Isolation

A dark night.

I took up a position by the window and surveyed the situation outside.

The noise rising from the road below showed no sign of dying down — horns blaring close, then fading, then drawing near again, threaded through with screams.

Then the phone in my pocket vibrated.

Wiiiiing—

I checked the timestamp stamped at the top of the message.

The alert was already several hours late.

……Now? Of all times?

Shelter indoors.

The screams and guttural growls that had already been tearing out of the site were still vivid in my ears.

The phone vibrated again.

The phrase under investigation lodged behind my eyes.

I thought of the videos they played on repeat at every job-site safety briefing — what to do in an earthquake, a fire, an explosion. Close the windows. Shut off the gas. Follow government instructions on TV or radio. Back then, sitting at a desk nodding over ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠printed handouts, those sentences had at least sounded like someone had a plan.

The please stand by in this disaster text was nothing more than an admission that they could do nothing at all.

Downstairs, people were already turning into monsters and tearing into each other, and they wanted me to sit here quietly and wait. The basic assumptions — that a rescue team would come, that the police would throw up a cordon, that someone on the airwaves would explain what was happening — had already collapsed.

Still. If I'm going to follow the manual, I should stay indoors for now.

The moment I stepped outside, the only person responsible for me would be myself.

I skimmed the message on the screen one more time.

A third vibration hit my palm in quick succession.

Martial law.

Images clicked into place on their own — military trucks clogging the roads, checkpoints, broadcast vans. But what stretched beyond the window was nothing like control. I wasn't even sure anyone left was still in a position to impose it.

Without hesitation, I switched the alerts to silent. The thought that even that tiny vibration might give away my position had taken hold. The infected were sensitive to sound. I no longer had the luxury of fretting over meaningless warnings.

I headed upstairs to check for any survivors I might have missed.

"……."

Keeping my footsteps soft, I climbed the stairs toward the eleventh floor.

Shff— shff— shff—

At every corner I pressed my back to the wall and peered inside. The eleventh floor. The twelfth. All the way to the thirteenth, where Foreman Lee Jinsu's formwork crew had been working.

No voices. No phone glow. Not a single sign of life.

There was no one. Above the tenth floor in this building, I was the only survivor left.

I pulled out my phone and held down speed dial 1.

Tuuruu— tuuruu—!

After a few rings, someone picked up.

"Yes, Green Narae Pension."

A familiar voice, but the impersonal tone of someone answering for the business.

"Dad, it's me. Seongmin."

"Oh, Seongmin! What's going on at this hour?"

"Dad, have you seen the news? Outside right now is a little……"

"I was just about to turn it on. The TV keeps flashing breaking news — what's happening? You're all right, aren't you?"

Faintly, through the receiver, I could hear an anchor's voice.

"I'm fine. I'm somewhere safe. But I don't think I'll be able to leave for a while. Going out is more dangerous."

"Right, right. Safe is what matters. Here — let me put your mother on."

A moment later, another voice came through.

"Hello? Seongmin? Are you okay?"

"Yeah, Mom. I'm fine. How about you guys?"

"We're all right. It's so out of the way out here that things are still quiet. Being somewhere you barely ever see people is actually a help for once. Still, lock the doors just in case. Have you eaten? Make sure you eat. You hear me? Be careful."

"I will."

"And give Suyeon a call too."

"Nah, it's fine. She'll be looking after herself."

"Good grief, that temper of yours. Hold on—!"

A scuffle of voices carried over the line, and then a blunt one cut in.

"Oppa?"

My little sister, Suyeon.

"Yeah. You're okay?"

"Obviously. But what about you? You look like hell. The news said Paju's getting hit the worst."

"Shut up. Look after Mom and Dad."

"Look after them how? I'm not a kid. Anyway — you really can't get out?"

"Yeah. Not for a while."

"Serves you right. Who told you to work somewhere that dangerous? I said you should just study for the civil service exam."

The sniping tone was the same as always. But there was a faint tremor at the end of her voice.

