Rain of Blood (9)
Thud— thud— tududududuk—!
Blood Rain began to fall.
It was, as the name promised, rain made of blood.
The moment the thick, sticky red blood came pouring down in violent streaks, the stars vanished without a trace.
The transparent skylight, which had been perfectly clear, was spattered and stained by the droplets striking it.
It was a far more terrifying sight than I had expected.
I'd assumed it would just be rain that happened to be red, honestly. But the droplets hammering the glass carried a viscous, clinging quality and some kind of unidentifiable mass suspended within them.
Which meant I had to watch, wide awake and fully sober, as shreds of flesh slid across the surface of the glass — while half-expecting the shadow of the Big Cat to loom up between those crimson streams.
About thirty minutes passed like that.
"……You told me Type 1 Special Zones mimic the war that unfolded in their space."
Staring at the blood-smeared window, I spoke as if sighing.
"So this is what happened here, then? Rain like that?"
"It was probably worse in reality."
Cha Si-eon answered my anguished question in a flat, indifferent tone.
Like the other Type 1 zones, this place was a space etched with the memory of war.
It had been the early morning of June 28th, 1950.
As the North Korean army pushed south, the citizens of Seoul fled for their lives.
But at the time, there were only five bridges across the Han River, and the only one a person could cross on foot was the Hangang Footbridge.
Thousands of refugees flooded onto it.
And just as the crowd packed the bridge from end to end, the bridge was blown up.
A fierce burst of light, flames erupting skyward — and the people on the bridge were blown apart, hurled into the air in pieces.
Then they came drifting down, softly and endlessly, onto the river below.
That explosion was neither a North Korean attack nor an accident by American aircraft.
It was the work of our own military, trying to stop the enemy from crossing the river.
People shoved out into the void by their own country without ever knowing why.
And the bridge that swallowed them by the thousands was the Hangang Bridge — the very one that crossed this island.
"It's a strange feeling, somehow. That there's a café like this sitting on the spot where people were burned to death."
"A fair amount of time has passed."
Cha Si-eon was right.
The Korean War happened long before I was born — around the time my grandparents were born, in fact.
The dead of that era do not speak, and most of the people who remembered them have already left this world too.
It was history now. Old history.
And yet it couldn't be entirely over and done with.
Because the event had survived in the world as a story — and right now, we were trapped inside a space that was mimicking that very story.
"What would you do, if you were the soldier ordered to blow up that bridge?"
Cha Si-eon suddenly asked me.
"Would you carry out the order exactly as given?"
Why is this guy making me imagine something this agonizing……?
Hmm. Well, let's see. What would I do?
A soldier, of course, follows orders.
But there are people all over that bridge.
Disobeying a command in wartime gets you shot.
And yet the bridge is packed with civilians.
If I don't blow it, the enemy comes across.
Then maybe... maybe I could at least buy the people a little time to evacuate……?
"I'd probably just do whatever I wanted. Command, principle, all of it — cut right through."
When my deliberation dragged on too long, Cha Si-eon muttered this.
"Wouldn't you?"
"Can't exactly say no."
At my admission, Cha Si-eon gave a short scoff, as if he'd known that would be the answer.
Fine. I admit it.
I would never make a good soldier.
I'm a man with far too many questions to move on command alone.
Becoming an editor was a blessing in disguise.
If I'd joined the military, I'd have been the worst of the worst — the kind of problem child who drives his superiors to the brink of murder.
Wryly acknowledging my own softness, I tossed the question back at Cha Si-eon.
"And what about you, Team Leader? What would you do?"
"I don't know."
The answer came instantly.
But it didn't feel like careless deflection.
More like something he had been chewing over for a very, very long time.
And yet his answer was I don't know.
That was not a response that suited Cha Si-eon.
He must have thought so himself, because he added, after a beat:
"I would probably follow the order."
I blinked at his confession, slightly stunned.
"You want to massacre civilians and spend the rest of your life crushed by guilt, or buried in your own rationalizations?"
"How could that possibly be true?"
Cha Si-eon bristled at my question and pushed back.
So I just stared at him with a look that said, then what exactly am I supposed to do with that?
"Without obedience to command, a military organization ceases to function."
"That's only true when the order itself is legitimate."
"Judging that is the prerogative of the one who holds command. The duty of the commanded is to trust that the leadership is making sound judgments and to respond accordingly."
"And if that leadership is some hairless dictator ordering you to open fire on your own citizens? Do you follow it then, just because it's an order?"
"No. Attacking your own citizens in peacetime to shore up your personal power is a self-coup. That wouldn't be a lawful order to begin with."
"Then what about blowing up a bridge where those citizens are gathered?"
"That was an order issued in wartime for the purpose of blocking a hostile force…… why are you already treating me like a war criminal?"
Cha Si-eon caught my expression and flinched again.
Did I step on another landmine? I wondered, half-hiding my face.
But it was too late — the wound was already raw. Cha Si-eon added in a distinctly displeased voice:
"I'm not saying the order itself was right. I know full well that the command structure at the time was historically irresponsible and incompetent. And I know how catastrophic the consequences were, cutting that bridge down with no plan at all."
