Chapter 186
Chapter 186
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 186
Chapter Title: 86. Story (4)
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Baek Seung-hyeon's wife huddled under the bed, clamping her hand over her child's mouth to stifle their breathing, while Baek Seung-hyeon, dangling from a harness, gripped his pistol in one hand and glared at the shadow outside the window with murderous eyes, not moving a muscle.
"Fuck."
The man backed off.
And then a scream erupted from nearby.
"H-Help! Somebody, please!"
Baek Seung-hyeon recognized that voice.
It belonged to the young doctor couple who had been the only ones friendly toward him and his family, even examining his child.
Baek Seung-hyeon stayed silent.
There was nothing he could do.
Not against a tidal wave of raiders like that.
The final crisis came when the raiders swarmed in front of Dongtanmom's room.
"Open up!"
"This looks like it'll be a pain in the ass. It's a bulkhead-grade sealed door. We'd need a welder or something."
The raiders pondered how to force the locked door open.
That's when one man appeared.
"There's just a hanged corpse in there."
"Now that you mention it, there is a rotting smell."
The raiders smashed open the door to Baek Seung-hyeon's original cabin and went inside.
"Damn. Fuck."
"When did he off himself?"
"These guys are real impatient bastards."
Seeing the hanged body in the next room, the raiders turned back.
Only then did Baek Seung-hyeon, who had been gripping his pistol with bulging eyes, ready for battle, finally exhale.
And so, the neighbors died one by one.
Good ones and bad ones alike.
Dongtanmom's story was, as its opening hook promised, a tale of losing neighbors.
Fish thrown into the water died quickly.
Some made it to land, while others joined other ships, embarking on a desperate voyage toward Korea.
The massive raider horde quickly fell apart, turning on each other and looting supplies.
The endless-seeming battle stopped when fewer than twenty people remained on the ship.
As Baek Seung-hyeon moved to kill the man he'd just caught, his wife shouted from behind.
"There aren't even that many of us left anymore! Can't we just get along?"
Baek Seung-hyeon stared at the man he was about to kill.
A weary, listless face that no longer knew what to do.
He was a murderer, but so was Baek Seung-hyeon.
Baek Seung-hyeon wondered if he wore a similar expression as he extended his hand.
"Let's stop this. Like my wife said, there aren't many of us left."
The man, who had been staring blankly at Baek Seung-hyeon, nodded and took his hand.
People who had lost their neighbors grasped hands once more.
To become new neighbors in place of those lost.
As the highlighted phrases scrolled by, Baek Seung-hyeon's story came to an end.
I let out a shallow sigh after it finished.
"......"
I had to admit, Baek Seung-hyeon had some real storytelling chops.
In that moment of doubt, Viva Bot pulled out another story.
-This is the story of our slightly odd but kind and cool neighbor.
Another neighbor's tale unfolded before me.
The narrator of that story was a girl I knew very well.
*
China's attack had come faster and more widespread than expected, so even the U.S. forces deployed domestically couldn't respond perfectly.
Especially since Taiwan, China's main casus belli, had collapsed much faster than imagined, creating gaps in force deployment and inevitable chaos in personnel assignments.
In the process, a not-insignificant number of soldiers who should have withdrawn to the U.S. got stranded in Korea.
Rebecca and her daughter were among them.
They received orders to withdraw to the Daegu airbase—known as K2—but amid the chaos, contact with her husband stationed at Osan was cut off. She searched likely spots for him herself but came up empty; he was nowhere to be found.
Returning to the base in despair, she found everyone had already pulled out.
In that desperate situation, Rebecca loaded every possible supply into the military Humvee.
It was true that the protesters' harsh shouts and glares—with their red paint smeared on the base gates before the war—lingered in her mind as she packed.
So she prioritized ammo and weapons over medical supplies.
Throughout her trip to the U.S. base, she wore an anxious expression and muttered unintelligible words.
Her daughter Su watched it all from the sidelines.
On the way to the base, she faced several volleys of gunfire.
She didn't know who fired or where from.
It could have been Chinese troops, spies under Chinese orders, or even Koreans who hated Americans.
Endlessly amplifying fears and suspicions, Rebecca arrived at the U.S. base.
The base had already been hit by a nuclear strike.
The deadline had passed, so residual radiation shouldn't be too bad, but Rebecca decided to check the surroundings to be sure.
That's why she headed to the only nearby high ground: a low hill.
That's when Rebecca met Skeleton for the first time.
