THE TIME DOME
Part Two
Marcus ignored the vagrant, yanked the steering wheel, and swerved onto the sidewalk to pass the traffic jam. He was just accelerating when a deafening screech of brakes erupted beside him. He turned his head to see a dump truck bearing down from the side, its grille growing enormous in his field of vision. Marcus managed only a grunt before the truck sent his car flipping over.
The car rolled several times before coming to a stop, the cabin completely deformed. Marcus hung upside down, pinned in his seat, his spine shattered. He tried to cry for help, but only coughed up a mouthful of blood, then blacked out.
***
Marcus leapt out of bed and looked blearily at the clock: 4:50 AM.
He felt his face, felt his entire body—not a single scratch. Outside the window, the enormous dome still dominated the sky, and the crowds were even more frenzied than the day before, yelling and screaming. Some cars were barreling through the streets with reckless abandon. In the distance, columns of thick smoke rose—something was on fire.
Marcus stepped out the door, surveying the chaos in bewilderment. He could no longer explain what he saw through reason alone.
The vagrant passed by, manic, exultant, shouting: "See? See? This is God's final judgment! We're all locked in a prison of time!"
Marcus grabbed the vagrant's clothes. "What do you mean, a prison of time?"
"Ha, you don't know yet?" The vagrant's grimy face was radiant with excitement. "Nobody can get out—this is a prison of time! After midnight, everything resets to the starting point, everything goes back to how it was before! Get it? We're trapped in June 5th forever!"
Marcus released his grip. He felt utterly bewildered. Reset to the starting point? Why? He looked up and saw a mosaic of faces contorted by excitement and terror, screaming, venting their panic and manic exhilaration in the turmoil.
Instinctively, Marcus worried about his daughter's safety and immediately ran toward the school. Along the way, violence was everywhere—people seemed to have lost their minds, unleashing every primal urge of vandalism, looting, and destruction. If someone looked at you wrong, they'd grab a weapon and beat you to the ground. Even sexual assault was happening openly on the street.
Social order had collapsed entirely, and one thing was certain—this was only the beginning. When everyone realized that the laws and morals constraining them were meaningless, things would get far more terrifying.
When Marcus arrived at the school, he found it had also descended into chaos. Torn textbooks littered the ground; the flagpole on the athletic field had been toppled; even the administration building was on fire. Older students ran whooping in packs through the campus. He searched the entire school but found no trace of his daughter.
Marcus hurried on to the Municipal People's Hospital—his wife Helen's workplace. The situation there was hardly better: total disarray. He rushed into the obstetrics department and grabbed a frantic young nurse. "Where's the head nurse?"
The flustered nurse gestured vaguely behind her. "There's a woman in difficult labor—the head nurse, she—"
Marcus didn't wait for her to finish. He burst into the delivery room. A woman was groaning in agony on the bed, her face drenched with beads of sweat the size of soybeans. Helen was attending to her. And his daughter Lily was sitting on a bench nearby.
"Lily!" Marcus shouted.
"Daddy!" Lily ran into his arms.
"How are you here?" Marcus kissed his daughter's forehead excitedly.
"Mommy picked me up early this morning and brought me here." Lily looked up. "Daddy, what's wrong with all the people outside? They're acting so scary."
"It's okay, it's okay. Daddy's here." Marcus held his daughter tightly and looked at Helen. "Do you know what's going on?"
"I've been stuck here since yesterday morning—at least it seems like yesterday morning." Helen wiped the sweat from her forehead and glanced at the laboring woman. "During the night, near dawn, she'd already given birth. But after the time reset this morning, she went back to this state."
"The reason?"
"I don't know." Helen shook her head. "But from what I can tell, everywhere under this dome is experiencing the same thing."
Marcus looked at the woman suffering through difficult labor and asked, "Then why are you still helping her deliver? What's the point?"
"She's in difficult labor—I can't just ignore that. I've always told you, this is my duty as a medical professional."
"Duty, duty! All you ever care about is your work and your patients!" Marcus shook his head. "Helen, the reason our marriage has ended up like this is precisely because you've always been this way."
"Marcus—we're in this situation now, and you still want to fight with me?"
Marcus sighed and fell silent. She was right—what was the point of arguing now? The only thing he could do was stay and be with his daughter.
Late into the night, a baby's cry suddenly rang out from the delivery room. Lily said happily, "That lady had her baby!"
Helen came out carrying a newborn—umbilical cord cut, still pink and fresh. She exhaled with relief and looked out the window at the night sky: dark as ink, with a blurry moon hanging above the dome.
"It's about to end," Helen said.
Marcus was about to speak when his wristwatch emitted a soft beep—the midnight chime. Immediately after, a strange sensation washed over him, like a vortex pulling him under, sinking, sinking...
Marcus woke up in bed, opened his heavy eyes, and checked the clock: 4:50 AM.
***
He sat up in bed, holding his head, not wanting to look out at everything before him. The chaos today was even worse than yesterday. He could smell gunpowder smoke and hear faint explosions in the distance. Listening carefully, he made out the sound of gunfire from the streets—these people had completely thrown off all restraint.
Under these circumstances, Marcus's greatest fear was for his daughter, but he knew that even if he rescued her time and time again, it would be futile. He had to find a way to end this once and for all.
But how? He stared at the wall clock, its digital face coldly informing him: time was forever frozen on June 5th. It was as if someone had crafted a monstrous nightmare, forcing everyone trapped inside to wake, again and again, without end.
*On June 5th, the Terror King shall descend from the heavens, ruling the four quarters in the name of happiness.*
Suddenly, those words flashed through his mind like lightning.
That post! Marcus shot to his feet. He remembered the bizarre post he'd seen before the time dome appeared. Drawing on years of experience in government work, he was certain that post wasn't random—it was deeply connected to the crisis at hand.
"Night Blade..." Marcus murmured the username. He looked up at the massive dome outside. This person had predicted everything. Who was he?
A plan crystallized in his mind. Marcus immediately drove to his workplace. The moment he walked through the door, he was stunned—his immediate superior, Division Director Zhou, was sitting calmly at his desk as usual, a lit cigarette beside a steaming cup of tea.
"Director Zhou, you..." Marcus was flabbergasted. "What are you doing here?"
Director Zhou gave him a flat look and said: "Faithfully standing at my post every day."
Marcus's heart surged with admiration for the old leader, but this wasn't the time for sentiment. He had more important things to do.
Marcus powered up a computer and entered the server backend. Sure enough, though the connection to the internet had been lost, the local network's data was still preserved. From the sea of user information, he quickly located the ID "Night Blade" and traced the IP address. The location was right here in Luo City.
Marcus shut down the computer. "Director Zhou, hold on a little longer. I'll find a way to end this."
"End this? What's different about now?" Director Zhou looked up at him, his eyes without a ripple. Whether he'd been stunned into apathy by the catastrophe or had simply given up, Marcus couldn't tell.
For a moment, Marcus couldn't answer.
He didn't waste any more time and left immediately. As he walked out, Director Zhou called after him: "Remember to come to work on time tomorrow."
Following the IP address, Marcus found a derelict logistics warehouse on the outskirts of the city. He crept inside and saw a gaunt man sitting with his back to him, wrapped in a thin blanket. In stark contrast to the warehouse's aging equipment, a high-end Apple computer sat on the table beside him. Marcus was certain—this was the computer that had posted the message.