Apocalyptic Hoarding Diary

As evening approached, a small advance team of military personnel finally broke through some obstacles on foot and reached the park.

They brought limited order, some more specialized tools, and an exhausted medic. They also quickly set up temporary aid stations and began distributing small amounts of supplies, prioritizing the wounded and children.

A young soldier with a youthful face but a resolute gaze held a megaphone and tried his best to maintain order with a hoarse voice, repeatedly emphasizing words such as "stay calm," "help each other," and "wait."

But he and his comrades were soon surrounded by the surging crowd, and the desperate survivors seemed to have grasped at the last straw.

Their emotions quickly shifted from initial anticipation to anxious pleas, and finally to almost uncontrollable pushing and shoving.

"Comrades of the People's Liberation Army! Please! Go to Xingfuli Community! My parents are still on the third floor! Half of that building has collapsed!"

A middle-aged man with bloodshot eyes was almost kneeling down, gripping the young soldier's arm tightly.

"And there's the Sunshine Garden! My husband and child are inside! They're only three years old! You have the tools, please go and rescue them!"

Another woman, her voice shrill and tearful, tried to shove a photo of the child in her arms in front of the soldier's eyes.

"Whisper Apartment! That area is full of tall buildings! Many people must be buried there! You can't just stand here!"

Countless hands reached out to them, and countless names of neighborhoods, information about relatives, and desperate pleas flooded in like a tidal wave, instantly overwhelming the soldiers.

The crowd jostled and pushed, and the soldiers were surrounded in the center, unable to move an inch. Even standing became difficult, and the megaphone in the young soldier's hand was almost knocked away.

He could only raise his voice, almost shouting, in an attempt to explain:

"Everyone, calm down! Listen to me! We understand how you feel! But we don't have enough manpower right now, and heavy equipment can't get in! Going forward blindly is very dangerous and could cause a secondary collapse! Our superiors are allocating resources, and we will develop a plan to search each area one by one..."

But his voice sounded so weak in the face of immense grief and panic, and reason was powerless in the face of the lives of his loved ones.

"We can't wait any longer! They'll die if we wait any longer!"

"Are you abandoning us ordinary people?!"

"Let me go! Give me the tools! I'll dig it myself!"

The scene was almost out of control. A younger private was pushed and stumbled, his face filled with helplessness and struggle.

Looking at the faces of those on the verge of collapse, his eyes reddened, but he could only grip the shovel tightly and stand still, carrying out orders.

Xu Xiaoyan stood a little distance away, silently watching all of this. She could clearly see the sense of powerlessness hidden deep in the young soldier's eyes.

There were only a few of them, and their strength was insignificant in the face of the destruction of the entire city. Their first order was to stabilize this temporary gathering point and wait for reinforcements.

Just then, an elderly woman with white hair suddenly knelt down in the crowd and kowtowed towards the soldiers, her forehead covered in dirt.

"Please... save my son... he's my only son..." This kneeling was like a heavy hammer blow to the hearts of many.

The young soldier froze, staring at the old man. His throat bobbed violently, as if something was blocking his voice, and his hand holding the megaphone trembled slightly.

Finally, he abruptly turned his head and roared in a louder, almost raspy voice:

"We will save them! We definitely will! But it takes time! It requires a plan! For now, please trust us! Please help us maintain order and rescue those you can help! The gathering point needs manpower! The injured need care!"

His voice trembled slightly, almost imperceptibly. He couldn't grant any individual's request; it would be unfair to the others who were waiting and could potentially lead to an even greater tragedy.

The soldiers struggled to form a human wall, trying to separate the crowd slightly. Some survivors who still had some sense of reason began to help persuade the crowd and helped the old lady up.

Just as the young soldiers were desperately trying to calm the crowd, the agitated people were almost overwhelming them.

That familiar, chilling low hum came again from the depths of the earth.

"It's happening again...it's happening again!" someone cried out in a short, sharp scream, their voice filled with disbelief and despair.

In an instant, all the pleas, cries, pushing, and explanations came to an abrupt halt.

The crowd, which had just been extremely excited, seemed to have been frozen in place, and then driven by an even stronger instinctive fear.

No one urged the soldiers on anymore, no one was thinking about any particular neighborhood or family member; the will to survive overwhelmed everything.

"Get down! Get down now!"

"Find an open space! Cover your head!"

People scattered in panic, searching for relatively open spaces, and fell to the ground in a disheveled state. In an instant, a cluster of trembling bodies lay sprawled on the park's lawn.

The young soldier immediately stopped shouting and yelled at his comrades and civilians around him, "Everyone down! Stay away from tall trees! Protect your heads!"

The earth began to tremble violently and wildly once again.

This tremor seemed to be longer and more treacherous than the first one. It was no longer a simple shaking, but was mixed with heart-stopping up-and-down and left-and-right twisting, as if a giant beast was writhing in agony underground.

Xu Xiaoyan quickly lay down in a low-lying grassy ditch, her cheek pressed against the cold, trembling earth. She struggled to turn her head and look towards the city.

Amidst the billowing dust, the distant ruins of high-rise buildings, already teetering on the brink of collapse in the first wave of the earthquake, began their second, even more thorough collapse amidst a deafening roar, as if the last building block had been removed.

A tower that was originally just leaning finally lost its upper structure and, with a sickening creak of twisting steel, slowly but irresistibly broke and slid down, eventually crashing to the ground and stirring up an even larger and denser cloud of dust.

In another residential area that had only partially collapsed, the sound of continuous collapses could be heard again.

The previously existing fragile spaces were completely crushed and compacted by the continuous and violent tremors.

Each distant roar and billowing cloud was like a heavy hammer blow to the hearts of all the survivors. It meant not only the secondary destruction of the buildings, but also...

Even if there were survivors trapped in the crevices of the ruins before, after an hour of relentless destruction, their chances of survival have become extremely slim.

The earthquake finally subsided slowly, and the park was deathly silent.

People looked up in shock, their faces and bodies covered in mud, their eyes empty and numb. No one stood up immediately, seemingly still fearing the next attack.