Little Pink Starfish

Lily lifted her head from Madam Lu’s shoulder. Her pitch-black pupils looked at An Zhe. There was always a unique luster in her eyes, misty and heavy, which reminded An Zhe of the creatures in the Abyss. In fact, every woman and girl on the 22nd floor had this childlike, untouched quality. If a judge were here, perhaps they would conclude these were not true humans. If someone is born in Eden and never leaves for life, then such a person must differ from the humans outside.

An Zhe’s head suddenly throbbed slightly. That wave—appeared in his mind again. But it was not as vast and terrifying as it had been during the deep night. It was more distinct, closer—as if its source was right next to him.

He looked at Madam Lu. As the light shifted, he saw a hint of iridescence in her pupils. “You…”

An Zhe stepped back a few steps. Behind him was the red alarm bell installed in every room. “You don’t want to be human anymore?”

Madam Lu stared at him, a tear rolled from her eye.

“Humanity has no hope,” she said.

An Zhe said, “When Lu Feng comes back…”

Before he finished speaking, Madam Lu suddenly laughed. At the same time, tears kept falling from her eyes. Her whole body trembled, like a fallen leaf in an autumn breeze, trembling. She clutched her mouth with her right hand, releasing disjointed, broken laughter.

“Humans… have brought too much pain to me and my children.” An Zhe finally understood what she meant—perhaps she was lamenting for Lu Feng. But the next moment, Madam Lu’s voice turned terribly hoarse.

“Lu Feng… he is more resolute than me. He’s like this base, willing to sacrifice everything for the sake of humanity’s interests. But he will never get what he wants.” Madam clenched a blood-red rose, thorns stabbing into her hand, but the pain steadied her voice. “Everything he wants to protect will be destroyed. His beliefs are castles in the air… he will not meet a good end. Not being able to see him go mad, not being able to see this base fall… that’s my only regret.”

The despair, sorrow, and hatred hidden in her voice widened An Zhe’s eyes. He had no idea what was happening—he looked at her in disbelief.

The rose petals slipped from Madam Lu’s hand. Her voice softened. “What I wanted was to leave here. Then what was the point of the base… what was the point of coming to his side, little anomaly?”

An Zhe stared at her, unable to say anything.

But Madam Lu didn’t seem to expect an answer. Her neck began to elongate, her entire body changing—stretching, twisting into grotesque curves, then swelling, enlarging—

Brown-black patterns spread over her body. Her form turned into an oval cocoon. Her arms became the slender limbs of an arthropod. Two pairs of transparent wings burst through her white dress. In just under a minute, she transformed into a half-human, half-wasp monster.

That eerie wave intensified, enveloping Lily. Lily’s body, too, began undergoing the same transformation.

“The time is near. Human genes are too fragile—they can’t sense the changes happening in this world, nor withstand mutation and selection. But other creatures aren’t resilient either,” she said softly. “We will all die. I don’t hate humans. I’ve worked for the base for thirty-five years. I alleviated much of women’s suffering and ensured the birth of many newborns each year.”

She smiled. “But in the face of this disaster, all efforts are futile—they only prove humanity’s insignificance and powerlessness. I just wanted, in this final peaceful era, to experience things I never had before.”

Her wing casings shimmered under the moonlight. As a queen bee, her body was large, slender, and elegant.

Lily completed her transformation first. She had turned into a slightly smaller wasp, fluttering beside Madam Lu. Her flying was so practiced, so innate, An Zhe couldn’t find a trace of humanity in her form.

An Zhe looked at Madam Lu, only to see her frown slightly and close her eyes.

A trace of pain appeared on her serene face. Then, an indescribable transformation took place on her head—multicolored compound eyes emerged, antennae branched out and grew. Her human bones twisted into hard, honey-colored chitin. This creature’s size and beauty far exceeded any insect-like monster An Zhe had ever seen. In this hexagonal hive-like room, she was the queen.

The soft rustling sound came—the wings trembling. Her transparent insect wings fluttered like a stream of white gauze, then beat sharply. Her body floated up, slowly rising toward the ceiling. Then, just before she reached it—she suddenly accelerated!

A heavy crashing sound. Cracks spread like a spiderweb across the solid glass dome. An Zhe thought the dome should have been extremely strong. But with the second and third crashes, with a loud bang, countless shards of glass shattered and sprayed across the floor and among the rose petals like dewdrops.

The alarm was triggered. Red lights filled the room. The door burst open. Armed personnel rushed in. But when they saw what was happening, they all froze.

A giant hole had been smashed open. Lily, now a wasp, flew out—rising into the sky.

The queen was slower. She stood at the top of the dome, turned her head to look down—perhaps with longing—then slowly turned her head away, her wings fluttering.

But then, the next moment, her wings stopped beating. Silence fell. A shadow, ominous, bathed in moonlight. She suddenly turned her head back. A pair of golden compound eyes stared straight below—at An Zhe.

The queen’s right foreleg reached in. The tip of the claw glinted with a cold, sharp silver light. That claw tip grew larger and larger. A whole pair of forelimbs entered. Then followed the massive head.

An unfamiliar feeling surged through An Zhe’s heart. The movement was too strange. Madam Lu, having decided to leave and gained freedom, would never return—unless what now controlled this queen was no longer Madam Lu. Unless the instinctual consciousness of the monster had effortlessly and inevitably triumphed over the human soul.

What would a fully alien creature do when facing humans in Eden?

All this happened in just a few seconds. An Zhe looked at the stunned personnel and said hoarsely, “…Evacuate!”

But the very next second, the queen raised her head.

An indescribably intense wave burst out from her, sweeping through every human present!

An Zhe’s head throbbed in agony. Blurred images surged before his eyes.

When he absorbed An Ze’s blood and tissues before his death, An Ze’s memories had emerged like a series of images in An Zhe’s mind. When the insect bit his finger on that day in the outer city, and he dreamt that night, he had seen what the insects saw in the wild.

Now, faced with the chaotic fragments of memory flooding out, An Zhe realized what was happening.

—The queen was conducting non-contact infection.