Awakening (4)
Hanmaum Apartment — Unit 1504
With the footage of the train-turned-hell as its finale, the System played the next video. A storm of camera flashes popped and crackled, drowning everything under a raucous clatter of shutters, and an elderly man in a hazmat suit and mask stepped up to begin his briefing.
"I will now begin the briefing on the large-scale outbreak of violent unrest that commenced on the morning of March 4th, 2021. The cause of the mass violence and indiscriminate killings that began this morning has not yet been precisely determined, but every available hand is being mobilized to find out. The scope of the incident is expected to span the entire nation — Seoul, Incheon, Busan, and beyond — and it is spreading at a rapid pace."
The man's throat bobbed as he swallowed, and he took a long pull from a bottle of water with a hand that trembled violently. All the while the flashes kept clicking away, lighting up the old man's face again and again.
"Th-the President has ordered every last police and military asset to be concentrated immediately, and that the situation be brought under control with all possible speed. As of this very hour, citizens, you are to remain safely secluded in your homes and follow the government's guidance until the situation has been secured. Furthermore, under no circumstances—"
Bang— Bang— Rat-tat-tat—
Gunfire thundered, loud enough to be heard even inside the briefing room. The shaken man dragged his expression back together and pressed on.
"U-under no circumstances is violence acceptable. Matters of public order will be left entirely to the police and the military—"
"Minister! Kim Cheolha of the SeoA Ilbo here! The dominant view online right now is that this is either a biochemical terror attack or an epidemic out of China! What is your position on that?"
"I-I made it clear there would be no questions—"
"Minister! Why did you arrive in a hazmat suit and mask? Is there a possibility of airborne transmission?"
"Nothing has been confirmed as of yet—"
"What is the opaque dome blanketing the skies over Seoul? Is the current situation connected to what people are calling 'zombies'—"
Kieeeeeeek!
Bang— Ratatatatatat—
"Th-this concludes the briefing."
"Minister! Minister!"
Soldiers came sprinting in from the edge of the frame, hurriedly shielding the old man with their bodies, and the footage cut off there.
Next came a TV broadcast. A male anchor with a buzz cut, exhaustion written all over his face, began delivering the next item of news. The emergency coverage that had run all day long cut off mid-sentence with a long Beeeeeeep—, and the national anthem swelled through the airwaves.
When the dreary first verse of the anthem finally ended, a full map of the Republic of Korea came on screen. Red hatching was etched across every inch of the nation. The red hatching meant one thing: control failure.
March 6, 2021, 09:00 AM. In accordance with Article 77 of the Constitution, the Republic of Korea hereby declares emergency martial law across the entire nation.
The operation of medical, fire, police, and public services is suspended indefinitely.
All citizens are to follow government directives and proceed immediately to their designated shelters.
The moment the woman's voice ended, the screen cut away and began broadcasting the locations of the evacuation shelters the military had established across the country. When the long roll call of shelters finally drew to a close, the enormous red letters appeared once more.
All-out self-defense is hereby authorized against any infected individual who cannot be quarantined.
We repeat: all-out self-defense is authorized against any infected individual who cannot be quarantined.
The screen went dark again, and this time a man's face appeared, framed by a YouTube livestream.
"Hello, everybody! Your one and only source for the hottest scoops — it's MadChul! Smash that subscribe button and hit li— ah, wait, no, scratch that. First time going live instead of posting edited videos, huh? Anyway, I'm currently en route to the shelter designated for Daejeon, where yours truly lives."
"Hey! Sir! You can't go around filming whatever you like with that camera!"
One of the soldiers escorting the crowd of citizens waved him down and came trudging over.
"Ha... shit."
With that low curse, MadChul aimed a sly, practiced smile at the approaching man.
"You do know me, right? 'MadChul'?"
"Ah... I know you, sure. But you really can't be filming this right now."
MadChul's eyes flicked to his stream's chat window. Donations were exploding one after another, and the chat was scrolling faster and faster. Then again, he was probably the only lunatic in the country who'd think to flip on a livestream in a situation like this. His channel had been mired in a slump to begin with — and now all this fresh energy out of nowhere? This was an opportunity.
'Like they say, there's no law that says a man's gotta just lie down and die.'
Right up until the very moment of death, the chance for a comeback always came knocking.
MadChul dropped his voice to a murmur and leaned toward the soldier.
"Take a good look at these viewers of mine. A cool thirty thousand of them — thirty thousand! The folks who haven't evacuated yet have a right to know what's out here, don't they? The people's right to know — you've heard of it, right?"
"Ah... still can't do it, sir. Command's in a total uproar over all the weird footage going up. If we end up vetting every last one of these streams, we're the ones who get fucked."
"Aw, come on. Won't this change your mind? Hm?"
Half hoping it might work, he carefully passed over a wad of 50,000-won bills fished from his pocket. Even at the sight of that sizeable sum, the soldier's eyes stayed cold.
'Shit. Money, at a time like this? He could've at least brought me something to snack on.'
No — wait. Begging with money in hand, at least, belonged to the better end of the spectrum. Because even in the thick of the fighting, with zombies swarming in from every direction, he'd had the ajumma wailing that she wasn't going anywhere unless they let her bring her dog, and the old man refusing to leave his home while barking at them to hand over their spare rifles instead.
