"I do not understand what you are saying."
Bryce said to Sorian.
His voice sounded calm.
This is good... He encouraged himself in his heart.
Bryce would never want to reveal anything in front of that damn man, because he knew that the guy was watching him carefully, trying to find something on his face. And no matter what Sorian finds, it will be the weapon he uses to stab Lin Xi.
And Bryce wouldn't let a bastard like Thorian get his wish.
"Please excuse me, I still have a lot of work to do."
Bryce could feel his lips moving, the sound coming softly from his throat.
On his side, his fists were clenching silently, and he quietly grasped the metal storage box containing all the specimens until his fingers lost all feeling.
He didn't even know how he calmly dealt with the difficult man and returned to his medical room - his memory seemed to have been cut off from the moment Sorian said those words until It was only when he returned to the enclosed space that he was alone that he resumed normal operations.
But even after returning to the medical room, Bryce still couldn't calm down. Perhaps even Sorian himself could not have imagined that what he said could give Bryce such a huge stimulus. Bryce just sat blankly at his desk, looking at the box where the fragments of John Bronson's body were placed. It took him a very long time to relax his fingers that were so tense that they couldn't obey. Come down.
But he was still shaking slightly.
Bryce thought that nightmare had been covered up long ago behind thick files and the passage of time, but it eventually came back, back to Lin Xi and his life. Bryce seemed to be able to see a monster, invisible, huge, and invincible - it was digging out of the past bit by bit, and then slowly approaching him and Lin Xi.
"That exhibition..."
Thorian only mentioned this sentence in his devilish whisper. He did not say what kind of exhibition it was, but at that moment, Bryce understood everything.
Bryce shivered suddenly, and his breathing became more and more rapid.
"Honey?"
Just when Bryce felt that he was about to be completely overwhelmed by the huge panic, the warm and hoarse female voice directly pulled Bryce back to reality from the nightmare past.
"Alyssa..."
Bryce turned back to look at his lover in a daze.
Alyssa was standing at the door of the medical room. She looked at Bryce carefully with a puzzled and worried expression.
She looked relieved that Bryce was finally responding to her. Then she walked towards Bryce, stretched out her arms, and hugged the man forcefully into her arms.
"I want to ask you, are you okay? But I already know your answer. You will say you are fine and then keep everything to yourself."
Alyssa kissed Bryce's forehead, and then said with a wry smile.
Of course, she had tried her best to hide it, but Bryce could still easily hear the deep worry in Alyssa's tone - Bryce's mood became even heavier because of this. He knew that his condition must be very bad to do this. Alyssa cares so much.
He even felt a little guilty towards the woman in front of him.
"Did you get it?"
He forced himself to ignore the urge to tell the other person everything, and then he completely ignored Alyssa's inquiry, but directly asked what he cared about most.
Alyssa's eyes dimmed because of this, she sighed, took something out of her pocket, and put it in Bryce's hand.
"This thing took me a while, but... yeah, I got it."
"Have all backups been processed?"
"certainly."
After receiving Alyssa's affirmative reply, Bryce looked more relaxed than before.
He looked around, then used his authority to lock the entire medical room at the highest level. Then, he put the memory device Alyssa gave him into the reader.
Bryce looked at Alyssa. He seemed hesitant for a moment, but in the end, he pressed the play button in front of Alyssa.
"The Mother of Worms will turn us all into incubators for her children..."
"Lin Xi - you must kill Lin Xi - he is the alien - look at the things he did! He hasn't woken up yet, you still have time! Look at what he did! It was he who attracted the bugs! Because That's his family! It'll be too late when the king insect appears, his children...his children...will kill us all!"
…
John Bronson's high-pitched scream immediately came from the player.
Coupled with the particularly ferocious and deformed face from the angle of the monitor, this old man with an extremely miserable look of death seemed to still be alive in a corner of the world, and was shouting crazily at them.
Even if it was just a data record, the madness he showed...or, something more frightening than madness, still made Bryce and Alyssa tense their muscles involuntarily.
"Oh, God."
