Mute, whose eyes met those blue eyes, was still in a blank state, and the hand that was holding his wrist was already exerting force.
Mute only felt his body lighten, and he was suddenly pulled up by Michael who was kneeling on one knee on the edge of the platform.
The young man who was dragged up was kneeling on the small platform and was still a little dazed. The next second, he was already tightly hugged by a pair of strong arms. The body was strangled with pain, just like the feeling of his mother holding him when he just woke up, but now the person holding him is much taller than his mother, almost embedding his whole body in her arms, Embedded tightly.
His face was pressed against the broad chest of the other party, and the cold silver-white metal buckle was pressed against his cheek, and he felt a little panicked. He couldn't see the face of the person holding him, let alone the expression of that person at the moment. But he felt the rapid and messy breathing of the person who hugged him tightly in his ear, and the slightly trembling fingertips that clasped his shoulder tightly.
The young man holding him didn't speak, but breathed rapidly. Mutt's face was pressed against the other's chest, and he could clearly feel the heart beating rapidly deep in his chest, and the strong movement almost broke his chest.
Even if he didn't make a sound, he could still feel the strong beating of this person's heart. The boy's heart softened suddenly, and he opened his mouth to say something. But just as he opened his mouth, he suddenly felt dizzy, his head hurt violently, and a strong sense of nausea came from his chest. He panted violently but felt as if he couldn't breathe oxygen, and his eyes turned black.
Mutt gasped in pain, subconsciously pinching the lapel of Michael's chest that was holding him tightly with his fingers. There were bursts of tinnitus deep in the eardrum, echoing in his mind, making him have a splitting headache and unable to breathe even more. In the distance, it seemed that someone was calling his name hastily, but his head was too dizzy to respond.
In a trance, the voice calling him gradually faded away, and he fell into darkness.
...
In the special ward dedicated to the supreme commander of the snow-white spaceship, those incomprehensible ripples and characters flashed on the instrument screen embedded in the metal wall.
A stern soldier wearing a golden epaulette stood beside the milky white liquid soft metal hospital bed, and a military doctor in a military white robe was reporting to him.
"There is no major problem, no symptoms have been detected, and all physical indicators are within the normal range, but a little weaker."
"The reason for the coma?"
"Your Excellency, may I ask if this person has been growing up in a highly purified and good indoor environment?"
"..."
"His respiratory organs are very... um, delicate, and their resistance to the external environment is very low, and they cannot withstand the external air conditions at all. In short, sir, this person can only breathe air purified to level I, level II The air level below is not good, and the outside air in the area our spacecraft passed just now is V level, which caused a situation similar to respiratory poisoning.”
"...how is he doing now?"
"The harmful gas he inhaled has been removed in time, and it will not cause damage to his body. He should wake up soon."
"Um."
The young soldier hummed in a low voice and said, "You can retire now."
"Yes, sir."
The military doctor raised his hand in salute, then turned around and left quickly.
In the snow-white ward, only the boy lying on the bed and the soldier standing beside him remained.
Stretching out his slender fingers, he gently brushed the light black forehead hair scattered in the boy's eyelashes with his fingertips. Mier stared at the boy on the bed. His eyes were like the deep dark blue that had settled in the depths of the sea. The shadows in the depths of his eyes made it difficult to see his eyes clearly at the moment.
The pursed lips were very thin, with sharp edges and corners, giving people a cold and ruthless meaning. The slightly raised phoenix eyes have sharp corners, but at this moment, they have softened a little bit unconsciously. He stared at the young man in front of him with deep eyes, as if he was already in deep thought, or thinking about something.
I don't know how long it has passed, maybe it's just a moment, maybe it's been a long time, the ward is so quiet that I can't feel the passage of time. Mutt's slight movement immediately awakened Michael who was in deep meditation. He leaned slightly, looking fixedly at the pair of eyes that slowly opened.
