Chapter 5

The First Opening of the Eye

Absentmindedly, I picked up my phone and checked the time.

12:36 a.m.

I turned my gaze back to the road illuminated by the streetlights, watching the fog begin to spread across it with the coldness of dry ice.

At some point, I must have widened my eyes without realizing it; the area around them ached.

Yet throughout it all, the gaze of my fellow sentry, Han Myeong-un, a squadmate with a smooth and approachable appearance, remained fixed on the two people kissing.

As if grateful for finally having something to watch during the boring night watch, Han Myeong-un chuckled to himself and even put his phone back into his pocket.

But before long, both Han Myeong-un, whose interest had been nothing more than curiosity, and I, who had been staring only at the fog, gradually found our expressions stiffening.

"Uuuhng... mmph... mmm..."

Something was wrong with the man and woman.

At first, it looked like they were simply sharing a passionate kiss, but the movements of the middle-aged man and the young woman with the athletic figure soon began to look grotesque.

The middle-aged man was pounding on the woman's back.

Not embracing her.

Anyone could see he was striking hard enough to leave bruises, even clenching his fists as he did so.

He staggered backward, his posture falling apart.

The woman, on the other hand, had wrapped her arms around the man's head and refused to let go.

When the man nearly fell while retreating, she supported him, helping him lean against a wall before appearing to kiss him even more intensely.

And the more she did, the more violently the man reacted.

He raised his fingernails, dug them into the back of her neck, and began shaking her as though he intended to tear her apart.

Even from where we stood, we could see blood running from the flesh his nails had ripped open.

"Uuugh... mmph..."

At the sight, Han Myeong-un's face hardened.

He adjusted his grip on his rifle and started walking toward them.

Apparently, despite appearances, he had a strong sense of justice.

At that moment, it wasn't a coincidence that the page we had received in the lecture hall came to mind.

I called out to stop him.

"Han Myeong-un. The fog's here."

"Huh?"

"Rule Six of the Survival and Engagement Protocols within Restricted Transit Zones. Rescue operations are strictly prohibited."

He blinked several times.

Then he looked at me with the same contempt one might reserve for garbage.

Tsk.

The click of his tongue was loud enough for me to hear clearly.

Adjusting his helmet, Han Myeong-un resumed walking toward the pair.

"What a pathetic bastard..."

His muttered words were loud enough that they were clearly meant for me to hear.

Objectively speaking, Han Myeong-un was right.

Unlike me, standing motionless behind sandbags and vehicle barricades, he looked like a heroic knight rushing to save a wounded woman whose flesh was being torn apart.

His handsome appearance and natural friendliness probably helped as well.

At the very least, he wasn't as cowardly as I was—using the fog and Rule Six as excuses to justify doing nothing.

Yet even while feeling like a coward, I had absolutely no intention of following him.

Because beneath the streetlights, the fog creeping across the road seemed to be rising higher by the second.

If you've ever listened to a scary story without feeling much at first, only to suddenly realize what made it frightening and feel chills crawl across your skin afterward, you'd understand.

Perhaps fog could naturally gather before dawn.

But when the surroundings became damp enough that even the streetlight's glow blurred and smeared through the mist, a cold bead of sweat ran down my back.

At that moment, I remembered what Lieutenant Shin Han-gi had said.

[These characters were discovered within the Restricted Transit Zone.]

I pulled out the Special Lecture on Magic booklet from my chest.

Only after seeing the hand gripping it did I realize that it was trembling violently.

And only then did I notice that I was suffering from chills even worse than when I had been bedridden with enteritis.

In a panic, I opened the page containing those bizarre symbols—the strange script I had nicknamed Chilmo.

Beneath my deathly pale fingernails, the page remained firmly in place.

The symbols drawn there.

The densely packed interpretations written beside them.

The revelation that had nearly come to me during my time in solitary confinement was returning.

It was instinct.

Like the distant ancestors who, under a dark night sky lit only faintly by moonlight, suddenly found themselves staring into the eyes of a tiger.

Beyond the rising fog, beneath the distorted streetlight shining through the mist, I could see those strange symbols—that bizarre script—returning to their original form.

You could call it an optical illusion.

It would have been more natural to say my brain was producing hallucinations due to psychological stress.

