# 03.
“Similar situations are happening in the emergency rooms of Hangang University Hospital and Jiwoon University Hospital. Like an epidemic, people who have been affected are simultaneously showing aggressive behavior, and the situation is getting worse.”
When Cha Heegeon turned up the volume, the reporter’s voice became clearer.
“These random attacks started with the first report to the 112 emergency center at 4 AM today. After three hours, the number of calls to 119 and 112 has reached 100. The government is now treating this as collective terrorism and riot…”
“All the TV stations are broadcasting breaking news, but the locations vary, and similar incidents are happening in different areas.”
I nervously asked, “Is it really zombies?”
Both men looked at me at the same time. The man who had just entered chuckled at me, apparently thinking I was joking.
I glanced at the man holding his phone. My eyes were drawn to his deep dimples. Looking at his face made me feel embarrassed, and I bit my lip. Unlike him, Cha Heegeon frowned and said, “You keep talking nonsense.”
Thud.
Suddenly, there was a dull sound from outside the door, followed by commotion.
“I’ll go check,” said the man next to Cha Heegeon. As soon as he opened the door, we saw a man collapsed on the office floor.
The man was convulsing with his eyes rolled back and white foam around his mouth. It reminded me of the scene I had witnessed at the terminal earlier.
“Junhee hyung! Donghu complained about shoulder pain earlier, and now he suddenly collapsed!”
The man who had been checking on the fallen man urgently reported to the one who opened the door. The collapsed man was thrashing around like a fish out of water. Seeing this alarming situation, the man called Junhee shouted:
“Quickly, call 119!”
“I’ve been trying, but I can’t get through,” said another man clutching his phone. Junhee looked at the panicking men, then turned around. Cha Heegeon, who had been watching everything, took out his phone and made a call.
“Damn it.”
After cursing quietly, Cha Heegeon dialed another number, then put his phone back in his pocket.
“Can’t connect to the police or 119,” he concluded.
“What do we do? Donghu might…”
“Dammit, let’s just take him ourselves.”
“Wait a minute.”
While they were panicking, they seemed to have made a decision and tried to lift the still-convulsing man onto someone’s back. Watching this, Cha Heegeon turned toward the window.
He opened the window and leaned his upper body outside, looking left and right. Scared but curious, I quietly got up from the sofa.
“Argh!”
“Aack!”
“Aaah!”
Soon, all kinds of screams came from outside the open window. Someone seemed to be chased and screamed at the top of their lungs, triggering strange noises from all directions.
Watching this, Cha Heegeon cursed, looked around, and then grabbed a flowerpot from the corner of the windowsill and threw it down.
“Argh!”
With a dull sound of the flowerpot breaking, one of the screams stopped. But it seemed like more than one person was being chased, as screams continued to come from all directions.
“We can’t go outside.”
“Hyung, what’s wrong?” Junhee, who had been waiting for Cha Heegeon’s permission, came into the boss’s office and asked, but Cha Heegeon shook his head while closing the window. Then he left the office.
“There are crazy people running wild outside. If we just go out, we’ll be attacked.”
“Then maybe one of us could go get the car? Once we get in…”
“Hey! Hyung! I can see Kim Dongyoung’s car!”
One of the men looking out the office window shouted. At his call, everyone rushed to the window. Seeing this, Cha Heegeon quickly took out his phone and called someone.
“Hey, Kim Dongyoung. Don’t get out of the car. The office…”
Thud, screech, bang.
Before he could finish, something happened. All six men standing by the window gasped and banged on the glass.
Cha Heegeon called for Kim Dongyoung several times, then headed to the window. Seeing this, Junhee also went to the boss’s office window, looked down, and quickly ran out, saying:
“Hyung, I’ll go down.”
“With all that chaos out there? Don’t do something reckless.”
I carefully moved toward the window, watching Cha Heegeon’s reaction. Not knowing what was happening, I approached the window to see for myself.
Outside was complete chaos.
A motorcycle, apparently hit by a car, was sprawled in the middle of the road, and Kim Dongyoung’s car was backed into a utility pole, surrounded by strange people.