"And you'd still follow an order like that?"
"That's the only way a form holds."
Cha Si-eon's voice went hard and rigid.
"Whether it's a nation or an army, it needs a form for the baseline to hold. And only when that baseline holds can anyone plan for what comes next. That's why a soldier follows orders by principle — even when he has doubts."
Cha Si-eon's tone was resolute.
But was it just my imagination?
To me, it sounded less like conviction and more like self-justification — no, like self-hypnosis.
Cha Si-eon's foundation was the military.
I'd heard that Kwon Mu-seop had personally scouted him out of the special forces and brought him in.
And yet Cha Si-eon, talking about a soldier's duty, did not look proud in the slightest.
Was it because he was ashamed of his organization's sins?
If so, then the right answer would be to promise never to repeat that mistake.
Not to say, I'd have no choice but to follow the order.
Or alternatively, he could have simply washed his hands of the whole thing with a shrug.
No one was ordering the man standing here now to blow up a bridge full of refugees.
So why — why did he insist on bringing it up himself, just to flay his own skin?
It made no sense to me.
If you're going to repent, repent properly. If you're going to dodge, dodge completely.
Come to think of it... isn't this the exact same pattern as what I was doing to myself yesterday?
My editor's instinct tingled. Something was registering.
...But well, whatever. Cha Si-eon isn't an author I'm assigned to.
He's certainly not my friend, either.
"I understand what you're saying. Still, let's not go to the extremes. It's not wartime right now."
"……"
There was no time to dig into what was really on his mind, so I fudged it with a polite non-answer.
Whether he caught my intent or not, Cha Si-eon went quiet as well.
Just as I was studying him, thinking once again how strange the Team Leader's mood was—
BOOM—!
A massive sound and a heavy, ponderous vibration shook the floor beneath us.
"……!"
Cha Si-eon and I both jolted upright, scanning our surroundings.
Kung— kung—!
The sound of something colliding, hard and violent.
The epicenter seemed to be somewhere quite far off; the noise reached us faint and distorted.
What is that noise?
Was the Big Cat making it?
Or another entity entirely?
Or maybe — a feint. Some kind of diversionary trick meant to draw us out of position.
We held our breath and fixed our full attention on that unidentified pounding.
The distant thunder and tremors continued on and off.
Yes — for five straight hours, just like that.
The thunder had stopped completely.
And so had the Blood Rain.
"The rain's stopped."
I said it while looking up at the sky, now washed clean.
"And nothing came."
Just as I said — we'd made it to morning without a single event, perfectly peaceful.
Which should have been a tremendous relief for us.
But instead of rejoicing in it purely, I chose the pettier path: I exploited it.
"And here I was so on edge, since the Big Cat was supposedly coming for us."
"……"
"Turns out it never showed."
"……"
Cha Si-eon said nothing.
Right — of course you have nothing to say.
He'd fumed to himself about how the Big Cat would surely appear when the Blood Rain fell, stomping around and working himself into a full-blown lather over it.
And then nothing came. So naturally, he had nothing.
"So, Team Leader Cha — what do you suppose happened here?"
"……We survived it unscathed. Isn't that enough?"
Ah, that's our Cha Si-eon. Still standing tall even in this.
Had it been me, I don't think I could have lifted my face out of sheer embarrassment.
When I smirked openly at his unbowed defiance, Cha Si-eon finally cracked and spoke.
"Something may have changed. A variable of some kind. That sound that rang out all night, for instance……"
BANG BANG BANG BANG—!
At that moment, a thunderous report cut Cha Si-eon off mid-sentence.
We abandoned the conversation and sharpened every nerve.
Damn it — what IS that sound?
All night it had kept us strung tight, only to refuse to show its face.
And this time, the sound was closer than it had been through the night.
We'd been concentrating on it, nerves drawn taut, for only a moment when Cha Si-eon murmured, low:
"The rescue team. I believe the rescue team has arrived."
The rescue team?
I was only half-convinced, so I turned my ear toward the sound still rolling in.
Bang bang bang—! Bang bang bang bang—!
That was... gunfire?
"Comms are still dead."
I said, looking down at my smartwatch.
"They probably pushed through by force. They can't afford to lose you, Seo Do-woon."
"So the sound we heard all night — was that our rescue team too?"
"No. They wouldn't have entered during the Blood Rain."
Right. That's true.
The Blood Rain is not something you hold off with an umbrella.
And Zone A, where the Bureau's entry corridor is located, is an open-air space — nowhere to shelter from it at all.
So the logical read is that they waited for the Blood Rain to end and came in immediately after.
Then what was the thunder that had echoed through the small hours of the morning?
No — more importantly—
"So what do we do now? Wait here?"
If you're a lost child, the smart move is to stay put and wait right where you are.
But was that really the right call under these circumstances?
"First, we—"
Cha Si-eon had just opened his mouth when—
CRASH—!
Something tore straight through the glass window and crashed down right in front of us.
It was a bird.
...A crow.