Little Pink Starfish

Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night

The engines roared as PL1109 slowly took off.

With it rose the entire fighter formation, forming the aerial combat strength of the base.

Across the vast plains, the monsters surged toward the base like a tide.

Through the porthole, Lu Feng looked toward the north of the base.

Among the howls of the monsters, the closest one was not outside—it was inside the base, where the military facilities were located.

Back then, they had called for the abolition of the Tribunal’s power over life and death and had transferred suspected mutants to the military camp for custody. To show the righteousness and moral high ground of this act, Colin, the leader of the anti-Tribunal movement, and several other core members volunteered to serve as observers and guards.

—So when the aberration began, it was the first place to erupt into monsters. It was too far to see clearly, but one could imagine the splatter of flesh and blood.

But no one cared about that place anymore. The mutant species born from human aberration were the weakest kind among the monsters.

A monster covered in mucus—an octopus-like creature with a grotesque face—coiled its tentacles around the Twin Towers. Inside the towers, the lights flickered madly, glass shattered under the pressure of its tentacles, sharp fangs devoured humans, and screams filled the air—audible even from above.

With a thunderous crash, the glass corridor connecting the towers collapsed. Along with the falling debris, several black humanoid figures plummeted, caught midair by the monster’s fanged mouth. The building’s collapse drowned out the crunching of bones and flesh.

“Bomb it?”

“Bomb it.”

There was no time to consider the consequences—they had to bomb. If the monsters were allowed to continue, the last human refuge would also turn into ruins.

High-yield uranium bombs were dropped. In the mushroom cloud, the monster’s body was torn into countless pieces and rained down. The twin towers—once towering into the clouds—tilted, collided, and collapsed.

Dust filled the air.

The frenzied assault and resistance lasted an hour.

Then, they could bomb no more.

Except for the artificial magnetic pole site, all other parts of the base were either overrun or flattened—perhaps first overrun, then flattened. In the dust that resembled thick fog, only ruins remained.

The monsters sought only the living.

At this moment, all of them turned toward the magnetic field center—humanity’s final wartime stronghold. To protect the magnetic pole, it was heavily fortified, like a fortress.

Thus, enormous, grotesque, indescribable monsters swarmed around it, colliding, attempting entry.

The air squadron had no more bombs to drop; their light munitions were exhausted. Only a few heavy thermonuclear weapons remained.

To kill the monsters at the magnetic field center’s periphery with those weapons would mean leveling the entire artificial pole. Even if the blast was contained, the massive energy would still destroy the power supply system, accelerating the death of those inside.

By now, all ground troops were lost.

The situation within the magnetic field center was unknown.

Aside from the thousand-odd people transferred there, no one else in the base survived.

And the air squadron was helpless.

What chilled them further was the era of aberration—meaning changes in the fundamental nature of matter. Perhaps in the next second, the aircraft would malfunction, the magnetic pole collapse, or an unknown infection silently break out inside the center and destroy it from within.

Worse than death was witnessing the complete fall of this city.

The aircraft hovered silently above, like ghosts drifting out from a dead base.

Then, a communication crackled through.

It was a message from the temporary command center of the magnetic field.

“This is the magnetic center. The military is holding the entrance. With half our firepower consumed and barring any unexpected events, we estimate we can defend for three more hours.”

“Though we don’t know why the base became the monsters’ target, the situation is beyond what we or the air squadron can handle.”

“Please end your combat mission immediately, or you’ll only burden our defenses.”

“Additionally, a large number of flying monsters are heading toward the base. To preserve humanity’s remaining strength, the air squadron must immediately leave and find a safe landing zone.”

“We don’t know how long you’ll survive. But please—live.”

“Air squadron, evacuate the base immediately.”

The aircraft hovered for a long time.

“Repeating the order. Air squadron, evacuate immediately.”

“May the base bless you.”

The communication ended.

The channel fell silent. In the cabin, only the tense, restrained breathing of the crew could be heard. The officers stared hard at the ruined land below. It was hard to describe the look in their eyes—was it hatred, despair, or something as gray as ashes?

Finally, over the squadron channel came:

“PJ143 calling PL1109.”

