True Apocalypse Game

One hundred squads were numbered sequentially and set off simultaneously, heading in different directions.

Most entered the wilderness, while others ventured back into the ruins of the city destroyed by the nuclear bomb, hoping to find some clues.

Vasily and Li Tongchen were in the same squad: Squad 9.

However, at this point, everyone’s faces were so distorted that it was impossible to recognize one another.

Besides, everyone in the game was on high alert and would never easily reveal their real identities.

The players controlled their avatars, advancing in silence. It wasn’t long, however, before someone broke the quiet and began to talk.

After all, they would need to cooperate with one another as the game progressed.

"Hello, I’m Li," Li Tongchen said to Vasily beside him.

Vasily hesitated for a moment before smiling and saying, "Hello, I’m Wally."

"Hello, both of you. I’m John," said another player’s avatar from nearby.

The game’s controls even included an option to shake hands. The three of them shook, a formal introduction of sorts.

Of course, they all knew the others were using aliases or just their surnames, making it impossible to determine anyone’s real identity.

The wilderness was just as much a scene from Hell. The area around the city they had just left seemed to have been hit by multiple nuclear bombs.

Scars left by the shockwaves crisscrossed the landscape. Entire groves of trees had been shredded by the violent blasts.

A layer of black "snow"—radioactive dust—covered the ground.

However, the avatars they controlled seemed to be immune to the radiation and the grim environment, so they didn’t die from it.

The radioactive dust fell continuously. Corpses lay strewn about the roadside.

Some had died from acute radiation sickness, others had been thrown to their deaths by the shockwave, and still others were victims of murder or had even committed suicide amidst the chaos.

Vehicles were strewn across the road, most of them wrecked or burned into charred metal coffins.

A man at the head of the group, who seemed to fancy himself their leader, spoke slowly, "Is there only death? If so, this game is nothing more than..."

Before he could finish, he suddenly cried out, lunging toward a damaged car. He pounded frantically on the window, shouting:

"Alena? Eva? No! How... how can it be you!"

The car looked like it had been rolled several times by the shockwave. In the driver’s seat was a beautiful woman in her thirties, and in the passenger seat sat a little girl, about seven or eight years old.

Their faces were covered in blood. A steel rebar had pierced the woman’s chest. The little girl’s head lolled limply to one side; the immense force had clearly snapped her neck.

"How can it be you!? A Demon! The developer of this game is a Demon!"

No explanation was needed. Everyone understood at once: the two people in the car were the man’s wife and daughter.

They were still reeling when more heart-wrenching screams erupted:

"Jessica! Oh God! It’s Jessica!"

"My child! My child! That’s my child!"

"Damn that developer! They made the corpses look like my parents!"

"Demon! That absolute Demon!"

Amid the cries, Vasily found his own son’s body—Ivan.

His small body was curled up beneath a highway guardrail. His face was sallow, his hair dry and brittle. He appeared to have suffocated, and he was still tightly clutching a small Russian nesting doll.

It was the very gift Vasily had brought back for him from a trip home just a few days ago.

The game system even zoomed in for a close-up of the body. The boy’s lake-blue eyes were wide open, and purple-blue lividity spots already stained his face.

He didn’t seem to have suffered, but the helplessness and despair on his face were even more gut-wrenching.

In his study, Vasily threw his mouse aside, rushed into the adjacent bedroom, and flicked on the light.

The little boy, Ivan, was fast asleep in his bed, a serene smile on his face. In his hand, he clutched the Russian nesting doll.

Vasily calmed himself, walked slowly to the bedside, and leaned down to gently kiss his son’s forehead.

He then turned off the light, left the bedroom, and returned to his study. His expression grim, he picked up the mouse again.

He had started out just wanting to try the game, curious to solve its mystery. Now, everything on the screen had taken on a different meaning in an instant. The mouse in his hand felt exceptionally heavy.

Li Tongchen, too, found the bodies of his daughter, son-in-law, and young grandson amidst the game’s ruins.

He sighed. He closed the game on his phone, called his daughter, and chatted for a bit. Afterward, he stood up, walked to the window, and silently smoked a cigarette. Only then did he pick up his phone and reopen the game.

As a doctor who had witnessed and experienced countless matters of life and death, he understood the developer’s intention almost instantly.

Back in the game, all one hundred players had now found the bodies of their loved ones. For several minutes, their avatars stood motionless.

When they all began to move again, the cursing had stopped. Everyone seemed much calmer, much more silent.

No one here was a fool. Many of them had grasped the developer’s point in that single, horrific instant.

If a nuclear war were to break out, all of this could become real.

Their loved ones would die in the most tragic of ways.

The group fell silent for a time before continuing on their way.

Soon, they finally encountered other living people in the game world—a group of NPCs.

These people were fleeing for their lives, having escaped from a city. One of them mentioned an old air-raid shelter in the nearby mountains where they could take cover.

The players immediately followed them toward the air-raid shelter.

The journey was fraught with various hardships and dangers. Finally, one of the players died along the way. Their avatar simply vanished, apparently teleported back to the city ruins where they started.

It turned out their avatars weren’t immortal after all, just a lot tougher.

But when they reached the air-raid shelter, they were met with yet another scene of human tragedy.

An earthquake triggered by the nuclear blast had caused a landslide. The part of the mountain containing the shelter had collapsed, burying it completely. With no oxygen left, everyone inside had suffocated.

When the players dug open the shelter together, they were greeted by a close-up of Purgatory itself.

Some of the players clearly couldn’t handle it. Their avatars stood frozen as the sound of retching was heard.

At this point, the players were all confused.

’What is the developer trying to say?’

’Are we just supposed to see the horrors of a post-nuclear world? Is this just a warning delivered through sickening imagery?’

’Or is the point just to gross us out?’

The players were completely baffled.

Fortunately, another group of NPCs appeared. They seemed to be surviving soldiers who were passing through and offered to escort the players from the area to a subterranean nuclear Shelter.

The players immediately asked the officer in charge what had caused the nuclear war.

The officer hesitated for a moment and said:

"It seems to be over some issue in Crimea. Bear Country suddenly launched nuclear missiles at Eagle Country... I’m not sure, though. There are also rumors that Eagle Country struck Bear Country’s nuclear facilities first, triggering their ’Dead Hand’ system’s retaliation. All the world’s nuclear powers were dragged in, and that’s what led to... this."

Hearing this, the players looked at each other in consternation. A few of them even loudly denounced both scenarios, instantly revealing their nationalities.

But the players also knew this couldn’t be the real reason for the war. Otherwise, finding the true cause wouldn’t be a game objective.

Soon, the group finally reached a Shelter deep inside a large mountain.

They now found it difficult to identify the location of the in-game map.

The NPCs were men and women, Eastern and Western, of all different ethnicities. Even the surrounding scenery was a hodgepodge of architectural styles from different parts of the world.

Clearly, the developer had a deeper purpose in this design, as if wanting the players to temporarily forget their nationalities, ethnicities, and social classes, and to remember only a single identity.

Human.

Just then, as the in-game clock struck midnight, the screen suddenly went black. A few lines of text appeared:

"Midnight has arrived. Forced logout. Game tasks will resume in six hours."