"……Hey."

"What?"

"Eat properly and be careful. So Mom and Dad don't worry."

"Got it. Hanging up."

I pressed the end-call button.

Only the silence of the tenth floor remained. From far below, a faint growling drifted up.

I woke when the eastern sky was just beginning to pale. Or rather — I hadn't so much woken as dozed off for a moment after holding out as long as I could, then opened my eyes because my whole body had gone numb.

I rolled over on the insulation boards I'd laid out on the floor, and every joint in my body creaked. Styrofoam insulation was meant to go under curing concrete; it wasn't soft enough to support a person for long. The blue waterproof tarp I'd pulled over myself had soaked ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠up the damp cold of the night and clung to my skin.

Haa—

A white puff of breath slipped from my mouth. In the end, I hadn't slept properly at all.

A March dawn was still clinging to the tail end of winter. The chill rising off the concrete floor drove straight up under my work clothes. I'd layered a fleece undershirt and a thick vest on top, and still my fingertips prickled with cold. Through the soles of my safety boots, the floor's chill conducted right through.

It wasn't only the cold that had kept me from sleeping. The racket from the floors below had scraped at my nerves all night — the crash of something shattering, the sharp screech of metal dragging, shouts that meant nothing I could parse. And whenever that noise briefly subsided, a fresh scream would inevitably tear out.

It wasn't only the sounds of the infected. Human voices mixed in at intervals, and those grated worse. Over and over, survivors trying to flee under cover of darkness had been found by the infected.

I wanted to go to the window and check below, but I held back. I remembered last night — the way they'd swarmed toward any hint of movement or sound in the dark.

Cold. Noise. And the gnawing uncertainty of when they might come up. Lying here any longer wouldn't solve a single thing.

I pushed myself upright. Stiff, locked-up muscle throbbed in protest.

I need to eat something, at least.

I hadn't had a bite since lunch yesterday. Between the cold and the sleepless night, my stomach burned and my head swam.

Moving as quietly as I could, I started searching the tenth floor — looking for the snacks people hid for the days they missed lunch or the overtime ran long. Between the toolboxes each crew used and the piles of materials, site workers often stashed emergency rations in their own corners. The rebar crew ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠kept theirs in the bottom compartment of the toolbox. The formwork crew tucked them inside the plywood stacks. The scaffolding crew usually hid theirs behind the piles of scaffold pipe. Patterns built up over years.

I drifted naturally toward the scaffolding crew's area and found a small cooler under a stack of plywood — deliberately hidden, anyone could tell. I lifted the lid. Familiar packages stared back at me.

Three cup ramyeon. Two chocolate bars. A box of Choco Pies. A six-pack of 500-milliliter water bottles, and three cans of cola.

……I'm saved. Whoever you are — thank you.

It wasn't much, but stretched carefully it could last a few days. The problem was what came after those few days. But worrying could wait. Right now, quieting the hunger came first.

After shivering through the night, I would have killed for a bowl of hot ramyeon broth — but I had no way to boil water.

"What good is electricity if I don't have a charger or an electric kettle? Next site, I'm buying a kettle no matter what."

I sat by the window where the sunlight hit hardest and peeled back the lid of a cup ramyeon. Instead of hot water, I crushed the noodles and dumped the crispy shards into my mouth. A light dusting of soup powder hit my nose with that familiar artificial smell.

Hunger is the best seasoning, wasn't that the saying? Just breaking dry ramyeon in this freezing weather — I never would have guessed it could taste this good. Chasing it with a bottle of water, I actually felt something like full.

"Stomach's taken care of. Let's see what it's like out there."

I pulled out my phone. The internet was still up. Every community board was in chaos.

Sensational headlines packed the screen. I tapped into a few posts. Most of them were vague eyewitness scraps — military trucks rolling through Ilsan right now, a tank just went down Jayuro. Someone claimed a temporary checkpoint had gone up near the Paju tollgate. Someone else insisted the entire Seoul Outer Ring Expressway was already sealed.

