704: 223.
Belfast Today News 704: 223.
Belfast Today News Traces of the storm that had ravaged not long ago still lingered in the gloomy newspaper office.
Unmaintained, the windows had been shattered by the violent winds carrying dried branches and pebbles, allowing rain and wind to pour indiscriminately into the factory and the second-floor office area.
Desks, chairs, and machines were toppled and askew, with shredded, soaked scraps of paper everywhere and remnants of text still visible.
The only sound in this building was the hollow echo of dripping water.
Drip—drip—
Water dripped from the dim ceiling into a puddle behind the door, the ripples disturbing the gloomy sky outside and a pair of unreal, pale, bare feet.
Anna surveyed the factory area on the first floor, where a dozen similar hefty machines were scattered, those near the windows clearly damaged.
The cold aura that emanated seed as if tentacles reaching into every dark dead corner of the newspaper office, yet it was controlled to envelop only this building.
There was no odd aura.
In fact, since nearing the industrial area, the strangeness had begun to decrease.
Perhaps they were unwilling to occupy the spacious factory filled with machines, or maybe there was a “big one” hidden deep in the industrial area.
They dared not co closer.
The water pooling in the factory looked dirty, and Anna floated over it to the interior.
She checked the printing machines on either side, the damp tal surfaces reflecting the bright light from outside the windows or doors.
Being wet might not affect their use, but the problem was that Anna saw that at the sa position on each machine there were wires wrapped in black rubber.
These were electrical wires.
Electricity was needed to make them work.
Even though Belfast’s power station was deep in the industrial area, no more than two or three miles from the newspaper office, Anna couldn’t possibly manage to get the power station, silent for over half a month, back up and running—that would be too conspicuous.
Perhaps there were manual printing machines upstairs.
Anna thought, heading to the office area to search, but found nothing.
The second floor had no printing machines or anything resembling one.
Places that didn’t rely on handwriting and had fewer prints than the newspaper office should have manual printing machines, like banks or large companies.
Anna picked up the oil lamp that had rolled under the desk and fortunately not shattered.
She lit it with matches found in a drawer and unfolded a map next to the dimly glowing wick, searching for the locations of banks and large companies.
They were all around the comrcial district, not hard to find; even one block had several, and it was foreseeable she could easily find printing machines there.
But that was where Belfast used to be the busiest, and still was—only the residents had changed.
Going there would be sowhat dangerous, but that was secondary.
Anna was more concerned about the possibility of unseen strangeness following her unnoticed, possibly attaching a mark to her and following her to Lu Li.
rely imagining that scene could make Anna’s breath go out of control.
Hesitating, she noticed a map pressed under the oil lamp.
Or rather, a blueprint of the newspaper office.
Anna moved the oil lamp aside a bit.
The blueprint, frad, had “Belfast Today Newspaper Office” written in the lower right corner.
In addition to the first-floor factory and the second-floor offices, it also marked the backyard, storage warehouse, and the basent.
Maybe the basent and the storage warehouse had manual machines.
Anna first went to the storage warehouse in the backyard.
It contained neatly stacked tarp-covered blank papers, but, unfortunately, no machines.
The basent was beneath the gap of the first and second-floor stairs; the unseen hand pushed the tal door, which remained immovably shut.
The door wasn’t locked, more like it was bolted from inside.
Anna paused slightly, her breath tentacles probing into the space behind the door.
Still no odd aura… This usually ant two possibilities.
It could be an entity like Jimmy or a human.
And the forr obviously wasn’t likely to lock itself in the basent…
Was he a survivor?
Anna lifted her ghostly palm, her knuckles rapping against the sheet tal door, making a sound clearer than a dull wooden door.
Thud, thud, thud.
Anna slowed her pace and listened for any noise from behind the door.
As she knocked on the sheet tal door a second ti, a faint rustling sound ca from behind it.
“Survivor?” Anna asked toward the door, receiving no reply.
Convinced there was a living creature hiding in the basent, Anna directly said, “I am an assistant to the Exorcist… planning to print so things here.
If you could help, we would also help you.”
As her words faded, so movents started from behind the door and grew closer.
Screech—
A teeth-grinding friction sound emanated as the bolt was drawn, and slowly, the sheet tal door cracked open, revealing a gaunt head covered in wrinkles, bony as if it was a re skull.
The old man was a survivor but looked weirder than Anna.
His hand clinging to the doorfra resembled a withered claw.
It was unclear how long he had been hiding in the basent, possibly since the disaster struck.
Under the shadow, his murky eyes gazed at Anna, his voice hoarse, “Is what you said true…?
Has the Exorcist… co to save us?”
Anna was about to speak when the old man’s expression suddenly filled with terror.
He noticed Anna’s outline was ethereal and quickly shut the door and bolted it in fear.
“I am a ghost, but indeed, I am the assistant to the Exorcist,” Anna frowned and addressed the stumbling steps moving away from the sheet tal door.
“If I wanted to harm you, I could have entered directly.”
Minutes passed, but no matter what Anna said, the old man refused to co out.
Deciding not to waste more ti on this survivor, her body passed straight through the sheet tal door.
The stairs extended downwards, the walls reflecting the moisture, with a faint glow of firelight emanating from the basent.
In the basent, the old man shivered under a blanket.
The fire in the bowl in front of him was only a few centiters high, resembling a slightly larger oil lamp, with a half-used bucket of ink beside it.
Anna, ignoring the trembling old man, surveyed the basent and saw a machine half the height of a man, covered in a thick layer of dust in the corner, looking similar to the printing machine above but smaller and more worn out.
“Is this machine working?” Anna asked the old man.
He might be a worker here.
The latter visibly shivered, remaining silent.
“Can you operate this machine?” Anna asked again.
Still, no response.
Anna’s expression grew colder as she rembered sothing.
An emotion nad urgency erupted from the depths of her consciousness, like ink dropping into clear water, swiftly spreading throughout her surrounding reason.
Tick-tock—
The old man knew sothing.
But the old man wouldn’t cooperate.
I can make him talk.
A twisted, trembling shadow slowly materialized behind Anna.
It gained substance, as if a real shadow, then detached from beneath Anna’s feet and, like a young girl, took steps toward the old man, rging with his quivering shadow.
Suddenly, the old man stopped shaking and slowly, took off the blanket covering him.
Under the glow of the fire, the old man’s murky eyes filled with indifference and other emotions—pain, contemplation, and excitent…
His na was Robbie Rudnev, an almost sixty-year-old man.
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