Alyssa frowned and sighed softly, and she made a cross on her chest.
Thank God, this image did not last long, and soon, the mad curses and curses came to an abrupt end.
"...Technicians said that the pipelines transmitting audio and video were inexplicably broken."
In the medical room, Alyssa was stunned for a moment, and then she came back to her senses. She looked at Bryce and said.
"This is the last video we collected that night. It's precisely because of this that we still don't know how John died and what killed him. Damn it, when we received the Helios, I It was proposed to replace these outdated antique systems, but no one was willing. They would rather spend their time and efforts to expand the warehouse than spend more budget on other facilities, and now... look at this mess.”
Alyssa became a little chattier than before, probably because what she did today made her feel nervous.
After a pause, she continued: "I covered this section with the previous video, so no one will find anything wrong..."
"Thank you, Alyssa... I really don't know, what on earth would I do without you?"
Bryce said gratefully.
However, Alyssa just looked at him, with a slight bitterness in the smile on her lips.
"I don't know if I did the right thing."
she whispered softly.
Before meeting Bryce, Alyssa would never have believed that she would do such a thing—she used her highest authority to directly steal the surveillance records of John Bronson before his death from the surveillance facility. Then replace it with the previous record.
In this way, no one except Bryce and Alyssa knew the last words John shouted before he died.
And Alyssa did all this because of Bryce's plea.
"You have also seen the attitude of those people, especially Sorian." Bryce sighed, he turned off the reader, and then said gloomily, "John and Sorian have always treated Lin Xi." In response, that strange... hostility. However, the rumors they spread are affecting those on the exploration team, and the mercenaries... I am afraid, we have been stranded for too long, these people in the ship. It's getting more and more abnormal. In this high-pressure situation, if they really pushed Lin Xi out and assumed that he was the culprit of all the tragedies... you know what would happen, this kind of thing was not uncommon in the past. "
"It can't be that bad."
Alyssa comforted in a weak voice.
"I also hope it won't be that bad," Bryce lowered his voice, looking extremely worried, "but in order to avoid trouble, this kind of stuff, I mean, John's nonsense, it's best not to spread anymore. Get out. We have enough troubles, and the most important thing now is to maintain stability within the ship."
After saying that, Bryce manipulated the buttons and destroyed the storage device directly.
"Bryce?"
Alyssa pursed her lips. She watched Bryce finish these things, and then she suddenly spoke.
"What?"
"Lin Xi..." Alyssa's lips trembled slightly. She spent a long time thinking about her words, "What exactly happened to him?"
"he-"
"Oh, don't hide it from me, you know my 'special power'." Alyssa said, she stood up from Bryce, and then slowly took a few steps back, "I can always feel that there are some things …Something makes you completely unable to control your overprotective behavior. And this time, your behavior is particularly strange. I have violated professional ethics for you. I destroyed and falsified surveillance records to protect Lin Xi. The right to know, what happened in the first place...for example, the exhibition? "
"what are you talking about!"
Hearing the last word, Bryce jumped up from his seat and almost knocked over the box on the table.
"You know...what do you know?"
he asked in shock.
Alyssa's eyes flickered: "Not much, but, but, Sorian came to see me before, and he said some things, and those things made me very uneasy..."
"Everything he said was just gibberish."
Bryce said decisively.
"But… "
"Oh, no, I don't want to continue this topic, honey, there is no 'but', just know that whatever those people say is just nonsense."
Alyssa stopped talking, she just looked at him silently, and there was an emotion in her eyes that made Bryce feel painful.
"I have a hunch that those rumors...maybe not just nonsense, something is really happening, and their center point is Lin Xi. Bryce, you know? I haven't slept for a long time. A good night's sleep, because every night I wake up with nightmares, and I don't even know if it's because I'm stressed out or if I'm really seeing something."
Bryce's lips pressed together slightly. He should have continued to deny it, but facing Alyssa like this, his rationality finally surrendered.
Originally, he planned to carry that heavy secret with him for the rest of his life, but now he couldn't hold it anymore.
