I began moving while groping the wall with one hand. I couldn’t pick up much speed due to not being able to see ahead, but rather than hastily hurrying my steps, I focused my attention on being careful not to trip and fall.
Hanul High School. A place where I was once enrolled, and after monsters appeared, it became one of many ruins.
Hanul High School was divided into two buildings: the main building that had been newly constructed recently and had a relatively new feel, and the annex that had been closed for a long time. And this place where I was carefully moving now was the 4th floor of Hanul High’s main building.
The structure of the main building wasn’t much different from other schools. At both ends of the hallway were long staircases connecting from the 1st floor to the rooftop, and on each floor were classrooms lined up and divided by their own standards. On the 1st floor were the nurse’s office, cafeteria, principal’s office, etc. On the 2nd floor were the 1st-year classrooms and other special rooms, on the 3rd floor were the 2nd-year classrooms and the like, on the 4th floor were the 3rd-years… It was that kind of universal arrangement.
Most people hearing that story would think that the survivors remaining in Hanul High would be positioned balanced across the four floors. If multiple survivors and groups crowded onto one floor, conflict between them would be inevitable, and in a situation where it was hard to preserve even one’s own life, no one would want meaningless fights, so it was a rational speculation.
Rather, there might be many opinions that survivors would be particularly crowded on the 4th floor. Since flying-type monsters hadn’t been sighted yet, it would be relatively advantageous to make a place far from ground level one’s base.
However, as I said before, the only survivors residing on the 4th floor were Kang Jekyung’s group. Others hadn’t even glanced at this place, let alone come up here. To be precise, they couldn’t do so.
‘Because of the 3rd floor.’
Kang Jekyung’s group hadn’t occupied the 4th floor. They were trapped here. That’s why they were desperately trying to conserve food they couldn’t obtain additionally. By driving those with trivial abilities into dangerous situations first.
Lost in thought, I stopped walking belatedly. The texture touching the palm groping the wall had changed at some point. Unlike the hallway’s ordinary walls or the classroom doors I occasionally brushed past, it was cool and smooth. As I carefully caressed that material, I soon realized what its identity was.
‘Fire door.’
A fire door installed to prevent flames from spreading in case of a fire. It was firmly closed, blocking the passage connecting the hallway and staircase.
I flailed my hands around trying to find a doorknob somewhere. Then when something shaped like a handle touched my fingertips, I grasped it without missing it. Soon with a click, accompanied by a small noise, the door opened easily.
I stepped beyond it while supporting the fire door so it wouldn’t close. Air that was even stuffier and heavier than the 4th floor suddenly hit me. If it were only that it would have been better, but mixed within it, a stench and fishy smell worse than the 4th floor hallway gently wafted about. I’d become quite accustomed to this kind of smell during the past two weeks, so it wasn’t unbearable. It just made my nose ache sharply, reacting to the unpleasant smell.
Exhaling silently, I released the doorknob I’d been holding. Behind me, a click sounded again, indicating the fire door had closed firmly.
I knew that what this fire door had been blocking wasn’t flames or smoke as per its purpose. Still, since the purpose of ‘blocking’ something remained unchanged, it might be satisfied with the role it was performing as a fire door.
After groping at the air several times, I found the stair railing. Tightly grasping it, which held a chilly coldness, I stepped down the invisible stairs one by one.
Reaching the 3rd floor that way was quite quick. Like when coming down from the 4th floor, I pushed open the fire door and entered the 3rd floor hallway.
As I began stepping forward, the bloody smell assaulting my nose intensified. Wrinkling my face slightly, I rubbed my nose with the back of my hand to calm my throbbing sense of smell.
‘It seems corpses and blood are scattered all over here.’
Even the 3rd floor that remained last in my memory didn’t have such a nose-stinging smell. Whether some incident had erupted on the 3rd floor in the meantime, the scent of death spreading through the hallway had become thicker than before.
Then at a splat—a small but clear noise—I stopped right there. Due to not being able to see, the squishy and sticky texture I’d stepped on was vividly felt beneath the slippers I was wearing. I couldn’t help but know what the identity of that texture was.
‘A pool of blood.’
Was there a corpse right nearby? In front of me? Next to me? What if I stepped wrong and fell?
It was when my tightly tensed eyelids trembled.
