Chapter 4. The First Night
Chapter 4. The First Night
The hotel lobby was already hell.
Overturned sofas and suitcases rolled across the floor, scattered with shattered ceiling lights.
People were kneeling, overcome with terror, shedding tears.
Some were screaming the names of their family or lovers, while others seemed to be staring at status windows floating in mid-air with completely vacant eyes.
Perhaps due to a power outage, the only thing illuminating the lobby was the emergency light blinking at regular intervals.
Blink, blink.
The red light repeatedly washed over the people's pale faces and vanished, making it even more terrifying.
It felt as if the world itself was slowly gasping for breath.
I pushed So-hee behind a thick marble pillar inside the lobby and quickly scanned the surroundings.
There were only two exits: the main entrance and the emergency exit. I couldn't bring myself to go back out the main entrance, which was the chaotic mess we had just fought our way through, and beyond the emergency exit lay an unknown terror.
The elevators were obviously dead, and going up the stairs was digging my own grave.
Hadn't I seen enough in apocalypse movies to know how those who flee to the rooftop get slaughtered?
Unless it was a tsunami disaster movie, getting isolated in a high place was suicide.
The problem was, 'Then where on earth should we go?'
I racked my brain, but there was no answer. Even minimal information was cut off.
I could truly feel how helpless civilized people are when the electricity is cut off.
I turned on my smartphone, but not a single bar of signal appeared.
It was pointless that I had set up roaming; only the message 'Out of Service Area' was displayed.
The moment I realized that phones, the internet, and all channels connected to civilization had been severed in an instant, leaving us isolated, I felt suffocatingly stifled.
Come to think of it, it was a natural progression. The monsters I had witnessed on the street just a moment ago had been destroying everything in the city.
But is it really just here? What about other cities? What about Seoul...?
If the whole world is in a hellish situation like this...
As my thoughts spiraled and reached that point, a chilling cold shivered down my spine.
But being scared doesn't change anything.
When the world collapses, the first ones to die are the bastards who freeze up in terror.
I gritted my teeth and erased my emotions.
I coldly emptied my mind.
Right now, the possibility of survival that I can manage with my own hands.
Let's focus only on that. Just that.
"...Ji-han."
So-hee grabbed the hem of my sleeve.
With her chin buried between her knees, she was curled up tightly, trembling pitifully.
"Can we... go home?"
For a moment, I couldn't say anything.
There was no way a plane would take off.
The airport wouldn't be functioning properly, and even if we somehow managed to get to Korea, I had no confidence that it would be any different from here.
But I couldn't tell So-hee this cruel truth.
So-hee probably knew it too.
Because what So-hee wanted right now wasn't an analysis of the cold, hard reality, but comfort, even if it meant clutching at a fake hope as thin as a thread.
"We can go."
I placed my hand on So-hee's messy hair. I stroked it slowly and smoothed it out.
"I'll take you to Korea somehow. So, for tonight, just for tonight, let's just hang in there. Okay?"
So-hee nodded with difficulty.
I could clearly see she wanted to ask how we would go, if there was any way to return to Korea in a world like this.
She knew it too.
That I had squeezed out a thread of hope just for her.
I took the Sisa doll I had bought at the souvenir shop earlier out of my pocket and pressed it firmly into So-hee's hands.
"This will protect you. It's okay."
Only then did the corners of So-hee's lips curve into a faint smile.
It was the first smile I'd seen since this hellscape unfolded.
Without a word, I wrapped my hands around So-hee's small hands holding the doll.
Her fingertips were as cold as ice.
So-hee leaned her head on my shoulder. I could feel her slight trembling calm down a little.
"...Ji-han. When we go back, let's have a real date then. Let's go to that amusement park you always put off because you said it was a hassle, and watch a movie. And just try whining about not wanting to go again...?"
"...Yeah, I'll do everything you want to do, go everywhere you want to go."
"It's a promise?"
"Yeah. A promise."
I shamelessly made an irresponsible promise that I didn't even know if I could keep.
But at that moment, I wanted to keep that promise even if I had to bet the entire universe.
If we could just make it home, what would it matter to go on a few dates like that?
Suddenly, I looked down at my palm.
The power the system window that appeared before my eyes had told me about. 'Electric Shock'.
Just in case, I avoided the eyes of those around me and clenched my fist tightly.
Pajik-!
A spark like a bright blue static electricity flickered from my fingertips for a fleeting moment and then vanished like a mirage.
It was a weak static electricity at a level where I doubted it could even charge a cell phone battery a little.
What was I supposed to do with this?
I wondered if I was supposed to surprise the monsters with a stinging static shock when they pushed in and run away.
How much time had passed while we were hiding, holding our breath?
The air in the lobby was getting colder little by little.
At first, everyone was too busy holding their breath and crying, pressed down by immense fear and panic.
But as time passed, the cruel reality hit home; not only were there no rescue teams, but no police or military were coming either.
