Chapter 7 Chapter VII

Halston had almost reached the top of the hill, only a few dozen steps away.He looked at the green grass under his feet, looked up at the blue sky, and admired it secretly in his heart.At this moment, he suddenly felt a tightness in his stomach, as if his stomach had been pinched by iron tongs, very similar to an indescribably strong hunger.At first, he thought it was just because he was walking too fast, he had just finished wiping the camera with great effort, and then hurriedly climbed up the hillside, and he was wearing bulky protective clothing.He originally planned to take off the protective clothing after he climbed the hill and when the people in the bunker could no longer see him.He wants to continue to maintain that illusion, as seen on the wall of the great dining room.He concentrated on looking at the top of the distant building, forcing himself to walk slowly to regain his composure.Take one step at a time and go slowly.Year after year, climbing up and down the bunker's stairs, and climbing thirty floors a day, climbing the hills should be effortless by comparison.

Then the stomach twitched again, stronger this time.Horston frowned and stopped, waiting for the nausea to go away.When was the last meal?I didn't eat all day yesterday.What a fool.When was the last time you went to the bathroom?He couldn't remember either.It seemed that he had to take off his protective clothing earlier, so he couldn't worry about what was going on.After a while, the nausea subsided, and he immediately took a few steps forward, hoping to get to the top of the hill quickly before his stomach began to feel sick again.After walking a dozen steps, his stomach convulsed again, this time more violently and more painful than the previous two times.Horston vomited in pain. Fortunately, he hadn't eaten anything before, so he had nothing to vomit.He hugged his belly, his legs were weak and he knelt on the ground, feeling very weak and trembling all over.He fell to his knees and began to moan.His stomach and chest were on fire.He fought his way forward for a meter or two, and soon he was sweating profusely, dripping into his helmet.Then he saw sparks in front of his eyes, followed by bursts of blinding light that felt like lightning.He was confused and his consciousness began to blur.He struggled to climb up, and he climbed very hard. After being shocked, there was still a sliver of clarity in his mind, and he still remembered the last clear thought: to climb to the top of the hill.

The mask in front of him continued to flicker, and after a while, a white light suddenly lit up, and then flickered several times, the light became weaker and darker.He was almost invisible.Then, Halston bumped into something suddenly, bent his elbow, and fell to the ground.He blinked violently, looking forward desperately, looking at the top of the hill, trying to get a clear view of the scene in front of him, but all he could see was a flicker of grass. Then, he couldn't see anything.Total darkness.At this time, he felt his stomach twitch again, as if the whole stomach was twisted into a ball.Then he saw the mask flicker again, so he knew he wasn't blind.However, he found that the flicker was in his helmet, so obviously the visor was broken and he wasn't blind.

Halston reached for the latch on the back of the helmet.He suspected that the oxygen cylinder might have been empty.Is he suffocating?Carbon dioxide poisoning?That's right!He just came out to clean the lens, why did they give him so much oxygen.He used a thick glove to dial the latch, the problem was, the glove wasn't designed for that purpose.Gloves and protective clothing are connected together, and the protective clothing is a one-piece type, with two layers of zippers on the back, and the ends are glued with Velcro.This kind of design can't be taken off by oneself, and others must help.Horston was dead, poisoned by the carbon dioxide he exhaled.At this moment, he finally realized what real "claustrophobia" is, a feeling of being completely sealed off.The protective clothing is like a coffin tailor-made for him.Writhing in agony, he fumbled with his hands behind his neck, trying desperately to remove the helmet.His hand fumbled and pounded on the tenon. The problem was that his gloved fingers were too thick.To make matters worse, he couldn't see, which gave him a feeling of suffocation.Then Halston vomited again in pain, stooped to put his hands on the ground, and dug his fingers into the soil.At this moment, his hand felt something hard through the glove.

He fumbled around a few times and found that it was a sharp stone.There are tools.Halston tried desperately to calm down.Having worked as a security officer for many years, he has been pacifying others, bringing them back to calm, and controlling chaotic scenes, and at this moment, he began to exert this ability.He held on to the stone carefully, fearing that he might lose the stone if he didn't grasp it properly because his eyes could not see.He slowly lifted the stone toward the helmet.He originally had an idea to cut the glove with a stone, but he didn't know if the remaining oxygen would last that long.He aligned the sharp point of the stone with the neck attachment ring on the lower rim of the helmet, and hammered it down, and the tenon was there.When the stone was knocked down, he heard a "bang". "Boom," "Boom," "Boom."After knocking a few times, he started to vomit again, enduring the pain and touching the tenon with his fingers.Then, Horston carefully aligned the position, and knocked hard again.This time, what he heard was not a "bang", but a "click".The sides of the helmet loosened, and a bright light shot in.The helmet was full of thick carbon dioxide, and he was almost suffocating.Then he shifted the stone to the other hand, aligning it with the other tenon.He knocked twice and the helmet came loose.

Houston could see it.He felt a sting in his eyes from the effort and breathlessness, but now he could see.He blinked, squeezed the tears away, opened his mouth, and took a deep breath, a breath of fresh air. Unexpectedly, at that moment, his chest seemed to be hit hard by a hammer, and his throat suddenly choked.Then, suddenly, he vomited, a mouth full of saliva and stomach acid, and it felt as if his stomach was about to be vomited out.He felt that the world around him suddenly turned into a khaki, khaki grass and gray sky.The green is gone.The blue sky is gone.There was no life, a dead silence.

He fell to one side, hitting the ground with his shoulder, and his helmet rolled aside.He could see the inside of the helmet, the visor was black with nothing on it.Through the mask, nothing can be seen.Holden reached for the helmet, confused.The outside of the mask is a layer of silver.He flipped the helmet over to look inside the visor.Nothing at all.The inside is not glass, it feels rough, and there are many wires connected to it.That's a screen.Black screen.Pixels are broken. He threw up again.He raised his trembling hand to wipe the corner of his mouth, and looked down the hill.What he saw with his naked eyes was the world he was so familiar with.Desolate and dead.He dropped his helmet.It turned out that what was worn on his head turned out to be a tool for creating illusions.He is dying.The poisonous acid was rotting his body.He raised his head, blinked sharply, and looked at the dark clouds overhead.The turbulent dark clouds are like a group of galloping beasts.He turned his head to look in the direction of the bunker, calculated how far he had traveled, and then looked at the top of the dune to see how far it was.At this time, he suddenly saw something.He had just bumped into a pebble while crawling on the ground, but now, what he saw was a corpse.When he was wearing the helmet just now, he didn't see the corpse through the mask.The mask is a small display screen, and the image seen on it is created by the program Alison discovered.The programmed image does not show the body.

Holden reached out to touch it, and as a result, the white protective clothing on the body instantly turned into dust, like crushed stones.He was already in so much pain that he couldn't even lift his head up, curled up into a ball in pain, and was slowly being swallowed by death.Holding on to his wife's wreckage, he took his last breath in agony as a last thought flashed through his mind: If someone looked inside the bunker, what would they see?A desolate and dead khaki sand dune, a dark groove, a curled human body about to die.In the distance, the decaying and dilapidated city towered high, looking down on him.

If someone in the bunker was watching, what would they see?