Five days bled into one another.
The rain was still falling, though the torrential downpour had visibly weakened compared to day one. It felt like the storm could finally break at any second.
Su Jin stood by the window, his face a bloodless, sickly pale.
Five days of constant pressure and broken sleep had left him mentally exhausted.
Down in the courtyard, nearly twenty zombies were wandering around, drawn from god knows where.
The last few days had brought both good and bad news.
The gray material in his jars of rainwater had dissipated over five days.
He had run fresh tests, and the remaining water had completely lost its mutagenic properties.
Furthermore, the rapid weakening of the storm didn’t align with Fu Qingdai’s prophetic dreams.
The company evidently had not foreseen every detail. It had predicted the disaster and sent Fu Qingdai a dream based on that prediction.
The reality on the ground was actually far more survivable than the nightmare she had envisioned.
The disaster was more widespread than expected, though it seemed less difficult to survive than he had imagined.
Across the street, he had witnessed several bloody tragedies.
He had seen them unfold in the residential building opposite.
He had seen people jump to escape zombies in their homes, only to be torn apart below.
He saw someone successfully fight back… only to hang themselves afterward.
And then there was the cannibalism. A couple had torn out their son’s organs and eaten them. The sight was unbearable.
Crying could be heard upstairs and downstairs every day.
Scenes like these tested the nerves of anyone who saw them.
For Su Jin, already tense and exhausted, it was even worse.
His greatest hope was that the rain would stop and the army would arrive.
A crisis of this magnitude had to reach a tipping point soon.
Yet no further broadcast had come since the last one.
It was as if the entire country had fallen silent.
Zero reassurance. Zero updates. The radio silence was profoundly unnatural.
Dragging his exhausted, heavy limbs, Su Jin turned away from the window and shuffled toward his bedroom.
There was nothing to do but wait.
He hoped the rain would end and the army would come soon. He never wanted to live through something like this again.
…
By five that afternoon, the sky had grown much darker than usual.
The rain still fell, though it was weakening.
Now and then, he heard zombies roaring or pounding on doors outside.
Lying on his mattress, Su Jin stared blankly at the ceiling, utterly numb.
Suddenly, the radio crackled to life.
The static sounded like music to his ears.
Su Jin vaulted out of bed, snatched the radio, and cranked the volume dial, which was already maxed out.
He pressed the speaker to his ear, his heart hammering against his ribs.
Through a wall of heavy interference, a frantic, grief-stricken voice cut through.
“…Warning… all… citizens… state functions have ceased. You must fend for yourselves and survive. Do not trust…”
A bloodcurdling scream tore through the audio feed, and the broadcast went dead.
The desperate hope on Su Jin’s face froze into a rictus mask.
His mind went blank, and all sound seemed to vanish.
“Woooooooooooo————!”
An air-raid siren suddenly shrieked to life across the city, a mechanical wail that sounded like the sky itself was being ripped open.
Su Jin violently flinched and sprinted into the living room.
What he saw made his eyes widen and his legs tremble.
Far in the distance, directly over the downtown core…
More than a dozen unidentified objects, perhaps missiles, rose from the direction of the city center trailing white exhaust like meteors in reverse.
After they vanished, a powerful shockwave spread through the sky.
Immediately, the dark clouds spread rapidly from the blast, rolling like waves.
“BOOM————!”
A concussive roar hammered the earth.
The windows groaned and the glass rattled.
The apocalypse was no longer only gray rain. A violent natural disaster had arrived.
The clouds continued to churn, lightning flashing within them.
Atmospheric downbursts triggered, sending columns of air plunging toward the ground like tornadoes.
Wherever the columns struck, the ground froze.
Su Jin stood paralyzed, white-knuckling the windowsill, his teeth chattering so hard they ached.
The Cold Vault Missile System.
These vast cloud movements and attacks driven by temperature and air currents were its hallmarks.
It was the nation’s ultimate deterrent. And it had fired at its own capital without warning!
Am I… going to die?
What was happening? The rain might stop tomorrow, and then the military should have come. Why had this happened instead?
A wave of absolute, primal terror and visceral nausea hit him like a physical blow.
Su Jin clamped a hand over his mouth, hunching over as he sprinted for the bathroom.
He reached the living room and vomited a mouthful of sour liquid onto the floor.
The sour bile burned his throat. He hacked and coughed until tears streamed down his face, his heart feeling as though it had been physically crushed.
How could a modern industrial country be so fragile?
The core function of a state apparatus was order. Announcing the state’s collapse would bring social breakdown, fights over resources, and even military mutiny.
No matter how widespread the zombie infection was, the government had no logical reason to declare total defeat to the civilian populace.
It was a zombie outbreak, yet the leadership had used a devastating weapon against the capital… In five days, he had not seen a single soldier.
If a whole country could fall so easily, what the hell was a single man supposed to do?!
Every survival plan he had drafted was rendered completely meaningless.
Perhaps the highest decision-makers had failed, or they had misunderstood the infection. Su Jin could no longer think clearly enough to analyze it.
After standing motionless for a long while, he ran to the bedroom, snatched the dead radio, and screamed into the speaker.
“Do not trust what?! Do not trust what?! Answer me!!!”
He smashed the radio.
The apocalypse… he knew it in his bones. The company had already reached its conclusion about this world.
