Blue Fractures (Part 3)

The city's edge was a forgotten ruin, concrete and steel silently decaying in the fog like collapsed tombstones. Night lay deep, as thin cyan mist rose from the ground, flooding over broken pavement like a tide, swallowing extinguished streetlights. When wind blew, low howls echoed between abandoned buildings like unrecorded laments. In the distance stood a solitary low building, windows shattered, walls covered in moss, a crooked antenna on its roof appearing and disappearing in the mist. That was Simon's laboratory, once glimmering with machinery and dreams, now only desolate silence.

At 03:59:47, a night bird flew past, its wings cutting through the fog, leaving a brief ripple. It landed on the laboratory's eaves, black feathers clinging wet to its body, its sharp beak pecking at rusted metal with a crisp ding. If a camera existed, it would capture the bird's eyes—two points of deep blue light, like miniature stars, staring into the depths of the fog. The bird's claws gripped the eaves, its nails etching fine marks on the metal, as if writing a code no one could understand.

The laboratory's main door stood half-open, a faint blue light seeping through the crack like a dying lamp. Wind pushed against the door, producing a low creaking like an old man's breathing. A faded sign hung on the doorframe, its text blurred, only "Lab... Si..." remaining as fragmented characters. Fog crept through the crack, like an invisible hand caressing the darkness within. From afar came the sound of water dripping, slow and rhythmic—drip, drip, drip—like time rotting in ruins.

At 04:00:12, a slight vibration emerged from underground, subtle yet distinct, as if some machine's core still functioned. The laboratory walls trembled slightly, water droplets seeping from moss crevices, mixed with blue light, sliding down cracks like tears spreading on stone. The vibration's source remained unlocatable, but it awakened dormant dust, gray particles suspended in the fog like lost ghosts. The night bird raised its head, shaking its wings, seemingly sensing something, yet not flying away.

This ruin had once been Simon's sanctuary. Here he spent countless nights, fingertips stained with oil, sketches piled on tables, blue scarf hanging loosely from his shoulders. He once told Lin Se: "This is where love begins; I'll prove it with machines." Now that sentence scattered like ashes in the wind, lost in fog, nowhere to be found. His disappearance turned the laboratory into an empty shell, instruments coated with dust, screens cracked, only an old terminal in the corner still flickering, random code jumping on its screen like an unfinished farewell.

At 04:01:33, a vague shadow appeared in the fog, humanoid yet unstable. It approached from afar, steps slow, as if testing the boundaries of this ruin. The shadow stopped before the laboratory door, extending a hand, touching the doorframe, fingertips tracing rust marks, leaving a faint trail. Blue light spilled from the door crack, illuminating the shadow's face, outlining a blurred contour—a tall, thin figure, the remnant of a scarf swaying in the wind, like Simon's phantom. But as the fog swirled, the shadow dispersed, as if it had never existed.

At 04:02:09, the night bird suddenly took flight, its cry shattering the silence like a knife piercing the fog's depths. It vanished into the night, leaving behind only a damp feather that fell on the steps before the door, reflecting a deep blue light. The vibrations inside the laboratory ceased, the dripping sounds silenced, the blue light dimmed as if devoured by fog. The ruins returned to silence, only fog rolling across the ground like an endless veil, concealing all unsolved mysteries.

In the distance, the city's lights flickered weakly, like a string of candles about to extinguish. Lin Se's kitchen stood kilometers away from these ruins, yet some invisible thread connected them—that blue spice, that locked audio file, that phrase "the kitchen is love's grave." The laboratory walls seemed to whisper, telling Simon's past, but the fog was too thick for anyone to hear.

At 04:03:00, a cyan glow appeared on the horizon, like a sigh before dawn. The ruins slumbered in fog, waiting for someone's arrival.