The next morning, Zhang Xun's alarm clock rang. He gently shook up his girlfriend, saw that she did not get up, then got up to wash. After using the toilet, he began to brush his teeth. I looked in the mirror and brushed my teeth. I was in a good mood. Looking at himself in the mirror, Zhang Xun secretly sighed, the years are really unsparing. Soon to be thirty years old, the hair on the forehead has become significantly less, already showing signs of baldness.
Just as he was about to gargle, his eyes suddenly turned black and his head began to ache. He leaned on the bathroom table with one hand, unconsciously stabilizing his body, and the other hand supported his head. Images flashed through my mind, one after another, like an old-fashioned movie projector.
In some scenes, numerous fireballs fall from the sky, and the city's buildings reassemble like jigsaw puzzles. In some scenes, the landscape of technology and human life has changed dramatically. Looking at these pictures, Zhang Xun was filled with wonder and curiosity.
Countless collapses, the whole city is in a vast blaze; In some scenes, the rain pours, and the ruined city becomes a lush land; And the picture, everything is white. Only a few high-rise buildings popped up, vaguely discerning that this was once a city, and now it has become a world of ice and snow.
Soon, Zhang Xun reopened his eyes and his vision returned to normal. But the images are etched into his memory, as if he can't forget them.
"Am I too stressed?" Zhang Xun held the washing table with both hands, looking at himself in the mirror, muttering to himself.
A long time passed, he heard his girlfriend get up, he took a deep breath, hurriedly rinsed his mouth and washed his face, and pretended to be nonchalant and sat on the sofa in the living room. However, his mind was still a little drowsy.
Fifteen minutes later, the girlfriend finished washing and they were ready to go out. "Why do you look so pale? Do you feel ill?" Du Jing noticed Zhang Xun's face.
Uncomfortable Du Jing quickly put the back of her hand on Zhang Xun's forehead and asked with concern. Zhang Xun pretended to be relaxed and smiled and said: "Nothing, maybe I didn't sleep well at night, and I will sleep again at noon." Du Jing could feel the temperature coming from her forehead and said with some anxiety, "Why don't I take you to the hospital to check it out? It's not like you just didn't sleep well."
"No, when I get back from work, you see I'll be fresh again." Let's go, or we'll be late." Zhang Xun did not wait for Du Jing to speak, then pulled her out. The two walked slowly toward the hospital, the traffic passing by, giving him a sense of unreality. His mind grew darker and darker, and his head felt heavier and heavier. Du Jing's hands suddenly tightened behind him, and Zhang Xun shook his head and continued to move forward.
Soon they arrived at the hospital gate. Just as he was about to take over the helmet Du Jing handed over, severe pain suddenly attacked his brain.
It was like being forced into mercury, painful and heavy, like a paste.
Zhang Xun once again saw a black, the whole person together with the vehicle fell down. A cry seemed to come from his ear.
"Zhang Xun, what's the matter with you? Get up, don't scare me, Zhang Xun!" Du Jing shouted anxiously.
It was as if he had had a long dream, an experience that frightened him but impressed him deeply.
In the dream, a year later, in October 2024, they were married, planning to save up some money and have another child the following year. In 2025, a few days before the Lunar New Year, they went to the movies together, he had bought a car and life had become more hopeful.
But cell phone reception was poor that day, and the car's communications equipment was faulty. He wasn't concerned about the impact of those solar storms on communications. When he parked his car in the mall underground garage to go upstairs, everything suddenly changed...
Countless people flocked to the underground parking lot, the scene was extremely crowded, and some owners even directly stepped on the gas pedal and rushed out of the crowd.
This sudden situation scared Zhang Xun and Du Jing, they sat in the car to witness everything, completely do not understand what happened.
About 20 seconds later, word came over the radio in the underground parking lot that the asteroid had hit Earth. They do not have time to blame any country for the early warning and response measures, they only feel endless panic and despair.
Hearing such news, Zhang Xun and Du Jing could not accept it for a time. They simply realized that it was only broadcast, and that those who rushed in might have been informed of the news in advance through media such as television.
Because of today's solar storm, the cell phone signal is very poor, they did not get the news first. They rushed to call their relatives back home, but couldn't get through.
Zhang Xun and Du Jing feel anxious, but for a time there is no way to take.
