Chapter 11. Walking Again.
Chapter 11. Walking Again.
In front of the collapsed fountain, I stared blankly at that unfamiliar face reflected in the water for a long time.
I tried not to think about anything while staring endlessly, but contrary to my will, worn-out memories kept crawling up to the surface.
How much time had passed? I could finally see the streets I had passed through.
Blackened buildings. Collapsed debris.
And... countless traces of things burned black that I didn't even want to count.
It wasn't just one or two districts.
Even just within the range of my vision, there was no end in sight.
It was a wasteland of destruction that the bright blue lightning had swept through.
The disaster was...
Not the aurora in that sky, nor the beasts that had turned into monsters,
It was me.
Half the city had been turned to ash by my hands.
When the wind blew, ash rose up with a pul-sseok (puff).
Through it, things I couldn't bear to look at flashed by.
An old shoe rolling around, having lost its owner.
A teddy bear that a little girl might have played with, burned black and unrecognizable.
All that debris was the trajectory of someone's precious life, and evidence of the final moments where someone had screamed in agony.
This massacre, bordering on a great catastrophe, was my doing.
Wearing the holy justification of 'revenge for So-hee'—a plausible and convenient excuse—like a crown on my head.
So-hee would never be the person to wish for something like this.
The last thing So-hee wished for.
It was that promise to go to an amusement park with me... just such a trivial promise.
That was all So-hee wanted.
Yet I couldn't even keep that request, which was like her final will.
Far from keeping it, I became the form of the absolute monster she would have hated and grieved for most in the world, and I was burning and slaughtering this island—the last place we stepped on together and once beautiful—entirely with the touch of disaster.
I just stared at the ruins with an empty heart.
And after a very long silence, I finally reached a realization.
That I shouldn't be doing this.
That if I stayed here any longer, I would never be able to escape this monster.
That in the end, I would also become a part of that ash.
To keep my mind from completely collapsing, I had to somehow move this nauseating body again.
If I stayed still, that night kept coming to mind.
So-hee's cooling hand, those faces that were giggling. And the endless blood-stained days that followed.
They rushed in all at once and dragged me under those ashes.
So I had to stand up.
Not to live, but just to keep from sinking.
I had to leave this cursed island.
But where on earth was I supposed to go?
There was no place left on earth to go.
Because the sanctuary I would return to had long since perished.
Then, suddenly, one place came to mind.
Home. Korea.
I knew there was no way Seoul was safe.
Because that light seemed to have fallen not just here, but likely on the entire Earth.
Seoul, a mega-city where ten million humans lived packed together, would have been more cruel, if anything, not less, given the population density.
But... even if it had become a hellscape, still, there...
There would be traces of the people I knew as a human before I became a monster.
Yu-hyeon, who sent me trivial stock talk via message every commute.
Associate Yu-jin, who would nonchalantly place documents and snacks on my desk with an indifferent expression.
Or Section Chief Park, who complained of stress, saying he felt like he was going bald because he had to have me, a guy with rock-bottom social skills, as his subordinate.
Department Head Lee, who tried to subtly groom me for a promotion, saying, "Assistant Manager Seo does his work neatly."
At the very least, even Assistant Manager Kim, the troublemaker from the next team.
Perhaps one of them might still be alive.
Even just one person.
Perhaps they might still be stubbornly surviving and breathing even in that hell.
That 'perhaps' became the only driving force that made me take one more heavy step forward.
At least for me right now, that was enough.
It was a strange thing.
The workplace I hated going to so much while I was alive and went to so dryly, the pointless jokes of Yu-hyeon that I dismissed as having no nutritional value.
Now, I missed them achingly.
The hand that handed me Job's tears tea, the voice that held me back asking if I was leaving work on time.
Even the sighs they let out because of me.
I was realizing only after losing it all how precious everything that was ordinary actually was.
As always.
Whatever remained as debris on that land, even if it was just emptiness with nothing left, tragically.
Because I felt like my stopped gears of life could only roll to the next track if I arrived there with my own two feet and confirmed it with my own eyes.
There was a place I had to visit before leaving.
I walked without resting for a full day.
When I arrived at the destination, the red, blood-colored sunset was already spreading over the land again.
The small earthen grave on the low hill I revisited was, fortunately, preserved quietly in the same state I had left it.
Without any signs of intrusion or damage by anyone.
The sea was being dyed red above it.
The sea we had watched together while holding hands.
I sat in front of the grave for a long time.
And slowly took the Sisa Doll out of my pocket and gripped it tightly until it felt like it would break.
"...I'm going now."
There was no answer.
I kept talking to her even though I knew that.
"In the meantime... I'm sorry for showing you so many pathetic sides of myself. If you had seen it, you definitely would have smacked my back hard."
I let out a dry laugh.
Then, strangely, my eyes stung.