“Where do we evacuate to?”

P.

The meaning was clear: Lu Feng would decide where to go.

Lu Feng picked up the comm.

“Site 7 has survival facilities.”

“North of the Central Basin, Canyon 313, no highly lethal monsters, has water sources.”

“If fuel is sufficient, consider the Underground City base.”

He spoke these three locations calmly, then said, “Please choose for yourselves.”

“PJ179 asking PL1109 for direction.”

Lu Feng paused.

He looked over the people in the cabin.

“The Abyss,” he said. “Heading to support the fusionist research institute.”

“The fusionists?” an officer raised his head sharply. “That’s monster territory.”

“I know,” said Lu Feng.

Questions erupted over the channel.

“Rescue the enemy?”

“Is the mutant-controlled zone more dangerous?”

“Please explain your decision.”

“My personal decision. The research institute is the only remaining human settlement outside the base,” Lu Feng said mildly. “Please choose your destination freely.”

The captain of PL1109 raised no objections. After brief hesitation, he turned the controls, and the fighter slowly turned south.

The comm came alive again.

“Please, who are you?”

“Tribunal. Lu Feng.”

Silence.

PL1109 climbed into the sky, wing lights glowing, heading into the abyss through the dark night.

Over the base, from the hovering formation, the first jet followed PL1109 south.

Then the second.

Then the third.

Wing lights and tail lights formed a flowing river of light in the night sky.

Until only two remained.

“PJ254 and PJ113 choosing to stay and perish with the base.”

“Wishing you victory.”

PL1109’s captain replied: “Wishing us a bright future.”

“Take care.”

---

The Abyss – The Research Institute

After the magnetic field collapsed, the screen display changed.

All the chaos disappeared, leaving only a screen full of evenly distributed static. It was impossible to tell whether it had a pattern or not—because the extreme chaos instead formed an indescribable order.

Polly stared at the screen. Though he appeared to be simply looking at it, Anzhe felt as though he were gazing through it into some massive, indescribable entity.

He recalled what Tang Lan had said to Polly an hour earlier—asking if Polly already understood something but wouldn’t say it, because the truth might be something humanity couldn’t bear.

Now, facing Polly’s gaze, a similar thought rose in Anzhe’s heart.

“Have you understood something?” he asked.

After a pause, Polly replied, “Perhaps not exactly. But—it’s about frequency.”

“Frequency?”

“Atoms, electrons, photons—matter is made of fundamental particles. And what makes up those particles? Strings. Strings are lines of energy in a two-dimensional space. When they begin to vibrate at specific frequencies, they become the particles in our space-time.”

“The Simpson Cage was originally built to test string theory’s validity. Now, perhaps it’s been proven right.”

“I don’t understand,” Anzhe said softly.

“It’s alright, I’ll give an example,” Polly said. “When you pluck different strings on a violin, they vibrate at different frequencies and produce different sounds. We call the energy units spread throughout the universe ‘strings.’ The different vibrations produce different particles, which form our world.”

“The reason our physical laws were stable until now is that the strings were always playing the same melody. So electrons stayed electrons, atoms stayed atoms, and formulas remained constant. But now—”

Anzhe’s eyes widened slightly. Through this metaphor, he understood what Polly was implying.

“The scariest part isn’t that the theory is true,” Polly said. “It’s that—the time has come to change the melody. The cosmic strings are going to be played differently. Or perhaps, the universe’s frequency was always chaotic, and humans were just born during a rare moment of order. Now, with that order ending, everything will return to chaos.”

The very foundation of the world, the physical laws, were once a symphony played according to a score. The old piece had ended. A new prelude was beginning.

There were never unchanging laws—only eternal, chaotic terror.

Anzhe stared out the window in a daze.

A pale light slowly rose on the horizon.

Though it seemed night had only lasted three or four hours, dawn was already beginning.

“All laws are collapsing. Matter’s fundamental properties are starting to mutate. You, me, Earth, the sun, the galaxy—our rotations are accelerating,” Polly said.

Anzhe asked, “What will happen in the end?”

