While I continued thinking thoughts that I could not tell were excuses or self-consolation, at some point, my surroundings became quiet. Is it all right now? Can I open my eyes? It feels like barely three minutes have passed, is that right? As I hesitated, my eyelids trembling, I heard an unidentified clacking sound.
What on earth is that sound now, it sounds like something is walking around…… no, is it crawling? I don’t know. Whatever it is, I am the kind of person who would be terrified even if a dog passed by while my eyes were closed. All right, let’s open my eyes on one, two, three.
One, two…….
Before I could even count to three, the arms constricting my body slowly loosened. Flinching and trembling slightly, I gripped the hem of his clothes even tighter, and a large hand that felt hotter than usual slowly stroked down my cheek before lightly patting it as if soothing me.
“It’s all right, you can open your eyes now.”
My ears were still ringing, but Baek Hyeonwoo’s faintly audible voice sounded no different from usual. Is it really all right? What if I open my eyes and Baek Hyeonwoo is covered in blood? What if one of his arms or legs is gone? What if he has severe burns?
“You should look at your brother.”
As if he had read those thoughts, he urged me in a voice tinged with laughter, as though coaxing me.
“Now that I look at you, you weren’t a baby, you were a coward.”
……It just sounds like he wants to tease me? I know that I am easily frightened too, but honestly, this time I felt wronged. Anyone would be afraid if they were thrown into a situation like this. It was the people who were not afraid who were incredible.
Anyway, I scraped together every last bit of courage I had and lifted my eyelids.
The first thing that entered my vision was a pair of eyes so black that I could not see the pupils even though they were facing the sunlight directly, and the next thing I confirmed was a face smiling gently.
“……Are you all right?”
“Of course.”
Baek Hyeonwoo pinched my cheek without hurting me, then released it and raised his upper body. Because he had wrapped his entire body tightly around me, I only then looked around, and the city that had been perfectly intact just moments ago was gone.
“……Huh?”
It was not a metaphor or a play on words. The city had literally disappeared exactly as the sentence said. Feeling as though all the blood in my body had suddenly sunk downward from the shock, I took a step forward.
The only thing left was an enormous pit so deep that I could not tell where the bottom was.
“What happened…….”
Does this make any sense? If something had fallen, there should have been scorch marks or debris. Then had the ground collapsed? No, if that had happened, such hot air could not have rushed toward us. The ground had rumbled, but I had not felt it shaking.
“I’m not sure either.”
Baek Hyeonwoo came up beside me, wrapped an arm around my shoulders, gently turned my body around, and then lifted me straight up. Even though my field of vision flipped in an instant, I did not have the presence of mind to tell him to put me down or that it was embarrassing. I was simply too shocked, and all I could do was move my lips soundlessly.
“Still, we need to get moving first.”
“Brother…….”
“You seem very startled…… close your eyes and slowly count to fifty.”
At those words, as if entranced, I closed my eyes and began counting from one in my head. Otherwise, I truly felt as though something would happen to my mind.
1, 2, 3…….
“Now that this has happened, it would be better to avoid most cities.”
……10, 11, 12…….
“Getting caught up in it is one thing, but if you keep seeing things like that, it’ll only upset you.”
……19, 20…….
“So our Sihyeon doesn’t need to worry about the world or think useless…….”
…….
“……I see, sleep well.”
And when I regained consciousness again, I was lying on an extremely comfortable hospital bed.
The first thing I saw when I opened my eyes was a humidifier with steam rising from it. Not only that, there were even flowers blooming profusely on the bedside table beside the bed, so for a moment, I wondered whether I had experienced an extremely vivid dream.
However, as I sat up and absentmindedly looked beyond the window, I saw a town that was little different from ruins and tightly closed my mouth. The world beyond the glass was so black and dead that the warm air filling the room felt foreign.
It was to the point that I found it more strange that a place like this had survived. Had someone turned this hospital into an air-raid shelter? Or had no zombies entered it by sheer luck? I did not care which one it was, so please, I hoped this place was definitely safe.
Remembering the sight I had seen before falling asleep, I climbed down from the bed. It was still difficult to believe that such an enormous city had disappeared in an instant.
Zombies appeared, then a city evaporated. What on earth was happening in this place? Far from getting any sense of it, I could not even imagine it, so the only thing increasing was the number of my sighs.
By the way, where had Baek Hyeonwoo gone? Folding up the hospital pants that were slightly too large and kept slipping down, I opened the hospital room door.