Grrrowl—
I flinched. But being frozen in tension was only for an instant—I held my breath and turned my head to identify the source of the sound.
Grrrk—
The same sound as before was heard again. It was like the low cry of some mountain beast, and also like the artificial production sound of a strange creature that might appear in movies or dramas.
I knew what it was, what the thing emitting that terrible cry was called.
Monster. The main agents that appeared one day without warning and turned the world into a wasteland, took the lives of countless living beings, and ultimately brought about something called the apocalypse era.
And the reason I chose to stay on the 3rd floor rather than any other floor.
‘Because the 3rd floor is itself the source of monsters, long occupied by monsters.’
Calling it occupation—in fact, there was no such thing as a method for the unintelligent monsters to gather on the 3rd floor with purpose and ultimately occupy this place. Then why was the majority of monsters in Hanul High gathered and wandering not on the 1st or 4th floor, but on the 3rd floor, the middle level?
Kang Jekyung’s group said: Those who awakened relatively quickly compared to others drove the monsters to secure even part of the territory, and must have succeeded in isolating those horrific beings on the 3rd floor. Because of that, the 3rd floor became a dangerous area crawling with monsters, and Kang Jekyung’s group, who fled to the 4th floor taking the wrong path, also got trapped there.
But that wasn’t the truth.
The reason most of the monsters in Hanul High’s main building were gathered on the 3rd floor was because of me—precisely, because of the ability I awakened. Others just took the opportunity from the situation at the time to close the fire doors and control the monsters’ access. Of course, people except me didn’t know the inside story, so everyone was probably regarding speculations similar to Kang Jekyung’s group’s as truth.
Grrrowl—. Grrrowlk.
The resonant sound that had suddenly gotten closer was heard right next to me.
I just stood still without moving, still with my eyes closed and mouth shut. I only took care not to accidentally make a sound or cough, but wasn’t nervously scared. I now knew there was no need for that.
At least to me, monsters weren’t objects of fear and threat.
‘Because they don’t attack me.’
Soon I vaguely felt a huge presence smoothly passing by my side, and as it moved away without footsteps, even the low cry that had been repeating quietly ceased. Only then did I move my steps, being careful not to splash the blood in the pool under my feet.
‘There was an art room on the 3rd floor too. Should I go there?’
Was it around the middle of the hallway?
While thinking such plain thoughts without even a speck of fear or dread toward monsters.
***
The teacher in charge of art class was such a tremendous sweets enthusiast that he munched on snacks without caring even while conducting lessons. So naturally, snacks and jellies and such would remain in the art room where he constantly resided.
Finding the art room wasn’t very difficult. I couldn’t check the classroom nameplate because my eyes were closed, but there were plenty of other ways. Since various artworks were hung and displayed on the wall near the art room, I only needed to concentrate on groping with my hands to find the texture of drawing paper.
Soon, grasping the doorknob, I applied weak force to open the door. Just in case, rather than entering straight into the art room, I first listened carefully to search for sounds. No matter how much the 3rd floor was crawling with monsters, there might be someone isolated remaining.
Fortunately, no sounds were heard from inside the art room. There seemed to be neither people nor monsters. Only after listening carefully and checking two or three times did I step inside, and I thoroughly locked the door.
But even after doing so, I didn’t immediately open my eyes. To make this place into one ‘territory,’ I had to go through a more thorough procedure.
Starting from the door I’d just closed, I moved slowly one step at a time. I groped various parts of the wall with one hand to check if there were any openings, and verified one by one whether there were any windows wide open. Then whenever I discovered a window even slightly open, I exhaled in relief and firmly closed it and even fastened the lock.
One round might not be enough, so I went around once more to complete my art room tour. If there was a hole I failed to discover even after doing all this, I decided to accept and resign myself that that would be my fate and the limit of my lifeline.
Releasing the tension from my body that had been stiff from being on edge, I leaned against the wall. After roughly rubbing my eye area that was stiff from being closed for a long time, I struggled to lift my eyelids that wouldn’t open easily.
It was dazzling because bright light suddenly filled my vision that had been dark. Wrinkling my face slightly, I looked around inside the art room with dimly opened eyes.
Then I flinched and froze right there. My body that had been languidly relaxed with relief stiffened faster than when facing a monster and creaked.
‘…I thought no one was here.’
In the center of the art room, some boy sitting perched on a white desk was staring intently at me.