“I don’t know.” Polly shook his head. “Life and non-life will blur, all tangible things will change, time and space will warp, and everything will take a new form we cannot comprehend. But one thing is certain.”

Anzhe waited for his answer.

“We’ll all die,” Polly said.

Anzhe coughed violently again, as if coughing out all the blood in his body. His body weakened faster than the matter’s mutation. Curled up in a chair by the fireplace, he was still alive—perhaps destined to witness humanity’s extinction in his final moments.

Tang Lan had gone outside. The research institute was filled with half-human, half-monster hybrids—some strong, some slow and clumsy, even more so than human bodies.

The massive vines surrounding the institute stood upright, bristling with leaves like raised hackles—an aggressive stance.

Shadowy figures rustled, climbing from the Abyss like a black tide. The slower monsters crawled, while flying ones circled above the mountain, preparing to dive.

Why did they gather to attack only after the magnetic pole collapsed? Was the timing significant? Or were humans simply the weakest and easiest prey?

It shouldn’t have been this way.

Polly murmured, “What do they want from here?”

The intercom crackled with wind and Tang Lan’s voice: “Half the Abyss’s monsters are moving out—half are headed here. Flying ones are leading.”

“We can’t hold out. Sir, what do we do?”

The institute had some weapons in reserve. A shot brought down a bird-like monster into the Simpson Cage.

Its wings touched the scarlet laser and flames—it turned to glowing dust in a blink, raising its head as if to scream. But it fell rapidly into the fire below.

Its body completely disintegrated in a flash, dust spreading through the cage like a spring sandstorm, like sparks in a fireplace.

One life vanished—body and soul.

Anzhe shrank back, breathing heavily. Maybe this kind of death was swift and clean, better than his drawn-out end.

Polly helped him up, fed him some glucose water. Even the warm liquid felt like knives down his throat.

He leaned against Polly.

“The Simpson Cage is a high-powered energy field. Its energy is immense.”

Anzhe nodded. After seeing the bird’s death, he understood why Polly forbade anyone from approaching the cage.

At that moment, Rum, who had been staring at the screen, suddenly spoke: “Sir.”

Anzhe looked in that direction.

On the screen, among the chaotic noise and curves, a few clear white lines appeared—intertwining, slowly rotating in a strange but orderly way.

At the same time, the cage’s flames dimmed. The bird’s final trace vanished.

The lines on the screen faded.

Polly Jones suddenly stood, pupils constricted, voice trembling: “This is… this is…”

“I’ve got it—” Polly lunged to the console, typing rapidly. “We have to lure the other monsters into the Simpson Cage.”

He said it and began doing it. The institute staff used simple communicators to coordinate. Tang Lan and the hybrids temporarily blocked the monsters 100 meters away. Polly had the non-combatants relocate to the White Building behind the cage.

The monsters targeted the people inside—so they shifted their attack here.

Polly signaled Tang Lan to open a gap. A flying monster with star-shaped tentacles dove straight in. But flames from the cage blocked the White Building’s entrance—it had to pass through the fire.

It chose the path with the least flame exposure and glided downward.

On the screen, clear curves appeared again.

They twisted like ripples from duck paddling across a lake—clear and precise.

Polly stared hard at those lines.

As the monster’s body vanished, the lines disappeared, replaced by chaotic static.

“We’ve burned monsters and hybrids before, but the lines were always chaotic. That must’ve been due to magnetic interference,” he said. “So, these lines represent this monster’s frequency. If another comes in—”

Before he could finish, a gunshot rang out. A smaller monster was hit and fell into the cage.

Once again, glowing dust rose, and new clear frequency lines appeared—distinct from the last.

Polly’s breath quickened.

“In the world of fundamental particles, every life form has a frequency. Every type of matter—every element—has its frequency,” he said. “They are independent in stable waves, but infect each other in chaos.”

He stared at the parameters on screen, his expression near manic. “The Simpson Cage captures these frequencies, and the magnetic generator can reproduce them. That’s how we simulated the Earth’s magnetic field.”

“If we broadcast the monsters’ frequencies, any life within the artificial magnetic field will be infected.”

He muttered, “In the end, the heavens let me glimpse part of the truth. Should I be grateful?”

