Nightmare’s Call

Cold and damp wind blew strongly from the Pearl Ocean, carrying with it plenty of humidity as it engulfed the entire Anduin province, forming a cold wave.

Fiers City, about sixty kilometers away from Huaisha City…

Fort Whitehawk naval base was Xilin’s largest military base, and it was closest to the Pearl Ocean. Due to the amount of personnel moving in and out of the base, it became the economic lifeline of Fiers City.

It was twenty past four in the morning.

On a busy pedestrian street in the commercial district, near Honghaidai Commercial Center.

Cars darted around the streets like a series of neon bands, while crowds dispersed from the KTVs, bars, and Internet cafes.

As usual, they were all yawning, either still excited or totally worn out as they waited for cars.

A few fashionable young lads were staggering while walking out of a bar.

“No more, no more. Any more, and I’ll puke!”

A youth with silver ear piercings held on to a small tree by the pedestrian walk. His face was pale as he panted.

His two companions behind him yawned, reeking of alcohol. They both looked at him with slight disdain.

“Weren’t you like all crazy earlier?”

“My one pint was two of yours! Weak! Weak!” Another man jeered at the youth.

“You!” The youth with the piercings looked over and was just about to yell when…

*Boom!!*

Suddenly, a huge, deafening explosion thundered from afar.

He only felt his legs wobbling, while his ears felt like they were violently being hammered by something.

In the night sky before him, a blinding flame shot up into the air and painted the skyline red.

*Boom!!*

Another explosion followed.

The three youths were stunned and simply looked in the direction of the flames.

Even the surrounding tall complexes could not block the flame as it shot out from one of the buildings, rendering the sky crimson.

The youth with the silver piercings paused for a moment before an ominous thought came to mind.

“That’s… where… Fort Whitehawk is!!”

The other two were stunned when they heard that. They did not know how to react, but they instinctively knew that something big had happened…

Over on the streets in the commercial district, cars stopped as drivers peeked out to look.

Pedestrians looked up as some of them began to take photographs with their phones, and an unknown feeling of dread slowly welled in their hearts.

Fort Whitehawk’s location was not a secret in Fiers City. Almost everyone there was familiar with its rowdy soldiers.

So, quite a number of people could tell at first glance that the fire was indeed coming from Xilin’s largest naval base, Fort Whitehawk.

…

*Boom…*

A sudden quake dazed Lin Sheng and pulled him back from his unusual stupor.

Before he could recover, the room before him started to rapidly unravel…

Like a melting candle, or a swirling dye at times.

Everything before his eyes became a chaotic tangle of lines, and they began to spin and spin…

As he looked at the images before him, Lin Sheng’s consciousness turned blurry.

“Chenchen! Chenchen!”

A panicked voice wrenched him out of his daze.

Lin Sheng opened his eyes. Outside his room, his father, Lin Zhounian was pounding the door.

“Coming!” he yelled in reply.

He quickly got off the bed and opened the door.

Lin Zhounian stood by the door, his face grim.

“Did you hear that? The quaking earlier.”

“The quaking?” Lin Sheng responded.

“Earthquake?” His expression changed, before running back to his room to collect his stuff and escape.

“Twice, but no more after that. So it’s probably not an earthquake. Probably something big somewhere had exploded!” Lin Zhounian shook his head to reject the possibility of an earthquake.

“An explosion?” Lin Sheng said in realization. If it was an earthquake, it would have been shaking continuously, and not just once or twice.

Gu Wanqiu had also made her way over with a coat.

“That scared me. Getting shocked like that while sleeping is really not good for my heart. It’s still thumping hard now.”

Lin Zhounian got to the window and looked out. He could see nothing.

“As long as it’s not an earthquake. Let’s wait a bit. If there’s nothing, then we’ll leave it till tomorrow. There’ll certainly be news about it. We’ll know by then.”

Lin Sheng nodded. His father was right. For this level of explosion, it will definitely hit the headlines tomorrow, be it on screen or on print.

The Lins waited for a few more moments, and after they were sure that there were nothing, only did they went back to sleep.

Lin Sheng lay on the bed, his heart simply felt intrigued.

This was the first time he encountered something like this after living for so long.

For some reason, he thought of the geography teacher that was arrested in school…

All sorts of random thoughts flooded his mind, and he could not sleep.

He ended up rolling on the bed until morning before hearing the sound from the television.

He quickly got up and changed before getting out of his room.

Just as he got into the living room, he saw his father, Lin Zhounian was holding onto the remote as he sat on the sofa, watching the morning news.

On screen, a pretty, short-haired news anchor clad in white western suit grimly reported the latest local news.

“Breaking news. At four o’clock in the morning on 29 April, a massive warehouse containing fireworks had an explosion accident near Fiers City.”

“As of now, there are 11 reported deaths, and 32 injuries, the cause of the explosion is currently being investigated.”

“A fireworks warehouse explosion?” Lin Zhounian frowned. “With that sort of quaking, and we can feel it here even when Fiers is like miles away. How much fireworks was that?”

Lin Sheng did not say anything.

Gu Wanqiu had changed into her work attire and walked out of the bedroom.

“Don’t bother about it, as long it’s not over here. Let’s have our breakfast and go about our business. I’ll cook noodles for you two.”

“No onions please,” Lin Zhounian reminded.

“Coriander please!” Lin Sheng followed.

“Right, right, wait on you two!” Gu Wanqiu smiled as she entered the kitchen to cook.

Lin Sheng sat beside his dad and watched the news.

What confused him was that the news had only spoken briefly about the explosion, before showing footage of the burning sky last night.

They then moved on to another news.

It felt too short, and was not being taken seriously.

“There are probably more casualties, or else they would not have touched on it so lightly.” Lin Zhounian was holding onto a cigarette and spun it in his head without lighting it up.

He had not smoked at home even after so many years of smoking.

“We can check online later, we’ll probably learn some truths there.” Lin Sheng said.

“Yeah, the net is much freer anyway, and they can’t censor everything.” Lin Zhounian smiled. “Right, that’s not our problem anyway. That aside, how’re your studies going?”