The flickering of lights, then the whirring sound of electricity surging through the gargantuan wires that spanned from building to building; it wasn't anything strange in the windy port of Jeokjo, but James Wright groaned nonetheless.
"Hells…not the hair. Damn it." He swore as he patted at the frizzy mess the surge made of his slicked back hair. He quickly hid his scowl in a classic vanishing act as the rather beautiful ash-haired heiress he'd been speaking with glanced his way.
"Are you alright, Mr. Wright?" Her laugh, to him, was mocking, ridiculing his frayed composure while her long and luscious hair remained perfect and neatly tied back.
"...I'll excuse myself for just a moment, Ms. Veincliff." James said in a hurry, his eyes twitching until he was alone in the halls, at which they narrowed in a mixed bag of fury and embarrassment.
"Damn her, all she has is that damn name..! She's not even from the main family…who does she think she is to laugh at me..?" His words grew louder and more spiteful as he opened the door to privacy, entering a washroom that not many visited at this time of day.
He shivered at the sudden cold he stepped into, worsening his mood proportionately.
"Why do I have to suck up to a bitch like her..?! Hell…with a mouth like that, she really must be the spawn of a street bitch..!" James ran a wet hand through his hair, letting the tap run as he smoothened out his appearance, sneering at his own reflection as he nodded an agreement to his own words.
"One of those Veincliffs would have been crazy enough to do it, shacking one of those creatures." He laughed to himself, smoothing back his murky brown hair as he checked himself in the mirror.
"Heh, nice." His words were greeted with a flicker of the lights above, and he paused to look up, cursing at the lights that sputtered and caused his hair to pop out like a jack-in-the-box.
James Wright felt around, searching for the comb he'd dropped on the counter, but paused as something warm and wet slid under his fingertips.
"What…? Damn janitor didn't do his job, the lazy Riotbanker—" He raised his hand from the counter to rinse it under the tap, but froze as he saw the red that stained his palm.
"Blood..?"
"An astute observation." A smile flickered into view as the lights did the same, reflected as distorted, and bloody, and wrong in the mirror that fogged in front of his eyes.
When a hand grabbed the back of his head, there was nothing James could do before his face smashed into the glass he had been staring at. The crunch of glass, and the blinding pain of his hair being ripped from his scalp, he wasn't conscious enough to protest it as a low growling laugh wormed into his ear.
"…But it took you far too long, don't you think? Hm? Mr…Wright, was it?" The laughing man flexed his hand, then dropped the clump of bloodied brown hair onto the floor.
"Is this what he wanted to do? Make you…bald, as he calls it?" He frowned for a moment, then sighed, grabbing the man who was slumped and twitching against the counter by his hair and dragging him up to his feet.
"Well then, let's get acquainted, you and I."
***
The first snow of the year had dropped from the sky without notice, blanketing the streets in a layer of white as Hajoon waited for his ride back to the slums to arrive. The old rust bucket was late by two hours–but that wasn't out of the ordinary; not when the weather was as fickle as upper management and their tendencies to hire and fire on a whim. Similar to a whimsical manager, the bus system was unpredictable, and blaming its incompetence would be heresy.
The more reasonable action was to assume that the older bus engines had frozen with the sudden drop in temperature–and like a domino effect, brought the entire system grinding to a halt. Jeokjo was never designed for cold winters, what with the perpetual rain and wind that came as a product of proximity to the stormy Busan Dungeon; so the buses that had run its public transport lines since its conception suffered for it.
It didn't help that funding had been whittled away at by leeches in both government and military, until only drivers from the Riotbanks accepted the measly pay handed out in return for a nearly 24 hour service.
Hajoon could make the educated guess that the drivers who were stuck heating those engines in the cold would be inclined to take as many 'tea' breaks as possible.
It was good business for tea houses, it wouldn't be surprising if the home brewed rice wine stocks would be drunk dry by the end of the night.
By the bias of experience, Hajoon would consider it a miracle if the buses showed up at all.
Then again, he would prefer no miracles tonight. He had experienced enough of the supernatural for one day, and didn't need to question his sanity any more than he did on a regular basis.
Was it a bad omen that his heart was acting up again, or was it just rebound from working his weak body ragged? He couldn't afford anything better than dubious painkillers, so he settled on blaming bad omens.