The despair that the massive infrastructure of the nation had been completely paralyzed starting tonight was turning into certainty.
There was the largest US military base in Northeast Asia in Okinawa.
Even so, the fact that the US military still hadn't appeared made it obvious what that meant.
And in a space where control and law were stripped away, humans degraded at a rapid pace.
Perhaps even faster than the dogs or cats that had turned into monsters.
"&^$(@!!"
An eardrum-piercing shout erupted from the hotel front desk.
Whether it was Japanese or Chinese... it was an unintelligible murmur.
I peeked up and saw a few burly men looting the emergency food boxes and bottled water that the staff had gathered to evacuate.
When a hotel staff member urgently blocked their way, the man in the lead threw a punch without hesitation.
Puk-!
With a dull, bursting sound, the staff member's body soared into the air.
The staff member was flung back so fast that "soared" was an understatement; he flew at least 10 meters and slammed into the lobby wall.
The body that hit the wall fell to the floor, convulsed a few times like a seizure, and then stopped moving.
The blood that flowed out and stained the wall as his body fell added to the grim atmosphere.
It was definitely not a level of strength a human could produce.
Just like I had gained useless static electricity, that man had clearly gained a 'Physical Enhancement' type ability.
Blood was flowing from the corpse, creating a puddle.
No one who saw that could stop the man's group.
No, they couldn't even make a sound, fearing they might get caught in the crossfire.
And that was the signal.
Once the rule of survival of the fittest was imprinted on their minds, people began to push and tear at each other to seize water, food, things that could be weapons, or flashlights.
Someone brandished a broken chair leg, and someone else held a broken glass bottle upside down.
It took less than a minute for fear to turn into violence and for the place to become a living hell.
In the chaos mixed with looting and screaming, some wailed, and others rummaged through other people's bags in the midst of it.
Then, one of the group that had taken over the front desk earlier shouted at the top of his lungs.
Soon, the cold gazes of the group in the lobby all turned toward the group of 'foreign tourists' like us.
"Ji-han, what are they saying...? It sounds like those people are telling us to get out...?"
The Japanese So-hee had learned a little for the trip came in handy.
I don't know if you could call this "handy," though.
Telling us to get out while looking at us.
It was mob mentality: 'Kick out the outsiders before they eat up our food.'
In a moment when lives were hanging by a thread, the first ones to be ostracized were foreigners with different bloodlines whom they had never met.
I roughly pulled So-hee into the darker shadow behind the pillar.
'We have to get out of here. Right now.'
It was a conclusion reached as my head coldly hardened.
My brain, having cooled down while resting for a moment, was able to work quickly and judge the situation.
A place where a crowd gathers is not a safe zone.
Not only is it easy to become a target for monsters, but now it has become a hunting ground where humans aim for each other's throats.
Besides, we were just an outsider couple who didn't speak the language and had no acquaintances.
"So-hee, get up. Let's quietly slip out toward the emergency exit."
"...Yeah, okay."
We moved like shadows, keeping our bodies pressed tight against the wall.
When we opened the heavy steel emergency exit door, it creaked, drawing the lobby's attention, but we were not the target of their concern as we headed outside.
As we stepped outside, the cold of the pitch-black back alley hit our skin.
The city's power seemed to be completely cut off, but the streets were strangely bright due to the red flames soaring from all sides.
Acrid smoke and the smell of gasoline pierced our lungs, and human screams and the roars of monsters were echoing from here and there.
Only the sky was still shimmering with that light.
Red, blue, green. To think that the place where that light, beautiful like an aurora, was terrifyingly shimmering and shining was this hell in the midst of an apocalypse.
It felt like some kind of sick joke.
I gripped So-hee's hand until it felt like it would break and dove deep into the alley.
Going to the main road is suicide. Monsters are dangerous, but right now, humans who have lost their reason were more terrifying.
Even though we only chose to go through dark, shadowed alleys, moments of crisis brushed past us several times.
When we turned a corner, a transformed beast was rummaging through a corpse and tearing out its entrails, and in another alley, crazed rioters were surrounding a bleeding woman and shouting with madness.
Each time, I held my breath, lightly covered So-hee's mouth, and quietly turned our steps to another path.
One of those times was really dangerous.
Just as we were about to exit a narrow alley, a huge shadow crossed the intersection right in front of us.
A bizarre creature the size of a lion, crawling on all fours... presumably a dog originally.
Its spine was bent like a bow, and its limbs were grotesquely elongated; it was sniffing the air, tracking the scent of blood.
I wrapped my arm around So-hee's waist and threw our bodies into the shadows of a half-collapsed building entrance.
The thumping, pounding sound of So-hee's heart, as if it were about to burst, was transmitted directly through my back.
I couldn't even breathe, and it felt like my lungs were shriveling up.
Just then, it slowly turned its head and stared at the alley where we were hiding.