“Wouldn’t it be better to get in Kim Dongyoung’s car than going all the way to the parking lot?”
Meanwhile, Kim Dongyoung seemed aware of the people hanging onto his bumper and was slowly moving forward. However, the people on the bumper showed no signs of moving away. The car, which had stopped momentarily in confusion, started to turn its front wheels sideways and move again.
Just as it looked like he was trying to escape, suddenly a student in school uniform rode past on a bicycle. He kept looking back as if being chased while speeding away, and the people who had been clinging to the car started following the student.
“Hyung! Now’s our chance!”
“Grab tools and go.”
Seeing this opportunity, Cha Heegeon ordered his men who were moving busily. Most followed the bicycle, but three still remained. That man from the terminal was persistently attacking… I wasn’t sure if it would be okay.
Even just watching made me nervous. I left the boss’s office. The subordinates were just leaving the office, and Cha Heegeon kept calling someone while watching outside.
“Urgh, grgh.”
At that moment, the man who had been convulsing on the floor suddenly made strange noises, turned to his side, then fell forward and started shaking all his limbs.
I watched him making bizarre movements while holding my breath. The foam that had filled his mouth created a trail on the floor.
“Gurgh.”
Eventually, the man planted his palms on the floor and moved his legs. There was something odd about the way he moved. This… this seemed like what I saw at the terminal.
I couldn’t take my eyes off him because of the overwhelming sense of threat slowly suffocating me. Biting my lip hard, I approached Cha Heegeon, who was shouting something out the window. I grabbed his firm arm.
“What? Why are you moving on your own…”
Just as Cha Heegeon spoke, the man who had been kneeling with his head down looked up.
“His, his pupils…”
The man stared at us with abnormally dilated pupils that glistened. As I spoke, Cha Heegeon turned and approached the man.
“Why, why are you going near him!”
I screamed in terror. While the man didn’t look like the decayed corpses from movies, I was convinced he was a zombie.
Yet Cha Heegeon fearlessly approached him. My heart raced madly watching him. Although this man was trying to sell me off to pay a debt, I didn’t want him to die before my eyes. Frankly, with the world in chaos, I didn’t want to be left alone.
“Kim Donghu, snap out of it.”
Cha Heegeon commanded coldly, but the man didn’t respond. He just knelt there, trembling his upper lip and making tiny “gurgh, gugh” sounds. His Adam’s apple bobbed up and down as if he might vomit.
“I said snap out of it.”
Something was about to happen. My clenched fists were soaked with sweat. As I was debating whether to drag him into the boss’s office, I suddenly felt a strong pheromone. It was an alpha pheromone so powerful that my body stiffened.
“Grrr.”
Donghu was an alpha. Though not as effective as using it on an omega, perhaps pheromone suppression could work on anyone who wasn’t a beta.
…That’s what I thought momentarily. But Donghu began showing an intense reaction instead. He sniffed the air, then rose with a loud howl.
“Aaargh!”
Suddenly suppressed by Cha Heegeon’s pheromones, I couldn’t help but scream. Donghu, whom I thought was excited by Cha Heegeon’s pheromones, charged at me instead of at him.
Those black eyes, where pupil and iris seemed to have merged, were targeting me. I wanted to run away, but my body wouldn’t move properly because of the pheromone’s effect.
Thud.
“Aaack!”
Not knowing what to do, I closed my eyes tightly. At that moment, Donghu collided with my side. When I opened my eyes in shock, I saw Cha Heegeon pressing Donghu’s face against the window.
“Aaaack!”
But for some reason, Donghu was roaring at me, not at Cha Heegeon. Even with his face flattened against the glass, he kept reaching out toward me.
I struggled with all my might, afraid his fingertips might scratch me. Right then, my body, freed from Cha Heegeon’s pheromones, slowly started to move.
“Aaaaargh!”
Donghu became more violent as I stepped back. He jerked his body and shook his head wildly as if he would break free from Cha Heegeon at any moment. His thrashing sprayed spit and foam everywhere.
“Kim Donghu!”
“Aaaack!”
As Donghu struggled desperately to overpower him, Cha Heegeon grabbed his Adam’s apple firmly.
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