“Ah, did you sleep well?”
Rattle, along with the sound of the door opening, Baek Hyeonwoo’s kind voice entered my ears. He was clearing away something like a red lump from the corridor, which had become a complete mess, and for a moment, I thought my eyes were wrong. Or that this was a dream.
“It’s still dirty, so don’t come outside and close the door again.”
“Ah, mm-hm.”
It was not much different from what he would say while pushing the vacuum cleaner at home, so before I knew it, I nodded and closed the door. Click, only then did my mind, which had been blank as though a screw had come loose, suddenly snap awake.
No, wait…… what my brother was clearing away just now wasn’t dust, it was a person?
Rattle, when I opened the door again, Baek Hyeonwoo, who had just shoved what he was holding into a trash can, asked in a puzzled voice, “Why?” Entrails that had not fit inside the trash can were spilling out, but he casually placed the lid over them and asked.
“Are you hungry?”
“……Ah, no, it’s not that.”
“Then?”
“Um……. I was wondering what you were clearing away just now…….”
“Ah, this? A zombie.”
Baek Hyeonwoo shrugged and lightly tapped the lid, making the trash can shake slightly. What, why is it moving? Startled, I reflexively stepped backward and tucked in my chin, and he smiled as if reassuring me and said.
“It’s because the upper body is still alive. From what I saw, as long as the head doesn’t burst, they stay alive somehow.”
“……I see, you weren’t hurt?”
“Of course not, are you worried about your brother?”
The way he looked at me as though I were admirable made me feel unnecessarily embarrassed. Wasn’t it only natural to worry in a situation like this? Even as I thought that, I also wondered whether it made sense to worry about my eldest brother, who was perfectly clean unlike the corridor covered in zombie remains. How could he remain that clean?
“Go back inside for now, okay? I’ll bring food and medicine soon. I’ll tell you about the current situation then too.”
At his renewed urging, I had no choice but to nod and close the door. Unlike the corridor, where the stench of blood was overwhelming, a faint floral scent spread through the hospital room.
Perhaps because the discrepancy was too great, it felt not merely unnatural but unreal. It felt as though I had joined a well-made set or a stage play.
After scratching my head several times, instead of sitting obediently on the bed and waiting for my brother, I headed toward the window.
The town outside the window was still brutal. The roads were filled with half-destroyed cars, the streets were so filthy that it was harder to find a place that was still intact, and it was strangely quiet.
It was not a city, but it was also difficult to call it a very small village. It seemed to be about the size of a town, but could it really be this quiet? But something even stranger than that was the fact that there were many things resembling spiderwebs everywhere.
The reason I described them not as spiderwebs but as things resembling spiderwebs was because of their considerable scale. The hospital I was in was not particularly large, but judging by its height, it seemed to be about three stories tall, and yet the whitish spiderwebs settled between the ground and the buildings were visible clearly even from here.
Even a house abandoned for a long time would not become like that. Wouldn’t it take at least several years for that to happen? And besides…….
“…….”
What on earth are those cocoons?
I pressed firmly around my eyes and then let go. No matter how much I tried to deny it, the white lumps stuck to the walls of the buildings did not disappear. They were attached firmly and were so thick that I could not see what was inside, yet I could not shake the thought that what was inside them seemed to be people. Or zombies.
It seemed there were other monsters here, not just zombies. The moment I thought that, I reflexively remembered the monsters that had lived with me, and the inside of my throat tightened.
After seeing that, I began to think that perhaps the reason the world had ended up like this might have something to do with me.
But it was not as though I had knowingly crossed over to this place. I had simply died and woken up as the younger brother of the male protagonists in a novel, so it felt rather unfair to feel guilty over that.
By the way, I wondered how my eldest brother had gotten all the way here. Had he seen the monster that had turned the town into that? Even from a distance would be fine, but I hoped he could at least tell me what it looked like. Then I thought I might at least be able to tell whether it truly was the same creature that had appeared in the place where I used to live.
Or perhaps it might be one of the monsters that had lived with me.
……Though there was no way that could happen.
Whatever it was, I found myself hoping that what was inside that monster’s cocoons were zombies. Then it would explain both why there were no zombies visible in the streets and why Baek Hyeonwoo was clearing away a zombie that had been split in two inside the building. The natural enemy of zombies, just imagining it sounded wonderful. Of course, it would be even more troublesome if it was a monster that ate anything and everything.