"We once swore not to tell this matter. Yes, it was Lin Xi. When we were children, a very terrible thing happened to him... "
Twenty years ago—
Pine Lake Township, Arizona
The weather was beautiful and it was the most beautiful weekend in months.
The temperature is pleasant, the breeze is gentle, and the area near the newly built Science Exhibition Hall in Songhu Town is even more lively with people coming and going. The air is filled with music, the smell of popcorn and the noisy sound of human beings playing.
This is not a holiday celebration, but judging from the atmosphere, it is not much different.
On normal days, this neighborhood would not be as lively as it is now. After all, since the Science Exhibition Hall was built, there are usually only some shabby astronomy exhibitions or dinosaur fossil exhibitions in the bright and beautiful building - Bryce's father It has been said with certainty that the planets suspended above the exhibition hall by thin steel wires are nothing more than made of foam, and that the dinosaur fossils are nothing more than fakes made of plaster.
This is not to blame the curators of the Science Exhibition Hall. After all, Songhu Town is just a small place, and the exhibition hall that is so beautiful on the outside but in ruins is a bribe from the previous mayor and a member of the Songhu Town Public Foundation. The product of scandal.
But in any case, having such an exhibition hall is not always a bad thing. After all, since its completion, the extracurricular activities of Songhu Town Public Middle School finally have a place to go... and occasionally, a piece of cake will fall in Songhu Town Public Middle School. For example, the famous and high-end Sunu-Earth Civilization Exchange Exhibition would be on tour in Songhu Town for half a month for the first time.
This is a big deal for residents of a town that has little else to enjoy than football and weekend barbecues.
Bryce started looking forward to the exhibition almost from the day he saw the exhibition poster. Like all little boys at that age, he was full of strong curiosity and love for aliens.
After his repeated pleas, his mother finally agreed to his request, but there was a serious agreement between them - in a public place with so many people, Bryce must keep an eye on the newly adopted boy in his family to avoid The latter gets lost or has a panic attack.
"Xiao Xi is a child who has experienced a lot... and he still needs some time to adapt to his new life. But you also know that I have to take care of Jessica. She is still a little baby, so I have to focus on her. . So, promise me that you will take care of Xiaoxi on behalf of your mother, okay?"
His mother's words at that time were still in Bryce's ears, but now, Bryce almost cried when he thought of the agreement between him and his mother.
The reason is simple. Lin Xi, who was by his side before, has disappeared.
To be sure, this was not entirely Bryce's fault. There were too many people attending the Sunu Civilization Exchange Exhibition. They, their parents, and several other new brothers and sisters were quickly overwhelmed by the surging crowd. The crowd dispersed.
Bryce had remembered to hold Lin Xi's hand tightly before, but accidentally, he opened Lin Xi's hand, and then his Asian brother, who was particularly silent and shy, was instantly surrounded by the crowd and headed towards the interior of the exhibition hall. walk over.
"Bryce...Bryce..."
From a distance, Bryce could even hear Lin Xi calling with some fear.
Bryce wiped the sweat from his forehead. Maybe he could wait for his parents where they were. They might come back to look for him, but Lin Xi-Lin Xi was lost by Bryce, so after a brief hesitation, Bryce Si still ran towards the direction where Lin Xi's voice came from.
As a young child, Bryce found it difficult to move quickly in a crowd. When Bryce was finally able to see Lin Xi's back clearly, he realized that he and Lin Xi had squeezed into the exhibition hall.
There were fewer people in the exhibition hall than outside. At least now Bryce could clearly see Lin Xi's appearance.
"Lin... Xi... Lin Xi! Wait for me, I'm here! Hey, I'm here-"
Bryce raised his voice and looked at his brother and shouted.
Bryce could guarantee that his voice was loud enough for Lin Xi to hear clearly. What surprised him was that the other party had no intention of stopping.
Lin Xi didn't even look back at Bryce.
He looked like... like he was frightened, or in other words, haunted.
