A Horrific Scene

A Horrific Scene

The explosion had done no harm at all to the semi-transparent shadow. All the rubble and debris had passed straight through it.

David wanted to order the shadow back, but he sensed a feeling of satisfaction coming from it, as if it had just eaten its fill.

Outside, where he couldn't see, the semi-transparent shadow hovered ten meters away from him—the farthest distance it could get from him.

This was also exactly where the bookstore's entrance had been before it vanished. Wisps of invisible, intangible matter were drawn toward the shadow, flying into its body.

If anyone had counted them, they would have found that there were exactly as many wisps as there had been people killed.

David felt his connection with the semi-transparent shadow growing stronger. If he'd previously connected to it over a 2G mobile network, it now felt like a 3G connection.

He didn't understand what was happening, but he knew the shadow was fine. If anything, it seemed to have benefited somehow, so he left it alone.

After all, he'd had the semi-transparent shadow for such a short time—so short that he hadn't really learned what it could do.

David tried to get to his feet. His back hurt a little, but it wasn't too bad. He walked toward the restroom entrance, where the metal door was gone.

He picked his way carefully through the water on the floor, stepping around the debris scattered everywhere by the explosion.

Suddenly he stopped. He'd spotted a metal cylinder, about as thick as a handgrip and roughly twenty centimeters long. It was hollow inside, and black, glasslike mirrors sealed both ends.

In the chaos, the metal cylinder was remarkably clean—so clean that it drew the eye.

Even someone as ignorant of this world as David could tell it wasn't an ordinary object. He bent down and picked it up.

He wasn't trying to claim the cylinder for himself. He just couldn't leave it lying there—and, of course, he was curious, too.

He slipped the metal cylinder into his pocket and left the restroom. The bookstore's main hall was even more badly damaged than the restroom.

Choking smoke filled the store. The transparent glass wall and the entrance were gone. Large patches of red blood, along with intact and mangled bodies, were scattered inside and outside.

When the personal flying pod collided with the crowd, its excessive speed and the crush of people around them had left them no time to get out of the way.

The personal flying pod had eventually broken apart, and its backup power source had exploded. Almost no one in the area had survived.

David felt sick. He knew there had been nearly a hundred people gathered outside the bookstore, but now there were only a dozen or so intact corpses. Most of what he saw were metal fragments and bloody chunks of flesh.

His mind went blank, but the miserable groans quickly brought him back to his senses.

David was about to go help the people still struggling on the ground when he heard sirens overhead. Then he saw two blue-and-white police patrol craft approaching.

He stopped. These injuries were best handled by professionals. Now that help had arrived, there was no need for him to get involved.

A blue-and-white police patrol craft hovered over the road in front of the bookstore, and more than a dozen uniformed officers jumped out.

They were all stunned by the sight before them, but soon got to work amid a flurry of shouted orders.

As the only person at the scene still standing, David naturally drew special attention. An officer came over to him.

"Are you all right?" A middle-aged officer asked as he used the device in his hand to check David's Identity Bracelet.

David shook his head without speaking. He'd spotted Jessica's body.

The girl who'd walked with him that morning now lay in a pool of blood, a piece of metal from the personal flying pod lodged in her heart.

"I'm Officer Bob. The medics will be here any minute, and they'll take care of your injuries." Officer Bob glanced at the device in his hand and saw that David was still a student. Seeing his expression, he gently patted David's shoulder in comfort.

David had no memories of Jessica, but he knew she and his predecessor must have been friends, or they wouldn't have come to the bookstore together.

He couldn't say what he felt about Jessica's death. It wasn't sadness or grief. What he felt most of all was fear—an intense, overwhelming fear.

If he hadn't sensed danger from the semi-transparent shadow, he would have been one of the bodies lying on the ground.

He nodded absently to Officer Bob, but his eyes remained fixed on Jessica's body.

The second wave of responders arrived in white emergency aircraft. The city's swift response astonished David.

Barely three minutes had passed since the explosion, yet the police and medical personnel had already arrived.

This didn't make David feel relieved. If anything, it showed just how dangerous this place was. The police and medics could respond so quickly precisely because danger was so common.

He thought of the buildings without windows, and of the city he'd seen. Appearance wasn't what mattered; sturdiness was.

A medic treated the wound on his back, then applied some ointment to the burns on his hand.

After the medics confirmed he was in no serious danger, David didn't board an emergency aircraft to go to the hospital.

Part of the reason was that he wanted to go straight home. Compared to anywhere else, home felt safest. Another reason was that the injured being loaded onto the emergency aircraft were all in serious condition. The ones who could scream were the lucky ones.

Since he'd been told his injuries weren't serious, he didn't want to experience any more of this horror.

After leaving his Identity Bracelet's contact details with Officer Bob so the police could reach him later, he was allowed to leave the scene and the bookstore.

As he left the bookstore, he sensed the semi-transparent shadow following right behind him. Not one of the officers could see it.

David ran the three kilometers home as fast as he could, paying no attention to the stares he drew with his battered appearance.

The moment he got inside, he slammed the door shut, then leaned back against it.

He'd died once before, but the danger he'd faced that day had still left him badly shaken.

He sank helplessly to the floor. Having gone from a peaceful world to this unfamiliar and dangerous one, he felt deeply afraid.

The novelty of arriving in this world had been shattered by the sudden danger. Worse, he'd watched Jessica, someone he knew, die right in front of him. He'd never experienced anything like it in his previous life.

More than anything, he wanted someone to comfort him. But with his memories still unrecovered, he didn't even know whom he could confide in. And his transmigration was his greatest secret—something he couldn't share with anyone. He thought of the semi-transparent shadow.

As soon as the thought crossed his mind, the semi-transparent shadow sensed it. It emerged from invisibility and sat beside him.

Looking at the shadow beside him, David felt a wave of calm. When he'd been in the greatest danger, it had saved him.

He thought back to seeing the semi-transparent shadow the night before. At first he'd been frightened, but when he realized it posed no danger, he'd treated it like a transmigration cheat and tried all sorts of ridiculous ways to activate it.

Now David felt nothing but gratitude. As if it were a friend, he reached out and patted the semi-transparent shadow.