Above the Blood Moon

Under the crimson moon, everything was bathed in a dark red light.

A huge, ominous, scarlet sphere hung in the sky, like an eye that never closes, coldly watching over this wasteland.

Its light was not warm, but rather had a viscous texture, which spilled onto countless space station remains and piles of electronic waste, staining them a blood-like color.

Further away, several hills made up of abandoned living quarters cast shadows under the red moon; these were the dwellings built by scavengers over generations.

But all of this is just background.

The boy is running.

His breathing was so rapid it felt like his lungs were about to tear, and when his left foot stepped into a dent, he almost lost his balance.

The boy's left arm was a modified prosthetic. His arm instinctively braced itself against the ground, and the metal hand scraped against the steel plate with a screeching sound.

"Damn it..."

He cursed under his breath, his right hand gripping the electronic pulse pistol, cobbled together from various parts. The gun was crudely made, and only two bars of the energy indicator were lit.

In his left hand, a bottle of blue tissue fluid gleamed eerily in the red moonlight.

The liquid was sealed in a transparent container with thick walls, and the label had long since worn away.

He didn't know what it was, only that it could change everything, could allow his sister to leave the brothel at the bottom of the Forgotten City, and could give his grandmother a pair of real, high-quality prosthetic eyes instead of the secondhand ones that often malfunctioned.

"They ran that way!"

A mechanically synthesized shout came from afar.

The boy gritted his teeth, not bothering to check if his ankle was sprained, and charged suddenly toward a small hill made of electronic waste on his right.

His right eye was fitted with a basic type of prosthetic eye, which flashed a faint red warning at the edge of his field of vision.

[Three heat source signals detected, 80 meters away, approaching.]

The basic model can only display the most basic information, has no night vision function, no tactical analysis, and even friend or foe identification has to be judged by the naked eye, but it was something he saved up for two years to buy.

The hill is not high, about ten meters high, and is made up of various fragments.

The boy climbed upwards using both his hands and feet, metal fragments and sharp cables tearing his left trouser leg and leaving fine bloodstains on his calf.

We finally reached the top.

The boy, panting heavily, leaned against a data storage unit that was about half his height, briefly relaxing his tense nerves.

From here, one can see a wider scene of graveyards under the red moon.

Countless remains stretched to the horizon, with the occasional flicker of a scavenger's light in the distance, like will-o'-the-wisps wandering in a graveyard.

He thought he was safe.

His fantasy was shattered by a sharp gunshot.

A bullet entered the boy's lower right abdomen.

The boy didn't even feel any pain; he only felt as if he had been punched in the abdomen, and he fell backward.

Then came the burning sensation, as if someone were pouring molten metal into his body.

He grunted and instinctively rolled down the slope on the other side of the hill, disappearing into the shadows.

"Hit confirmed."

A cold voice came from the other side of the hill.

"The probability that the target will lose the ability to act is 87%."

The boy huddled behind a pile of rubble, his left hand tightly covering his wound, warm blood seeping from between his fingers, staining the metal joints of his modified prosthetic limb red.

He glanced down; the bullet hole wasn't large, but it was deep. His intestines probably hadn't spilled out yet, but if it wasn't dealt with quickly…

He dared not think any further.

"Is the intelligence accurate?"

The cold voice rang out again, this time with a questioning tone, and the boy cautiously peeked out half his head.

Six people were standing on the flat ground on the other side of the hill.

The leader was a middle-aged bald man whose body was covered by silver-black metal prosthetics, covering more than 80% of his body.

The two mechanical legs are equipped with anti-joint assist devices at the knee joints, the left arm is a standard military-grade combat prosthetic, and the right eye is a tactical scanning eye that flashes red light.

Only the head still retains some of the original skin, but there are also several fine heat dissipation fins embedded in that scalp.

Behind him were four or five people with similarly high levels of modification, each equipped with a different model of combat cybernetics. One of them even had a large-caliber sniper rifle slung over his shoulder, with wisps of smoke rising from the muzzle.

And standing next to the bald man...

The boy felt his heart skip a beat.

That was Gon, the Gon who grew up with him in the ruins of Forgotten City.