From Bryce's angle, you can clearly see that Lin Xi's face is covered with cold sweat, and even his lips are pale. The thin boy's eyes are wide open and his pupils are dilated, which makes his eyes look blurry. Pitch black, completely devoid of brightness or focus.
Lin Xi was originally the skinniest boy in the Derleth family, but at this moment, he seemed to have become thinner and thinner than before, as if other people could crush him as soon as they touched him. .
Then, under Bryce's sight, Lin Xi turned around and walked straight towards the deepest part of the exhibition hall. The crowd was obviously so crowded, but they seemed to be unconscious. When Lin Xi passed by them, They would turn around or move a step to make way for Lin Xi to pass through a narrow passage.
It seemed that only a few seconds or less had passed, and Lin Xi's original voice seemed to disappear behind the crowd again.
"Lin Xi—"
Bryce yelled and struggled to run in Lin Xi's direction.
He felt that his heart suddenly became heavy and his breathing became difficult.
It was a very strange feeling, a "foreboding premonition" in the words of the woman he fell in love with long later.
Perhaps I should thank God that my Bryce was still a small child, which allowed him to pass through the gaps in the crowd smoothly.
He did not follow Diulin Xi, but followed him to the deepest part of the exhibition hall.
This exhibition hall is set up in a very hidden place. Thinking about it afterwards, the setting is actually quite weird - it is so inconspicuous, and the door is covered with misleading signs. It is difficult for normal people to imagine that it is actually an open room. Exhibition room for visitors.
What is displayed in that exhibition hall is the most sacred object worshiped by the Sulu people...or in other words, the living god.
And that thing... is called a Star Butterfly.
There were very few visitors in the exhibition hall where Star Butterfly was located. In contrast to the bustling crowd outside, the place seemed increasingly dark, cold and quiet.
The few visitors crowded around the cage, stretching their necks and staring curiously at the contents.
And that thing just shrank motionlessly in the farthest position from humans in the cage, with only two small red dots flickering slightly in the shadows.
Bryce only glanced at it the moment he rushed into the exhibition hall, and then he couldn't help but shuddered and quickly looked away.
He is already a big boy, and his age and self-esteem do not allow him to act timid and scared in front of others like a child.
What's more, he didn't have time to be afraid.
His brother was walking towards the visitors who were crowding in front of the cage.
"Lin Xi—"
Bryce shouted.
Lin Xi still didn't look back.
Bryce chased him for a few steps, then he hesitated and stopped.
He stood about ten meters away from those people, looking at them with confusion.
The air conditioner in the exhibition hall was turned on very cold. Yes, it must be for this reason, otherwise he would never be shivering like this.
There was no communication between those people, and they didn't even look back. However, when Lin Xi approached them, they naturally moved to both sides to make way for Lin Xi.
Their movements were so full of tacit understanding that the few normal visitors among them looked a little at a loss.
They looked at the people around them and Lin Xi in surprise, and then gave in with some confusion.
When Lin Xi stood in front of everyone in silence, the Sonu man standing in front of the cage also revealed himself in the gap between the people.
It should be a person acting as a commentator, but it is definitely not a qualified commentator.
“*&%… ￥#￥3… ”
Its words are extremely vague, and they suddenly sound like English, but if you listen carefully, those words are more like meaningless mumbling.
Like all Sunu people, its appearance is a bit strange - its face is pale, its limbs are uncomfortably slender, and its facial features are abnormally flat, sticking to its face like a poor handicraft, but it is He has a pair of conspicuous and frightening red eyes.
The pair of red eyes kept turning and scanning the exhibition hall.
However, when Lin Xi appeared, its eyes suddenly stopped on Lin Xi.
"Lin...Lin Xi..."
Sunu's guide suddenly stopped mumbling completely meaninglessly, and a strange call came from its throat... No, that was not the sound it made.
That was what was behind it, the sound coming from that huge star butterfly.
It was at that moment that the alien bug suddenly fell from the top of the cage.
Some people screamed because of this, but Lin Xi remained unmoved. He stood quietly in front of the metal cage, with his dark eyes open and calmly watching the star butterfly slowly unfolding its frightening pair of stars toward him. wings.
