After her grandfather's passing, Hwang Ji-eun's family sends her to clear out his apartment at the Green Home apartment complex. However, she gets trapped there when an outbreak occurs, causing people to turn into terrifying monsters. She tries not...
"That lie I told, about the study with the patient." I start, trying to find a proper way to tell him that something medically impossible was happening with me. It has always happened.
"It's only partially a lie," I admit, just as the sink turns off, leaving a strange silence to now echo through the bathroom.
-
-
-
"You didn't study the patient..." Eun-hyuk says, processing what I had told him. There was a moment of silence as I let him finish voicing his thoughts.
"You were the patient, weren't you?" He asks, taking a few steps so that he was stood just outside of the bathroom stall.
"It's easy to learn about an illness when you're the test subject," I say, leaning back against the locked door.
"As a kid, it didn't bother me much, as there weren't any negative effects to this illness. But the older I became, the worse it got, happening more frequently. And now with what's going on outside." I say, thinking about the monsters roaming the streets outside.
"My life is just getting much harder now. I'm going to be grouped along with the infected. With the monsters." I continue to say. I could feel a lump form in my throat. I stop myself from speaking any further, afraid I wouldn't even be able to speak if did.
It's silent for a few moments before Eun-hyuk speaks. He clears him through before finally speaking.
"I cleaned off all of the blood, but the shirt is soaked." He tells me as he takes a few steps away from the stall.
"Stay here. I'll go find you some dry clothes to wear." I hear before hearing the bathroom door creak open and slam shut.
Unlocking the stall door, I peek my head out, ensuring that I was alone in the bathroom. Seeing that I was alone, I fully open the stall door, walking out with my arms wrapped around my chest.
As I walk up to the bathroom mirror, I can see just how tired I looked. I release a sigh before reaching over and turning on the cold water. I splash the water onto my face, instantly feeling myself awaken due to the shock of the cold water.
Looking down at my hands, I see that there was some blood-stained. I quickly push my hands back into the sink, scrubbing away the blood. When the water runs clear, I release a breath of relief, just as the bathroom door swings open.
The bathroom door opens, revealing a shocked Eun-hyuk who quickly turns so that he does not see me without a shirt. I quickly raise my arms, wrapping them around myself.
"Uhm. Here, They might be a bit big, but they seemed the cleanest." EUn-hyuk says, handing me a pile of clothes whilst looking anywhere but at me.
"Thanks," I mutter, rushing back into the stall and locking the door behind me.
Looking down at the clothes, I saw that there was a simple pair of pants, a t-shirt, and a big brownish-grey hoodie. I'm more than happy to put the clothes on, especially as I had started to feel cold. The size of the hoody helped to hold in some heat, keeping me warm.
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
When I exit the stall, Eun-hyuk is still in the doorway, staring at the ground. I could sense the awkward tension in the air. I clear my throat before speaking, wanting to make the situation less awkward after having being seen half-dressed.
"So, uhm... what were you doing up so early? Everyone else seemed to be asleep, besides your sister of course." I say, thinking back to how quiet the building had been until just half an hour ago.
"I was going to the security office. I was going to check the internet for any information about what's going on." Eun-hyuk tells me.
"Do you mind if I join you? If it's alright with you, of course," I ask, not wanting to be left alone to wander the building much longer.
"Yeah, sure. Let's go." He says as he exits the bathroom.
I follow after him until we come to the security office. In the corner sat an old, busted-up computer. Eun-hyuk hits a few buttons before the screen lights up with a dim light.
"No password?" I question, as most people would have a password on their computers. Especially in an office.
"The people who live here, nobody cares about us. They don't care to hide our information." Eun-hyuk tells me as he types away into the search engine.
At first, we find a few news outlets that just repeat the same emergency alert that we had gotten on our phones. Site after site, there didn't seem to be any information that we didn't already know.
"How about this one?" I ask, pointing to a link that we hadn't yet tried.
'CruCru' was the title of the article. Eun-hyuk clicks the article, opening it onto the screen as he starts to read the article out loud.
"It's not a disease. It's a curse. The 'crucru'" He reads.
"People who have fallen victim to the curse have complained of frequent nosebleeds, auditory hallucinations. A cause couldn't be determined. They weren't from here. They came because they showed symptoms." He continued to read.
'They turned into miserable, desperate beings. Every prediction was wrong. It suddenly begins one day and never stops.' The article reads.
I can't help but think back to the monster that had gotten into the building. It used to be a normal person, but it had turned into a horrifying monster.
"I was consumed by it. Humans won't overcome this. If you have symptoms, kill yourself before it's too late. Being alive will harm others." Eun-hyuk reads out.
I stop breathing at this. 'If you have symptoms, kill yourself before it's too late.' It said. Was that the only option if I happened to be infected, to kill myself? Although I knew my illness has been a longtime thing, I couldn't help but fear that I would get this curse and I wouldn't know. That the symptoms would hide behind my illness. And what about the rest of the building's residents. Once they find out about my illness, will they think that I'm infected and try to kill me themselves?
Eun-hyuk's POV:
"If you decide to live to the end, there's something you must know. That is..."
Suddenly the screen goes blank, an error popping up saying 'No Internet Connection' stares at me. Sighing in annoyance, I look to my left, seeing Ji-eun is deep in thought. She seemed to be upset about something, triggering something inside of me that made me want to help her. There was an urge to protect her. I think back to my younger sister, Eun-yoo. As her older brother, I felt protective over her, but with Ji-eun, this felt different. It wasn't the same feeling I would get with Eun-yoo. It was something more foreign. A feeling I'd never felt before.