The basement garage was no longer safe, and they packed the cookies, snacks and water they brought from the car into a bag and followed the crowd all the way to the third floor.
At around 20:57 p.m., a huge tremor hit, followed by the sound of a large number of buildings collapsing, a strong earthquake and shock wave brought on by the big impact.
They spent the next three days in a three-story underground parking lot. With food running out and temperatures approaching 40 degrees, some people started using demolition equipment in their garages to break through warehouses under the mall and find new food.
However, the warehouse was forced to crowd nearly 2,000 people, and the food inside was far from enough. Hundreds of people died in the ensuing looting.
Later, some able-bodied people formed an AD hoc organization to force everyone to hand over supplies and distribute them centrally to those in need. They also disposed of the bodies, which would decompose quickly in such heat.
In such an environment, infectious diseases can break out, people get sick or commit suicide every day, and human life becomes an unforgiving number.
Although Zhang Xun grabbed some supplies, they were eventually expropriated and could not remain. He also received very little food each day, and a sense of hunger gripped him and his girlfriend.
Fortunately, Du Jing is a nurse, and she helped to deal with the patients, and the treatment was slightly improved. Then, however, she became ill, too, with a febrile attack, like so many others. She began to pass out.
Zhang Xun was very anxious, looking for water and medicine. In the third week of the disaster, the day after Du Jing fell ill, the temperature finally began to drop, but it was still high.
The remaining thousand or so have decided to leave the place. If you stay here, you will be trapped and die sooner or later, despite all the dangers of nuclear radiation outside.
Using the tools they could find, the young man began to break down the obstacles above him, and finally made a breakthrough. Please note, however, that these scenarios are purely fictional and have nothing to do with the real world.
After two days of hard work, people successfully opened a road to the outside world. They get excited, but when they step out, they find that the outside world is even more broken than they thought. There are dead bodies and fires everywhere, and the temperature is getting higher.
There was a lot of smoke and dust in the air, and light rain was falling, accompanied by a foul smell. Some people got wet, but soon realized something was wrong, their clothes and skin were corroded and burned.
Zhang Xun helped his girlfriend out and looked around at the people looking for shelter, filled with despair.
Fortunately, government vehicles found them and took them to a bomb shelter. There are a dozen more shelters like River City.
They lived in the shelter for the next two years. As most of the houses were destroyed, the rest became dangerous buildings that no one dared to live in.
Food shortages and falling oxygen levels are the biggest problems.
At the beginning of the disaster, Zhang Xun braved acid rain and radiation every day to go out in search of supplies, such as food, medicine, winter clothing and wood needed to build a shelter.
The acid rain lasted for three weeks, followed by a heavy rainstorm that put out all the sporadic fires and gradually cooled the temperature.
The torrential rains lasted for a whole month, turning the city into a swamp, the water level rose to 5 meters high, and the exit of the shelter was blocked. The sky was still dark, not a ray of sunlight in sight, and the temperature was dropping.
When the heavy rain stopped, the water level began to drop, but soon it was a snow-covered world outside.
Zhang Xun heard people fleeing from the east say that when the disaster began, the huge sea water brought by the tsunami had completely submerged Huangshi City. The tsunami generated by the asteroid would have had to be at least 300 meters in size to flood inland areas.
River City, which had a population of 13 million before the disaster began, is estimated to have lost at least five to six million lives in the third month of the disaster.
In the second year after the disaster, people died every day, whether from freezing, starvation, disease, suicide or riots.
However, the darkness of the sky has not improved at all, and the cold still threatens everyone's survival. The ice outside grew thicker, food became harder to come by, and various forms of cannibalism and cannibalism occurred.
According to the remaining ecological experts, this situation will continue for at least 200 more years. The ash and impact dust in the sky blocked sunlight, causing a large number of plants to be burned by the fire, and the remaining plants also died due to the lack of sunlight to carry out photosynthesis.
In addition to food, oxygen and nuclear radiation have become the biggest killers, and altitude sickness and radiation sickness have become increasingly serious.
Two years after the disaster, Du Jing pushed the last bit of food to Zhang Xun, who was already asleep, and then silently died.
Zhang Xun woke up and found that his girlfriend had been stiff and motionless, and his heart was twisted.
In endless grief, the next day also left.