A few short clips had been uploaded too. Through a shaking frame, a camouflage-painted military truck rolled past, the cargo bed packed with soldiers in body armor. Filmed from too far away to make out the exact kit, but it definitely wasn't the riot police buses you saw at ordinary protests. A few abandoned sedans had already been shoved onto the shoulder, and at the edge of the frame, shadows that looked like infected lurked and drifted.

But there was no official government statement anywhere. After last night's martial-law disaster text, I couldn't find a single breaking bulletin or official briefing link. It was quiet in a way that felt wrong. People kept saying things were under control — and yet no one could say who was controlling what, or from where.

Then a battery warning flashed at the top of the screen.

That small number made reality that much sharper.

"Right. The battery. Next site, it's not just a kettle I need to pack — I've got to bring a charger too."

I dropped the screen brightness to the lowest setting and switched on power-saving mode. I killed mobile data as well. Then I shoved the phone deep into my pocket and looked out the window again.

The road was still completely blocked with wrecked cars. The traffic lights cycled through their colors on schedule, but not a single vehicle passed beneath them. The only things moving were the infected.

Behind the windows of nearby shops and apartment buildings, the shadows of people trapped inside stirred and shifted. Faces appeared in the gaps of curtains, checking the street, then vanished again.

I counted the infected wandering the construction site. Roughly a dozen in plain sight alone — between the rebar piles, beside the concrete mixer truck, in the shade of the materials yard. They drifted in ones and twos through every corner, and whenever a sound rose from somewhere, every head lifted at once.

Then the door of the container box used as the workers' break room eased open. A man in work clothes stepped out, scanning his surroundings. He must have been hiding in there all night. Fluorescent light spilled briefly from inside the container, then went dark.

Crouched low, the man broke into a run toward a parked SUV. From the container to the vehicle was maybe twenty meters. Between them sat nothing but a pallet of mortar sacks and a bundle of rebar.

Please. Don't make a sound.

I held my breath and watched. He made it as far as opening the driver's door and climbing in. So far, so good.

And then—

Buaaang—

The SUV's engine shattered the stillness of the site, the blunt diesel vibration rolling out across the yard. As if on cue, every infected head in the area snapped toward the sound.

Krrrrrk— krk—

They started running for the car. The man stomped the accelerator. The SUV surged toward the site entrance.

A low ramp had been laid there for material deliveries, hemmed tight on both sides by H-beam columns and steel fencing. A few infected blocking the way were simply shoved aside by the bumper.

Koong— klang—!

A dull impact rocked the chassis. As the infected bounced off the bumper, the vehicle seemed to pick up speed for a second, tires spitting dirt and gravel as it dropped down the ramp.

But the moment it cleared the gate and hit the road, more infected poured in from every direction — the alley on the left, the shops on the right, across the street. Every infected drifting the roadway funneled toward the car at once.

The SUV tried to push forward. Then came the sound of wheels spinning uselessly. The infected it had tried to drive over must have jammed up ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠under the chassis. In seconds they clung to the body like ants to sugar. The heavy SUV rocked under their weight, the drivetrain clawing at empty air.

Kiiiiik—

Tires shrieked as they slid across the asphalt. Overnight, the road surface had gone slick with construction dust and leaking water. One wheel hanging free, the others climbing a heap of bodies — there was no way to get real traction.

The car was completely surrounded. They climbed onto the roof, pounded on the glass.

Klang—! Klang—! Klang—!

Inside, I could see the driver wrenching the wheel in blind panic. But with nowhere to go, the tires only spun in place.

Then the driver's-side window exploded inward.

Crash—!

A short scream tore out.

"Aaaagh!"

It cut off almost at once. The rocking of the car gradually stilled. All that remained was the scrape of nails on metal and the rattle of glass shards caught in the window frame.

I looked away from the window.

This city had become a place where setting foot on the street meant it was over. Escape was no different from suicide.

This…… isn't something that's going to end in a day or two.