"Another storm, another storm," murmured old Grant.It was an afternoon in the early summer of 2040, and black clouds rolled like devils, quickly covering the sky.The wind before the rain beat violently on the windows, stirring up the sundries in the house.Grant staggered over to close the window and draw the curtains. At this time, fierce lightning had torn through the black clouds, and blue-white light snakes hung from the sky to the ground, accompanied by the sound of crackling thunder. Then big raindrops hit the glass. Through the rolled curtains, old Grant looked melancholy at his little motel, which was T-shaped with this room, and the doors of all 10 rooms were closed at the moment.This is the kind of fully enclosed hotel. The guest drives the car to the entrance, pays at the automatic cash register, gets the key, and then drives tens of meters to enter his room. The guest and the host do not meet from the beginning to the end.This closed hotel is mainly for those dewy couples: or a certain political figure and a petite female secretary, or a Hollywood actress and her homosexuals.They don't want their picture on the front page of a tabloid, so they're not stingy with tips.

But that was all brilliant ten years ago.Grant Sr. had spent half his life beside the highway, and he thought the river of pulsating cars would never stop.But for nearly a decade, as the greenhouse-induced Great Recession dried up that torrent of cars, his hotel business was barely sustainable.The earth's oil resources are also depleting day by day, and the price of oil is soaring that ordinary people can no longer afford it.For example, the pockets of Americans have never been so dry. Before turning the ignition key of a car, they have to pinch their purses distressedly and then curse in frustration.

There was still no customer at dinner time.Grant sat in the house, listening to the violent rain outside the window. Lightning lit his white hair from time to time, and printed the shadow of the window lattice on his brown corduroy jacket.The torrential rain is still falling and dumping. It is very likely that it will cause the second flood this year. It is very likely that it will submerge this place——Hattiesburg, Mississippi, under tens of meters of water. Like many cities in Florida and Louisiana, like most of Holland and Bangladesh. Grant always thought about the Genesis flood in the Bible. When Noah and his family boarded his ark with seven pairs of clean animals, a pair of unclean animals, and seven pairs of birds, whether what he saw was the same as it is today. kind of scene?

Could it be that the end of the world is really coming? The sound of the violent rain almost drowned out the ringing of the phone. It was his wife, Mary, who said that her grandson, Rom, had arrived. "Luckily, he arrived two minutes before the rainstorm. He just put his bike outside on the balcony, and the rain poured down. Yes. You come back to dinner, and I'll let Rom pick you up in your Ford." The hotel is only 200 meters away from his home, and he has been walking to work these days.Rom shouted loudly on the phone: "Grandpa, I will pick you up right away, I am 16 years old and can drive!"

"Okay, I'll wait for you." He had just put down the phone when it rang again abruptly.Picking up the phone, no one spoke, only a secret chuckle and whispered conversation.Old Grant asked loudly twice before a calm voice came from the phone: "Mr. Grant, do you still remember the Path to Heaven organization?" Grant's heart suddenly beat wildly.He opened his mouth and said nothing.The other party did not wait for his answer, and continued calmly: "The apostle O'Neill sent a message from the Lord. God has abandoned this sinful and filthy world. He will send a flying saucer to save the Lord's believers. Now, we will immediately We are about to ascend to heaven in Harlingen, the Netherlands, and our hearts are full of peace and joy. If you want to follow us, please come.”

He left a phone number and hung up. Old Grant was pale. At an open-air lecture in New York's Kisena Park 13 years ago, he joined the cult that has spread across the United States and around the world.At that time, in the psychedelic state caused by marijuana leaves, he was convinced by those extremely seductive sermons, thinking that only collective suicide can get rid of troubles, get rid of this increasingly collapsing world, and embark on the road to eternal life.He kept in touch with Kingdom Path after returning home, sent $300, and received some missionary booklets and CDs.But with the passage of time, he slowly changed his mind. He felt that although the secular life was full of troubles, it was still more real than the illusory kingdom of heaven.The wife is a devout Methodist believer, and her devotion to God is completely manifested in another aspect: in order to help a homeless, she can spend the last dollar without hesitation, but she will never use suicide to pay for it. Prove your piety—but no paradise is complete without Mary by your side.He has not maintained his connection with the Path to Heaven since.

The call upset him.He held the receiver blankly, stuck in the gloomy atmosphere created by that passage for a long time.Outside the window was still a torrential rain column, like an iron cage woven into a sound, tightly bound him, making him very depressed.Maybe he really should have heeded the call of heaven?There is nothing to miss in this poor and broken world. The headlights of the car flashed outside the window, the Ford stopped at the door, the horn sounded and Rom shouted through the rain: "Grandpa, come on!" Mary had set the table and brandy was poured into the glass.The rain finally stopped, but it was still dark as hell outside the window.Rom was chattering away about the week's school stories, but Grant was restless, his eyes looking far away, and his soul seemed to be wandering elsewhere.Mary noticed this, and leaned over the table and asked in a low voice, "What's the matter with you?"

"nothing." "No, you have something on your mind, you can't hide it from my eyes." Grant hesitated for a long time before reluctantly answering in a low voice: "I received a call from the Road to Heaven, just before Roma went to pick me up. They...are in Harlingen, the Netherlands." Mary knew the doctrine of the Way to Heaven, and knew what the words meant, and she shuddered. The 16-year-old Roma also heard it, and immediately interjected enthusiastically: "Grandpa, I know the way to the kingdom of heaven. I have heard their sermons on TV!" Grant and his wife looked at each other: "Really?"