He seemed to want to imprint his own shadow in the young man's eyes immediately.
And he did see his figure in those dark pupils at the very first moment. He saw the child blinked slightly, and when he opened his eyes again, his shadow was still reflected in the eyes.
His chest contracted forcefully for some reason.
He saw the young man looking at him, a little confused, a little confused, and finally showed a shallow smile.
"Brother Michael, long time no see."
This simple sentence caused Michael's pupils to tremble, and he pursed his lips tightly without making a sound, but the fingers he pressed on the hospital bed were clenched tightly until The joints are all white.
"why?"
he asked, staring at the boy below him without blinking.
He thought for a long time, he thought for more than two hundred years, but he still couldn't figure out why this child refused to wait for him.
[He said, sorry.]
The woman said that Mute saw him coming back, so the child should know that he would definitely come to see him.
But, why, why did he spare even a few days for him.
[I do not forgive.]
I will not forgive you, you have to leave without my seeing.
The nonsensical why made Mute, who had just woken up, a little confused. He thought about it blankly for a while, as if he had figured it out, a hesitant look appeared on his face.
Michael looked at him and went on.
"Why don't you believe that I can protect you?"
Before that, he was able to bring the child back from death, so he can do it later.
"...Brother Michael, I know, at that time, you helped me find my heart, so I could continue to live." After a little silence, the boy finally answered.
He looked at Michael, and put his hands on his chest, where his heart beat.
"I know that if you come back, you will use the same method to keep me alive."
He whispered, "... Have you ever thought that if this heart is used on others, it may last for seven or eighty years, but it only took five years to use it on me."
"Even if the failed organs are replaced again, as long as my disease is not cured, the new organs will still fail. Those organs donated by others to allow more people to live well, if used on me, maybe in the future Not even two years."
The young man smiled at Michael, a very calm smile, but it made people feel a little distressed.
"What a waste, isn't it?"
"I don't think..."
waste.
"Well, brother Michael doesn't think so, neither my parents nor Tasha think so."
Mutt said, as he sat up in the hospital bed, he blinked at Michael.
"So what I said... Well, they are all lies, and they are all grandiose reasons to persuade myself and feel that I am great."
The boy who sat up put his hands behind his back.
He said, "And the real reason was because of me... I couldn't bear it anymore... At that time, it was too uncomfortable. Although I kept telling myself to live because I was worried about my mother and father being sad, it was still very uncomfortable."
"So I ran away, sorry, brother Michael."
Mutt stretched out his hand and put his arms around Michael's shoulders who were leaning over in front of him, just like the way he was when he was a child a long time ago, when he hugged his big brother's neck and acted like a spoiled child.
"sorry."
He said softly, "I know, if I meet you again, you will definitely find a way to keep me alive, you will definitely be able to do it... But I... I'm afraid, at that time, I had a hard time, I didn't know How long can I last... I don't want to lie in that narrow room all the time, with tubes stuck in my body, unable to move, like a rotting corpse that is still alive... I don't want to."
That nightmarish past, to Mute who had just woken up, seemed to be just yesterday.
A little bit of weakness and the pain that could almost drive people crazy, he still seems to have a clear memory in his body now.
"..."
Michael didn't speak, the black eyelashes drooped, and shadows fell in his eyes. He loosened his tight lips a little, and raised his hand to stroke the hair of the boy in his arms.
"… never mind."
He whispered that the little child has grown up, but still has such a small and soft body, and it is still so painful to look at.
It was so distressing that I couldn't say another serious word, I just wanted to coax him and pamper him.
...
"By the way, brother Michael, is it your subordinate who brought me back?"
"The target of the operation was...but why are you there?"
"So, the target you wanted to arrest was my parents?"
Michael was taken aback for a moment, and he frowned.
"your parents?"
He frowned and gestured, and a translucent virtual light curtain emerged in the air, showing the appearance of a man and a woman.
"You know them?"
"They are my parents."
