Echoes of the Past C1

Chapter 1 — The Shelter

**【Before the Great Collapse, humanity lived eternally in a shroud of chaotic darkness—skin pale, bodies unaging, death unknown.
It was not until several centuries ago that the sky split open in several places, and countless beams of piercing radiance spilled from the rifts, illuminating the earth.

People named this pale-gold, incorporeal substance “Light.”

At first, living beings exposed to the Light merely showed signs of skin deterioration and organ failure.
They all contracted the same illness—
the Death-by-Aging Disease.】**

Prologue.
We dwell within the core of a fruit, yet presume ourselves the masters of the world.

—

Heaven and earth blended into one, neither light nor shadow discernible—only the dim glow saturating every valley, every wilderness, every forest… and every swamp.

Towering reeds, as tall as the heavens, blocked out the view entirely.
The mud beneath shifted with barely perceptible writhing, damp and loose, like a living creature.

A black insect the size of a fist blundered into the marshland.
Perhaps it had just fed; its delicate wings struggled to support its swollen body.
It could only flap frantically between the dense reeds, doing its utmost not to fall.

Suddenly, the mud beneath it bulged upward.
The mound split open, and from within shot a long shadow—whipping straight toward the insect!
It was a tongue nearly half a meter long, wet and heavy, its barbed surface glistening with viscous saliva.

Unfortunately, it missed.

Sensing danger, the insect intensified its frantic flapping, but the loud buzzing only made it easier for the predator lurking beneath the swamp to pursue.

The rising bulge followed close beneath, forcing the insect to dart about like a headless fly, escaping by a hair’s breadth again and again.

At last, it broke past the final curtain of reeds, and its field of view burst open.

A human arm stood upright above the swamp, with a distant, phantom-like mountain valley looming behind it.

The hand gripped a black walkie-talkie; the rest of the body had long since been swallowed by the mire.

The insect, lured by the scent of rotting flesh, failed to notice the bulge beneath it rise once more.
The split opened, and the massive tongue lashed out with blinding speed—snatching it down into the depths!
Threads of thick saliva arced through the air in a faint glimmer.

Moments later, the swamp returned to perfect stillness, not a trace of life remaining.

The lone human arm continued sinking.
From afar, the mountain valley bridged the dim sky and the desolate earth.
A closer look revealed countless centipede-like creatures wriggling out of the pores of the arm, burrowing in and out of the fingertips, slowly consuming the remaining flesh.

“Zzz… zzz…”

Suddenly, the walkie-talkie in the corpse’s stiff hand crackled with fragmented static, startling the many-legged creatures and sending them fleeing.

“Hey, Jeffrey.”
A cheerful male voice sounded from the transmitter.
“Are you doing okay? Still alive?”

“I’m safe now.”

“I’ve found a new shelter.”

“There are many humans here—relying on each other, well-fed, untroubled by contamination.”

“I know you won’t believe me; even I wouldn’t have believed it until I saw it with my own eyes—
but there’s a powerful Awakened One here!”

Even with no response, the voice on the other end rambled on excitedly.

“The Awakened One protects everyone. We’re safe.”

“Can you hear me, Jeffrey?”

The wave pattern on the walkie-talkie’s display faded.
For a long while, no more sound emerged.
The half-satiated centipedes returned in swarms, but just as their mandibles touched the shredded flesh, the static burst forth again, scattering them once more.

The man’s voice returned, this time tinged with pleading:

“You’ve always been my most important friend, Jeffrey.”

“I want you to live forever in a place without suffering.”

“There is no Light here—we won’t fall to the Death-by-Aging Disease.
And under the protection of an Awakened One, we won’t be corrupted by the Shadow either.”

“Come, let’s survive together!”

“If you hear me, walk to the end of abandoned Highway 297.
There’s a canyon there—you’ll see a pile of rusted, scrapped cars at the entrance.
Find a way through them and come meet me.”

“Please, you must find me.”

“Come reunite with—”

The static cut off abruptly.

A large hand suddenly reached down, plucked the walkie-talkie from the corpse’s rigid fingers, and tugged.
With only a gentle pull, the arm’s skin collapsed at once—its flesh had long been hollowed out, leaving only a brittle husk.

Countless centipedes crawled free from within, dispersing like troops of ants.

“Tch…”

The man straightened, flicking off the lingering insects clinging to the walkie-talkie.
Then he pressed the transmit button:

“Sorry to say, but your beloved Jeffrey is very much dead—nothing left but scraps.”

With no flesh left to support it, the punctured skin bag collapsed completely, sinking slowly into the swamp.

He added casually,
“If you don’t get out of that so-called shelter soon, you’ll be dead just as thoroughly.”

Silence answered him.

The man tossed the walkie-talkie aside.
He had only meant to offer a passing warning; he never expected the other person to actually listen.
Anyone who still believed shelters existed outside the Lighthouse was already far too contaminated.

Yet unexpectedly—
Just as he turned away, the walkie-talkie’s screen lit again with shifting frequencies.

This time, it was a different male voice—accompanied by eerie static, sounding half like a lover’s whisper, half like the prelude of a curse:

“Li… Li Wei…”

“?”

The man turned back, then promptly kicked the walkie-talkie deep into the swamp.

“Fooling simpletons is one thing—but you dare try deceiving our boss?”