"Yes. Their leader is Ernest, a professor of philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. This organization has been established for 40 years. It is said that there are more than 3 million believers in the world. It is a group of pious people. They I am willing to break the shackles of life with my own hands and go to eternal life. Grandpa, although I may not follow their teachings, I admire their courage very much!" Grant smiled wryly and shook his head slightly.Roma is such a youth, even when talking about death, it is still only as a fashion.Perhaps, in order to follow the fashion, they really dare to pay the price of their lives.This prompted Grant to make up his mind. After a sleepless night, the next morning, he finally called the police station.

Grant's report revealed the largest cult mass suicide of the century.The crime took place in Harlingen, the Netherlands.This country, where 1/4 of its land is below sea level, has struggled with sea water for hundreds of years and established a "lowland country".They used a strict and effective flood control and drainage system to lock Poseidon out of the door, and built this barren land into a kingdom of tulips.At the end of the last century, the Netherlands also spent 1 billion marks to build the world's most advanced mobile flood control dam: the two flood control iron arms are 250 meters long and weigh 14,000 tons, with the world's largest Φ10-meter universal ball head fixed to the ground.When the water level exceeds 3.2 meters, a dam resistant to 35,000 tons of water pressure can be automatically formed within 5 minutes.Their struggle has been regarded as a model by the world.However, after the world became numb to the cry of "wolf is coming", the wolf really came.The greenhouse effect is on the rise. The ice cap of 3.8 billion cubic kilometers in Antarctica will melt within ten years, and the sea level will rise by 60 meters.The tenacious Dutch finally surrendered to God. Today, most of the Dutch land has sunk under the sea, and the magnificent buildings have become dragon palaces.

The Super Dolphin helicopter crossed the new coastline that has been greatly retreated, and flew for nearly 20 minutes before seeing the buildings of the original city of Harlingen.This kind of half-block buildings has become the standard landscape after the greenhouse effect.The beautiful IJsselmeer is gone, it has been absorbed by the North Sea.The land in the embrace of the arc-shaped West Frisian Islands was taken bit by bit from the sea by the Dutch for 400 years by reclamation, and now it was returned to the sea god almost overnight.The helicopter circled a steeple building several times, finally found the landing site, and landed with difficulty.Investigative officials from the European Union and the Netherlands, as well as journalists from the Associated Press, Xinhua News Agency, Reuters and Agence France-Presse, stepped off the plane one after another. The building belonged to a wealthy jeweler, Mr. Biette, who has refused to move since the building was flooded.He was not without financial resources. According to subsequent investigations, the 434 members of the Path to Heaven who committed suicide here were all picked up by him by plane from all over the world, and they all chartered luxurious first-class cabins.In the days before the mass suicide was carried out, he arranged for everyone a life of a rich prince, and even shipped dozens of call girls from Paris and Rome.The reporters smelled the tangy fragrance of flowers as soon as they entered the door, but the fragrance of flowers was mixed with a pungent smell of corpses.The hall is filled with tulips, the national flower of the Netherlands, and 434 body bags are neatly arranged among the flowers.A purple silk scarf is placed on each person's chest, which may have some religious significance, perhaps a sign of mutual recognition after they enter the kingdom of heaven. In the middle of the hall is a huge LCD screen, two digital cameras are mounted on a tripod, and two CDs are placed in a luxurious and elegant jewelry box on the table, which seems to be specially prepared for reporters.The building was without power, and the accompanying police found a Japanese-made Yamaha gasoline generator set in the next room, and Associated Press reporter White pleaded with them: "Please send electricity to the hall, we want to see what is recorded on the CD. " The CD recorded their farewell before death, and 434 believers prayed neatly towards the southeast—maybe this is the direction in which the flying saucer is coming in their minds?Then they sat down where they were, and Ernest and Byette delivered pills to everyone.The believers range from young to old, with the oldest being 82 years old and the youngest being 15 years old - if you don't count a baby.Their expressions were very calm. When Ernest lovingly rubbed the tops of their heads to bless everyone, many of them burst into tears.Their suicides were all leisurely. After taking a sufficient amount of sleeping pills, each of them put on an airtight plastic mask for safety.The later deceased put the first deceased in the body bag in turn, and then quietly swallowed their own pills.Only the mother struggled to administer the medicine to the baby, which choked, screamed and danced violently.The loud cry tore through the heavy gloom in the hall and overflowed outside.Seeing this episode, Xinhua News Agency female reporter Xiang Zhenzhen covered her mouth and ran to the bathroom, vomited for a while, then walked back pale and continued to watch.The last ones who died were Mr. Biette, the host, and Onit, the leader of the Road to Heaven.Therefore, only two bodies were not placed in body bags.On the LCD screen, O'Neill clasped his hands together to bid farewell to the world, and the short and fat Mr. Biette had a very satisfied smile on his face. He said: "I am very happy to do my best to help 433 Brothers out of their misery and on their way to heaven. I leave my entire legacy to this organization to continue the same cause." The reporters all knew that this was an extremely sensational piece of news, and they were busy filming, recording, and writing.But all the busyness is always shrouded in a kind of depression of death.Associated Press reporter White wrote: "Cult organizations such as the Path to Heaven and Aum Shinrikyo have been popular in Western countries since the middle of the last century, especially after the greenhouse disaster. People often ask why the highly technologically advanced Western countries are just the hotbeds of cult organizations? Perhaps a Chinese reporter’s answer is closer to the truth. He said that the Eastern peoples with a long history have experienced too much suffering, and their civilization has risen and fallen several times. Therefore, they can easily take this The decline of a sub-civilization is seen as 'one more' in the ups and downs of history, and they can wait patiently for the revival after the decline. I think it is this resilience that the young American nation lacks." When the helicopter roared into the sky again, overlooking the ruins of civilization in Wanli Ze Kingdom, Reuters reporter Luis said gloomily, "I really wish I could lie in that hall too, so that I could get rid of this crazy world from now on!"