He looked like he had received divine revelation.

“Could a creature’s classification be expressed as a string of numbers? Can we summarize even high- or low-dimensional worlds with fragments of language?”

“We studied geomagnetic fluctuations, and through that, discovered frequencies of defense and resistance. That’s how humanity survived this long. We already touched the truth.”

He wrote furiously on paper. Anzhe watched quietly. Even at the brink of death, truth mattered to humanity. But to him, it was meaningless. Humans used complex theories to interpret the world. To him, the world was just the world—complex surface, nothing more.

Polly continued.

“One wave’s frequency can override another. Waves differ in strength. The strongest can override all; the weakest is drowned.”

“Human frequencies are weak—so we’re easily infected.”

He looked at the incoming monsters. His gray-blue eyes flickered with a manic light. Anzhe knew his scientist’s mind was racing madly, overwhelmed with thoughts, speaking them aloud just to organize them.

“What do they want? The strongest frequency? Or did they sense the magnetic generator’s emissions?”

“Or maybe…” His eyes widened. “Does an absolutely stable frequency exist?”

He grabbed a sheet. “Kibberlan once told me the northern base found a sample of absolute inertia—”

He picked up the communicator.

Anzhe watched.

He didn’t understand most of Polly’s words—but he understood some.

A long time ago, how had he gained consciousness? He didn’t remember. It was probably a fluke mutation—one ripple in this grand wave.

Thus he existed.

And so did his fate.

Later he met Anze.

Human fate was also an ever-changing song.

He coughed again, stood from his chair. The pain no longer mattered.

Polly heard the movement and said gently, “Don’t get up. We don’t need help. Just rest.”

Then he returned to his research.

Anzhe picked up a paper, wrote a few words, folded it, gave it to Rum, and walked to the door. Rum opened his mouth, but Anzhe made a shushing gesture.

Outside the door, through the frosted glass, Anzhe looked at Polly with a soft, sorrowful gaze.

Click.

He locked the door from outside.

The sound startled Polly. He looked up.

Anzhe turned and walked down the stairs, steps unsteady, his insides burning.

Finally, he passed the people in the White Building, descended the stairs, and stood before the roaring Simpson Cage.

He shouldn’t have been here.

He was one of the Abyss. The ones attacking humans were his kind.

Now, it was the opposite. He stood with humans. They accepted and treated him kindly.

Did he feel joy or sorrow for joining humanity?

A mushroom wilts slowly. Mycelium melts gradually. Countless times he thought he’d never open his eyes again, but still he did.

What kept him alive till now? Chance? Polly said chance was fate.

Then let’s say it was fate that brought him here.

The protecting vines fell. Tang Lan, bleeding from one wing, struggled mid-air with a giant eagle. A beak pierced his shoulder, spraying blood. He didn’t cry out. One hand pressed his wound; the other slashed the eagle’s eye.

Blood dripped everywhere.

Do humans regret having unique joy and pain?

Anzhe smiled and stepped toward the Simpson Cage. Flames licked his face, hot like summer.

Sounds of glass being pounded echoed from the White Building. He didn’t look back.

The flames and sunrise burned together. The battle raged—howls, explosions, blood, dawn, fire—all mixed.

Uncle Tree, who once made him potato soup, was hurled into the air by a monster. His body slammed down. His eyes froze. Blood poured from his sockets.

The ground was drenched in blood—death everywhere.

The world slowed in Anzhe’s eyes as he stepped forward.

“Don’t…” Uncle Tree’s hoarse voice said. “Don’t die…”

A being’s function is to live. A species’ function is to continue.

Humans never went gently into that good night.

Now, facing the Simpson Cage, Anzhe finally felt death’s fear. He looked at Uncle Tree and softly asked—perhaps to himself—“But can you still go on living?”

Uncle Tree, barely conscious, shook his head. Then looked to the horizon.

He froze. After two seconds, he gasped with excitement.

A deep hum echoed from the sky, unlike monster howls. Anzhe looked up.

On the golden horizon, a squadron of black silhouettes flew smoothly, trailing tails through the clouds.