Yet when the fog finally rose high enough to reach my left hand holding the booklet and covered the page itself—

I saw it.

The symbol I had assumed was merely a triangle overlapping a square writhed like a living thing and rearranged itself.

"_"

Gulp.

Even swallowing was difficult.

Should I trust established science?

Or follow my uncertain intuition?

Should I believe my eyes had deceived me?

Or understand what the moving characters truly meant?

I finally understood, at least a little, what my ancestors must have felt when they looked into a tiger's eyes.

Only one thought filled my head.

I'm going to be eaten.

From this moment onward, common sense would unravel.

The prejudices and assumptions I had spent my entire life building would twist, melt, and stretch apart like softened taffy.

Beyond this point lay curiosity toward the unknown.

Recklessness that invited death.

Madness that willingly stepped into danger.

Then I noticed sweat dripping from my hand onto the page.

And only then could I clearly see what the fully aligned symbol actually was.

An overlapping triangle and square.

A distorted quadrilateral crammed inside an elongated triangle stretched horizontally.

This wasn't a letter.

It was an eye.

An eye that allowed humans—creatures capable of seeing only three dimensions—to perceive a fourth...

...Magic.

"Uwaaaagh..."

The moment I realized it, I vomited.

My legs buckled.

All strength drained from my body.

I collapsed across the sandbags we had stacked as a barricade.

Even vomiting felt exhausting.

I gasped for breath.

I hadn't eaten anything while confined in solitary, yet some lumpy mass burst from my mouth together with stomach acid.

With a wet splat, it fell into the fog that had by now spread thickly across the entire road.

"Should I trust proven science, or follow my uncertain intuition?

Should I convince myself that my eyes were mistaken, or understand what those moving letters truly meant?

I understood, at least a little—just a little—how my ancestors must have felt when they came face-to-face with a tiger's gaze.

The only thought occupying my mind was that I was going to be eaten.

From this moment onward, common sense would break down.

The biases and preconceptions I had built over a lifetime would twist, stretch, and melt like soft taffy.

Beyond this point lay curiosity reaching into the unknown.

Recklessness that invited death.

Madness that willingly cast itself into danger.

At that moment, I noticed sweat seeping from my hand and soaking the page.

Only then could I finally see what the fully aligned symbol was.

An overlapping triangle and square.

A distorted quadrilateral crammed inside an elongated triangle stretched sideways.

This wasn't a letter.

It was an eye.

An eye that allowed humans—creatures capable of seeing only three dimensions—to perceive four or more...

...Magic.

"Uwaaaagh..."

The instant realization struck me, I vomited.

My legs trembled, all strength drained from my body, and I collapsed over the stacked sandbags.

Even throwing up was exhausting. I gasped desperately for breath.

I hadn't eaten a thing during my time in solitary confinement, yet some lumpy mass poured from my mouth together with stomach acid and splashed into the fog that had already spread thick across the road.

But my eyes—

The eyes that had already awakened to magic—

Burned with maddening intensity.

The veins in my forehead and head bulged. Every pulse pounded like a hammer, cooking my brain from the inside.

A nauseating sickness swept over me.

Eventually I reached the point where I continued retching despite having nothing left to throw up.

Yet despite the blazing heat in my head and eyes, I felt a chilling coldness creeping along my spine.

The violent shivering throughout my body forced me back to my feet.

Without even wiping the vomit from my mouth, I instinctively loaded live ammunition.

Clack.

The fog had already risen to my chest.

Beyond it, visibility was almost nonexistent.

Whenever the blinking crosswalk signal flickered dimly through the mist, I could see a damp shadow writhing beneath it.

The man and woman standing at the alley entrance had become three people.

At some point, Han Myeong-un's back had replaced the limp middle-aged man, flailing desperately.

Perhaps flailing was too cute a word.

Han Myeong-un was kicking his feet like a man being strangled to death.

Like someone hanging from a noose.

I raised my M16 and shouldered it.

The barrel trembled violently.

The sights weren't even properly zeroed, and the target barely fit inside the iron sights.

Still, I kept it trained on them and watched.

I couldn't even breathe.

Then, among the thing that had become three people, Han Myeong-un's resistance finally succeeded.

Scccrrrrip!

Have you ever played with modeling clay as a child?