The two had rummaged through junkyards together for parts that could be exchanged for Covenant Credits, shared a tube of nutrient paste, and vowed to leave this damned place.

Xiao Jie is now speaking with his head down in a humble, almost fawning tone.

"Ken, it's definitely true, sir. I saw him find it with my own eyes in the wreckage of the Albatross. That place had been searched dozens of times, but he just happened to find it in a hidden compartment..."

The man addressed as "sir" turned his head, his tactical scanning eyes emitting a slight buzzing.

"I'm asking if you're sure that's blue tissue fluid and not some other glowing waste?"

"I'm sure! I swear on my life!"

Xiao Jie's voice was trembling.

"He was so excited when he came back that night. He told me this thing was definitely valuable, and that if the information you mentioned earlier was accurate, you could give me a spot for a Level 1 Ability User chip, and... and also the opportunity to join the Red-Clad Men..."

The man didn't answer; he simply raised his intact right hand and made a gesture.

On the other side of the hill, the boy knew time was running out.

He didn't even look back at the pursuers' positions, and directly used his right hand to stuff the bottle of blue tissue fluid into a hidden slot in his left prosthetic arm.

Then he took a deep breath, curled up into a ball, and rolled down the slope of the hill.

The world began to spin.

Red moon, wreckage, metal fragments, dust...

All the sights blended into a blurry mass of color in his field of vision, sharp shards slashed his cheeks and arms, and dust choked his nose and throat.

He gritted his teeth, suppressing the urge to cough, and let his body roll down faster under the force of gravity.

The speed is getting faster and faster.

He heard the hissing sound of mechanical legs starting their power chain coming from the top of the hill; the men were catching up.

The boy felt his back hit something hard, and his rolling motion suddenly stopped.

He groaned, his vision went black, and a large amount of electronic waste fragments and dust fell from the sky, burying him halfway under a pile of broken circuit boards and metal casings.

He dared not move.

Through the gaps in the debris, he could see several figures appearing on the top of the hill.

The man stood at the very front, his tactical scanning eye emitting a red beam that slowly swept across the slope.

One of the people in the group, who was equipped with a heat-sensing prosthetic eye, shook his head.

"The heat source signal is scattered, possibly due to high-temperature residue from friction between the body and the debris during the fall. Should we go down and search carefully?"

The man was silent for a few seconds, then he turned around and walked down the hill the way he came.

Xiao Jie came up excitedly, his face full of a fawning smile.

"Sir, what do you think? Wasn't I right? That kid definitely..."

Scarface raised his right hand, and through the gaps in the shards, the boy saw that it was a human hand holding a simple, live-fire pistol.

As three equally crisp gunshots rang out, the smile on Xiao Jie's face hadn't even completely faded before it turned into a distorted expression mixed with shock, pain, and confusion.

He looked down at the three rapidly spreading bloody holes in his chest, opened his mouth as if to say something, but only dark red blood gushed out.

He fell backward, his eyes still wide open, staring intently at the man.

It's as if it's asking: Why?

"Recover the bodies."

The man's voice remained cold and unwavering.

"If the brain integrity assessment exceeds 80%, it will be sold to those interstellar merchants. Recently, there has been another breakthrough in neural interface technology, and the market price of native human brains has increased."

One of the henchmen stepped forward, and the mechanical arm easily hoisted Xiao Jie's body onto its shoulder.

The corpse was still twitching slightly, and blood dripped from the joints of the robotic arm, splattering onto the ground in dark red blooms.

The remaining people simultaneously raised their right hands to their chests in a prayer gesture, bringing their index and middle fingers together, lightly touching their foreheads, and then pointing towards the red moon.

This is a traditional gesture used by everyone in the Deep Space Graveyard, meaning "May the waste accept your body, and may the red moon illuminate your way home."

But the boy knew that this was just a formality; in the graveyard, the only value of the dead was the parts that could be recycled from their bodies.

The man holstered his pistol and turned to walk back the way he came.

"As for the blue tissue fluid, we have reported to our superiors that we already have six similar samples, which have been sent to the Prometheus headquarters in the Olympus ring for analysis."