"Maybe you want to touch the Star Butterfly? Oh, this is rare, He likes you very much."
The Sunu commentator's face was suddenly filled with a weird smile. He bent down and then stretched out his hand towards Lin Xi.
"He likes you very, very much."
Then, right in front of Bryce's eyes, countless fleshy tentacles of brightly changing colors stretched out from behind the cage. They were scarier than the most terrifying monsters described in horror novels, and then...
They wrapped around Lin Xi's body.
After so many years, Bryce no longer remembers whether he screamed, but he is certain that at that time, he was almost frightened out of his mind by the scene he saw in front of him.
Immediately afterwards, the star butterfly easily tore open the metal cage, and two thin flesh wings stretched out from the inside of its weird body. It wrapped Lin Xi in the flesh wings, and then flew up.
…
"later-"
In the medical room of the Helios, Bryce suddenly stopped talking with a pale face.
His breathing was unusually heavy.
Over the years, he could only recall the details of the accident in such detail in his nightmares.
And every time he recalled it, he would feel a kind of intense fear - doctors said it was a kind of stress, a kind of accident trauma. After all, the science exhibition hall in Songhu Town collapsed and killed many people, and Bligh Si is one of the few lucky ones.
"What happened next?"
Bryce heard Alyssa asking. His lover was obviously beside him, but for a moment, Bryce felt that she was so far away, so far away that she seemed to be in another dimension.
Suddenly, Bryce felt a soft and warm embrace. He turned his head and found Alyssa giving him a hug.
"Hey honey, whatever happened, it's in the past and you know that."
she said to Bryce.
Bryce nodded, he stretched out his hand and hugged Alyssa's waist tightly, as if this gave him the courage to continue talking.
"The star butterfly took Lin Xi and flew away directly - our building looked like it was made of plastic cardboard in front of them. The structure of the exhibition hall was damaged, so the whole building collapsed. Everything collapsed. It was a mess, many people died, and the National Guard came to maintain order, but it still took them almost more than a month to find the star butterfly—they found Lin Xi.”
Bryce controlled his emotions. He tried to keep his thoughts away from the memory and tried to just tell the things that happened after that.
"Wait, you mean, a month? You found Lin Xi after a month?"
Alyssa asked in shock.
Bryce nodded.
He took a deep breath before continuing.
"Yes, there is a camping park about a hundred kilometers away from Songhu Town. The business there is not very good. The administrator only carefully inspects the entire park before the mountain is closed every winter. He was in a natural cave. There was a stench next to it..."
Twenty years ago—
Huishan Camping Park
Robinson Willie led the police officers on a brisk walk on the rugged mountain road.
In the past, he was a fat, even a little silly little old man, and few people saw a sad expression on his face, but now, his face, which was red with alcohol, was wrinkled. He looked sad and full of worry.
"I swear... when I visited there before, there was nothing there."
he piped up.
"But now, it's so smelly that even dogs don't want to go near it. Oh, I'm not exaggerating. You just saw what Anne and Mary looked like, right, Sheriff."
The Sheriff panted and nodded at him, but the physical exertion prevented him from saying a word.
The Anne and Mary that Robinson mentioned were the two dogs he raised. They were two pretty good hunting dogs. They were good helpers for Robinson when hunting every spring. They almost never make mistakes, but since they discovered something strange near the cave, they are no longer willing to approach the mountain. There are still several kilometers away from the cave, so they all wailed and used their four paws to Holding on to the ground, unwilling to move forward no matter what.
"Maybe they are just afraid." A middle-aged police officer guessed behind the chief's back, "After all, you found the bodies of so many Sunu people."
At the mention of this, Robinson couldn't help but tremble.
A few days ago, when he was patrolling the mountain, he discovered something strange next to the "rabbit hole" (his nickname for the cave).
The side of the hole was covered with turbid liquid and emitted a suffocating stench.