His decision wasn't baseless, as his mother had warned him of his supposed terrible luck this year, and every other year before that. She took it far more seriously than he did, introducing spirit mediums, fortune tellers, shamans, a monk, and even a priest to solve the problem that was his by birthright.
He had thrown away the contact of the most recent scammer, but maybe he shouldn't have..?
I wonder if that old bat does exorcisms too...? I could use a good slap of spiritual salt right about now…
"Are you alright Hajoon-ssi?" Lee Hyejin interrupted his peace with obvious questions, as she often does.
"...Yea."
"But you're shaking..?"
"It's cold." He said, crossing his arms to stop the trembling for a moment as he looked out at the silhouettes of people within the warmth of a café that stood directly across from the bus stop.
It was busy, even more so than usual. The sound of honking, yells of frustrated drivers, and tires that spun in snow that refused to let them chart a clear path home; it didn't phase Hajoon. But the haughty employees from GenCure and surrounding offices thought differently.
Many had retreated into cafes and such once they had seen the state of the streets. The ones with chauffeurs had managed to get into a car, but the others were forced to wait for a bus like the average person.
Everyone huddled by the bus stop flinched back from the road every time a driver lost control and swerved. As a wave of sludge, browned and oil stained surged towards them, Hajoon stumbled forward; but instead of the slippery terrain, the cause was the hazel eyed woman who had hid behind him.
He simply shielded the sludge with his umbrella and wrinkled his nose at Hyejin.
"...Ugh. That…wow..! You saved me!" She clasped her hands together and put on a familiar act. "Thank you, Hajoon-ssi!"
"Ghk– Why d-didn't you save me too..??" Ando yelped, trying to pat down the sludge that clung to his pants and stung his fingertips red.
"Haha…sorry. Get behind me too next time..?" Hajoon felt his lip twitch as he smiled and tilted his umbrella to stop further snow from piling onto the man's shoulders.
Yeah, sacrifice me to the snow like this piece of work.
I surely wouldn't mind being your human shield.
It's not like I'm cold too, and losing feeling in my damn toes.
"Eh..? I mean, y- yeah! I-If you're offe-ering..!!" Ando's responding grin was concerning, despite the clattering teeth that made it unintelligible.
"Hey…you okay? I said I'm sorry. It was just instinct, not a big deal" Hyejin whispered, poking at Hajoon's arm with a cold finger.
"...Right" He leaned away, his shoulder bumping with Ando's.
Hajoon's fingers flexed on the umbrella hilt, feeling the cold burn into his skin as he shivered in his flea market trenchcoat. His shirt was still damp underneath it, and the poor quality fabric did a lukewarm job at staving off the biting winds and the snowflakes that stuck to the fabric like pollen spores. Even still, he wasn't doing as terribly as Lee Hyejin suggested. In fact, he was doing far better than the jittering Ando, who was walking in place and rubbing his hands in a dance Hajoon could only describe as reminiscent of a spooked chicken.
"Ack–! I-It's seriously freezing..!" Ando exclaimed after a moment, perhaps feeling uncomfortable with the cold silence.
"Hah…yeah. I don't think it's ever gotten this cold down here before…" Hajoon mumbled, half to himself.
"That's right..! It's always rain, not s–snow! That's-s how it's supposed to work..! S-seriously, why'd the power on our floor have to be a damn mess?? We co-ould have been drinking coffee all warm and t-toasty if we just got here earlier..." Ando whined, pressing up against Hajoon's shoulder.
Hajoon suppressed a flinch, taking a breath and simply letting his coworker lean on him. At least he was warm, like the cafe they'd been kicked out of being too late to reserve a seat.
Ando's right for once…random power surges made it hard to get around, shorted out the elevators even. We had to wander around in the dark to find a working elevator door…
And the… water stopped too.
...Cleaning the blood was a hassle.
Suddenly a dark pair of eyes appeared in front of his face, spooking him into letting a huff of breath that fanned onto his own face, fogging his glasses.
"Hey, Mr. Park. It doesn't make sense for the power to act up for just us, right? How does that even happen?" Ando looked serious for a moment, which was cause for concern considering the bumbling buffoon was inept at reading the room in most cases.
