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Suffocation Era
墨書 Inktalez
The thirty-seventh time I cut open my wrist, I finally saw the glowing patterns entwined around my veins—this was not the ivy I had thought, but the Symbiote that had been consuming me for 438 days.
"Host awakening detected, Anti-Gravity Spore Cannon fully charged."
As the mechanical voice echoed in my mind, I carried the unconscious heir of a wealthy family, crushing the recently issued Oxygen Rationing Act beneath my feet, while behind me surged a towering green flame that pulsed with my breath.
I crouched atop the ruins of a Walmart Supermarket, watching as the gas mask filter indicator dropped from 97% to 96%, my throat tightening uncontrollably.
Thirty meters away, a giant Nepenthes was devouring a corpse, the acrid smell of corrosive liquid melting through a quartz watchband wafting toward me—that was Xiao Wang, the delivery guy who had fought me for orders just three days ago.
"West District Oxygen level at 14.7%, immediate evacuation recommended."
As the mechanical female voice of the mask's built-in AI sounded its seventeenth alarm, I reached for the last compressed Oxygen Tank at my waist.
Just as my thumb brushed against the valve, the entire tempered glass curtain wall suddenly shattered, and the tendrils of a mutated ivy burst through like a green python.
09:47 Death Delivery
"Ding! You have a new Ele.me order."
The old Xiaomi bracelet on my wrist vibrated painfully. I frowned at the urgent order displayed on the virtual screen—the delivery address was the observation deck on the 88th floor of Jin Mao Tower, with a note in blood-red letters: "Deliver with ten times the tip, Oxygen Tank guaranteed."
In this day and age, anyone daring to use real Oxygen as bait was either insane or a harbinger of death.
But when I saw what was being sent, my pupils constricted sharply: "Fragment of left arm from Tian Sheng Acupuncture Copper Man (Northern Song)."
Three months ago, this item had fetched an astronomical price of three thousand liters of liquid oxygen at a black market auction.
Even more bizarrely, the vine-like birthmark on my right arm suddenly heated up, as if countless tendrils were writhing beneath my skin.
"Order accepted, remaining time 01:59:59."
As I mounted my modified electric scooter, I caught sight of shadows in the rearview mirror at the alleyway behind me.
Three men wearing radiation masks were checking their watches; one of them had a mechanical eye glowing red through the morning mist—it was an Oxygen Hunter, specialized in ambushing lone delivery workers like hyenas.
The moment I sped through the intersection, the greenery exploded.
A vine as thick as a bowl ensnared my front wheel, its barbs glinting with the distinctive blue light of cyanide.
Instinctively, I lunged toward a nearby newsstand as I heard the deafening roar of my scooter's lithium battery exploding behind me.
"It's not too late to escape now." The voice of the Mechanical Eyed Man was laced with Synthesizer static.
They approached in a triangular formation, their bulletproof vests emblazoned with the logo of Xinyang Group, the conglomerate that controlled 80% of the oxygen machines in the city.
I leaned against a vending machine, my fingers brushing against the only weapon at my waist: a half-empty can of expired hairspray.
"Hand over the Copper Remnant and the Oxygen Tank," the leader demanded, raising his Pulse Gun. The energy ring at the gun's muzzle began to charge. "Or we'll rip out your lungs; a living Lung Lobe can fetch a high price on the black market..."
He never finished that sentence.
My right hand shot out uncontrollably, blood-red vines bursting through my palm and instantly piercing his mechanical eye. As blue-white brain matter dripped down the vines, I heard a cold mechanical voice echo in my mind:
"Detected Civilization Fragment; Doomsday Puzzle System activated."
In the moment the vines retracted back into my body, the remaining two hunters opened fire simultaneously. The pulse waves grazed my earlobe, melting a basketball-sized hole in the Coca-Cola advertisement behind me.
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