horror effect

"Monsieur Boiille is mad! Madame Boiye is pregnant!" cried Julien.

"Don't act like a scared fool," Stephen said while drinking water.

"The combination of the two pieces of news is indeed very newsworthy."

"You're not going to do your weird reporter duties in Eastern Europe, are you?"

"No." Julian smiled, "I'm just surprised. I'm worried that the children born by Mrs. Bouyil will be different. Doesn't it mean that emotions will affect the fetus? Anxiety and restlessness come from the subtle changes in the orbits of the stars in the sky. Babies will be affected by them..."

Stephen glanced at him contemptuously. "You believe this?"

"Oh, don't forget what I said, the land of Eastern Europe is full of witches, ghosts and magical beasts that we can't believe." He looked at Stephen with a hint of sarcasm in his eyes.

Stephen narrowed his eyes.With malicious intentions, he intuitively felt that some kind of particle in the air was slowly penetrating towards him, but he couldn't tell what it was. "What do you want to say?" He said coldly, implying - don't test me.

"What happened this morning when you were sleeping in your own room as you said?"

The hot water trickled down Stephen's neck and chin like a stream, the water glass overturned and rolled on the carpet, and the remaining hot water in the glass was successfully splashed onto the bed, while Stephen was bending over and coughing hard.

He choked on the water.Julian patted him on the back, wondering why the simple question he had asked had excited the young man so much.

Stephen ran to the bathroom to find a towel, but obviously a lot of water had been poured into his trachea. Not only did he not recover, but his cough became worse.

Julian listened to the increasingly earth-shattering sound and decided he had better go and see.He saw Stephen bent over with his back to the door, shaking his whole body with a violent cough.

“Stephen, are you okay?” Julian asked with concern.At the same time, a hand reached for Stephen's shoulder.

The glass mirror was peeling off, the towel rack was peeling off, the white porcelain surfaces on the toilet bowl and tub, the tiles on the ceiling and walls were peeling off, everything in the bathroom was collapsing and shattering, countless pieces turned to powder before they hit the floor , blown away by the wind.The wind was so strong that Julian had to bend down and hug his head, but his other hand was still holding Stephen tightly.

He felt almost suffocated by the wind, but it started to die down, and Julian suddenly caught a whiff of damp, salty air.

He opened his eyes and found that he was standing on a beach, and the sea water was rippling not far away. There was nothing on the sea extending from his eyes to the end of the horizon, only the sun jumping on the water surface, surrounded by It is full of pleasant waves splashing.

"Oh... Stephen, look where we've been sent." He said helplessly.

"Don't you like it here?" said a voice overhead, and it was definitely not Stephen's voice.

Julian shuddered, looked up, and saw standing in front of him was the white-haired and red-eyed Bernus Molatov, not the blond-haired and gray-eyed Stephan Breumerost.Julian stared at his right hand on Bernous's pale shoulder in surprise, and he could have sworn that he never let go of it.

"And Stephen? Where is he?"

Bernous watched his anxious expression with amusement and said, "Are you worried about him—that stupid, conceited pretty boy?"

"Where did you get him?!" Julian yelled.

"He's fine. I'm sure he'll feel comfortable, I can guarantee that." Bernous nodded.

"Your promise?" Julian nearly laughed. "Why should I trust a serial killer's assurances!"

Bernus was not angry, he said calmly with a smile on his face, "Of course you don't have to believe it. But who else can you trust? Stephen's parents, or any idiot in that town? Julian Raymond, you should have understood that I am the master here, and all your experiences—every vibration your finger touches, your pupils receive, your eardrum is pulled—is from me."

Julian wanted to refute, but he felt powerless.Bernous was right, in the dream he was the only master, and Julian knew he could be killed at any time, like mad Theoros, or—he suspected—like Bouy, who was growing mad gentlemen. "What do you want?" he asked.

"Ah, we are finally getting close to the subject. Congratulations, Mr. Julian Raymond."

Julian smiled weakly, and Bernus continued: "I hope you can accompany me on a trip." He took Julian's hand, turned half a circle, turned his back to the ocean, and then raised his pale face to the endless sandy beach. finger. "We're going there."

"But there..." Julian followed his finger and looked into the distance, except for the endless empty and lifeless sandy beach, he saw nothing that could attract attention, not even a slight ups and downs of the terrain.

"Nothing, right? No, there's stuff there, lots of stuff, and it's there, you just don't see it. Let's go over there and see. You're bound to find a lot of interesting things, you're bound to find them , you'll find—everything."

Bernus showed a mysterious smile, took Julian's hand, and walked forward.

They walk forward.Julian kept looking around carefully, afraid of missing something, but to his disappointment, his eyes were tired from looking at the yellow sand, which remained unchanged and monotonous.

Sand is sand, Julian thought, and it can never turn into a pumpkin.

He began to grow impatient and less serious than before.On the contrary, Bernus, who was walking beside him, still maintained that half-smile expression.