"I'm...not sure. But you're right, it...doesn't make sense." Hajoon glanced away, deciding to focus on warming his own cold hands rather than think about his breakdown in the washroom. It wasn't as if Ando would suddenly show his detective prowess and connect Hajoon to the scene of the crime.
Not that it made any logical sense to blame him for a power outage.
"Right! Don't you think it was an attack? You know...like a hacker trying to get information..."
Hajoon let out a huff of relief at Ando's outlandish speculations, putting his own paranoia to rest. In fact, he felt compelled to try and believe Ando this time, because he'd rather an unknown hacker be the culprit rather than himself and his 'condition'.
"That's...possible, I suppose."
"Yeah...like— While we were all distracted, the hacker could have snuck in and stolen important files..!"
Why in the world would a hacker sneak...in...?
Besides, all they'll find in there are advertisement proposals and deals made with shitty tabloid companies.
"Ahah…You might be underestimating the security of GenCure a little, Ando-ssi." Lee Hyejin interjected, her smile twitching at the corner with what Hajoon could only assume as annoyance. But her change from Mr. to the honorific of ssi contrasted with that idea, because she was trying to be casual to some degree.
It was an awkward thing, deciding between formal and casual speech when speaking to a man from Ashihara, the former Rising Sun Empire. In the past, it would have been expected of Hwanrian citizens to respect such a man by speaking the imperial language; but gone were the days of Ashiharan language enforcement on the Eastern Fort.
The replacement was aenglic, but the execution was terrible to the point that most stuck to the native language of the Hwanrian peninsula.
"Oh..! Yeah, I didn't mean that uh...sorry um...L-Lee Hyejin-ssi." Ando stuttered out, avoiding her cold gaze.
Hackers…and information leaks, it's a sensitive topic for us now huh? I understand why she's mad but…
It's just a bit pathetic.
Hajoon glanced at the shivering Ando, who shuffled away from Lee Hyejin and closer to him. The brown haired man was a coward when it came to her, which was reassuring in a way.
Accidentally insulting a more influential man than Ando Natsuki would be a death flag waiting to be found stabbed in the dirt in front of your door. Sometimes officers made a show of it, falsifying records to justify what would become of you, sometimes they didn't bother to.
It was easier to just pay the Jeoksa to do their dirty work. Any mafia man would bend the knee for money.
Hajoon assumed that even Lee Hyejin should know this to some extent, and was trying to avoid offending Ando, otherwise she would have referred to Ando by first name like she does for him.
Or perhaps her life was perfect and easy, and they simply lived in different worlds altogether.
She wasn't that different from the upper class citizens, the nature to exploit her lessers was the same.
Hajoon brought his hands to his mouth, blowing warm air into the long fingers that had lost circulation at the tips. He watched shadows in the distance flit about under the faint streetlights that speckled the streets. From a certain angle, it almost resembled fireflies, lighting the way for a city in disarray.
I'll get sick at this rate...
He looked up, closing his eyes as the flakes of snow landed on his glasses, then melted away.
He had seen snow just once before. His brother had thrown it at his face, and he'd thrown it right back, until the whole village was throwing snow around and laughing.
He couldn't find it in himself to be excited like back then.
"It's dark…" He murmured as an inhale brought icy particles into his lungs, causing a cough that turned his hand crimson. He wiped it on a bunched up handkerchief from his coat pocket, then stuffed his hand in there with it.
The sky was diluted, starless and bleak through the lenses of his glasses. He could have see everything in that darkness, if he took them off. But he didn't.
Being questioned by others, it was one of the things he hated the most. He would prefer to suffer in silence.
I wasn't born normal, sure. But at least I could act normal...but what about now? I can't even remember how I got from breaktime to end of shift.
That's a whole two hours…gone.
This is…worse than occasionally hearing things right?
They always said I was cursed, but this isn't just neighborhood gossip anymore…it's bordering on mental illness, or…worse?
Haha…am I going to end up more two-faced than Hyejin? Now that's poetic irony.
It is funny. Or is it funny? I don't know…
At least that haughty voice is quiet now. Well…for now, at least.
I really…can't afford a psychiatrist. