I Became a God Delivering Food in the Apocalypse

Chen Feng’s hiking boots crunched over the broken glass strewn across the floor, the sound unnaturally sharp in the empty supermarket. The tsunami three years ago had left behind a souvenir: white crusts of salt had formed between the shelves, like ashes scattered across the ground. He crouched and ran his fingers over a dried bloody handprint on a shelf. The five claw marks still curved as if their owner had been struggling for dear life. “Damn, they even took all the cat food.” He kicked aside a mold-covered bag of cookies. The cream flavor, three years past its expiration date, mingled with the stench of corpses and made his nose sting. The only emergency light overhead buzzed and flickered. Each time it came on, it illuminated the blackened salmon in the freezer case, their eyes swollen to the size of ping-pong balls. A tremendous crash came from the second floor, like a metal rack collapsing. Chen Feng instinctively lunged toward the nearest checkout counter. The hairs on the back of his neck stood on end, and then he caught the familiar stench of rot, like dead rats soaking in a garbage bucket for three days. His fingers brushed the hard lunchbox attached to the side of his backpack. It was his last bargaining chip. “Ding-dong!” The delivery alert on the old phone in his pocket suddenly blared, nearly making him stab himself in the thigh with his dagger. As cold sweat trickled down his spine, Chen Feng froze. A shelf in the diagonally opposite baby section was swaying slightly. Beneath a pink Hello Kitty blanket, a pair of muddy children’s shoes poked out. “Cough, cough... cough, cough, cough!” The suppressed coughing sounded like a rusty saw cutting into his nerves. Chen Feng reached into his backpack’s inner pocket for an asthma inhaler. The expiration date stamped on the aluminum canister was from three months before the Great Catastrophe. Just then, the light overhead began flickering wildly. On the salt-crusted floor, he saw a trail of fresh footprints, no bigger than a size 35 shoe.