"No, I remember your parents didn't look like this."
"I don't know why their appearance has changed a lot, but I know they are right."
"..."
"Are you a soldier? Why are you arresting them? What did they do?"
Michael pursed his lips and said nothing, and while he was staring at him nervously for a few seconds, he turned on the communicator on his ear.
"Temporarily suspend arrest operations."
There was a surprised voice from inside.
"But, Your Excellency the Marshal—"
"stop."
"… Yes."
He turned off the communicator and looked up at Mutt. The boy stared at him eagerly with a pair of dark pupils.
"I slept for a long time and didn't know anything, and my parents refused to tell me anything."
Mutt reached out and grabbed his sleeve.
"Brother Michael, what happened? Why did you arrest them... Also, where are we now? Are we on another planet? Have we left Earth?"
Thinking of the ugly land covered with ravines like cobwebs and the gray sky full of dust, Mutt felt that this place was not like the earth.
"Don't overthink it."
Michael held the hand that was holding his sleeve instead, and rubbed Mutt's head with the other hand.
"Rest first, I will tell you about other things slowly, and about your parents..."
He pondered for a while, and said, "They are safe for the time being, you don't have to worry."
Michael answered most of Mutt's questions, but avoided Mutt's question about which planet this is.
Because something had to be dealt with, Michael told Mutt to continue to rest, then turned around and left quickly. Mut was the only one left in the quiet ward. He was lying on the hospital bed, thinking about things that made him unable to figure out, and the more he thought about it, the more confused he became.
He thought for a while, and suddenly thought of a way.
"Is there something... um, is the brain program here? I need service."
Remembering that there was a brain in the place where he stayed not long ago, maybe in this ward as well, Mutt tentatively asked.
He guessed right, as soon as he finished speaking, a mechanical female voice rang out.
"Hello, ASK-SS Spaceship Brain is at your service, please tell us your needs."
Mutt pondered for a while, then continued to speak tentatively.
"How much can I ask for? Well... that is, how much authority do I have?"
If it is like the intellectual brain on the parent's side and does not give him permission, then it is useless.
"You have all authority on this spaceship beyond the military scope."
"Well, then... tell me where the ship is now."
"The spaceship is now at longitude 63 and latitude 32 on the earth's surface, which belongs to Antarctica."
"Earth?"
Mute was stunned for a moment, he suddenly remembered what he saw outside not long ago, a heavy feeling came out for no reason at this moment, and weighed heavily on his heart.
"Show me the outside scene!"
A huge virtual screen half the width of the ward floated in the middle of the room, and then, the image outside the spaceship was projected in front of Mutt.
The moment he saw that image, Mutt's pupils shrank forcefully.
It was a piece of gray-black land, with gullies all over the land, carrying a decaying atmosphere, and deep cracks spread all over the land, like the wrinkled gray-black hands of a dying old man.
There was no cloud in the sky, and the sun, which was burning fiercely like a fireball, was directly shining on the earth.
The gray-black decayed land was terribly quiet, except for the cracked gully ground and the wind and sand blown up by the strong wind, there was no trace of life.
It seemed to come from the dead and silent place of hell.
Looking at this horrible place, Mute couldn't believe his eyes.
"This is... Antarctica?!"
"This location belongs to Antarctica. The spacecraft is currently within the range of the ozone hole. If you want to go out, please wear your flight suit."
"A hole in the ozone layer? Here? Why!"
Unable to understand the meaning expressed by human beings from the tone of human beings, the intelligent brain gives answers and suggestions truthfully.
"Yes, the hole in the ozone layer has now spread beyond the entire Antarctic continent. If you plan to go out, please pay attention to safety."
"I need the overall image of the earth!"
"Yes, showing you a 3D image of the Earth."
The second after Zhinao's words fell, the screen disappeared, and a three-dimensional planet appeared in front of Mutt.
The boy's breathing froze at this moment.
