Samuel's house was very small, two cramped rooms, one of which was apparently inhabited, with an unfolded sweater on top of the neat quilt. There was a plate and a pair of knives and forks that had not been cleaned in the kitchen sink, and there was already cold tea on the dining table, and the tea bags were quietly soaked in it. The room was fairly tidy, and there was no sign of struggle, but there was no response when calling for the portable capsule. Ethan and Samuel discussed it and decided to wait at home, maybe Samuel's father just came back late for something.
Ethan walked across the damp and moldy floor and heard a creaking sound. He asked Samuel, "You grew up here?"
Samuel walked to the cabinet where the TV was placed, picked up a rare electronic photo frame, and looked at the pictures that were rotated every ten seconds, "Yes."
Although it is clean and tidy, it can also be seen to be very old, as if frozen by time many centuries ago. Even the antique TV set that was as thick as a table board, which had been eliminated long ago, still stands proudly on the cabinet. Ethan crouched in front of the TV and studied it for a while, then found the switch and turned it on. The remote control also surprised him, and he clicked on it randomly. Most of the stations are snowflakes with no signal, but a few stations are connected to the current TV broadcasting system and can even see the news.
The broadcast above is to call on everyone to report anyone who has symptoms of a cold or fever, especially relatives or friends. The advertisement broadcasts the clean corridors and wards of the quarantine area. The patients are lying on the sickly white beds with smiles on their faces. The doctors and nurses all greet the patients with kind smiles, and there are flowers on the table next to them. , The food is so rich that it is like breakfast in a restaurant. No one showed any negative looks, as if they were not in the hospital but on vacation.
"The quarantine area is absolutely safe and comfortable, even if you don't get sick, you'll want to stay here~" said the sweet-smiling female Beta in the advertisement, but Ethan thought it was all irony. Would anyone really believe such an obvious and embarrassing lie
But even if you don't believe it, there's nothing you can do. The road is full of robotic police officers scanning the body temperature. Once the body temperature exceeds the normal range, blood tests will be taken immediately.
Samuel, visibly disturbed, paced the room anxiously. It was getting late, and it was already past the meal time. Even if my father went out to work, it was time to come back. Ethan saw him like this and saw a scarf draped on the arm of the sofa, so he walked over to pick it up and put it between his nose and sniffed. The scarf was stained with a lot of the smell of Samuel's father, a slightly astringent hormonal smell, somewhat like the smell of persimmons.
Samuel noticed his movement and asked, "What are you doing?"
"Identify your dad's smell." Ethan put down his scarf, then closed his eyes, and a few thin black tentacles snaked from the back of his neck, with a few tips like the nose of a star-nosed mole. Small tentacles, like sea anemone petals, open in the air. Those tentacles are densely grown with some pinpoint-sized protrusions, which seem to be some kind of organs used to sense something. These thin tentacles stretched so long that they almost filled the entire apartment. They danced leisurely in the air like ribbons, while Ethan in the center stood silently, like a statue. Even when Samuel spoke to him, he didn't seem to hear him.
Ethan concentrated, feeling his sense of smell leave his body, floating above the chaotic and crowded seventh space station. This huge cosmic city is mixed with all kinds of smells, the smell of sweat, the smell of fish, the smell of rotting mice in the sewage, the smell of rotting wood, the smell of rusted iron, the rust from the hot water pipe in the bath The smell, the pungent cheap perfume, the bad faux leather... those smells converged into a huge river, flowing slowly around Ethan.
In the stream of these scents, Ethan sensitively grasped a scent similar to the one he had just smelled. The thread of smell that had almost drifted took him in a direction filled with the smell of death and decay.
Ethan opened his eyes, his emerald green pupils squinted at Samuel, who was staring at him anxiously.
"It's not very good," Ethan said. "Your father is in quarantine."
Samuel's face changed. "He was infected?"
"Not necessarily. It may also be that the Earth Alliance government guessed that you might change your mind not to disclose my whereabouts to them, so he temporarily controlled him." Ethan slowly retracted his tentacles and paced to the narrow room in the living room. In front of the window, looking at the criss-crossed sky mansions on the opposite side, the chaotic lights dyed the outer atmosphere the color of blood, "I always feel that there is a trap there."
Samuel clenched his fists tightly, grabbed the coat from the back of the chair and draped it over him, and walked out the door, "I'll go by myself, don't come with you."
However, Ethan didn't intend to listen to him. He also picked up his jacket, put on a hood, and covered his face with a higher collar, "I'll go with you."
"Didn't you say it was a trap? Then didn't you send it to the door?" Samuel pushed him back, deliberately frightening him with a ferocious voice, "Didn't you come to Earth to find your father? Don't wait for me Well, let's stop here."
Samuel always thought that the father Ethan was looking for was Adrian Eldridge. And Ethan didn't correct him, after all, he really wanted to find Adrian and ask him to understand. Ethan was not afraid of Samuel's bravado, and took a firm step forward. "Maybe it's not a bad thing to be found by the government. Since they will catch your father, there is no guarantee that they will not put my father under house arrest."
"Do you think you'll be able to see your father if you fall into their hands?" Samuel blocked the door irritably, "They'll just dismember you right away and try to use your serum to make an antidote or something, what's the point of dying for nothing? ?"
Ethan laughed, as if he heard Samuel joking, "Do you really think they could catch me so easily?"