"But... I promise. At least... I won't wield this against just anyone anymore... It won't be easy, though...."
I quietly applied pressure to the hand holding the doll.
That small, soft touch felt so much like her warm hand patting my shoulder that night that my heart ached.
'...Can I live well? So-hee.'
There was no one left to answer even if I asked.
Still, I decided to just blindly believe it.
Because if it were So-hee, she would have surely held my hand and told me with a bright smile that I could definitely do it if it were me.
As she always had, she was the only human who trusted my existence itself without any price, even when no one else in the world believed in me.
I stared at the sea, dyed red by the reflection of the sunset, for a long time.
I remembered how much So-hee loved this sea.
The sight of her running around at the water's edge, kkyak-kkyak (squealing). The weight of her leaning on my shoulder, saying, 'I'm truly happy.'
...I wanted to make you happy.
That was all.
It wasn't even anything grand.
I couldn't even do that one small thing in the end.
"If there is a next life...."
I muttered quietly.
"Then I'll smile for you more often. I'll tell you I love you every day, too. So...."
...I couldn't bring myself to voice the desperate wish that followed.
I slowly stood up.
I put the doll, stained with hand grime and blood, deep back into my pocket.
Now, this was the only object that would remind me that I was once a human.
And that I had someone I loved.
"Stay well, So-hee. I'll definitely come back."
Lastly, I carefully brushed the dirt on the grave with my palm.
Cold dirt got on my palm.
"Is she your girlfriend...?"
Then, breaking the silence, a low, young voice came from under the tree shade behind my back.
When I turned my head to look, a girl with a very familiar silhouette was standing there.
It was that very middle school student who had wiped the blood clots off my arm with an old handkerchief yesterday.
"...That's right."
"She must have gone... to a good place...."
"She should have. She was a good person."
The child clasped her hands toward the grave and bowed her head in silent prayer for a moment.
It was nothing, but for some reason, I was truly grateful.
"You knew, right? That I was following you, oppa... Thank you for pretending not to notice."
"Thank you?"
"You knew, but you didn't harm me and pretended not to notice."
"I just didn't care."
It was the truth. I just didn't want to get blood on these hands anymore.
"Can I keep following you? Since I'm following you, oppa, monsters and bad people run away from afar on their own, so it's really safe."
Perhaps rumors about me had already spread across the entire island, as the path I took was quiet as a mouse.
'They probably saw me from afar and avoided me. Like this child's group.'
"Go ahead."
Because I felt a sense of debt from the bottom of my heart to this child and the mother and daughter from yesterday who had stepped on the brakes so I could regret and reflect on my cruel actions, I silently allowed her to follow by my side.
"But oppa, are you planning to go back to Korea?"
"I don't know if I can. I have to go, though...."
"If you go to Korea... can I follow you too?"
I looked at the child. Come to think of it, it wasn't being translated; this child was speaking Korean.
"Are you Korean...?"
"Yes. I came on a family trip with my parents. I'm alone now, though."
The cruel narrative of the apocalypse was contained in the words the child spat out calmly with a lonely smile.
I might have been the one who killed them, but I didn't have the courage to ask that.
"Okay... let's go together..."
The best I could do as a human right now was to protect this child safely until we got to Korea.
If she wanted, I would continue to be a shield for her life even after that.
We came down the hill, confirmed the direction where the sun was setting beyond the western horizon, and started walking side by side toward the north.
Across the sea, in the direction of home.
One step, one step.
Stepping on the now-familiar ash, I slowly moved away.
Together with a girl following by my side.
I walked without looking back even once.
Because I felt like I would collapse again if I looked back.
I lost everything in my life after coming to this cursed island.
The person I loved, and my ordinary daily life.
And... myself, who used to be a human.
All I gained was a terrible power that no one would want, and the name 'Slaughterer' that would follow me for the rest of my life.
Behind the curtain of ruins we left behind, a terrible ghost story about the 'Blue Lightning Slaughterer' would wander for a very long time in the future.
The fear of the terrifying monster that mercilessly turned every living creature in its sight into bright blue ash would be passed down like a legend, riding on the trembling lips of the survivors.
The burnt ash under my feet scattered with a pul-sseok (puff), and I moved forward, numbly stepping over dried, black bloodstains.
Walking across the desolate land, I quietly engraved a resolution toward the doll in my pocket.
That at least until I arrived in Korea, I would remain human enough not to be ashamed of this doll.
It might not be easy, but I would at least try to keep that one thing.
Because that was the final promise I made with tears in front of the grave of my beloved So-hee.
The touch of the doll in my pocket reached my leg with every step I took.
It was small and light.
But its presence was so enormous that it was slowly, very slowly, molding me back into the shape of a warm human and holding onto me.
Relying on that one small anchor, I walked into that deep darkness one step at a time.