Yet, he had deluded himself into thinking the military was coming to save him.
He had clung to the comfortable lie of modern society. Now, that lie was incinerated, leaving him stranded in a blood-soaked reality.
The hyper-chilled downbursts were still hammering the downtown core, but the shockwaves of freezing wind were already tearing through the suburbs.
Over the howling gale, the sharp, piercing shrieks of human despair drifted into his apartment.
Stumbling back to the living room window, Su Jin saw a man in the opposite building standing on the ledge of his window. He wailed into the wind and stepped off into the void.
From an adjacent tower, another survivor shrieked hysterically and plummeted toward the concrete.
The cries seemed to spread. Su Jin watched one person after another jump.
Finally, on the sixth floor of the building across from him, a woman holding a swaddled baby stood on a windowsill. She cried and shook her head at Su Jin, then jumped with her child.
“No, no, no… don’t! Don’t do it! Don’t jump!!!”
Su Jin stamped his feet and shouted, desperate to stop her.
When he saw the zombies about to descend on the mother and child, he could no longer hold back.
He ripped his window open, leveled the Silver Gun, and pulled the trigger!
Bang! Bang! Bang!
After nine shots, only an empty click came from the gun.
Su Jin kept pulling the empty trigger, watching as the zombies tore the mother and child apart until only red spread through the water.
…
Watching someone else receive an injection can make a person feel a twinge, as though the needle had pierced their own skin.
For the first time, Su Jin felt another person’s suffering as sharply as pain in his own body.
His finger finally slipped off the trigger. His stomach violently spasmed, and the thick, coppery taste of blood rose in the back of his throat.
He staggered, bent over, and retched, but nothing came up.
After standing still for two seconds, he turned and hurled the Silver Gun at the floor. It bounced against the wall.
“Where is the company?!” Su Jin dropped to his knees, his wild eyes scanning the empty room as he wept and roared at the ceiling. “What am I supposed to do?! I’m just an ordinary person! Why did you pick me?!”
“I just wanted a damn job! What do you want from me?!”
Su Jin cursed and pounded the floor, venting his fear and anger until his hands were bloody.
The blows slowly lost their power.
At last he leaned against the wall, covered his face, and wept until only quiet sobs remained.
“Please… just save them… I’m done… I quit…”
All hope was gone.
Outside, people continued to jump, and cries carried through the cold wind.
…
“Zhang Wan! Zhang Wan! Wake up…”
In the master bedroom of the Fu apartment, Fu Hu held Zhang Wan and called to her anxiously.
The message had left them shaken. Then the Cold Vault Missile System struck, and the sight of people jumping from buildings frightened Zhang Wan into fainting.
Fu Qingdai stood frozen in the doorway, her face ashen, her hand gripping the doorframe.
Fu Hu snapped his head back. “Qingdai! Get some water!”
She jolted, nodded frantically, and went to the water bucket. She scooped a bowl of water and hurried back.
Watching her father try to revive her mother, Fu Qingdai was frightened and worried.
After a moment of thought, she quietly closed the bedroom door and went into the living room.
She scanned the living room, her eyes locking onto a chair.
Gritting her teeth, she lifted the chair and struck the door handle hard!
“Qingdai, what the hell are you doing?!” Fu Hu bellowed through the bedroom door.
Fu Qingdai ignored him and kept striking the door, her teeth clenched.
One blow missed, and her fingers struck the door handle hard enough to scrape off a piece of skin.
Blood instantly welled up, dripping onto the floor.
She struck the handle several more times until it loosened. Fu Hu came out of the bedroom and stared at her in anger.
“What are you doing?!”
“I’m trying to get the door open.”
“You are not stepping foot outside! You stay exactly where you are! Look at the state your mother is in, and you’re still causing trouble!”
Fu Qingdai lowered her head and nodded.
As soon as Fu Hu hurried back into the bedroom, she pulled the door handle open.
…
Click.
Fu Qingdai carefully pulled the door open.
As soon as she opened the door a crack, a sharp smell of smoke reached her.
SKRRRT… SKRRRT… SKRRRT…
The harsh, rhythmic scraping of steel on stone echoed from the dark apartment.
The lights inside flickered. The city’s power grid was in its death throes.
The cold wind still howled outside the window.
Heart lodged in her throat, Fu Qingdai crept past the entryway, intending to call out for him. But the second she stepped into the living room, the words died on her tongue.
SKRRRT… SKRRRT… SKRRRT…
There was blood across the floor.
Su Jin sat on a stool, both fists wrapped in bandages stained dark with blood.
His muscular upper body was bare and damp with sweat. The flickering light edged his muscles in gold.
Su Jin slowly turned his head, his dark eyes locking onto her.
Fu Qingdai flinched backward, instinctively crossing her arms over her chest.
She had never seen that look in his eyes: hatred and anger, like a wild animal.
SKRRRT… SKRRRT… SKRRRT…
He didn’t break eye contact.
Tears welling in her eyes, Fu Qingdai forced the words out, her voice a fragile tremble. “Brother… I’m scared…”
Pop.
The light went out, leaving only the red glow of a cigarette ember in the room.
SKRRRT!
The ember dimmed, and the harsh sound of sharpening a blade stopped.
“…Don’t be. Brother is here.”