Before long, Julian noticed some changes.He found that the sand was not so uniform, and it seemed that there were many small light-colored particles mixed in it, so he bent down and grabbed a handful, put it in the palm of his hand, and gently brushed off the sand, leaving a pile of lighter white particles in the end. thing.

Some of them are rough, some are smooth, some are like spikes, and occasionally there are a few larger, spindle-like things.

"What are these?" he asked Bernous.The latter glanced at it and said: "It's all the remains of tiny ancient organisms-- radiolarian skeletons, foraminifera shells, sponges and fragments of coral skeletons, and the larger ones are Subert's spindles. Well, I saw Bilingxing coral and honeycomb coral in it."

Julian let go, letting the pile of small bones fall back onto the sand, and walked on.Soon, he found something new, this time some small dark oval shells, and some broken knuckle-like things.

"That's a priest shell, that's a skeleton shell. Ah, congratulations, this is a trilobite shell," Bernous said.Julian looked at him, "Aren't these animals from our time?"

"Of course not." Bernus replied with a smile, "They are typical creatures of the Paleozoic Ordovician."

"So... which era did the pile just now belong to?"

"Cambrian."

"We're moving forward in the history of biological evolution!" exclaimed Julian. "That's what you want me to see!"

"Don't jump to conclusions so quickly, let's move on."

After the Ordovician came the Silurian.Julian is well aware of this.

Sure enough, the beach began to thin out, patches of gray-green moss began to appear on the stones, and then small grass-like plants grew on the ground, with tiny leaves inserted on ugly tube-like stems.

"This is the Cuson's fern," said Bernous, and told Julian that a conch shell with many angles he had found was originally the coat of a donner's whelk.

They have now entered the Devonian period, the beach has completely disappeared, and many plants have come out of the ground like crazy, most of them are knot fern and stone pine, and the ground is covered with a pleasing green.Julian finds a freshly dead monofin and the shell of an ukru ammonite.

The weather became hotter and hotter as we walked, and the surrounding plants grew abnormally tall, forming a forest. There were ponds and swamps everywhere on the ground. Some small insects began to fly around the ground. Occasionally, some charcoal lizards would crawl from their feet. But, chasing insects.

As the plants flourish, plant-eating animals appear, and the Falken's beasts run around in the forest, gnawing on the lush ferns.

"Turtle!" Julian said, pointing to something in the distance with its neck stretched out and its carapace crawling.

"That's a toothless dragon," Bernus corrected him. "We're in the Triassic now."

"You know a lot," said Julian.

"Because I have a lot of time."

In fact, he has infinite time because he is not alive.Julian thought, but didn't say it.Then he found the cypresses and leeks appearing in the woods.A shadow passed overhead, and Julian figured they had entered the Jurassic.

Indeed, Bernous began pointing out various dinosaurs--Pterodactyl, Pterodactyl, Yuesaurus, Iguanodon, Stegosaurus with its large bony plates, and Diplodocus with its long neck jutting out of the water.Herbivorous dinosaurs silently ate plants, while carnivorous dinosaurs waited for an opportunity to ambush not far away.

There were a lot of ferns, which made Julian feel that the Cretaceous period was a good period for animal husbandry, and the maple and palm trees he was familiar with gradually appeared.

The animals that Julian was familiar with gradually increased. He saw rabbits, horses, cows, sheep, etc., and even saw lions from a long distance, and saw the jets of water sprayed by whales on the seashore.

Evolution went fast, and the apes were jumping and swaying on the branches, and then they started coming down to the ground, and they started walking on their feet, and they started standing upright.

Finally, Homo sapiens, whom Julian was expecting, passed through the jungle and passed them.Houses began to appear on the land, cooking smoke wafted in the air, and people raised animals; trees were cut down one by one, and human houses were built bigger and bigger, and they gave birth to more and more children; people began to hate each other, they fought wars, built nation.

Julian and Bernus walked over scorched earth and ruined fields.

Soon those lands were filled with people mining mines, making steel, and building railroads.There is no shadow of the forest on the ground, and the buildings are taller than each other.

Like a fast shot in a movie, one group of people is born, another group of people dies, is born again, and dies again; their clothes change from short to long and from long to short, and their lives are also good and bad.

In an endless cycle of birth, development, and death, each species survives at the expense of the others, and benefits from their misfortunes.When he tried to see the whole picture of nature, everything he saw was changing. A species multiplied for 700 million years, and it took 700 million years for it to become extinct. The beginning is the end.

And what are we humans doing?

Those endless observational data, formulas, works, those endless theories, theories, and doctrines, aren't they madness before facing the terrible abyss?

We are making progress, we are constantly creating novel lives, and we are continuing to do exciting things.

But what are these for?

Does anyone know the target?

Can there be real purpose in a project that seems never to be completed?

Julian felt like throwing up. The tireless humans in front of him made him sick.

At last the mad whirlwind of humanity ceased, and Julian and Bernus stood on a cobbled street surrounded by gloomy old houses.

Julian recognized this place—it was the Eastern European town he stumbled into.His face began to pale.

"Why did you bring me here? That's what you're here for, isn't it?" he asked Bernous.

"I want you to watch something. Come with me."