Or chewed gum until all the flavor was gone, spat it out, mixed it with another piece, and chewed it again?

Once things mix together, they're difficult to separate.

After becoming tangled, they are effectively one.

So even though Han Myeong-un managed to pull his face free, part of his cheek had melted away and remained stuck to the back of the woman's head.

Flesh and flesh had become one.

Even from a distance, I could see blue veins beneath the skin intertwining like tangled threads.

Most horrifying of all, the middle-aged man's face was melting into and merging with Han Myeong-un's.

"Uaaah... uaaah..."

Han Myeong-un's mouth was no exception.

He desperately tried to turn his head away, but his mouth had long since become connected to the middle-aged man's mouth, which was splitting open wider and wider.

Only Han Myeong-un's right eye remained intact.

It stared at me while tears streamed down its face.

Fear.

Desperation.

A plea for help.

Using the part of his tongue that had not yet merged with the others, Han Myeong-un somehow managed to scream.

"Hoime aho... hoaee!!!"

The middle-aged man's face continued melting into Han Myeong-un's.

Han Myeong-un's left eye had already fused with the man's right eye.

Their eye sockets had become one.

Their eyeballs overlapped and tangled together like the compound eyes of an insect.

I never moved.

I simply kept my rifle trained on them and continued watching what my eyes were seeing.

Even through the dense fog, I could make out the outline of the three melted bodies.

One joined head.

Three bodies.

"HOOAAAAGH!!!"

Han Myeong-un's face was already hopelessly entangled.

The tongue he had desperately protruded was forcibly wrapped together with the others until they melted into a single mass.

"AAAH... AAAH..."

Even his vocal cords were no longer his own.

All that remained of Han Myeong-un was a single right eye.

Tears poured from it, but instinctively I knew that even those tears no longer belonged to him.

The entire existence of Han Myeong-un had become nothing more than a pitiful groan scratching at a ruined throat.

Then the united head of the three turned toward me.

Its arms and legs hung limply, dangling uselessly.

Yet despite that, it stood upright with an unnatural gait.

And finally I understood why people had interpreted the symbol differently.

The thing before me—the three that had become one—wove their faces together like some grotesque conjoined twin, crushing their three mouths into a single opening.

A power that forced humans to see what they were never meant to see.

I was seeing time.

I was seeing the future path of the monster's movements.

The points where the fog rippled across the road were the future.

They were the monster's approaching footsteps.

As I moved my rifle along those footsteps, the monster merely watched me in silence.

Then it moved again.

This time Han Myeong-un's arm twitched.

A feint.

The opposite side—the woman's leg—would move next.

The middle-aged man's limbs were wedged between them like a sandwich, maintaining the creature's balance.

The moment I shifted my rifle toward the woman, the three-legged monster stopped testing me.

Instead, it simply stood there beyond the fog, staring.

Cold sweat streamed down my body.

With my eyes burning and my brain feeling as though it were being boiled alive, I had no idea how much longer I could endure.

Yet despite the pain, despite the sweat soaking my hands, I never lowered the rifle.

I couldn't even tell whether I was breathing.

I couldn't tell if the dampness on my skin came from the fog or from sweat.

Then, after a long standoff, the three-legged monster overlapped its faces once more until only the back of its head was visible.

Dragging its limbs across the ground, it disappeared into the fog.

No more screams.

No more groans.

Yet I remained standing there, rifle aimed forward, for minutes—perhaps tens of minutes.

Then the fog began to clear.

By the time the blinking crosswalk signal became visible again, I was the only one left at the intersection.

Still rigid, I kept my rifle shouldered and aimed across the road.

Until someone placed a hand on my shoulder.

"Baek Je-min! Baek Je-min!"

It was Kang Daniel.

Behind him, squad members were climbing out of a truck equipped with a searchlight.

Kang Daniel glanced around, then studied my pale face.

Apparently sensing something strange, he asked,

"Where's the other sentry?"

"Where did Han Myeong-un go?"

I tried to answer.

But my lips wouldn't move.

No.

My entire body had gone rigid.

I was still frozen in a firing stance.

By then, people from the nearby villas had heard the commotion.

Doors opened.

Curious eyes peered out toward the street.

But only one thought occupied my mind.

I had to escape Seoul.

No—

I had to leave this country."