Samuel was taken aback. Although he didn't know what happened in the Ophiuchus Alliance, he also heard a few words among the guards. They seemed to be saying that an immortal monster who came off the Starbreeze could not be locked up, and it also carried the terrifying seeds of the plague, which made the entire military base panic. He guessed it was Ethan at the time. After all, he still remembered the horrible appearance of Ethan when he mutated.
Even thinking about it now, he had the urge to stay away from the seemingly harmless Beta in front of him. But the other half of him couldn't help but be attracted by the man in front of him who had a subtle evil spirit after he came out of the medical room. It is difficult to explain his feelings for Ethan. At first, he was attracted to him because he was somewhat similar to the love of his first half of his life, but later he learned about his relationship with the priest, and it gradually turned into friendship. This friendship was shaken after Faun saw Ethan's mutation, but it remained strong.
Later, when Schneider died, everything changed. Hatred made him think only about destroying the source of all his pain, even using Ethan. As a result, Ethan said that he found out early in the morning...
Even though he found out, he still treated himself as usual. Even after making it clear, it was almost effortless to forgive him.
Samuel couldn't let go, couldn't forgive his betrayal, but couldn't let go of that hatred.
He needs Ethan to do that ritual, he needs him to destroy this filthy galaxy. Even with myself.
Seeing Samuel's uncertain expression, Ethan reached out his hand to gently press Samuel's neck, and said to him with a seemingly innocent smile, "Don't worry, I know what I'm doing."
*********
The isolation area set up by the seventh space station is on the opposite side of the area where they are located. A nano-plastic wall is built to separate the human world that is still struggling to survive outside, and the dead zone that is shrouded in death inside. All available rooms in the building behind the walls have been converted into makeshift wards, however many so-called wards are more appropriately called "cages". Many patients in the early stages of infection are locked in like wild animals, given small amounts of food and water every day, waiting for them to mutate into black bugs with tentacles and mucus all over their bodies, and then burn them to death with fire. Only those who are not yet ill will receive a little humane care, but sooner or later they will be locked in those filthy cages full of blood and mucus, and sooner or later will also be twisted and curled up in the fire and no longer humanoid.
There are not many medical staff in it, and almost 70% of the nurses are soldiers who were urgently transferred. There is always a burning smell in the city, except for the medical car and the patrolling people, no one can be seen walking on the street.
Ethan and Samuel had no symptoms of fever, so naturally it was impossible to just mix in. The way they thought about it was to hide in the carriage quietly while some supply vehicles from the quarantine area were parked at a nearby hospital.
The process of entering was relatively smooth, but there were some twists and turns when the other party suddenly decided to conduct an in-car inspection. Ethan had to bring them down with some temporarily paralyzing neurotoxin secreted by some of the needles at the tips of his tentacles. Those people in the dark couldn't even see what was in the car attacking them. They just felt something like a long whip whizzing past, and when the back of their neck hurt, they lost consciousness.
The two got out of the carriage and found a gray waste city spread out in front of them. Occasionally, in the silent air, a beast-like hissing sound could be heard, and taking advantage of the dilapidated high-rise building, it looked very terrifying and eerie.
At this time, most of the nursing staff were off work, and there were not many patrolling staff. Even if they were, they were detected in time by the olfactory tentacles spreading from the back of Ethan's neck, giving them enough time to escape.
This is the center of the plague, and even the air is cloudy and smelly.
On the sides of the wide but dirty roads, there were often large sealed bags piled up with black, shapeless things inside. What appears to be a semi-gelatinous object. I thought it was rubbish, but in some bags, I saw a structure similar to a human head. The tentacles look like a worm.
The nightmare on the red earth appeared on a large scale again.
Samuel turned his head away after only one look, his heart pounding. He silently begged his father not to be in these bags, but he didn't know who he was praying to.
Would he hate Ethan if his father really died
But Ethan turned into that to save him and Schneider, didn't he
He stopped himself from thinking about it any longer, just wanted to speed up and find his father. But when he turned his head, Ethan did not follow.
I saw Beta squatting beside the corpse, with some pity and sadness, reaching out to touch the disgusting head through the transparent body bag.
"What are you doing! Time is running out, those who were brought down will be found soon!"
Ethan stood up, extending the thin tentacles from the back of his neck to detect smells, and continued to search for that smell through the dilapidated buildings. The smell brought him to the front of an extraordinarily tall building, and the empty window looked down at the two of them. In the silent night, screams of pain came from some windows, making the hair stand on end.
"Looks like... it's here." Ethan murmured. For some reason, the howls gave him a strange feeling. He didn't find it scary, and even felt a little kind.
He remembered the patient at the early stage of the infection in the hotel and looked up at him with fear. There was a subtle feeling of anticipation.
I don't know if it was echoing his feelings, but when they stepped on the steps, the terrifying howl from the depths of the building suddenly became several times louder than before, like the wailing of all animals. Samuel was startled, and seemed to be considering whether to retreat temporarily. But I saw Ethan wrinkling his nose, and his expression turned out to be a bit like a wild beast. A very thick tentacle suddenly stretched out behind him, and what seemed to be a mouth at the top suddenly opened, spinning sharply in circles. His teeth were open and closed, and an inaudible roar came from his dark "throat", and the humming infrasound quickly spread in the air.
The roars of the infected died miraculously and quickly, leaving only a trembling whimper or two.
Samuel stared at Ethan beside him in a stunned manner, watching the thick tentacles quickly retract into the flesh of Beta's shoulders, and the wounds that should have been left healed quickly under the surging of many black things. And Ethan looked at him and shrugged his shoulders with a casual expression: I don't know what's going on.
What he didn't know, however, was that even more incredible things were yet to come.