In a dark space, a tiny yellow ball of light floated alone in the void, flickering like a dying sun in an endless vacuum——the only light against the absolute dark.

  Suddenly, a thought echoed through the void. In a space where thought existed without words, and message existed without sound.

  It used the tongue of a man yet was not a man. It was something beyond.

  And responding to this entity, there is another ball of light—vermilion, this time. The color of oxygenated blood but illuminating.

  —Steel, they have departed.

  —Are you certain this is the goal?

  —Yes, I do. I need you to evacuate.

  —I will not fear my own people, for they will not harm me.

  —They need not to harm you. The unknown consequences of their actions can destroy you. Many of us have already proved this.

  —And that is exactly why I cannot leave, and that is why I must stay.

  —So be it. I know you cannot be coerced. I wish for your safety, and I will do my best to assist you. But the entropy of this land is too great for my direct intervention.

  —Love, how long do I have left?

  —In their 24-hour-days, 95 of them. Steel, you must evacuate. You cannot save them; you do not have enough time.

  —Will they fail, and you are certain？

  —Yes, they will fail once, and they cannot afford to fail once.

  —I thank you sincerely, Love, you bring my courage back.

  —The force of entropy can lose an infinite amount of times; it cannot fail. A single failure is all that is required for its defeat. Steel. I must warn you, we cannot breach the law, no matter the consequence. The people cannot know us.

  —I will not, and I shall not falter.

  —I wish for your best, Steel.

  The vermilion light extinguished.

  Around him, everything was silent. Even the sounds of insects had stopped. The sky was dark, with not a star or moon in sight. This was the infamous "stretch-out" blackness of the night where you couldn't see your hand in front of your face——a production of over-pollution of this planet causing the entire sky to be blocked out by insidious gloom.

  In this endless darkness, there was one glimmer of light. Chen Feng focused all his attention on that single source of light.

  At that moment, Chen Feng was sitting by the side door of the SP-16ia with the name "Red Vulture". The tactical holographic display on his wrist was designed to be only visible to him. It was playing a short video clip. Chen Feng had watched this video countless times, yet it never failed to captivate him.

  This was his most precious treasure.

  "Son, don't worry about us. We're doing well,"

  A middle-aged man appeared in the frame. "Your younger brother is almost ready to go to school; there won't be any problems. You rest well, we will see you one day."

  The time displayed in the top right corner of the screen, was August 10, 2026. Chen was put into cryostasis in 2023. It was exactly 3 years since his slumber.

  The scene shifted to May 9, 2034.

  "Son, you've been asleep for ten years. Do you feel alright?" A middle-aged woman with gray hair asked. "We've visited you a few times, but we don't know if you are cold..."

  A new date stamp appeared: June 8, 2043.

  A young man smiled at him: "Big brother, I've graduated from college too. Even though I've never talked to you before, our parents and I often come to visit you. Don't worry; both of our parents are in good health. I hope the day you wake up comes soon."

  The recording jumped forward again, to September 7, 2049.

  The young man's smile faded: "Brother, Mom passed away last week because of an illness... She took your picture with her when she was buried. She really wanted to see you."

  Then another leap forward, to January 4, 2061.

  An old man, now frail and elderly, tried to smile: "Son, I might not live long enough to see you. I need to go find your mother... From now on, everything will be relying on your brother... Don't worry about us; we've lived a good life despite all these turmoil and troubled times."

  The next data stamp, continued forward to an even later date, to November 19, 2067.

  Another middle-aged woman with a blank expression appeared: "Mr. Chen Feng, I'm sorry to inform you that your younger brother, Chen Yun, died by criminal homicide last Tuesday. His family has refused to continue paying for your cryogenic preservation fees. According to the agreement your family signed, your cryogenic affairs will now be handled by Washington University’s College of Medicine. However, we reserve the right to conduct necessary medical research on you if you should somehow awaken in the future. If you have any questions about this protocol, please contact the future relevant departments."

  Then, the next one reads to April 20, 2154.