It was a dilapidated planet shrouded in gray dust.
The once-beautiful blue had all turned into a dirty gray-yellow, and the green had almost disappeared on the ground, with only a few sporadic greens struggling to hide in the gray-black. The snow-white clouds that once surrounded the planet were dusted, leaving only a gray hue.
On the ashen land, only the human city still has signs of life, but outside the city, there is no life at all.
The teenager can barely see any life other than humans.
The sea was yellowish, and the water was so overcast that it was impossible to see what was in it. The shape of the continents that the boy was familiar with has all changed, and the rising sea level has swallowed countless lands. And those rivers that turned yellow to black flowed across the land, in a disgustingly sticky form.
Mutt held his head.
impossible.
he thinks.
impossible!
He thought of the snow-covered, white and unblemished land that he and his parents had been to before he was fully ill.
At that time, he was squatting on the snow-white ice, watching the group of chubby little penguins waddling and walking past him in line. Tasha squatted with him, watching and laughing. His father smiled and put a chubby little snow-white seal into his arms. The cute little creature screamed softly, looked at him with dark round eyes, and patted him gently with his small arms.
At that time, he watched the white ice layer ups and downs in the blue sea water, and he saw the beauty of the place where the whiteness of the horizon meets the blue sky.
But now, on the same piece of land, he only saw gray-black scorched earth.
...
This can't be Earth.
The boy thought this way, he might still be asleep in the freezer, and now it might just be a dream he had in his deep sleep.
a nightmare.
The earth... the beautiful blue planet he had seen could not have turned into such an ugly appearance! ! !
He held his head, gripping it tightly with his fingers.
Someone grabbed his wrist, forcibly broke his hand, and hurriedly called his name.
Mut looked up in a daze, and he saw Michael's frowning face.
He was holding his head too hard with his fingers just now, so hard that his head hurt... If you feel pain, it's not a dream. He wasn't having a nightmare. What he saw just now, and what he saw with his own eyes outside the spaceship not long ago, were all the real Earth.
The beautiful blue planet was riddled with holes and decayed during the short two hundred years of his sleep.
"Earth... This is the earth? Why did it become like this?"
The marshal, who is one of the leaders of the human race, replied calmly.
"Human development requires resources."
"Need resources? So ruin our own place?"
The boy shook his head, he was at a loss, he couldn't understand.
"There is no need to worry. Apart from the earth, there are not many planets in the universe suitable for human survival."
"Different."
Mutt shook his head, he looked at Michael's calm eyes, he only felt that his chest was pressed by some heavy object, and it was uncomfortable.
"It's different."
"Same, for me."
In the past two hundred years, whether it is on the earth, on other planets, or in the voyage of the universe.
For Michael, there was no difference.
At this moment, his voice was as soft as a sigh, and his fingers brushed the black hair on the boy's temples.
"it's the same."
He said that his eyes were too heavy, revealing the little loneliness hidden in the depths.
"No matter where you are, there is no you."
The room was very quiet with no sound at all.
Mutt opened his mouth, he wanted to say something, but nothing came out. He had been separated from the person in front of him for too long, so long that he felt a trace of unfamiliarity with the person in front of him.
He couldn't understand the understatement of this person's tone when he said 'there are other planets', and he couldn't agree with this person's thoughts, but this person looked at him at this moment and revealed a trace of loneliness in his eyes, which made him unable to say it.
beep! ! !
"Alarm, alert!"
The mechanized voice of the intellectual brain suddenly sounded in the silent ward, instantly breaking the muddy and suffocating atmosphere.
"The opponent's spaceship has attack intentions, repeat once, the enemy's spaceship has detected the attack intention!"
With a snap, a virtual light curtain opened in midair, and someone appeared on the screen.
"Your Excellency Marshal! There is a spaceship blocking the way ahead!"
The man's voice was very urgent.
"Confirmed! It's Jia's spaceship!"