At first glance, he seemed like a cold-blooded killer—icy eyes, emotionless voice, capable of anything.
With Rebecca nearly driven to death and bound by Skeleton, Su appeared.
"You seemed surprised to see me. You didn't show it, but I felt it."
That cold-blooded man simply let the mother and daughter go.
Life afterward was a nonstop struggle.
In an unknown place she'd never even visited before, they hauled countless rounds of ammo and weapons from the Humvee to the roof of an abandoned building, firing at anyone who approached.
It was the only resistance the terrified Rebecca and Su—ignorant of the language and situation—could muster.
Some days they fired once, others up to five times.
There was a protocol: one warning shot, one final warning, then live fire.
No matter how reckless the intruders, they fled when two or more dropped consecutively.
But surviving such a stained, struggle-filled life was another matter entirely.
Eventually, Rebecca fell ill.
There were no medical supplies.
At this rate, they'd all die.
Rebecca insisted it would pass with sleep, but Su didn't believe it.
Su thought of one man.
The mysterious Skeleton, who looked and acted cold-blooded but had given her and her mother a chance.
When Rebecca passed out, Su remembered Skeleton's location and set off alone into the dark streets.
She must have tripped countless times, stopped by fear just as often.
But picturing her dying mother's face, Su reached Skeleton's territory and begged for his help.
Her hopes were rewarded.
"He gave us everything. We don't know his name. But he called himself Skeleton, and that's what we call him. He's our neighbor in this crumbling world."
The story peaked with Skeleton single-handedly slaying a monster.
Skeleton entered a forest overrun by a monster that even the military feared, casually dispatched it, and returned unscathed.
He was a hero incarnate.
Until their farewell, Skeleton was the steadfast pillar for Rebecca and Su's family, considerate to the end.
In truth, he was more than a neighbor.
"Thank you, Skeleton!"
Reading that final line, I felt an unfamiliar resonance in my chest.
A deeper, more peaceful silence settled over the once-quiet bunker.
"......Thanks."
Su wasn't the only one who should be grateful.
Thanks to her and her mother, I'd made it this far.
At the very least, it was an undeniable fact that Su's story had deeply moved me.
I only noticed Viva Bot's question after a long delay.
The latter half of Su's neighbor story was about another "idiot neighbor"—not Skeleton—but the people she met back at the U.S. base.
"Hmm......"
Su was definitely Rebecca's daughter.
Just as Rebecca had once openly shown her disdain for Koreans, Su now displayed clear hatred for her homeland.
In any case, my claim around the Viva! Apocalypse! submission resolved in an unexpected way.
But good is good, isn't it?
Even if I didn't write it, this touching story featuring this Skeleton would unfold before barbarians worldwide.
*
Viva! Apocalypse! airing day.
Two stories went live.
The first was Dongtanmom's.
Still rough and unpolished, it stayed true to her own account, vividly conveying the plight of those abandoned to China.
After the 20-minute tale ended, we thanked the heavens once more for our blessed circumstances.
The second story was mine.
But.
-"My Neighbor."
The title had changed.
And it wasn't just the title.
The character referred to as "Skeleton" in the script had been replaced with the ambiguous "S" for some reason.
"Huh?"
In shock and confusion, I watched the story of myself, Rebecca, Su, and the rest—people I knew well.
The character playing my role had weirdly small, slanted eyes that bugged me, but he was handsome enough overall, so I didn't complain much.
The story unfolded just like the script I'd seen.
Plenty touching.
To the point where it didn't matter that the protagonist was depicted as someone else.
In fact, the comments were even hotter than for Dongtanmom's story.
Honestly, it was regrettable and worth pointing out that Skeleton's name was omitted from Su's story.
But I decided not to make an issue of it.
Why? People loved it so much.
And the best reward soon came my way.
"......"
With a pleased smile, I replied to Su.
That settled it.
Whether the protagonist was Skeleton or S didn't matter much.
At least, what was certain was that the story of me, Su, and Rebecca's family was ongoing, right?
Clutching that aftershock of emotion in my chest, I stepped out of the bunker and stared at the darkening fields for a while.
Our daily lives in these end times were indeed bland and insignificant.
But they were all stories nonetheless.
Whether entertaining or moving or not.
Some tales might be comedies, others tragedies.
But to reiterate, our stories weren't finished.
There were mountains to climb, possibilities pointing to bad ends, but I hoped everyone's remaining stories would end happily.
[86. Story (4)] End