Little Pink Starfish

“No,” Polly said. “We can’t make such an unreasonable request.”

“The base has a functioning emergency system. As long as they’re prepared, they can survive for a short time,” Tang Lan said.

“But what if the equipment gets damaged due to distortion during the short artificial magnetic field shutdown? In the winter, losing magnetic protection is even worse than in summer,” Polly replied. “I can use the independent magnetic poles to simulate a counteracting force field and cancel out the artificial magnetic field within the Simpson cage, creating a zero-magnetic space.”

“I don’t understand your technical knowledge,” Tang Lan said. “But artificial magnetic fields are already complex frequencies. That must be very difficult.”

“Perhaps it’s simpler than what we’ve done so far.”

Tang Lan said, “But the fastest way is still to have the base shut off the magnetic field briefly.”

“You can’t do that.”

“I…” Tang Lan looked at Polly. “I know your research is right. You’ve spent decades trying to understand this disaster. If you can see the fluctuation, you’ll find a way to counter it. You’ve always been too kind.”

“And we’re only sending a request—they may not agree. The Northern Base only believes in humanity’s interests. To them, we are hybrids. Every year, they even send troops to try to wipe us out.” His hand rested on the keyboard. He whispered, “This is my own decision. All consequences… have nothing to do with you, sir.”

Polly simply looked at him, like a parent watching a stubborn child.

His pale fingertips hovered over the keyboard.

One second, two seconds.

Suspended fingers stayed motionless above the keys.

Three seconds, four…

He suddenly let out a trembling breath.

“I’m sorry.” His hand dropped weakly, leaving a string of garbled, incomplete characters in the input box. He looked as though facing something terrifying, backing away two steps, eyes reddening. “I can’t do it.”

As if he had expected this, Polly shook his head gently. “Foolish child.”

Blood rushed into Tang Lan’s eyes.

An Zhe, leaning against the fireplace, watched everything. The choices humans face are often the hardest ones. Inner torment can exceed physical pain. What Polly said earlier was true: kindness is humanity’s greatest weakness. Under the crushing weight of a cruel world, Tang Lan suffered, and Polly suffered even more.

And so, An Zhe stared at Polly for a long time, waiting for him to make a decision. Even a hundred years after stepping down as a Judge, fate still forced him to face such impossible dilemmas.

In the midst of that silent stalemate, the aurora flashed again outside.

Rum instinctively turned to the screen. An Zhe looked too.

That ghostly image appeared again on the screen. This time, it stayed for a full three seconds before fading. The eerie scatterplot burned itself into An Zhe’s retina.

At the same time, Tang Lan pressed a hand to his temple.

“I heard it again,” he said.

What did it mean?

Even An Zhe understood—it meant that the unknown cosmic fluctuation had suddenly intensified. It wasn’t the gradual process humans had predicted—it could spike abruptly.

Five seconds of silence. Then the aurora flashed sharply again, like a giant heart contracting. The whole world was plunged into darkness.

The lab screen blurred with dense points of light.

“It’s coming,” Tang Lan closed his eyes and raised his hand to his face, voice hoarse. “It’s coming. I heard it. Soon, it will surpass the magnetic field’s strength. Sir, there’s no need to struggle anymore. The distortion is already upon us—it can’t be stopped.”

“We… we…” He lowered his head. “Why… are we even doing this?”

He let out a muffled laugh—one of complete despair. His throat likely held blood, An Zhe thought.

Just moments ago, they were grappling with whether to ask the base to shut down the magnetic field. They were trapped in questions of human nature, caught in hatred against a cruel world and cruel fate, tormented by their own pain—they thought they had a choice. But now, they realized how laughable that struggle and hatred had been. It was a meaningless resistance—of course, all of humanity’s meaning was probably meaningless too.

This world doesn’t care. It’s not cruel. It just doesn’t care. It doesn’t care about their happiness, and certainly not about their suffering.

It was simply undergoing a natural change, moving forward. It didn’t intend to let humanity understand why—there was no need. Only humans clung to the urge to know.

Humanity will perish. Life will end. The Earth will collapse.

And the world won’t care.

An Zhe stared blankly at the sky.

After the flickering, in the deep night sky, the aurora began to quake wildly. Green light exploded into dazzling meteor-like streaks. A magnificent meteor shower burned and vanished, its afterglow streaking across the pitch-black heavens.

Beep— A machine in the lab let out a long alarm. An Zhe looked up in shock, vision swimming.

Polly gripped the chair’s armrest tightly. His voice was hoarse—

Then came a blood-curdling, simultaneous wail, impossible to describe with any human onomatopoeia. It rang out from outside the window, from the mountain slopes, from the Abyss—

Flap flap flap—

As if thousands upon thousands of birds suddenly took flight.

They had lurked in the Abyss for too long, testing one another, locked in stalemate.

And now, at the moment when the magnetic field was about to collapse, those terrifying creatures all began to move.

—Why?

No one knew.

The first dark shadow swept over the Highlands Institute’s sky.

Polly moved to the Simpson cage’s control station.

“Sir,” Tang Lan asked quietly, “do we still have time?”

Polly said, “No.”

“Then should we go on?”

A brief silence.

“Human hopes are like the moon’s reflection in water,” Polly murmured. “It looks within reach, but the moment you touch the surface—it shatters.”

“And when we believe the shattered moon still has meaning, we reach out to gather it, only to find a handful of water. Worse still, in less than a minute, even the water slips through our fingers.”

He looked at the clusters of shimmering points, like gazing into a distant dream. “But if I had another chance to stand by the water… would I still reach out?”

Polly Jones’s eyes reddened. His gaze trembled. His voice choked. At last, he closed his eyes.

“I would.”

Tang Lan pulled out a black walkie-talkie from his pocket.

Looking at the surreal chaos before him, he lowered his eyes and said softly:

“Prepare for defense.”