APOTHEOSIS

1.00 prologue

T H E   S T A R T   
O F     I T     A L L

     WEARY FEET beat against the dead ground in earnest, fleeing from the deranged screams that chased them relentlessly. Sweat dripped into her eyes and she hastily wiped it away with the back of a grimy hand. Dark hair was plastered against the side of her face and neck, her own shallow breaths stifling her with fevered heat. She had to keep running, the thought reverberated in her mind like a mantra.

The air around her sizzled with tense anxiety as the animalistic sounds drew closer. Shadows swallowed them whole as they reached the underpass and the sky disappeared from view. She felt her heart drop into her belly with dread. Going through the tunnels was the worst idea possible but there was hardly any other choice.

In the next heartbeat, they heard an explosion of shattered glass. A whirlwind of shards pelted against her skin and something caught against her arm. With a pained cry, her body was dragged down to the cemented ground. Clawed hands tore into her skin to elicit a scream of fear and she thrashed beneath her assailant with mounting desperation.

"Have you seen her?" the unknown woman wailed with crazed, swollen eyes. "Have you seen my daughter? She looked just like you!"

The raving hysterics soon gave way to gurgling gasps of breath. Soyun felt something warm and wet against her face before the emaciated woman was pushed away from her. A hand reached out to pull her up and she staggered forwards as she found herself upright again. Her heart drummed against the enclosure of her ribs as she tasted iron on her tongue. She tried hard not to throw up on the spot.

"Go! Hurry!" her father yelled just as another furious shriek pierced the air.

Her pulse accelerated with agonising frequency as she was pushed into the arms of the young boy ahead of them. He pulled her along with him and they continued to run down the dimly lit tunnel. Long abandoned vehicles passed by in a blur of rusted metal and chipped paint. In another life, she remembered sitting in them and cruising down roads surrounded by wispy prairie grass, the warmth of the sun on her face and a million shimmering diamonds reflected off the sea in the horizon.

She could see a burst of sunlight at the end of the tunnel and she pushed herself harder, pumping her feet against the debris-encrusted ground. "Oh, sh—" the boy next to her cried out as they came to an abrupt stop. There was an old cargo truck in the middle of their way to escape.

"C-Come on!" she urged him, running forward to climb onto the side of its tires.

Her father quickly caught up with them and he helped lift them up to the roof of the cargo hold. Fresh cuts and bruises decorated his face from his scrapes with the infected. The boy grabbed hold of her hand and hauled her up to the top with him. They turned around in an attempt to help her father but he suddenly cried out in pain. His fingers slipped from the edge of the roof. She leaned over and saw a group of those things gathered under his feet. One of them had sunk a knife into his lower back.

"No, Dad!" she screamed, holding onto his arm with a death-like vice. Her small hands trembled and her knuckles turned bone white from the strained effort.

"Soyun... Soyun." Her father looked at her pleadingly, as if begging her for forgiveness. "Daddy loves you."

In the next moment, he had slipped from her grip and plunged down into the depths of the tunnel below. She screamed a sound that pierced through the air like a gunshot, and attempted to lunge over the edge of the truck.

The boy quickly grabbed hold of her waist, dragging her backwards by force until they tumbled down on the opposite side of the tunnel entrance. All the air was knocked out of her as they landed on the torn cushion seat of the truck. Without even taking the time to catch their breath, the boy was already pulling her away again. They stumbled from the tunnel and into the line of trees by the roadside.

She held onto his hand, knowing that she was probably crushing his fingers with how tightly she grasped them. After a few minutes, her knees finally buckled beneath the heavy burden of her own heart and she collapsed to the ground. An anguished cry broke from her lips as tears streamed down her face. Her quivering body felt like it was on fire and her aching heart on the verge of tearing itself asunder.

"Daddy loves you." The words kept resounding in her head over and over again.