IHTBN 03

A moment later, I realized that loud noises were ringing out all around me.

Ear-splitting sirens and screams.

And, completely out of place in this setting, the eerie sound of gunfire.

I couldn’t even begin to figure out what was happening.

Inside the bus, which had become a scene of utter chaos, several people were lying motionless.

The shards of glass embedded in their bodies and the way they were sprawled across the floor made it obvious that they weren’t alive.

‘No…… what the hell…….’

What was this?

Was this a dream?

If it was a dream, then why did my entire body hurt?

Could there have been another traffic accident?

As I stared at the horrifying scene unfolding before my eyes, ominous questions and an indescribable sense of dread began to rise within me.

There had been around thirty new employees on the bus.

If only this many people were left, had everyone else managed to escape safely?

Then what were these sirens for?

Something about the situation felt strangely out of place, and I couldn’t understand it.

‘Calm down. Lee Seo-young. Think calmly. First, check whether your arms and legs are moving.’

Start with the simplest things, one at a time.

I took a long breath and checked the condition of my body.

Fortunately, my body, secured by the seat belt, was intact. Both my arms and legs were fine.

My eyes, nose, and mouth were fine too. My ears……

• Bang! Bang!
• BOOM!

[KIEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!]

“Don’t stop firing! The moment there’s an opening, it’ll eat you!!!”

Along with a horrifying scream that couldn’t possibly belong to anything from this world, a deafening barrage of gunfire assaulted my ears.

Pressing my aching ears, I turned toward the direction the screams were coming from.

Through my blurry vision, I could see people wearing bulletproof vests and carrying guns and shields.

Judging by the group logo printed on their backs, they seemed to be employees of Hwain Group.

‘Security personnel? Security personnel are carrying firearms…… Wait, is that really a gun?’

Judging from the sound and appearance, it certainly looked like one.

But every time the bullets struck ‘something,’ a transparent barrier appeared and trapped its movements.

Rather than a gun, it was some kind of protective barrier.

Or perhaps some kind of shield.

‘What kind of gun is that? More importantly…… what is that?’

The employees were desperately fighting to contain something roughly the size of the bus.

At first, I thought they were putting out a fire.

That made sense, considering that beneath the blue sky, something black and formless was swirling chaotically through the area, trapping people inside a cloud of smoke.

But before long, I realized that it wasn’t smoke.

Even though it had no discernible form, it was definitely some kind of entity possessing its own consciousness.

Otherwise, there was no explanation for why blood and pieces of flesh would splash around the smoke immediately after someone disappeared beneath it.

What the hell was that?

I didn’t know.

Trying to think about it felt like a meaningless exercise in itself.

What was I supposed to do in a situation like this?

‘When something happens that you can’t understand, don’t try to understand it.’

Those were words Kim Jin-wook had once told me.

It was ridiculous—and irritating—that something he had said came to mind at a time like this simply because we’d spent ten years together.

That damn bastard had been unable to cope with an incomprehensible reality and had irresponsibly killed himself.

But I wasn’t him.

This was precisely when I had to remain composed.

‘Don’t panic. It’s nothing. There are armed employees here. It’ll be okay.’

If I could just hold out a little longer, the employees would deal with that thing.

If I could just stay here until then……

Wait.

Monster?

‘The monster from the Paju City research institute?’

The post I had read on the community two days ago suddenly flashed through my mind.

The [P City ㅇㄱㅅ] where there were monsters that crushed people like tofu.

This place was the ‘research institute located in Jeokseong-myeon, Paju City, Gyeonggi Province.’

My trembling gaze fixed itself on the black smoke.

I had no idea how useful the community post would actually be.

But in this situation, I couldn’t afford not to believe it.

I desperately racked my brain, trying to remember whether there had been any useful information.

[Even the heavily armed security team leaves nothing behind—not even scraps of flesh—if they get caught by those things.

But nobody outside knows that people are dying.

They simply get reported missing without a sound or trace.]

Damn it.

Instead of advice, all I could remember were horrifying stories.

‘If that’s the monster from the post, should I leave the bus? Or would it be better to stay here?’

I forced my mind, which was becoming clouded with anxiety, back into order and continued thinking calmly.

I was the only living person left on this bus.

Judging from what had just happened, the black smoke seemed to react only to living humans.

Or perhaps it reacted to those who attacked it.

If that was the case, wouldn’t it be better to quietly remain inside the bus until the situation was resolved?

Even if it was disgusting, at least my safety might be guaranteed.

‘But the bus is only safe if the security team manages to neutralize the monster.’

Unlike the smoke monster, which had been continuously killing humans in every spectacular way imaginable—bursting them apart, crushing them, and doing all sorts of horrifying things—the human team was being completely overwhelmed and torn apart.

