Their brief moment together had eased the tension somewhat, but the danger had not passed. Johan, Bobby, and Seojun could still become food for the monster at any moment, so they had no choice but to keep moving. A single mistake could cost them a childhood friend.
They navigated by the moonlight whenever it slipped through the clouds. Christina almost laughed at the absurdity of using the dilapidated roof of an abandoned building as a landmark—something she would ordinarily never have noticed.
Fortunately, the moon remained half-hidden behind the clouds, allowing her to brood without anyone seeing the bitterness on her face.
“Christina, stop.”
William, who was leading the way, suddenly spoke in a tense whisper. His entire body stiffened as he peered into the darkness, tightening his hold on Airi.
Christina’s throat constricted.
The veins stood out sharply along William’s forearm. She held her breath and stared into the forest ahead. Her heart hammered against her ribs, and cold sweat gathered on her brow.
The fragile sense of safety they had enjoyed only moments earlier vanished. In its place came a creeping dread that began at her fingertips and slowly spread through her body.
Christina blinked.
Then her eyes widened.
There was something in the darkness.
“Shh...”
She bit down hard on her lower lip as her thoughts spiralled out of control.
Images flashed through her mind: the monster’s grotesquely distorted body, the mutilated corpse hurled at them, the vast black surface of the lake, her parents waving goodbye and telling her to enjoy herself, her grandmother’s knitting basket, textbooks scattered carelessly across her bedroom, Bobby’s battered posters and the videotapes he had shown her, Cynthia’s guinea pig darting around with surprising speed.
Just as the pressure of her fear threatened to burst, a man emerged from the darkness.
He was tall and broad-shouldered, though his face remained hidden in shadow. His clothing, however, made his identity obvious.
Curled against William’s chest, Airi craned her neck and whispered,
“A soldier?”
The darkness was not the only reason they had failed to notice him sooner. The faded digital camouflage of his uniform blended almost perfectly with the surrounding forest.
Airi’s grip around William’s neck loosened slightly.
The soldier stopped several paces away, as though wary of them. He pulled the brim of his cap lower over his face.
“What are you doing out here?” he asked. “This place is dangerous.”
“Ah...”
The tension slowly drained from their bodies.
After everything they had just endured, their imaginations had been running wild. Seojun’s warnings had filled their minds with thoughts of murderers and crossbow-wielding madmen.
But the soldier’s voice and manner were perfectly ordinary, as though the monster they had encountered had been nothing more than a collective hallucination.
Christina cautiously began to explain.
“Please, help us! We were camping here with our friends when a strange man attacked us.”
She glanced at Airi.
A story about a monster would sound unbelievable, and Airi immediately understood what Christina wanted her to do.
“That’s right,” Airi added. “He was wearing a gas mask and swinging a knife around like a lunatic. We need to contact the police immediately.”
“One of our friends was badly injured while we were escaping,” Christina continued. “The others are still somewhere in the campground, but we were separated. They could be in danger.”
“Oh, no. That’s terrible.”
The soldier clicked his tongue and stepped closer, pulling a radio from his belt.
At the sight of it, relief flooded Airi’s face.
“Oh my God. We’re saved.”
The soldier looked at the tears gathering in her eyes, then lowered his gaze to examine her injured knee.
After a moment, he opened one of the pockets on his chest.
“Why don’t I bandage your leg first?” he offered. “I have some emergency supplies.”
“Really?”
William’s expression brightened.
He carefully lowered Airi to the ground, keeping one arm around her so she could balance on her uninjured leg.
“Thank goodness.”
Christina released a breath she had not realised she was holding. She had been deeply worried about Airi’s knee.
Airi was the star cheerleader at Wraithwood Warren High School, famous for performing stunts that bordered on acrobatics. Her legs were her greatest asset.
Airi sighed, her face visibly relaxing.
Only moments earlier, she had insisted that the others abandon her, but the truth was that the thought of being left alone terrified her.
More than anything else, the sight of someone who appeared to represent authority filled her with overwhelming relief.
That relief was a mistake.
Airi and William were both outgoing people who loved outdoor activities. Neither of them had ever been particularly interested in strange subcultures or obscure horror stories.
Even Christina, who was more introverted, preferred taking tools apart and putting them back together—a habit that suited her surname perfectly.
It was only natural that all three of them felt safe in the presence of a soldier.
Unlike Bobby, they had not been forced to embrace the bisected remains of a corpse.
That was why they failed to recognise the smell.
“All right. Come closer...”
Holding a strip of gauze, the soldier beckoned them forward.
Airi shuffled toward him, carefully balancing on her good leg. Then she raised her eyes and met the soldier’s barely visible gaze beneath the shadow of his cap.
Only then did she realise that something was terribly wrong with his face.
The soldier smiled.
It was an impossibly wide smile.
His ruined skin folded around the expression, and blood seeped from the twisted seams of his flesh. Yet he showed no sign of pain or discomfort.
“Argh!”
He seized Airi by the wrist with crushing force and yanked her toward him.
She cried out in pain.
Christina and William lunged forward, but the soldier moved faster.
He drew his gun and aimed it at William’s leg.
The silence shattered.
Bang!
