Chapter 744: Chapter 744: Barren

Grit settled on her skin. A gust of wind blew past, sweeping her messy hair across her face. It was a little itchy, with a faint tingling sensation.

Evelyn Ford opened her eyes to a blurry world. Her eyelashes trembled as dust fell into them. She wanted to raise a hand to rub her eyes, but her limbs ached too much to move. She closed them, and the grit scraping across her eyeballs instantly forced out tears.

A few minutes later, feeling began to return to her body. She tried to move her limbs, struggling to sit up from the ground. She wanted to get water from her space to wash her face, but she was too weak; her consciousness couldn’t enter it. Evelyn tried many times, finally clenching her jaw and focusing all her attention to pull a bucket of water from her space. Just as she was about to wash her face, she saw the dense network of open wounds and the thick layer of grime on her hands. Evelyn froze for a moment.

There was no time for idle thoughts. After washing her hands and face, Evelyn was so exhausted she was drenched in hot sweat. She tried to call out for Ronan Kendrick, but her throat felt like it had been scoured by ash, too painful to make a sound.

She tried to stand, but even with all her strength, she just fell heavily back to the ground. A gust of wind kicked up dust that flew into her eyes, nose, and mouth, sending Evelyn into a fit of painful coughing.

She remembered everything that happened before she lost consciousness. The fireball descending, the plane catching fire, and then, they began to fall. She had passed out during the descent. In that moment, Evelyn had thought she was going to die. The feeling of weightlessness terrified her. She wanted to hold on tight to Ronan Kendrick. ’Even in death,’ she had thought, ’being with him shouldn’t be too painful.’

But she hadn’t managed to grab onto anything. Evelyn lay sprawled pitifully on the ground. Her limbs were still intact, but her body was covered in wounds. A large burn on her back was still bleeding. A lot of her hair had been burned away, the ends giving off a scorched smell. Evelyn clutched her stomach and frowned. It was churning violently, and she couldn’t stop herself from dry heaving twice before spitting up a mouthful of blood.

After spitting up the blood, an unbearable pain tore through her organs. Evelyn felt like a towel that had been twisted into knots, every inch of her skin, every fiber of her being, repeatedly ravaged and beaten.

It took a long time for her to recover some strength. Evelyn focused her will again and pulled a bottle of special medicine from her space. Without bothering to wipe away the large beads of sweat dripping from her forehead, she poured out three pills and shoved them directly into her mouth, swallowing them down.

Less than two minutes after she took the medicine, her stomach began to burn. Evelyn quickly drank some water, trying to quell the pain. About half an hour passed before the pain slowly subsided, and she was finally able to stand.

Dragging her sore, weak legs, she began to move slowly. Evelyn couldn’t tell if it was day or night. The sky was a hazy gray, as if covered by a layer of dust. There were no stars, no Moon, and no sun. Beyond the dust, some light seemed to filter through, and the faint glow made it impossible to distinguish day from night.

Evelyn took out a flashlight. Her throat had recovered somewhat, but she still couldn’t speak. She walked around anxiously. In the beam of the flashlight, she could see her surroundings clearly.

It was as if she had landed on the surface of the Moon. The ground was pockmarked and uneven, with no signs of plants or animals. As far as the eye could see, there were only mounds of dirt and rocks. Evelyn’s palms began to sweat with anxiety. She accidentally kicked something hard and stumbled. But when she saw what she had kicked, her eyes widened in shock.

It was a piece of metal plating from the plane, about a meter long. The plate had been burned black. Evelyn touched it; it was cold. ’Have I been unconscious for a long time?’ she thought. ’Otherwise, the metal should still be warm, right?’

Evelyn started walking in circles. A few minutes later, she found another piece of metal plating behind a rock.

She had found wreckage from the plane, but there was no sign of anyone else. Evelyn’s mind was filled with questions, and a deep sense of unease.

What she couldn’t understand was how she was still alive and in one piece when the plane had been smashed to smithereens. Even though she had drunk Ronan Kendrick’s blood, that had only improved her constitution. ’It couldn’t have made me this resilient, could it?’

Besides, she hadn’t entered her space before passing out, because at that moment, she had no control over her body at all.

Her anxiety and worry over not finding Ronan Kendrick made Evelyn forget her physical pain. The ash left behind by the fire was acrid and choking. Her freshly washed face quickly became black with soot. Right now, she had no mind to care about her appearance. Evelyn stumbled across the barren land, desperately hoping to see Ronan with every step. But she searched for a long, long time without finding any sign of him.

「Three days later.」

Evelyn returned to the spot where she had first woken up. In those three days, she had covered more than ten kilometers at a snail’s pace, but she had found nothing. The unease in her heart grew stronger. She had a feeling she should return to where she started, that maybe Ronan would be there waiting for her.

For three days, the sky had remained a hazy gray, and the air seemed to be growing murkier. Without a mask and goggles, one’s face would be covered in carbon ash within half an hour.

The entire world had turned into a true wasteland. Evelyn’s initial anxiety had given way to numbness. Her white protective suit was covered in so much carbon ash that she could probably shake off several pounds of it. Her feet were blistered and bleeding, but she seemed to feel no pain, ignoring it completely. Evelyn could speak now, and she called Ronan Kendrick’s name over and over again.

’I will find him. I have to.’

「The fifth day.」

Evelyn used her waking spot as a center point and set off in a new direction to continue her search for Ronan. The burns on her body, infected by the dust, were constantly bleeding and oozing pus. Evelyn could even smell the foul odor coming from her own body. She stood on a rock, staring blankly into the distance.

’If I can’t find Ronan, what will I do?’

Evelyn looked up at the hazy gray sky as a single tear slid from the corner of her eye. For five whole days, this was the first time she had cried out of fear. That single tear was like the opening of a floodgate. She squatted down, hugged her knees, and began to wail, her heart breaking.

’What am I going to do?’

’Someone, please tell me the answer.’

Evelyn cried until her stomach cramped. She cried until her eyes were dry and could no longer produce a single tear. She took a dagger from her space and slashed it heavily across her wrist.

Blood dripped onto the ground. Evelyn lay down, letting it drain from her body, little by little.

"Evelyn... Evelyn..." In her daze, Evelyn thought she heard many people calling her name. She opened her eyes and looked around, but it was just a hallucination. It was quiet all around; there was nothing. Evelyn lay back down. ’Let it end like this,’ she thought.

"Evelyn..."

"Evelyn..."

The voice came again. This time, Evelyn didn’t pay it any mind. She closed her eyes, quietly waiting for death to arrive.

"Evelyn..."

"Evelyn..."

In the distance, a figure came limping toward her. Hearing the footsteps, Evelyn opened her eyes in disbelief.

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