Public authority was crumbling, and the government with it. And here he was, of all people, quietly welcoming every one of those defections.
Even now the shelters were so crammed with citizens there wasn't an inch of floor left to stand on. Bullets were finite; the people who needed saving were infinite. Not that the citizens they busted their asses to save were any good at following orders once saved, either.
Little kids wandering the aisles wailing, with no grasp of what was happening. Cries erupting like a choir of newborns. Trailing after them, the keening of someone who had just lost their family. Even grown adults swinging fists, fighting to wring a bigger share out of the ration line. And me — the one expected to absorb every ounce of that fury without a single word of complaint.
If I was guilty of anything, it was nothing more than the sin of swallowing my tears and trudging off to serve in an army I never wanted.
Kieeeeeeeeek!
There it was again. Those fucked-up bastards came swarming in again. Hurriedly checking the rounds left in his magazine, the soldier turned to MadChul with a warning.
"Turn it off. You have to turn it off. Now."
"Ah, yessir! Of course!"
MadChul flashed his sunniest grin — and the very instant he confirmed that the soldier dashing for the front had opened up return fire, he began filming in earnest.
Clank-clank-clank—
Gawking at the K-2 tank trundling along behind the column, MadChul marveled. "Whoa! I did my military service and even I've never seen a tank this up close. Anyway, guys, I've brought you some major news today."
KRAKOOM— The tank rocked slightly as its main gun let loose, and up ahead zombies burst apart into shreds of flying gore.
'Shit. If this gets age-restricted, I don't see a single won of revenue.'
Swinging the camera back to his own face, MadChul launched into his patter with everything he had.
"As you're all well aware, my usual lineup — the freshest scoops from the entertainment world — is on indefinite hold. So with that in mind, I'm thinking of launching a Shelter VLOG! What do you say, folks? You're excited, right? They say the evacuations started up north, where things are comparatively worse, so watch my stream and consider it a precious sneak preview of the experience—"
KRAKOOM— Another thunderous blast, one after another, and MadChul's eyes clamped shut.
"O-on the right, what the hell is that! Block it! Fucking BLOCK IIIIT!"
'Ah, for fuck's sake — I'm mid-patter here, quit swearing! We'll get slapped with the yellow label!'
No. Come on, Chul — you can't start cussing too. Smile.
"Ah, we had a little commotion there, folks. As I was—"
KRA-CHUNK—
At that wrong, splintering crunch of metal, the camera swung toward it all on its own. The tank's upper hull was half-shattered, its cannon bent at a sharp angle off to the right. The treads were still churning away, but the tank couldn't advance so much as a single step.
A mass of muscle. A grotesquely enormous mound of muscle stood blocking the tank's path.
"Fire! Everyone but Byeongcheol and Chanwoo — light that bastard up first!"
Ratatatatatatata— The web of fire from the soldiers who'd been covering every direction converged on the thing — and didn't land so much as a scratch.
"F-fuck! It's not even flinching!"
"Grenades! Someone throw a damn grenade!"
"Sir!"
Soldiers in full panic began hurling grenades at random, observing nothing like a safe distance.
BOOM—! BOOM—!
The ground heaved as fountains of blood geysered up without end. As the dust kicked up by the blasts slowly settled, the carnage came into view — citizens sprawled along the roadside, and asphalt soaked black with their blood. At the irony of the very people they were meant to protect being cut down by their own grenade shrapnel, the civilians recoiled in horror.
"Aaah— AAAAAARGH!"
"Y-you fucking bastards! Where the hell are you even throwing those!"
The panic that had begun with the soldiers spread to the civilians in a heartbeat. The escort column, barely holding together, came apart in an instant.
"Uu— UAAAAAARGH!"
MadChul, who had been capturing every last second of it, started scrambling backward too.
KRA-CHUNK—
And that was the final word from the big-time YouTuber 'MadChul'.
The mound of muscle had marked him as its next target and crushed him flat. Where the giant fist came down, a small crater opened in the asphalt — and the shreds of meat scattered across that pit were the last pieces of MadChul.
Even through the impact, the smartphone MadChul had dropped kept the livestream running, faithful to the very end.
KROOOOAAAAR— The monster's roar buried every scream and every sound around it whole.
Kieeeeeeek— And, as if answering its roar, the howls of zombies rose from every direction at once.
"S-Sergeant! Wh-what do we do now?"
"We're out of ammo!"
"W-we have to run. R-ruuuuun!"
A situation crushed under absolute despair. Watching the sergeant fling down his rifle and charge, the corporal screamed after him.
"SHIIIIIT! Don't go, you fucking bastards! Don't ruuuuuuun!"
THWACK—! THWACK—!
The heads of the soldiers who defied it burst one after another, like moles popping up under a mallet. The soldiers and citizens who ran were devoured by the zombies flooding in from all sides. All that remained in that place, filled to bursting with death in the space of a breath, was a single smartphone — and the viewers who had watched the whole massacre unfold — plus tens of millions of won in donations and Super Chats that meant nothing anymore.
KROOOOAAAAR—
It was the emergence of a Variant.