What on earth could they use to stop that thing?

Water? Sand? Or perhaps trapping it inside an enclosed space?

Whatever I thought of, they were all assumptions that couldn’t be implemented right now.

‘Then what? Should I go outside?’

The bus had crashed into the outer wall of the research institute, and not far away, I could see what appeared to be an emergency exit.

If I entered the research institute through there, perhaps the researchers would protect me.

The emergency exit was in the opposite direction from the battlefield, so there was little chance of being noticed.

However……

‘Even if I enter the research institute, what are the chances I’ll survive?’

If the story was true, this was a monster research institute crawling with monsters.

Would I really survive by going inside such a place?

I couldn’t say that was a particularly optimistic thought.

‘This is driving me insane.’

Thought after thought filled my head.

I knew perfectly well that this wasn’t the time to calmly sit around thinking.

But taking action right now wouldn’t necessarily increase my chances of survival either.

This relatively safe moment was precisely when I needed to think desperately about how to overcome this crisis.

I was crouching as low as possible and staring at the hellscape beyond the shattered window when—

“Oh.”

At some point, the black smoke that had been spreading throughout the surrounding area had begun enveloping me.

Huh?

What was going on?

I had never taken my eyes off the smoke monster.

And yet the monster was suddenly right in front of me.

I stared blankly at the black smoke.

Then, a moment too late, I realized that what was in front of my eyes wasn’t smoke at all.

I held my breath.

The thing that had looked like black smoke was actually countless eyeballs.

Black, glossy eyeballs like those of insects.

What good did it do to realize that now?

Of course, none whatsoever.

When I made eye contact with several of the eyeballs as they swept around the bus, cold sweat trickled down my back.

My face twisted involuntarily from the instinctive sense of disgust.

The eyeballs filling the bus frantically scanned their surroundings before gradually gathering around the corpses one by one.

It was like flies swarming around a dead body……

It was utterly revolting.

Even though I didn’t want to look, my eyes naturally turned toward them.

As the eyeballs surrounding the corpses gradually withdrew, nothing remained.

Only the red blood spreading across the floor showed that something had once been there.

“…….”

[…….]

Neither I nor the eyeball monster said anything.

I could understand why I couldn’t speak because I was too stunned.

But I had no idea why the eyeball monsters weren’t doing anything either.

Considering that the corpses had disappeared and that I had heard those unpleasant screams, they definitely had mouths of some kind.

Whatever the reason, this was an opportunity.

I had to do something while I had the chance.

I desperately wracked my sluggish brain, searching for something I could use to overcome the situation.

But no matter how much I looked around, there was nothing nearby except broken glass and damaged seats.

There wasn’t a single thing that could be used as a weapon.

If I’d known this would happen, I should have sat near the door.

Then I might at least have been able to grab one of the pieces of the door scattered across the corridor.

While I was swallowing dryly in disappointment, I finally stretched out my hand, thinking I needed to hold something—anything—and picked up a shard of broken glass.

Time passed strangely.

It felt as though only one second had passed, yet at the same time it felt as though ten years had gone by.

The hundreds of millions…… no, the trillions of eyeballs continued examining me and the inside of the bus as though searching for something.

Then they slowly began moving outside the bus……

Huh?

Wait a second……

‘What? Why are they just leaving?’

I certainly had no desire to be killed or eaten by them.

But the fact that they were leaving without doing anything was actually more bewildering.

Wasn’t it behaving as though it couldn’t see me standing right in front of it?

‘Did it not see me? Or perhaps it has some rule about not eating things that are injured?’

Come to think of it, I vaguely remembered seeing a movie like that.

But this wasn’t a movie, and those things weren’t cute little zombie-like creatures.

My mind, already complicated by all sorts of thoughts, felt even more tangled.

‘Whatever it is…… I’m alive, and that’s what matters, right?’

At times like this, I needed to simplify the situation and think about what was most important first.

If I had survived, the next thing I needed to do was secure an escape route.

I pushed all those useless thoughts into the corner of my mind.

Only after the eyeballs had completely left the bus did I cautiously step outside.

The surroundings were so devastated that it was difficult to tell whether they were horrifying or merely chaotic.

Perhaps it was because there were bloodstains, pieces of flesh, and scraps of clothing scattered throughout the field, while the most important thing—the bodies themselves—had vanished without a trace.

The eyeballs, now even larger than when I had first seen them, as though they had eaten humans and absorbed their nutrients, were slowly moving across the field.

There was nothing I could really do to stop them, so I simply blinked and watched their movements.

That was when—

“……!”

I thought I heard the cry of some kind of beast nearby.

At the same time, something so intensely bright flashed across the piercingly blue sky that it hurt my eyes.

Something blindingly brilliant flashed overhead.