"Also, inform the higher-ups that the search of this area is nearing completion and request further instructions."

"Yes."

Several of his men followed behind him, their footsteps gradually fading into the distance.

At the bottom of the hill, in the pile of rubble, the boy waited for a full three minutes before he dared to move slowly, only after confirming that there was no sound around him.

Then he sensed something was wrong.

He felt a hollowness in his abdomen, so he looked down.

A metal pipe pierced diagonally out from a pile of server rack wreckage, piercing right through his lower right abdomen.

The edge of the pipe wasn't sharp; it was even somewhat blunt, but the immense impact caused it to pierce his body like a spear.

His intestines had spilled out, two grayish-pink sections stained with blood hanging beside the tube, still wriggling slightly.

The boy opened his mouth, wanting to scream, but only a faint breath escaped his lips. Fear overwhelmed him, but even stronger than the fear was a kind of absurd resentment.

He hasn't sold the tissue fluid yet, hasn't redeemed his sister, and hasn't bought his grandmother a high-end prosthetic eye.

He trembled as he raised his still-movable right hand and reached for the modified prosthetic arm on his left arm. His fingertips groped along the metal surface and found the switch for the hidden slot.

The blue tissue fluid was still there, and the smooth bottle walls felt cool to the touch.

The boy suddenly laughed, blood trickling from the corner of his mouth. At least this thing was still there, at least…

His consciousness began to fade.

Black spots appeared at the edge of my vision, spreading like ink drops into water. The light of the red moon became hazy and distant, and a sharp ringing sound rang in my ears.

No.

I can't die yet.

At least... at least leave something behind.

With his last bit of strength, the boy pulled a marker from another small compartment in the modified prosthetic limb. It was a gift from his grandmother last year, which she had saved up for half a month's worth of nutritional paste.

He tore open the corner of his tattered shirt and, trembling, wrote on the fabric:

"The small bottle is in the slot on my left arm. Sell it to redeem Xiaoyu and buy Grandma's eyes. I'm sorry, Cockrell."

The handwriting was crooked and some strokes were blurred by blood, but he had finished writing everything he wanted to say.

The boy let go, and the marker rolled to the side. He lay on his back in the pile of scrap, looking at the sky above him, which was dyed red by the crimson moon, as his vision gradually dimmed.

The last image that appeared in my mind was that of my younger sister, Xiaoyu.

She should be thirteen years old this year. I wonder how she is doing in the brothel at the bottom of the Forgotten City. And her grandmother, with her often malfunctioning second-hand prosthetic eyes, always makes her trip and fall in the graveyard at night.

I am sorry.

I'm sorry I couldn't...

Darkness completely engulfed everything.

The boy's blood slowly flowed down the metal tube in his abdomen.

The warm liquid flowed and dripped along the tube wall, eventually gathering into a blood droplet at the end of the tube. The droplet shimmered for a moment in the red moonlight before detaching and falling downwards.

Two meters.

Below is the remains of a space station, half-buried in debris. It is a standard cryogenic chamber, its surface covered with thick dust and rust, with only a nearly worn-down marking on the side barely recognizable.

Deep Space Exploration Program - Hibernation Unit-774

Blood droplets fell precisely onto the curved glass top of the cryogenic chamber.

pat.

The dark red liquid splashed on the glass surface, then flowed slowly along the curve, leaving a clear trail in the dust.

The life support system, which was dormant inside the cabin, detected the biological components in the external liquid, and the backup power, which had been reduced to a critical level, emitted a final, desperate pulse.

Inside the cryogenic chamber, a red light began to flash.

Then, the silence that had lasted for who knows how many years was broken by the low rumble of machinery.

The remaining hibernation fluid inside the cabin began to be drained, the temperature control system was activated, and the defogging device inside the glass top cover emitted a slight electrical hum.

Inside the cryogenic chamber that was about to be opened, a man opened his eyes.

The first thing he saw was the dark red bloodstains on the outside of the canopy glass.

And beyond the bloodstains, there was that star hanging in the sky.

A huge, scarlet moon.