Losing One's Mind
Only then could I judge what I had done wrong. I had moved too quickly, and when the infected poured out all at once, I failed to observe the reactions of my companions. I hadn't considered that they weren't yet accustomed to combat. And... I had moved too mechanically. I couldn't keep acting like this. I needed to lower their guard. There was no benefit in being treated like a "weirdo" for no reason. But... the fact remained that I couldn't feel any emotions at all. The corpses of the infected lay strewn before me, and dark, crimson liquid dripped from the tip of my axe. Yet, my fingertips remained cold, and my heart stayed indifferent.
"..."
Without a word, I gripped the slightly damp handle of my axe even tighter. Only then did I realize how the scouts were looking at me. They weren't just avoiding eye contact; they were shifting their bodies, bit by bit, trying to put distance between us. And their expressions felt as if they were looking at "something" that was fundamentally different from themselves. ...I needed to be careful.
I slowly wiped the axe on the floor, took off my blood-soaked gloves, and pulled out a fresh pair.
"We're going upstairs."
When I spoke as if nothing were wrong, the scouts hesitated for a moment, then quietly nodded and followed. Fortunately, nothing happened up to the third floor. I looked around at the stairwell. The corpses of the infected were clumped all over the floor, and it felt as if the sour stench would spread even further at any moment. The hallway leading to the third floor was the same. There were traces of the infected having surged downward, and handprints and footprints were layered over one another all across the floor. Perhaps people had been pushed down from the third floor and trampled to death when someone tripped from behind. Looking at the piles of corpses stacked around the stairs and the elevator entrance, that was all I could guess. No one knew the exact reason.
As I reached the fourth floor, an unpleasant sensation grazed my entire body for a split second. It felt as if cold fingers were trailing along the back of my neck. To survive, ignoring such instinctive sensations was the most foolish thing one could do.
...Then, through the gap in the door, I saw dozens of infected.
"..."
This wouldn't work. I didn't want to give the infected, who were already sensitive to sound, any excuse by speaking unnecessarily, so I took out a paper card I had prepared in advance.
[Let's just seal it and go up.]
As I silently held out the card, one of them quietly approached and carefully wedged a rubber pad into the gap of the door. Even if we closed the door completely, there was always a possibility that these infected would collapse against it. It might be better to block it off completely with something like a steel plate later.
Now, we were going up to the fifth floor. We had to make absolutely no noise. And all the way up the stairs, a strange sense of foreboding refused to vanish. The fifth floor we arrived at was too tidy. It was strangely quiet and clean. There were no bloodstains on the floor, no broken furniture, and no scattered items. This place had a layout of rows of offices. Desks and chairs were arranged in an orderly fashion, and several corporate logos were attached to the walls. The computers were turned off, and a thin layer of dust had settled on some of the monitors. This building must have been a place for financial work. Documents for opening bank accounts, investment brochures, and corporate reports were neatly laid out on the desks.
...What is this?
An instinctive sense of dread washed over me. On the first to third floors, people trying to escape from above had been trampled to death, and on the fourth floor, there were dozens of infected, but the fifth floor was empty like this? When I checked from the outside, this was a 15-story building. Plus a rooftop. If so, what about the sixth floor and above?
I slowly raised my hand and pointed around.
"..."
The scouts looked at each other without a word and nodded. There was something here. In this place, there was something we didn't know yet.
We went up to the sixth floor. And nothing happened. The floor was clean, and the offices were orderly. It was a space so peaceful that it was hard to believe the world had ended. The seventh floor was the same, and so was the eighth. A few documents were left on the office desks, and the computers and monitors were still sitting there perfectly fine. It was truly "everyday life." But now—it was a world that could never be "everyday." The number of human traces found in this building was only a few dozen. Did that make sense? For a building of this scale, there should have been at least hundreds of people before the infection broke out.
...This doesn't make sense. Then where did all the people who were in this building go?
With this strange sense of unease refusing to leave my mind, we carefully moved our feet to the floor above. The ninth floor. I took a step. At that moment—I had to swallow my breath.
The door to the ninth floor was broken. It wasn't broken mechanically; it was the trace of someone pushing, tearing, and breaking it open with all their might. And the inside was filled with corpses. It wasn't just one or two. The entire floor was corpses. These weren't traces of professional fighting. These were traces of people who weren't used to it, fighting to survive somehow. Deep scratch marks from fingernails remained on the walls. Someone had been trapped here, someone had tried to escape, and someone had bitten and fought each other. Some corpses were already decomposing, and there were traces of people who had died while clutching their bodies. Blood was smeared like stains on the walls and floor.
"Ugh...!"
Behind me, one of the scouts gagged. I reflexively covered his mouth.
"Shh."
He looked at me with trembling eyes and barely managed to nod. I took my hand away and looked around again. This wasn't just a simple massacre. It was a place where people had been trapped, torn each other apart, and fought to survive somehow. I slowly raised my gaze upward. And—at that moment, a squelching sound came from the floor above.
"..."