The gunshot was nothing like the sounds they had heard in films, television dramas, or news reports.
It was not merely a noise.
It struck them like a physical blow—a burst of light followed by a deafening explosion that seemed to fill the entire forest.
Christina’s eyelids fluttered open.
It took her several seconds to realise that she was lying on the ground. Her body had recoiled instinctively from the blast.
“Ah...”
The shot had been fired at close range without a suppressor. Its force had paralysed her muscles.
She tried to swallow her fear, but her hands clenched uncontrollably. A wave of terror swept over her, leaving her mind numb and empty.
“William!”
Airi’s scream tore through the silence.
The sound dragged Christina from her stupor, as though a thick layer of wax had suddenly been pulled from her ears.
Her senses returned all at once.
William’s cries overwhelmed everything else.
Sight, sound, and smell crashed back into her with brutal intensity.
Airi could do nothing but sob as she watched blood pour from William’s leg while he writhed on the ground.
The soldier had one arm locked around her throat, choking her.
Then he swung the gun toward Christina.
His voice carried a dark, almost playful note.
“So, where are you folks headed next?”
⋆⁺₊⋆ ☾⋆⁺₊⋆
Only moments before midnight on July 5, the story returned to the Prophet.
The man in the soldier’s uniform fiddled with his damaged walkie-talkie, muttering under his breath.
A cold premonition crawled up Seojun’s spine.
It was not the result of any supernatural foresight. It came from something far more primitive—instinct.
The uniform was the first warning sign.
Seojun suddenly remembered the half-eaten corpse Bobby had clung to like a security blanket.
That corpse had also been wearing a soldier’s uniform.
He cursed himself for failing to connect the living, speaking soldier before him with the bisected body they had already seen.
Seojun said nothing.
Instead, he gave Johan’s hand a small, deliberate pat.
They had never established any secret signals, but he trusted Johan’s sharp instincts to recognise that something was wrong.
In truth, the sinister atmosphere should have been obvious to anyone.
The problem was that their destination lay directly ahead, and the soldier was blocking the path.
Seojun hesitated between retreating and attempting to slip around him unnoticed.
The soldier continued humming casually to himself.
To be fair, Seojun had only a fraction of a second in which to decide.
But the passage of time was different for a madman than it was for an ordinary person.
The soldier’s head suddenly snapped upward.
“Where are you going?”
His voice echoed unnaturally through the darkness.
“Where are you going? Where are you going? Where are you going...?”
The repeated question fell into a disturbing rhythm.
Seojun watched the man’s mouth twitch with every repetition, and cold dread settled in his stomach.
Johan reacted immediately.
He pulled Seojun backward, his eyes narrowing in concentration. Without looking away from the soldier, he answered in a deliberately casual tone.
“We’re just going to meet up with our friends. We’ll be on our way, thanks.”
“What? No.”
The soldier stepped toward them.
“Follow me. I’ll guide you.”
“Really, that won’t be necessary. We—”
Before Seojun could finish, the soldier’s hand shot toward his holster.
He drew his gun with practised ease and aimed it at Johan.
Johan’s instincts took over. He moved aside at once.
Only then did he realise it had been a feint.
In the same instant, the soldier pivoted and closed the distance between himself and Seojun.
“Jun!”
“Ugh!”
The soldier’s arm clamped around Seojun’s neck.
His airway closed instantly.
His muscles refused to obey him as the pressure tightened mercilessly around his throat.
The stench of blood, burned flesh, and damp, rotting skin flooded his nostrils. His head spun.
The soldier pressed the gun against the side of Seojun’s head.
Then he slowly dragged the barrel across his forehead and down the bridge of his nose, disturbing his black hair and lightly scraping his scalp.
He turned toward Johan.
His mutilated face twisted into a wide, manic grin.
“This is classified information,” he said. “It isn’t meant for civilian ears. Do you understand? Highly confidential.”
The grin widened.
“Now follow me. I’ll take you to your friends.”
Seojun tried to breathe in short, desperate gasps, like a fish suffocating on dry land.
His chest heaved violently.
His eyes, wide with panic, remained fixed on Johan.
Johan’s eyes were bloodshot, and the veins along his neck had swollen with rage and distress.
But with a gun pressed against Seojun’s head, trembling was the only thing Seojun could do.
⋆⁺₊⋆ ☾⋆⁺₊⋆
When they entered the abandoned dormitory, they found their friends tied up as though they had been arranged there to welcome them.
Christina and Airi sat in a corner of the first floor.
Their arms had been bound together with Airi’s summer jacket. Airi wore only a sleeveless undershirt, her outer shirt nowhere to be seen.
Goosebumps covered her bare arms.
William was in far worse condition.
He lay unconscious on the filthy floor, bleeding from both his head and his leg.
His wrists had been tightly bound with Airi’s shirt. The circulation had been cut off so severely that his fingertips appeared ghostly pale even in the dim light.
The sudden sound of approaching footsteps made Christina’s heart leap.
She timidly raised her head.
The moment she saw who had entered, she bit down on her lip.
Her tear-filled eyes squeezed shut, and a strained whisper escaped her throat.
“Johan... Have you come to save us?”
“Unfortunately, sadly, regrettably...”