in his hotel room, right on the painting hanging at the head of the bed.

Did the hotel staff do this?

When and why did they do this?

Why did he only remember these things now?

That viral video was not a recent novelty either; why did he mistakenly think it was new before?

In fact, these videos had been circulating for months, lurking like ghosts in every corner of his life.

Whether in the cities where they toured, performance venues, or windows, billboards, and even small rooms and transitional spaces, people were quietly painting these...

"Wait..."

Some memories emerged quietly, and Adam was suddenly shocked at this moment.

—That was the symbol of a door.

Not only that, those videos all had a second half, recording some unknown existence walking out of it, crossing over.

All along, these "anomalies" had been staged before his eyes time and time again, but they had been filtered, locked in the backstage of the world, and isolated from his consciousness.

Until now, they were shoved in his face.

Did I develop schizophrenia?

"No, that's not the case."

Adam continued to think, but before his thoughts could unfold, an unreasonable sense of stagnation spread throughout his brain.

The black symbols blocked his mind, interfered with his thinking, and no matter how he tried, he couldn't expel them.

Adam couldn't think of anything else.

Adam looked back at the narrow corridor he had just walked through; in the darkness in the distance, a standing black rectangle appeared.

From that direction came increasingly dense footsteps; although they weren't running, they approached with fast steps, as if driving him to act.

Adam had to escape this building and seek help.

But who to find?

"Is the black rectangle a door? This setting is quite interesting, suitable as a setting in a superpower-themed work."

"If we could crack the peculiarities of 3125 and convert them into technology usable by the galaxy, interstellar travel would be much more convenient."

"Don't mess around, so many people died in the Foundation's research on anti-memetic entities, who knows what other big pits are in this field... What's more, 3125 is classified as a supreme divinity, even if He really fell, who can ensure that a supreme divinity won't really resurrect after falling..."

19:30.

Concert hall, first floor.

Run, run, Adam ran wildly toward the outside of the concert hall.

Adam was dizzy from winding through the maze-like corridors and stairs, but finally ran back to the hall, where there was a door leading directly to the outside.

But strangely, not only did no flesh monsters try to intercept him along the way, but the stage and auditorium were also empty at this time, and the monsters didn't know where they had gone.

"Where are the people?"

Adam was worried, but wasn't the current situation quite good? The monsters had all left, and he could smoothly leave this blasphemous concert hall and return to the normal human world.

Outside the door was a narrow path that hugged the back of the concert hall, ending in a dimly lit dead end and a loading area piled with goods, with several silent trucks parked around.

Night had fallen, and the summer evening breeze was blowing slowly, taking away much of the heat from Adam's body.

But what truly made him feel cold to the bone was the scene he saw next.

Walking quickly along the path, Adam reached the main road; the entire road was full of abandoned vehicles.

They were all empty, most of the doors wide open, just like the scenes common in doomsday movies, where panicked crowds saw the road blocked and abandoned their vehicles to flee for their lives.

This was indeed the end of the world, Adam thought.

Huge figures wandered the streets, moving ten meters with each step; they were so dark and thin that Adam almost didn't notice them.

Not far from the main road, terrified screams of crowds rang out, but were quickly covered by grotesque, terrifying shrieks.

That was the only way for Adam to escape.

In the middle of summer, Adam felt cold all over, his body trembling uncontrollably.

In the depths of his heart, the last shred of reason echoed:

"It's not just the concert hall."

"Everyone has suffered."

But a last-ditch effort was better than sitting and waiting for death; Adam took a deep breath, stabilized his mindset, and his goal quietly changed to surviving a little longer in this world-shaking change.

Even for a minute.

Adam approached the main road carefully, using abandoned vehicles to hide his figure, and repeatedly confirmed that no monsters were staring at him before heading to the next cover.

Just when he thought he was doing a great job, a monster invaded by the change suddenly poked its head out from the street corner, calling its companions in a strange language, pointing directly at Adam's direction.

Adam stopped immediately, his heart beating like a drum.

In an instant, seventeen or eighteen non-human creatures quickly surrounded him from the main road.

Two of them were carrying some kind of cargo—those were two lifeless, ragged humans.

Their clothes were torn open roughly, and the clothes inside were stained a shocking blood red.

One of the monsters, after seeing Adam, threw the human in its hand to the side of the street without hesitation.

The person fell in front of the wheel of a car, let out a painful moan the moment they landed, faced the ground, and after their body became still, took a deep breath, followed by a non-human and painful wail.