I immediately raised my hand and signaled to the scouts. *Don't move.* The scouts held their breath, and I, too, listened quietly. *Squelch, squelch.* The sound was getting closer and closer. Something was coming down the stairs from the floor above. The moment I saw it—the scouts began to waver. The corpses here, the traces of a desperate fight, and now, the existence that appeared before our eyes at this very moment. The infected dragging itself down the stairs had a stomach swollen like a mountain. A pregnant infected.
"...Damn it."
But—suddenly, one of the scouts behind me ran forward.
"Hey, stop—!"
Before I could stop him, he thrust his spear straight into the infected. The iron spear pierced deep into the infected's stomach. And at that moment—*Pop!* With a horrific sound, the disgusting stench of a corpse spread instantly. Rotten entrails and decomposed flesh scattered in all directions. And—as the stomach tore open, from inside... the corpse of a fetus—a shriveled remnant—burst out, fragmented along with rotten fluid.
"..."
For a moment, I couldn't move my body. And that scout who had thrust the spear. He began to roll on the floor. The putrid fragments of the burst fetus had covered him. "Aargh! Aaaaaargh!!" He fell to the floor and began to rub his face and arms frantically. He tried to peel off the rotten blood and fragments that had gotten on his body, but the stench and contamination had already clung to his skin.
...Damn it. I couldn't hesitate any longer.
"...I'm sorry."
I don't even know if those words came out of my mouth. I swung my axe down with all my might. *Thwack!* With a sharp impact, the axe pierced his neck. Red blood splattered. His body trembled, then soon went limp. At that moment, I saw his eyes were stained red. The infection was already progressing. From the moment he screamed and rolled on the floor, the infection had been spreading inside his body.
The scouts couldn't say anything. At that moment, I realized. They weren't yet accustomed to "this kind of thing." They weren't accustomed to "killing someone to survive." Then what about me? ...Without time to think about that, I looked at the ankle of the pregnant infected lying on the floor. Something was caught on it. A chain. I finally understood why I had heard the squelching sound. The ankle that had been attached to the other side of the chain... had rotted away and been torn off.
I judged that there was no need to think about it here anymore. Without a word, I headed to the floor above. The tenth floor. There—for the first time, I found traces of "people having lived." But those traces weren't good. ...No, they were absolutely the worst.
Human bones thrown outside the door. Human bones with the flesh neatly stripped off. The bones were scattered as if they had been strewn in front of the door. Some had broken bones, and some had the flesh cleanly gone, leaving them exposed in white. ...What is this?
Looking at those bones cautiously, I slowly looked around the inside of the tenth floor. Only then did I get a sense of what had happened in this building. This wasn't just a simple shelter. "Hunting" had taken place here. I understood what had happened in this building, how the survivors had moved, and what the end had been like. Rubbing my aching forehead, I wiped away the cold sweat. Seeing the infected swarming in from outside, people must have naturally flocked to the floors above, and above. At first, everyone must have run to survive. But they were filtered out once on the fourth floor. Some people were infected, and some were trampled to death in the crowd. As the exits were blocked like that, they couldn't escape this building. The survivors who made it through were pushed higher and higher, endlessly. And in that process, "no-man's zones" were created in this building. Floors six through nine were spaces where not even infected existed. They tried to survive from the tenth floor up, avoiding fights with the infected. But there was no way that was possible.
Suddenly, I caught and crushed a flying insect that was buzzing above. Something red and sticky smeared onto my fingertips. These insects gather following the smell of decay. If so—the end for the people who survived above the tenth floor was already determined. There was no way there would be food in an ordinary office building. They barely held on in a space without infected, but there was no food. And the occasional infected appeared. However, even if there were infected, it was impossible to go back down to the lower floors. Before long, the food must have run out.
Unlike the bones with flesh stripped off that I saw on the lower floors, the fifteenth floor was different. It was the only place where there was a corpse that hadn't been eaten. In the deepest part of the fifteenth floor. There was the corpse of a man who was skin and bones. A man who had starved to death. His whole body was gaunt and withered, and his skin was stuck to his bones. His beard and hair had grown out, covering his face, and his fingertips and toes were covered in blood.
...When the situation gets bad, does everyone end up losing their minds? Everyone, if they're hungry. Everyone, if they hold out endlessly. Everyone, if they have no choice. Do they change like that?
His fingernails were broken. Dark, dried bloodstains remained around his mouth. It wasn't difficult to guess what he had done until the very end. But—I ultimately thought he wasn't much different from the infected. Even though the corpse before my eyes was clearly human, it was no different from the infected. The fingertips torn by hunger, the hand gestures he tried to clutch until the very end. Like that, the exploration of the building was finished. There was nothing more to see, nothing more to find out. ...No, in truth, I didn't want to find out anything more. Because I didn't want to stay in this kind of building for even a second longer.
I looked down at the corpse of the man who was skin and bones one last time. He, who starved to death, was now nothing. He had run upward, upward to survive, but ended up here in the end. I closed my eyes and opened them. There was no reason to stay any longer. But at that moment, from outside. From far away. A "signal" was heard. Jang Yeeun's signal. Damn it. Something had happened.