Magic Space: Struggling to Survive in the Apocalypse Chapter 23: Torrential Rain, Toxic Moths 19

Arriving at the Collins’ apartnt, Evelyn Ford found there was hardly a place to stand.

The living room was ssy and dirty, and a foul sll hit her. Evelyn adjusted her mask and followed Leah Crane into the bedroom she shared with Zane Collins.

Evelyn took her pulse. It was smooth and slick, like pearls rolling on a plate—a definite pregnancy pulse.

"From the look on your face, I really am pregnant. How ridiculous. We tried for two years and nothing happened, but now I get pregnant during an apocalypse."

Leah Crane touched her stomach, her gaze vacant as she stared at the door. Seeing the lifeless look in her eyes, a suspicion began to form in Evelyn’s mind.

"You don’t want it?"

Leah Crane looked up at Evelyn, a faint, shallow smile on her lips.

"Before... Zane gave an ultimatum. If I couldn’t have a child this year, we would divorce. It’s hilarious, isn’t it? He’s missing and presud dead, and now I’m pregnant. His mother and sister used to make snide remarks all the ti about how I couldn’t conceive. And now that I have this ’good news,’ I can’t even share it with them."

Evelyn Ford said nothing, her gaze sweeping over the bedroom. It was just as ssy and filthy as the rest of the apartnt. Sand and footprints covered the floor. The damp air had caused the wall paint to peel and mold. Possessions were piled in a corner, and the quilt on the bed was also damp, its musty sll filling her nostrils.

"Ford, do you have any dicine?"

"No."

Leah Crane pleaded, "The rain never stops. I can’t support a child. Bringing him into this world would just be adding to his suffering. Please, help find a way to get rid of it."

Leah took a box from the cabinet and reluctantly handed it to Evelyn.

"I’m begging you."

"I can’t help you with that. I’ve checked your pulse, and now I’m leaving."

Leah Crane’s expression changed. "Then what am I supposed to do? How do I get rid of it?"

Evelyn Ford didn’t answer. She pulled open the door and walked out, just in ti to see David Collins comforting a crying Jack Sullivan.

"Ford, how is she?"

Evelyn didn’t speak. David Collins took out a compressed biscuit and handed it to her. Only then did Evelyn nod.

"She’s pregnant."

"You can’t take our family’s stuff! That’s mine! Grandpa, we don’t have enough to eat! Why are you giving it to her?"

Jack Sullivan lunged forward to snatch the compressed biscuit from Evelyn’s hand. Evelyn’s gaze turned cold. Just then, Harvey Sullivan, who had been out looking for firewood, returned. Seeing the scene, he stepped forward and pulled Jack back.

"He’s just a kid, he doesn’t know any better. Ford, please don’t mind him. You were here to check on my sister-in-law, right? Where is she? Is she okay?"

Jack Sullivan tried to make more of a fuss, but Harvey Sullivan shot him a glare, and he shrank back in fear.

"She’s fine. I’ll be heading back now."

"Wait a mont, Ford. I have sothing to ask you. Where did you go to find supplies before? You see, with so many residential buildings around here, the nearby supermarkets and malls have been completely looted. Now that my sister-in-law is pregnant, my dad is old, and Jack is still little... I need to find more supplies. I just have this feeling the rain will never stop."

"Factories."

"Are you and Lauren Keller still going out?" he pressed.

"No, we’re not. It’s about ti I got back."

Back in her own apartnt with the compressed biscuit, Evelyn bolted the door and took off her hazmat suit.

The poisonous moths had beco much scarcer these past few days, but you still needed to be fully geared up to go outside. The torrential rain would co and go, and the temperature continued to drop, having already fallen below minus thirteen degrees Celsius.

Evelyn folded her dirty clothes and put them in the laundry hamper. After washing her hazmat suit, she hung it on the balcony to air-dry. In this period, she had already gone through two pairs of rain boots.

She pulled open the curtains and looked outside. There were still a lot of people gathering firewood. After the bandits’ raid, many people in Prosperity Gardens had died. Even when acquaintances saw each other, no one was in the mood to say hello. Everyone just kept their heads down, did their work, and then hurried ho.

In the afternoon, on the balcony of the eighth floor of the opposite building, a young man stood there, shouted a few tis, and then leaped off.

This sort of thing happened almost every day.

After the apocalypse began, the water, power, and internet went out, and food and water beca scarce. Rescue teams had co only twice and then vanished without a trace. Relief supplies had been distributed only once. The minds of many had already shattered from the repeated cycles of hope and despair.

With a rare mont of free ti, Evelyn mopped the living room floor, disinfected it, and then lit a stick of mugwort incense.

There was a large trash can in the bathroom. Evelyn would collect her daily trash in small bags and put them into the can. The next ti she went out, she would put the trash into her space and then dispose of it outside.

She still had a lot of pre-packaged als in her space, and she had been steadily working through her stockpile. Ever since the power and water went out, she hadn’t cooked. If the sll of food spread, it could attract trouble. People pushed to the brink of starvation were capable of anything.

She took out a small plastic bucket, intending to sprout so beans. It was a small comfort in these bitter tis.

That afternoon, Officer Graham and Mrs. Graham appeared at her door together. Evelyn looked at them, fully geared up, and was a little surprised that Officer Graham would actually bring his wife out to scavenge for supplies.

"She was worried about going alone. And it works out, since I wanted to bring her out anyway, to help her slowly get used to the world outside."

"You shouldn’t be going out yet. You’d be better off resting in bed for a few days," Evelyn advised Officer Graham.

"But I can’t wait, Ford. Your prediction might co true. We have to prepare as soon as possible."

He was talking about the dams breaking. There were several reservoirs around Corinth, and if they burst, it would be a catastrophe that could wipe out the entire city.

’But if we leave, where can we go? What guarantee is there that we’ll find shelter anywhere else?’

"Be safe," Evelyn said to the two of them, her words sincere.

"We will. But before we go, there’s sothing I’d like to buy from you."

Evelyn understood imdiately. "There’s half a bottle left. I’ll go get it for you."

This was the poison she had prepared to "welco" the bandits.

She had even mixed in fluid from the corpses of poisonous moths, which instantly doubled its potency.

Evelyn brought them the remaining half bottle, and Officer Graham gave her a grateful smile.

"We’ll owe you for it. We’ll settle up when we co back with a full haul."

Evelyn nodded. "Have a safe trip."

As she watched them go downstairs and was about to head back inside, the door to the neighboring apartnt opened. Leah Crane erged, fully geared up and carrying a burlap sack, with Harvey Sullivan following behind her.

It looked like they were also heading out to find supplies.

Life in the apocalypse was hard. For pregnant won and newborns, it was even harder. Evelyn understood why Leah Crane wanted to get rid of the child and how she felt.

’But dicine isn’t the only way to terminate a pregnancy. It’s just that, subconsciously, I want nothing to do with that kind of trouble.’

The radio sat on the coffee table in the living room, but it remained utterly silent.

In forgotten corners, darkness and cri descended together.

In her past life, by the fifth year of the apocalypse, all of Corinth had beco a deserted ruin, an empty city. The survivors who were left clung to life like stray dogs.

Evelyn Ford had eaten mud cakes, tree bark, rat at, spider at, cockroach at...

No one understood the tornt and despair of starvation better than she did.