“Planes,” Uncle Tree whispered.

Anzhe knew.

He saw their familiar shape and felt genuine joy.

They never sent a distress signal to the northern base—but the fighters came anyway.

Earlier, Polly told Tang Lan, if the institute fell, go help the base.

But now, the base came to help them.

—At the very end.

Polly was right. His race was base and noble. You could suspect their worst—but also believe in their mercy.

But the artificial magnetic pole had failed. What now for the base?

What about Lu Feng?

Maybe the base was gone. Lu Feng would give everything until the base no longer needed him.

A tear slid from Anzhe’s eye. His love and hatred seemed insignificant in the face of this apocalypse. Lu Feng had his mission. Anzhe had his fate.

He stepped forward.

Boom.

A mini nuke launched from PL1109, severing the monsters’ path. The mountaintop—so exposed—was now also well-defended.

“Open the hatch,” came the calm voice.

“Glider ready.”

“Minor malfunction, hold on,” the air tech said.

As the plane dived, the hatch creaked open.

Lu Feng took the glider passed by a soldier.

“You going down?” Hubbard asked.

Lu Feng: “Yes.”

“When we helped the city base, it was for humanity’s benefit,” Hubbard said. “What about now? Is the Tribunal helping monsters?”

Lu Feng looked at the mercenary captain taking a glider too. “What about you?”

“Don’t know,” Hubbard said. “Just feel like… I’d regret not going.”

Click.

The hatch popped open.

“My God,” the tech stepped back. “Fire? What is that?”

Wind howled in. Lu Feng stood at the hatch, looking down.

And froze.

By the fire, Anzhe looked up at the newcomers.

Time seemed to stop.

He saw Lu Feng. Lu Feng saw him.

Anzhe trembled, meeting Lu Feng’s gaze.

Parting had been planned. Reunion was unexpected.

He hadn’t thought they’d meet here—nor had Lu Feng.

The jet’s gusts blew his coat. Almost unconsciously, he raised his hand.

Those long-separated green eyes locked on him. The Tribunal’s judge had come to help the fusionists. A monster stood at the center of the human institute.

It was absurd from the start—but the brilliant dawn poured down, and they saw each other in full clarity.

Yes, Lu Feng was that kind of person.

Anzhe smiled—his first smile to Lu Feng.

Though far apart, he saw a gentle smile rise in Lu Feng’s green eyes—filled with infinite warmth.

A gunshot rang out—Hubbard fired at a monster.

Jets dropped uranium bombs. The sky erupted with fire and thunder.

The monsters surged from the Abyss.

A sandstorm would follow the magnetic collapse.

The last human territory was falling.

Humanity—was near extinction.

They stared long into each other’s eyes—holding ancient hate, and sudden reconciliation.

This day, they would be together again, once more, freely—

Freely—

Anzhe closed his eyes and leaned forward.

Like a falling leaf in late autumn.

In the Simpson Cage’s blaze, as dawn rose and humanity’s sun set, his body turned into drifting light dust—dissolved, scattered, faded.

In the lab, amid static, trembling noise dots suddenly converged and rotated. Analysis started. Three seconds later, several intertwining frequency curves appeared on the screen.

Like fate.

Polly Jones connected to the emergency channel linking the northern and underground bases. He didn’t know if they could hear. His voice trembled beneath its calm.

“This is the Fusionist Research Institute.”

“Please adjust artificial magnetic pole emission frequency.”

“A1 channel: 2, 5, 2.7.”

“A2 channel: 9.13, 5, 3, 1.”

“D3 channel: 4, 0, 7.”

“Runge wave, level 6.”

“Adams characteristic, slot 3.”

“Configured—please activate.”

“Repeat.”

“A1 channel: 2, 5, 2.7.”

“A2 channel: 9.13, 5, 3, 1.”

“D3 channel…”

Behind him, Rum input the data with trembling fingers and pressed the central button.

The twin white towers of the institute blazed with dazzling light.

Silent, invisible ripples radiated outward like waves from both towers.

In the east, in the north, a grand fluctuation emitted from both human magnetic poles.

Like the first chime of a new year.

Silence.