Destruction

It only took a moment for South Korea to be paralyzed by a “new virus” that spread through nothing more than physical contact. The infection had a 100% mortality rate. Its most prominent symptom, a high fever, melted the eyes and brain, inevitably leading the infected to death.

But the catastrophe didn’t stop there.

Those who had died from the virus came back to life as if it were some kind of cruel joke, looking like something straight out of a zombie movie.

* * *

The night of the university’s end-of-semester party, Saejin witnessed what looked like a mu*der scene.

Scared the man might kill him too, he tried to run, but ended up getting caught.

“Hey.”

“Y-yeah? Me?”

The voice sounded like he’d get hit if he didn’t answer. As Saejin snapped his eyes open, the man standing in his line of sight had a nasty scowl on his face.

“You got a death wish or something? That way’s crawling with freakish bastards.”

“Huh…?”

The man gave a nudge with the tip of his shoe to a creature lying at his feet.

‘What… what is that?’

The person he’d beaten down looked more like a monster. Its face, lit by the streetlamp, was charred black, and its skin was covered in burn-like blisters. The shut eyelids were sunken in, and some kind of sticky fluid—maybe pus, maybe tears—was seeping out between the lashes.

What the hell was that thing? It clearly had a human shape, but the wrongness of it made Saejin’s skin crawl. The only word that came to mind was “monster.”

“I get that you bolted because you misunderstood something, but does that look human to you?”