Chapter 0
It was late at night when I came out after drinking with a friend.
My friend, already dead drunk, sat down and started throwing up, so I pretended not to notice and got away at a brisk pace.
"Ugh... Where the hell is Kim Geunhong, you bastard, ugh, blegh!"
He was too drunk to remember anything anyway. If I said I'd hailed him a taxi in a day or two, that'd be that.
"Heh."
Honestly, the night air was cold enough to be criminal. A frigid temperature, like something bad was about to happen.
Even after I quickened my pace and climbed the steep uphill road, my cheeks still stung from the cold.
Whenever I feel this kind of chill, I sometimes wonder if I'm really a coldhearted person.
I rubbed my hands together and went down the hill. This damn neighborhood was built by bulldozing mountains, so hills were everywhere no matter where you went.
"Hoo."
I'm getting tipsy from the alcohol. It's already too late for buses, so it'll take another thirty minutes to walk home. I wonder if my body can even hold out.
Just as I was thinking that.
"..."
The street was strangely quiet.
The sight of a twelve-lane boulevard with not a single car on it felt very unfamiliar. It's a little late, but was this neighborhood always this quiet?
I couldn't see a single person.
A street overflowing with illegal parking and fallen shared scooters. Wasn't this the kind of street packed with tattooed brutes?
It was possible for this sort of thing to happen once in a while... but walking alone through such an empty street made unpleasant thoughts creep up for no reason.
It was so quiet, and there was nothing here at all, that I kept thinking something might appear instead.
Of course nothing like that was going to happen, and I just kept walking while thinking only of getting home and taking a shower as soon as possible.
There's a crosswalk beside the bus stop.
The traffic light was off. There weren't any cars passing by anyway, so I thought about just crossing, but it felt a little off, so I decided to cross through the subway passage instead.
ㅡtap-tap.
I went down the subway stairs.
Looking over, I saw a metal shutter pulled down over the stairs leading into the station. They usually lower that shutter late at night to block access.
"Oh."
Beyond that shutter.
A woman was standing there.
With long golden hair and wearing red clothes.
An unbelievably beautiful woman.
"Hello?"
The woman smiled brightly and waved at me in greeting.
The unreal sight made me hesitate.
"Hey, could you come over here for a second?"
"You want me to come over?"
"Yes."
"Uh... sure."
For now, I went closer as she'd called me.
She was so beautiful it gave me goosebumps. Was she a foreigner? For that matter, her Korean seemed pretty good.
No.
Why was this woman inside the shutter in the first place?
I wondered if I was drunk and seeing things, but no matter how I looked at it, this was real.
"Um, why are you over there?"
"Hmm, how should I put it."
Her finger touched her plump red lips.
"I nodded off for a bit, and ended up getting trapped."
"Ah, so you got trapped."
"Could you open this for me?"
"You want me to open it?"
How am I supposed to open this?
The employees would all be off work already, so who am I supposed to call?
"Open it for me."
"Just a moment. For this, I'd need to contact someone and—"
The moment I was about to pull out my phone.
"Here."
The woman held out her hand to me.
"It's the key. Use this to open it."
A key rested in her palm.
"See the padlock on the floor? Open that for me."
"Ah, that one."
Looking where she pointed, I saw a padlock on the floor. I took the key right away, went over to the padlock, and crouched down.
"..."
But... isn't this kind of suspicious?
This shutter wasn't some intricate set of prison bars or anything. It wasn't meant to trap someone; it was just a crude thing kept closed to stop people from going down.
If she stretched out that slender hand, wouldn't she have been able to unlock it and come out anytime? Besides, without waiting for anyone, she could have just called the police.
How should I put it.
It's absurd.
"Excuse me."
...
"Can't you open this and come out yourself?"
Because I was crouching down, I couldn't see the woman's face.
A vague sense of unease began to rise.
"I tried, but my hand wouldn't fit through."
"It looks like it would fit, though."
"For now, could you open it?"
"Yes... well."
It was suspicious, but all I had to do was open the door. Besides, having already talked this far and then just leaving would look pretty ridiculous.
But this woman.
Why was she speaking so casually?
ㅡclick.
ㅡcreak.
I unlocked the padlock and lifted the shutter.
The shutter was surprisingly light.
Then again, that's what it was in the first place.
Not something meant to imprison anything, just something to block access. A wrist would fit easily enough between the bars.
ㅡstep.
The woman standing in front of me took a step out and met my gaze.
"Thank you."
"It's nothing, really. Please be more careful next time. I should be going now."
The moment I said that and tried to turn away.
"Huh?"
My body wouldn't move.
Immediately after, the woman reached out toward me.
"Thank you so much for opening it. But... I'm hungry."
I couldn't get any words out.
And what on earth was this woman talking about? While the echoing question circled my mind, the woman's face, now hideously twisted with her mouth split to her ears, drew closer.
It pressed its lips to my neck.
No.
It wasn't a kiss.
It had driven its sharp fangs into my neck.
"Ugh."
The sensation of having my blood sucked was vivid, but I felt no sense of reality whatsoever. In the dreamlike blur of my vision, something like a message window popped up.
ㅡding.
[You have become a vampire.]
[You will die in the most dreadful way.]
.
.
.
[Ending - Nonhuman]
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[Proceeding to the next episode.]