Godzilla Earth: Origin

"They haven't reached the front yet? It's been over five hours, and we're still not there!"

Old Li, carrying his child, struggled to move forward in the crowd. He was reaching his physical limit. Sweat poured down his face, his hands trembled slightly, and his entire body was in an extreme state of exhaustion.

Why do I have to suffer like this?

It would have been bearable if he could see the end, but after more than five hours, they hadn't even covered two kilometers. There was no end in sight, no telling when this ordeal would be over.

Both his body and mind were on the brink of collapse.

"Stop pushing! Stop pushing! My father fell! Don't step on him!"

"Waaaah—!"

"There's a dead body! There's a corpse ahead! Don't step on it!"

"Please stay in line! Everyone, please stay in line!"

People. People everywhere. All he could see was a sea of people.

Voices echoed from all directions, mingling with the stench of sweat, the oppressive heat from the crowd, and the painful jostling as people bumped into him.

Old Li kept moving forward, but it felt as if he were walking through hell.

Why do we have to endure this?

He looked ahead. The entrance to the shelter was within sight—he could even see the mass of people inside, their heads packed tightly together.

But they couldn't get in! They just couldn't get in!

Sigh...

The crowd from behind pushed forward, while those in front were pressed back. Every square meter of ground was packed with people.

Old Li tried to push further ahead, but it was impossible. The backs of several young men in front of him formed an impenetrable wall, barring his way.

The shelter was right in front of him, the destination he had struggled so hard to reach.

Yet the last hundred or so meters felt impossibly long, an uncrossable distance.

There were simply too many people. Even in the most crowded public transit systems, with all their advanced technology, boarding and disembarking only required a few meters, at most ten meters, of walking in a packed space.

But here?

Here, they had to cover two kilometers. It was like being stuck at peak rush hour in a subway station a century ago, trying to push through a dense crowd from the end of the platform to the front.

Stampedes had already occurred, making the flow of people even more congested.

Without any advanced technology to assist, managing 20 million people at four entrances in a single day could only result in extreme gridlock.

Out of the 15.8 billion people on Earth, 8 billion were in East Asia. These 8 billion people had been assigned to 120 shelters, meaning each shelter had to accommodate an average of 66.67 million people.

At the moment, this particular shelter had already taken in nearly 40 million people, with 27 million still outside—apart from 7 million who hadn't arrived yet, the remaining 20 million were stuck in the massive crowd.

What does it mean to have 20 million people stuck together? Without subways, trains, cars, planes, or any other transportation methods, what does it mean to have 20 million people packed into one place?

It means despair.

Five hours—over five hours, and they hadn't even moved two kilometers.

Old Li pressed forward through the crowd with his child, trying to get as close to the entrance as possible. But it was no use. After reaching a point just over 200 meters away from the shelter's gate, he found himself unable to move a single step further.

The previous 1.8 kilometers had taken him four hours, but for these final 200 meters, two hours had passed, and he hadn't even advanced 100 meters.

"Someone's fallen! Someone's fallen again! Stop pushing! Stop pushing!"

Thud!

Another commotion erupted ahead. Old Li, still trying to push forward, was forced to retreat. There it was again—the same problem: people shoving each other until someone fell.

The closer they got to the entrance, the more frequently people fell. Once the people at the front fell, it triggered a domino effect, toppling a whole group of people.

When that happened, the area became completely blocked. The crowd behind had to find a way around, but the detour only made the flow of people denser and increased the chances of more people being shoved down.

In these final 200 meters leading to the shelter, countless people had fallen, creating a bottleneck. A single exit designed to handle 200,000 people per hour now struggled to let even 100,000 through.

Sigh.

Old Li sighed for what felt like the hundredth time that day. The crowd behind him kept pushing forward, forcing him to move even though he couldn't take proper steps. Even when he stopped trying to advance, the relentless pressure from behind kept him moving.

And then, just as before, he was pushed back again.

Looking up at the sky, he noticed that the bright dot he had seen hours ago was now accompanied by four other shimmering lights, each more dazzling than they had been five hours ago.

They were separating from something beyond the sky.

They shouldn't come this way, right? I heard the first wave is supposed to hit the Middle East…

Thank heavens.

Suddenly, the crowd ahead loosened up. Sensing an opportunity, Old Li prepared to push forward quickly.

Finally! He might actually be able to make some progress!

He shoved his way forward, and after several minutes of effort, he managed to cover a good distance. But just as he thought he had gained some ground, the flow of people ahead slowed to a crawl again.

This was the limit. He couldn't push through any further.

He stopped, taking a moment to catch his breath, and estimated the distance he had just covered—it was at least 20 meters. Now he was finally within 100 meters of the entrance.

Almost there, almost there. Just a few more pushes, and he would be inside!

Deciding to rest for a moment, he stopped squeezing through the crowd.

At that moment, Old Li heard some movement from the backpack on his back. It was the sound of the little girl—the one entrusted to him by her mother a few hours earlier—stirring.

It seemed she had woken up. She had been asleep the whole time since her mother handed her over, even when he placed her inside the backpack.

Now she was awake, but hopefully, she wouldn't ask about her mother right now—this was definitely not the place for explanations.

Feeling a bit flustered, Old Li was about to say something when the little girl spoke first.

She looked up at the afternoon sky, her voice drowsy and soft.

"Mama…"

"Star…"

"It's falling."

At that moment, one of the large, bright stars in the sky began to shine even more intensely.

Not only did it grow brighter, but its true form also started to become visible to the people on the ground.

"Hey, hey…"

Someone noticed the abnormal change in the sky.

"This… this… this…"

People stammered in fear.

"It's… it's… it's…"

The star in the sky was growing larger and brighter at a visible speed.

"It's falling! Run!!!"

A panicked scream pierced the air. Sensing that something was terribly wrong, Old Li quickly removed the backpack and cradled the child in his arms. Bracing himself as firmly as he could, he prepared for the worst.

Suddenly, an unprecedented force pressed against the crowd from behind. At the same time, the star in the sky became blindingly bright, its light so intense that it stung the eyes of everyone on the ground.

The blinding flashes came one after another, forcing the crowd to stop moving as people shielded their eyes.

Clutching the girl tightly, Old Li closed his eyes and gritted his teeth. He tried not to think, not to listen, focusing only on holding on until the blinding flashes finally stopped.

When the flashes paused for a moment, he cautiously opened his eyes and looked up at the sky.

There, above him, humanity's weapons had intercepted the descending star, holding it at bay outside the world.

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