  A middle-aged man, in futuristic but yet still recognizable as some form of business attire, equally expressionless, spoke: "Mr. Chen Feng, according to the related clauses of our company policy, your cryogenic affairs and related equipment will now be considered property of our company, Velarium International Paramedics. After an appraisal, they will be added to the assets as a part of the company's holdings. We wish you well."

  If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.

  ……

  A.D. 2471.

  A new entry. The screen flickers alive. A young woman appears — dressed in some kind of faded formalwear, her blazer scorched at the shoulders, her collar askew, her eyes dark with exhaustion. Behind her, the once-pristine insignia of R&N Massenergy flickers intermittently, half-swallowed by static. The feed stabilizes.

  “Chen Feng,” she begins, voice hoarse but steady, “I suppose… I just wanted to talk.

  Everything ends eventually. Wealth. Power. This era. Even us. And formality, I think, means little now.

  I’m Arana Raylane. Current — and last — chief executive officer of R&N MassEnergy. Forty-first to hold the title, not that it matters anymore. The real leaders? They fled south, to the bunkers beneath Antarctica. I was assigned this position… by protocol, by default. It doesn’t matter.

  Long story short: we’re failing. All of us. Every single corporation.

  For the past three centuries, the world was ours. The companies’. We seized land, water, air, even sunlight — privatized it all. We dismantled governments, dissolved laws, turned nations into obsolete ghosts. We constructed new regimes and policies in all of our favors and enacted laws that disenfranchised all unborn potential competitors. We maximized our profits and made sure our monopoly was permanent.

  Efficiency, we said. Optimization. Prosperity.

  But it was always about comfort. For us.

  I was born into that comfort. The elite stratum. I remember my father taking me to the Pleasure Domes in what used to be England — where executives schemed in lounges perfumed with ozone and silk, where ten-thousand-Euro wines were poured like tap water, and where we dined in the world’s most prestigious restaurant.

  But if I’m being honest… I preferred the synth-salmon. The real thing tasted like rot.

  Sorry. That was off topic.

  What you need to know is this: one of the Arks came back.

  The Ark Initiative — our grand escape. Hundreds of colony ships were sent into the stars when Earth began to die at the end of the 21st century. One of them returned, and they’re not what we expected. Not corporate. Not mercantile. They don’t have stockholders; they do not calculate profits and returns; and they are not one of us. They call themselves the People’s Republic of New Terra.

  Country. State. That wasn’t a company. We dug open every rusty archive just to find their concept.

  They were... extinct, ever since the First Megacorp seized this world by the end of 22nd century. And it was their dissolution—an event called the 'Great Collapse' that led to the global nuclear exchange, which led to the Earth you see it today.

  Our fear and our greed brought this to us. We monopolized knowledge itself. For hundreds of years, we punished innovation, persecuted thinkers, banned all private teachings and learnings, controlled all education, and constructed an entire planet of obedient, ignorant, and docile people for the sake of control. We feared progress more than stagnation, because progress meant uncertainty — meant threats to the throne; meant market disruptors to our existing market share.

  We were risk-averse, we did not bear social responsibility, because it is easier to compete with the others when we don’t bear them. And now, the consequences finally come to us.

  We became enemies of the future.

  Some of us knew. Whispered. Regretted. But fear keeps the machine turning, doesn’t it?

  And now? They’ve come back. With ships beyond comprehension. With logistic capacity in astronomical numbers. With minds sharper than anything left on this dying rock. They crossed lightyears to reach us — and we never even left our own system.

  I first saw you fourteen years ago, Chen Feng.

  I was still a teenager then, barely old enough to understand the world I’d inherited. You were like this — sealed, sleeping. Fourteen years have passed, and you haven’t changed a bit. Still exactly as you were when they froze you over four hundred years ago.

  I wonder: what was life like in your time?

  Was hope still free? Or had they started monetizing that too?

  Did you dream of something? Anything? Beyond profit and expansion?

  We used to sell hope by the milligram——Biogen’s creations, a permanent pool of drug addicts. We sold them escapism.

