Special Offer! Gas Mask Slashed to Just $69!Everything felt unreal.
Seojun and Bobby stared at each other. Bobby’s expression hovered somewhere between terror and disbelief, as though Seojun had stepped straight out of a horror movie.
Isn’t this supposed to be the time when that man-eating monster becomes active?
Seojun tried to judge the hour by the moon’s position, but it was useless. His entire body felt as though it had been soaked through—heavy, clammy, and cold. The gash on his arm had stopped bleeding, but the untreated wound still throbbed.
“Murderer! Mur—”
“Bobby, can you shut up?”
“Uh...”
With an axe in Seojun’s hands, the message was perfectly clear.
The lukewarm blade hovered near Bobby’s chest, and he seemed to understand the urgency at once. He snapped his mouth shut and nodded frantically, his head bobbing like a toy.
After giving his racing heart a moment to calm, Seojun seized Bobby by the collar and hauled him upright.
Bobby’s eyes rolled back as he teetered on the verge of fainting, but Seojun paid no attention. He examined him suspiciously.
Bobby’s body was intact.
Not a single piece was missing.
Something was wrong.
Wasn’t this about the time when that shoddily made man-eating monster should have been wreaking havoc? His wristwatch was broken, but Seojun was certain it was already late at night.
Everything about this is strange.
Seojun tilted his head, his expression puzzled, and tightened his grip on the axe. Bobby was nearly choking, but Seojun had no time to care.
Why were the monsters so quiet?
Why had the gas-masked killer attacked him near the convenience store instead of going after the people at the campground?
And what the hell was Bobby doing out here alone in the middle of the night?
Every answer only seemed to raise another question.
It would have been less surprising if Bobby had been hiding inside the monster like some grotesque cosplay costume.
Frustrated, Seojun shook Bobby by the collar. Just because he was carrying a bloodstained axe, Bobby had immediately leapt to the most absurd conclusion possible.
Seojun felt both wronged and exasperated.
For one fleeting moment, he even felt a flicker of sympathy for Bobby. He wondered whether he should attempt to reason with him.
Naturally, he did not.
It was not that Seojun was incapable of becoming a murderer, nor that Bobby’s life was especially precious to him.
The real problem was the gas-masked killer hunting them.
In a crisis, even the most strained relationships could be temporarily smoothed over.
Seojun gently tapped Bobby’s chest with the blunt side of the axe, drawing a weak whimper from him.
“Uh...”
“Bobby, stay quiet if you want to live.”
“Uh... okay...”
Neither of them knew when or where Gas Mask might appear. For both their sakes, Seojun offered Bobby this invaluable advice.
Apparently moved by his sincerity, Bobby burst into tears and nodded with desperate enthusiasm.
Seeing how obedient Bobby had become, Seojun felt slightly relieved. He nearly gave him an affectionate pat with the back of the axe, but stopped himself just in time.
Yikes.
Seojun tightened his grip on the fire axe.
The crimson metal gleamed ominously in the darkness. It had been designed for two purposes, with a broad cutting edge on one side and a viciously sharp spike on the other.
He had come dangerously close to giving Bobby an accidental lobotomy.
Shuddering at the thought, Seojun scanned the surrounding forest.
I’m a little worried about that scream Bobby let out earlier.
Bobby had the kind of voice that could shatter glass—shrill, piercing, and impossible to ignore.
Hoping Gas Mask had somehow failed to hear that ear-splitting shriek was like praying for rain in the middle of a desert.
A person could not entrust their life to luck alone.
In a world that had become indistinguishable from a horror movie, where misfortune lurked around every corner, Seojun made a firm decision.
He would fight to survive.
“All right, Bobby. Take me to your friends.”
“I... I can’t do that...”
Before Bobby could protest any further, Seojun waved the axe like a sorcerer brandishing a staff.
Bobby’s eyes immediately went distant and unfocused.
“O-of course I can!”
“That’s the spirit.”
Seojun handed him the lantern and lowered his voice to a whisper.
“Put out the light. I’ll watch our surroundings. You need to move quietly, understood? Don’t make a sound. Not even a breath.”
“Uh... okay. Okay...”
Bobby’s eyes filled with tears again as he extinguished the lantern, evidently terrified of drawing the killer’s attention.
Puzzled by Bobby’s constantly shifting emotions, Seojun merely nudged him forward.
And so, Seojun acquired a companion who, apart from the occasional sniffle, remained mostly silent.
“Uh... ugh...”
As they moved through the darkness, Seojun repeatedly glanced at Bobby’s trembling back.
The bizarre events of the night had drained him completely, and exhaustion hung over his shoulders like a heavy cloak.
But resting now could prove fatal.
He checked his wristwatch.
Its cracked face was frozen at 9:20.
He had no way of knowing how much time had passed since then, but one thing was certain.
