Magic Space: Struggling to Survive in the Apocalypse-Chapter 88: A Person’s Difficult Survival 12

Just then, Evelyn Ford discovered another huge Eight Diagrams symbol in the middle of the tomb passage. The light was so dim that it was barely visible. Evelyn stepped on it to test it, but nothing happened.

Frustrated, she jumped and stomped on it hard. With a CREAK, the Eight Diagrams symbol opened, and Evelyn plummeted downward.

"Ahhh—!"

"Fuck! My leg, my back, my ass... Hiss... It hurts so much."

Evelyn had landed on a pile of chests, and she winced in pain. Looking up at the Eight Diagrams symbol, which had already closed automatically, she resisted the urge to curse and slowly pushed herself up.

’This fall had to be more than four meters.’ Evelyn felt like her bones had been rattled apart; there wasn’t a single part of her that didn’t ache.

More than twenty chests were piled up in this section of the passage. Evelyn suspected they were also filled with Fireproof Maps. When she opened one, her eyes widened in surprise.

It was a chest full of exquisite porcelain bowls! The glaze on them hadn’t faded in the slightest. Each bowl was unique, the craftsmanship superb, and the finish perfectly intact.

Evelyn’s heart began to pound. ’These are genuine antiques!’

Unable to contain her excitement, Evelyn opened all the other chests. They were all filled with porcelain—plates, bowls, and vases. There were monochrome-glazed pieces and painted ones, and not a single one was damaged. Although there was no gold or jewelry, the porcelain alone was enough to make her ecstatic.

’Before the apocalypse, a single piece from this collection could have easily sold for over a million.’

’But now that they’ve fallen into my hands, they’ll probably do little more than gather dust.’

After closing the lids, she stored all the chests in her space. Suddenly, her back didn’t hurt and her legs weren’t sore anymore.

’What a haul. Time to head home.’

Evelyn had figured out the pattern for getting out. The exit was always either underfoot or on a wall; as long as she searched carefully, she would find it.

Sure enough, she found an unusual spot on one of the walls—a section of stone that was a different color from the rest. She then scanned the ground meticulously with her flashlight, leaving no corner unchecked. Finally, on the floor directly below the Eight Diagrams she had fallen through, she found another one.

The moment Evelyn stepped on it, a stone door CREAKED open.

Beyond this door lay a long, narrow corridor that seemed to stretch on forever. After walking for about forty minutes, Evelyn spotted a door.

—

Stepping through the stone door, Evelyn saw the entrance to the cavern. It was ten meters above the exit she’d just used. She had traveled in a complete circle inside the cavern, from the entrance back out again.

Evelyn felt as if she had just entered another world. If not for the very real porcelain now stored in her space, she would have thought everything that happened in the cavern was a dream.

The magnificent stalactites and stone pillars, the dense swarm of bats, the green-glowing skeletons on the stone dais, the door opened by the Eight Diagrams, and the bizarre tomb inside—it all felt like an unreal dream.

’But what about the map she found on the first stone dais? What place did it show?’

The tomb’s internal structure was completely different from what was drawn on the map.

’And that tomb... were a dozen or so chests of porcelain really the only burial goods? Were there other passages?’

Evelyn felt that the cavern held other secrets. ’I’ll have to come back and check it out again when I have the chance,’ she mused, ’and see if I can find the place on the map.’

Evelyn found a secluded spot to relieve herself, then sat down to rest for ten minutes before taking the eight skeletons out from her space.

Finding a relatively flat spot, Evelyn shoveled away the accumulated snow, then used a hoe to dig a large pit. She buried all the skeletons together. It was the least she could do for them.

She sprinkled some flower seeds over the fresh soil, put away her tools, and prepared to head home.

It was getting late; she had unknowingly spent the entire day in the cavern. Trudging through the snow, Evelyn returned to her yard and saw several new footprints outside the gate. She paid them no mind, bolted the gate, and went into the yard.

Mina and Lola were watching her from the window. The two little ones seemed agitated, probably because she had been gone for so long today.

Evelyn shook the snow off herself and quickly unlocked the door to the cabin.

There was still some warmth in the room. The fire in the hearth had burned down to a few embers. Evelyn took off her boots and coat and hurried over to add more wood.

"Mina, Lola, are you two okay?"

Lola flew over to perch on her hat, while Mina leaped into her arms and nuzzled against her. Evelyn soothed them for a good while, then put some Dotty in Mina’s bowl. Lola had been eating raw meat recently, so Evelyn cut a piece of lean meat for her. After they were fed, Evelyn sat before the hearth to warm herself up.

She took a monochrome-glazed porcelain vase from her space, wiped it clean, and set it on the low table by the hearth. After trimming the dry branches she had collected from the mountain earlier, she arranged them in the vase.

The celadon vase paired with the withered branches had a rather artistic feel to it.

Once she had rested enough, Evelyn started preparing dinner. Exhausted after a long day, she didn’t want to go to the trouble of cooking. She boiled a bowl of ginger soup to ward off the chill and decided to just have one of the pre-packaged meals from her space.

After dinner, the bruises from her fall began to throb with pain. Gritting her teeth, Evelyn went into the bathroom for a hot shower. Afterward, she applied medicinal plasters to the sore spots.

The sweater still needed knitting, so Evelyn sat on her warm bed, watching TV as she worked. Mina and Lola lay on her pillow, watching the screen with her.

This trip into the mountains had been fruitful, but it had also left her completely exhausted. Evelyn planned to hole up at home for a while. Besides, she noticed the temperature had dropped another couple of degrees. Sleet had started to fall that evening, and the cold wind was relentless.

At nine o’clock, Evelyn turned off the light and went to sleep. ’I wonder how long this snow will last,’ she thought. ’And I wonder how Officer Graham and his group are doing.’

—

Inside a cave, Officer Graham was tending a fire. Their luck had been good today; he and Quincy had managed to catch a dazed-looking roe deer in the snow. The deer was larger than a goat, enough to feed the five of them for some time.

After the earthquake, Officer Graham, Wendy, Roy Henderson, and Owen Chapman had stuck together. They later reunited with Quincy. Fortunately, none of the five were injured. But with Evelyn Ford missing, the group felt lost without their anchor. It was Officer Graham who made the decision to press on toward Wyrmrest Base. When the blizzard hit, he found a particularly large cave where they could take shelter for the time being. 𝕗𝚛𝚎𝚎𝐰𝗲𝗯𝗻𝚘𝚟𝚎𝗹.𝕔𝐨𝕞

At first, Quincy had insisted on going to look for Evelyn, but Officer Graham remembered her words: if they were separated, they were not to search for each other. They were just to head north, and they would reach Wyrmrest Base.

Though he didn’t know where Evelyn was, Officer Graham was certain she was still alive.

—

The early morning wind was particularly biting. Evelyn glanced at the time: 10:30 a.m. Listening to the fierce wind howling outside, she had no desire to get out of bed.

The heated bed platform wasn’t very warm anymore, so Evelyn added a couple more logs to the fire. She glanced at the equally listless Mina and Lola, then decided to sleep in. Pulling the covers over her head, she went back to sleep.

At two in the afternoon, Evelyn was woken by a full bladder. Now she had no choice but to get up.