  …I suppose that’s all.

  The New Terrans never offered parley. Their machine-soldiers breached the arcology hours ago. I can hear the gunfire in the sublevels now. They’re coming.

  To anyone else who finds this recording: I’m sorry.

  We turned this world into a capitalist graveyard. It wasn’t just one person’s doing——it was a crime of structure, of history, of cultivated greed.

  I won’t pretend I’m innocent. I lived off the blood of it. Benefited from it. I was born too late to stop it, and far too comfortable to try.

  That will be all.”

  Chen Feng sighed, switching the holographic projection back to the initial image—a small family photo. A middle-aged couple held a baby in their arms, with the cradle in the foreground. On the bed lay a skinny young man, forcing a smile for the camera.

  This was the only memento from that era—and even its survival is a miracle. Over more than four centuries, Earth had undergone unimaginable transformations, making Chen Feng doubt whether he'd awakened or if he'd reincarnated into some fantasy novel. In the end, he had to concede to reality.

  Reality was this: this year is A.D. 2474 and everything familiar to him was gone. His circle of friends and family were long deceased, and even the photos of his relatives were nothing but memories. Even his own country was no more. The most probable scenario was that he had frozen himself centuries ago, only to be revived miraculously more than four centuries later, left to survive alone in this world.

  Chen Feng closed the projection device and let himself sink into darkness. This was his habit; after watching these images, it always took him some time to shake off the suffocating sadness.

  He extracted a small, unlabeled canister, popped the lid with his thumb, and dry-swallowed a grey hexagonal pill. He swallowed it, jaw tightened as the bitter compounds hit his tongue. He then exhaled shapely.

  "Ridiculous," he muttered into the gloom. It was the only critique he could offer to a fate so thoroughly, so completely, absurd.

  Chen Feng was born a few years before the Millennium dawn, with only hazy recollections of his childhood. Like others of his generation, he grew up witnessing the most rapid expansion of national power in human history. For his first twenty years, he lived a typical life: attending school, taking exams, surfing the internet, and wasting time on video games. Yet, for reasons he himself couldn't fathom, the nihilism and hedonism prevalent among Chinese youth of his generation never touched him. Instead, a hunger for something greater took root.

  He read books, watched the news, and saw a China that was a rising yet also anxious power. He became a patriot, instilled with beliefs in duty, discipline, and the long struggle toward national greatness. It was during this time that he immersed himself in military history of the world thoroughly, convinced this knowledge would make him a better soldier than his peers. His dream was simple yet profound: to join the People's Liberation Army—a notion many of his friends deemed foolish. He believed it would make him part of something larger than himself.

  But fate, like history, cares little for personal aspirations. Diagnosed in his youth with a terminal illness—untreatable and incurable—his short life seemed destined to fade just as salvation arrived, not from the state, but from capital. The same diagnosis that barred him from the army now barred him from any life at all.

  In the years that followed, his parents tried every possible means to save him, going to great lengths—even having another child while still in their advanced age, hoping it might aid in his treatment. Yet, Chen Feng continued to weaken, his body becoming increasingly paralyzed and making him unable to express himself——even the slightest. He could not even attempt suicide even when the terrifying reality was that his mind remained perfectly lucid, overwhelmed by despair every moment of his life.

  Finally, in 2023, a message arrived from an old classmate of his father. Said there is a guy from the United States whose company was researching cryostasis—the preservation of the human body at ultra-low temperatures. The concept was to store patients until future medicine could cure them. They were seeking volunteers for trials. Guided by his parents' last shred of hope, Chen Feng traveled to America. He lay down in the freezing machine, clinging to the memory of his parents' and brother's faces as the cold stole his consciousness.

  It was a colossal irony: a man who believed in Chinese socialism and republicanism was ultimately preserved not by the collective good of his nation, but by a flagship invention of liberal capitalism.

  He knew this sleep might be eternal, that he might never wake. But he never could have imagined that when he did, the world would be nothing like the future he had dared to envision.