Robinson had never smelled such an unpleasant smell in his life. He thought a bear had died there. However, when he got closer, he realized that it wasn't a damn bear, it was... a large body of corpses. …
Those were all Sonu corpses, not rotten, but worse than rotten corpses. They had all turned into a weird, sticky syrup-like substance.
Underneath the melted skin and muscles, only the bones could still make out some shape.
And just when Robinson looked at the corpses and was so frightened that he couldn't move, he felt that something seemed to be moving around in the cave.
He didn't dare to stay there at all, and immediately ran away with the dog, which was also trembling with fear. He felt that this matter was "very evil" and would definitely cause a lot of trouble. He almost wanted to escape from it. - However, a few days later, he still called the police station to report the incident.
"Perhaps suicide."
Before they were about to arrive at the entrance of the cave, someone also guessed this.
"I heard... those Sunu people are obsessed with committing suicide recently... they are going crazy one by one. Congress is in trouble because of this matter."
"Yeah, the Sunu people are crazy, and the things they raise are-"
Another police officer said calmly.
Their small talk stopped immediately upon reaching the rabbit hole.
For a second or two, everyone looked at the scene in the rabbit hole, unable to move or speak or make any sound.
The foul-smelling slime had long since dried up, but the bones were carefully gathered up by something and stacked inside the shallow cave.
The bones were piled into a shape similar to a nest, and in the nest, an insect chrysalis as tall as a person was standing there, squirming slowly and gently, as if it was breathing.
"What the hell is this… "
One of the police officers murmured.
He turned on the flashlight and shined it towards the insect chrysalis in the dark cave.
His original intention was just to let himself see clearly, but after turning on the light, another thing that made everyone feel incredible was revealed.
"Oh my God, that, that's..."
"Do you think that's a person? Or am I wrong... God, I think that's a person..."
The shell of the chrysalis is translucent, and under the light, the outline of the boy wrapped in it appears.
After a period of panic and disbelief, the police officers finally bit the bullet and scratched open the chrysalis. Then, the young Asian boy, mixed with a large amount of slime, fell to the ground from the nest made of Sunu bones.
"Oh my God, that boy!"
It was until this time that someone finally recognized Lin Xi.
"The boy they've been searching for—"
he shouted in fear.
…
"They found Lin Xi and gave him a very detailed physical examination. In the next few months, he was kept in a secret national laboratory for investigation. Of course, those guys generally called it 'treatment' '." Bryce said to Alyssa with a livid face, "But they found nothing on him. He was just a little malnourished. After losing the value of in-depth research, Lin Xi was sent back. He seemed to be fine, but occasionally he would have nightmares at night... In the end, we went to a psychiatrist, hypnosis, and other things. In the end, Lin Xi couldn't remember anything. I only know that he had a very enjoyable exhibition when he was a child, that’s all.”
Bryce ended his recollection of the past as calmly as he could.
The author has something to say: Suddenly I felt...
In this story, all the members of the protagonist group are very serious villains.
====================
Thanks to the little angels who voted for me or gave me the nutrient solution~
Thanks to the little angel who threw [Deep Water Torpedo]: cure 1 disease;
Thanks to the little angel who threw [Grenade]: momokiki, 1 small shrimp;
Thanks to the little angels who threw [landmines]: Azhuang, Cure 3; Mu Duoduo 2; Password Lost, Diver Passerby, Song Yi, x&l 1;
Thanks to the little angel who irrigates [nutrient solution]:
184 bottles of Tina; 51 bottles of Locked Drawer; 36 bottles of Kusanagi; 20 bottles of Second Act; 15 bottles of Xilin Dispersible Tablets; 11 bottles of Sawada Tsunayoshi’s Husband; Hum, Failed, and Tangled Coffee Cup , Qituji, Witty Big Brother Zhang, Little Taotie Loves to Sleep, I don’t know the tail, Er Que, Mi Mi Mu Yin 10 bottles; akalin 6 bottles; golden leg pendant, baby, it’s a tomato 5 bottles; 30038581 2 bottles; acceptable 1 bottle;
Thank you very much for your support, I will continue to work hard!