Chapter 19
Baek Yi-heon, who had been unusually quiet during the whole walk to the gate, looked very gloomy.
“…Do you plan to stay in this camp, Noah-ssi?”
“Yes. I should. Sehun and I will be safe here.”
I answered, looking around the prison once more.
The fact that it doesn’t look like a proper survivor camp yet is probably because it was only recently established.
Soon it will take the form of a village, and various inventions will pour out.
When the ‘Monster Repellent’ came out, I planned to escape with it.
At my answer, Baek Yi-heon’s expression sank as if submerging.
“What about you, Baek Yi-heon-ssi?”
“I…”
I already knew the answer.
After hesitating for a moment, Baek Yi-heon soon said,
“…I’m going to Gangnam. I need to save people there.”
Right. That’s what makes him the protagonist.
I just nodded silently.
“Hyung… Are you really going? Can’t you just stay here with us?”
Sehun’s small hand overlapped Baek Yi-heon’s large one.
The child, barely reaching his waist, looked up at Baek Yi-heon with bright eyes.
Baek Yi-heon’s pupils seemed to waver for a moment. However, he soon shook his head.
Knowing well his trauma-mixed belief of ‘dying while saving people’, I just accepted it and didn’t try to hold him back.
“Alright. You’d just be a burden if you came with us. Ah, the camper…”
I hesitated a bit, then said, as if doing him a favor,
“You can take it, Baek Yi-heon-ssi.”
“…Okay.”
“Well then.”
I pondered for a moment about what to say, then spoke.
“Take care of yourself.”
“…You too, Noah-ssi. Stay healthy.”
“Hyung! Thank you! Goodbye!”
Baek Yi-heon soon turned and left through the iron gate.
From now on, things will flow just like in the original story. He’ll start his lonely fight alone. It’ll be a while before he meets his companions.
‘Right. This is how it should be.’
He’s walking the path of the protagonist, and I’m walking the path of an extra.
Suddenly, I felt glad that I never became too familiar with him until the end.
💎
“Noona.”
Mmm.
“Noona…”
A small hand shook me awake.
I opened my eyes wide.
I saw the ceiling of a shabby tent made of patched clothes.
My goodness, to fall asleep so deeply.
I was sure I was going to stay on guard while only letting the child sleep on our first night at the camp, but when did I fall asleep?
I grabbed my throbbing head and tried to recall my memories.
So… It seems I fell asleep right after eating the porridge they gave out for dinner, which had only a little rice in it.
“Sehun-ah.”
As I gathered my wits and sat up abruptly, Sehun whispered to me with an anxious look.
“Somehow… I feel a bit strange.”
“What, are you sick somewhere?”
The child’s face was very pale.
Sehun shook his head, then pointed at the prison building with his small hand, whimpering.
“Ugh… It’s…”
The child spoke with difficulty.
“It feels like something’s squirming… right under our feet.”
Under our feet? Surely not underground?
But this is a prison. There shouldn’t be anything down there…
“Why? Does it feel like there’s someone with bad intentions there?”
The child shook his head.
“No. It’s different from that. I feel nauseous and uncomfortable.”
I carefully pulled back the tent entrance and looked around.
“…It is strange indeed.”
The temporary survivor camp, full of people, was as quiet as death.
Only the faint sound of birds crying in the distant mountains could be heard.
Not even the sound of night watchmen patrolling could be heard.
All these people, not a single one awake, all sleeping like the dead?
‘Did someone drug the porridge? Why? Damn. Now we don’t even have the protagonist.’
After biting my lip and pondering for a moment, I soon made a decision.
Trying to escape with the child on a night like this would only make us monster snacks.
“Can you tell which direction it’s coming from?”
“Just that it’s below…”
“Let’s go check it out.”
We have no choice but to confirm it directly.
I took out the flashlight and kitchen knife I had hidden in my bag.
Sehun was surprised for a moment, but thanks to experiencing a lot at a young age, he calmed down quickly.
We moved toward the direction the child pointed, trying to minimize our footsteps.
“…Even the people inside the building.”
The inside of the prison building was also as quiet as death.
When I secretly opened the doors to check, everyone was sleeping as if dead.
“Over there… Down there…”
“It was fine during the day?”
“Yes…”
As we carefully moved in the direction Sehun pointed, a locked door appeared in a dark corner at the bottom of the stairs.
“Is it here?”
Sehun couldn’t even answer properly and just nodded quickly.
When I struck the rusty lock connection with the kitchen knife, it broke easily.
Creeeak—
Behind the door that opened with a chilling sound, stairs leading down to the basement stretched long into the darkness.
The cool and musty smell unique to basements wafted up.
“A basement space… Was there a bunker in the prison too?”
I shone the flashlight, but the light didn’t reach the end of the stairs.
“Noona…”
“It’s okay. Let’s go.”
Gripping the kitchen knife tightly in one hand, I slowly descended the stairs, feeling my way along the wall.
Due to the extreme darkness, I soon broke out in a cold sweat as I concentrated on not falling.
And finally, when we reached the bottom of the stairs.
“Ugh…”
Sehun could no longer hold back and let out an unpleasant groan.
“What in the world…”
Even I momentarily lost my composure at the scene unfolding before my eyes.
What was in the basement was a large room blocked off by iron bars.
And lying inside that room like lifeless dolls was a group of people.
If it weren’t for their faint breathing, I would have thought they were all corpses.
Every single one of them looked emaciated to the point of near death.
Not even a groan came from any of them.
I noticed that they were all wearing blue prison uniforms with number tags.
“…They didn’t drive out the inmates who were here.”
They were keeping them locked up in the basement. But why…?
That’s when it happened.
The skinny inmates who had been lying like corpses suddenly sat up.
Sehun and I screamed simultaneously and hastily backed away.
I thrust forward the kitchen knife I was holding in a threatening manner.
However, the people’s gazes were not directed at us. Their unfocused pupils were staring off into the distance.
‘What are they looking at?’
Slumped shoulders, unfocused eyes.
Like puppets tied to invisible strings, they suddenly lined up in a row and started to file out through the iron bars.
“Let’s get out of here!”
“Noona… sob.”
“Hurry!”
We quickly ran up the stairs just before they could swarm us.
Behind us, they were surging up like a horde of zombies.
Trying to sprint up the stairs in one go left us gasping for breath.
Encouraging Sehun, who was falling behind, we finally managed to escape the basement.
“Outside, let’s get outside!”
As we dashed out of the prison, once again an unfamiliar scene unfolded before us.
The people who had clearly been in deep sleep were all now standing up on their feet.
In the dark night illuminated only by moonlight.
The sight of people filling the prison yard, all lined up and staring in one direction, was bizarre to the point of being eerie.
“Hey! What’s wrong with you all! Snap out of it!”
“…..”
Even when I grabbed and shook the body of a woman next to me while shouting, there was no response.
She just kept staring somewhere with unfocused eyes.
“What have you all been looking at?!”
I turned my body to follow the woman’s gaze.
“The watchtower?”
The tall watchtower in the center of the prison.
Everyone’s gaze was fixed on it.
“There’s nothing there, what on earth…”
That’s when.
Someone climbed to the top of the watchtower.
White clothes gleaming brightly, reflecting the moonlight.
It was John.
✦
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