July 4th was far from over.
Half listening to Bobby’s quiet sobs, Seojun replayed the strange chain of events that had brought him to the Hamon campsite that night.
*****
Seojun had always known survival would not be easy.
Tonight, however, that belief seemed to hover somewhere between overconfidence and sheer arrogance.
Hot blood trickled down to his elbow, making his head spin.
He tried to remember whether he had ever received a tetanus shot, but his thoughts were too tangled to form a clear answer.
I’ll worry about tetanus once I’m safe.
If he failed to escape Gas Mask, an infection would be the least of his problems.
Seojun glanced back along the darkening path.
By some incredible stroke of luck, he had managed to fend off the killer—mostly because the man had not fired a gun at him.
But Seojun could not celebrate yet.
In horror movies, when a murderer chose not to use a firearm, it usually meant he had something far more brutal in mind.
In Gas Mask’s case, there was little doubt that he intended to use the Hamon knife to turn Seojun into ham in the most literal sense imaginable.
The thought drained even more color from Seojun’s face.
This is why I hate serial killers.
If they catch you, they always start rambling about their warped philosophy or some twisted view of the world.
Do I really have to listen to a madman explain his baseless logic while he murders me?
In some respects, the idea of being lectured by a lunatic was even more horrifying than death itself.
The urgency to alter his fate grew stronger.
Panting heavily, Seojun looked down at his wristwatch.
It read exactly 8:30.
I left the convenience store around eight, so I’ve been running for about thirty minutes.
Ignoring the burning pain in his feet, he forced his exhausted legs to keep moving.
Gas Mask could be closing in at any moment, and Seojun needed to put as much distance between them as possible.
Unfortunately, his untrained body was already beginning to fail after half an hour of running.
Seojun bit his lower lip, trying to suppress the despair rising inside him. The sharp sting briefly pulled his thoughts back into focus.
He wiped the sweat from his brow with his uninjured left arm.
In his current dazed state, survival seemed like a distant and unrealistic hope.
He needed to think clearly.
And he needed to do it now.
Still walking, Seojun took stock of everything he had left.
Regrettably, the list was very short.
There was himself.
A broken wristwatch.
And a lemon bulging in his pocket.
“Stay positive... Stay positive...”
Seojun tried to reassure himself, but the words offered no comfort.
Before long, he was tugging at his hair in frustration.
He had been ambushed on his way home from work, and naturally, all his belongings were still inside his bag.
The bag was in the basket of his bicycle.
And the bicycle was probably still standing obediently outside the convenience store.
Seojun crouched in the darkness, tormented by the absurdity of his situation.
His phone—the most obvious lifeline—was agonizingly far beyond his reach.
Only then did he remember that his parents had mentioned visiting a friend that evening.
Unlike Seojun, who treasured solitude, his parents were outgoing people who genuinely enjoyed socializing.
Since he had left the convenience store earlier than usual, the chances of them noticing anything was wrong were practically nonexistent.
Heavyhearted, Seojun reached into his pocket and stroked the lemon.
The only conceivable use for it was to squeeze the juice into someone’s eyes as a surprise attack.
Realistically, however, Gas Mask would probably block such an attempt without difficulty.
Damn bastard.
Grinding his teeth, Seojun forced himself back to his feet.
All he had to rely on was his tall but frail body.
It was a miserable state of affairs.
Seojun moved forward with painstaking caution.
Although he worked at a convenience store near the Hamon campsite, he knew almost nothing about the surrounding area. He had always made a point of avoiding it and had never allowed curiosity to get the better of him.
Blinking back tears, he looked over his shoulder.
The forest stretched endlessly behind him, a vast sea of darkness.
There was no sign of Gas Mask.
Not yet.
But every shadow and every faint rustle along the pitch-black forest path intensified his unease.
He felt like a mouse trapped inside a maze.
Even so, he had no choice but to continue.
The Hamon campsite was infamous for both a man-eating monster and a serial killer.
It was also where Christina could be found.
The familiar horror trope of the “final girl” was one of the few things driving him onward.
Then there were the others.
The formidable William.
And Bobby, who would most likely end up serving as unsuspecting bait in the most dangerous place imaginable.
And, of course, there was Johan.
Seojun had known Johan Gentil since childhood.
The young Johan could be irritable at times, but he had generally been reliable, if somewhat peculiar.
They were not exactly friends.
Nor were they dating.
Even so, knowing that Johan was somewhere within the Hamon campsite gave Seojun enough strength to keep moving.
It was a strange feeling.
Fortunately, sheer exhaustion soon crushed those melancholy thoughts.
As he ran, Seojun found himself startled by his own sentimentality.
With his life at stake, indulging in emotion was a luxury he could not afford.
He forced himself back to reality.
A 194-centimeter quarterback really does make an excellent shield.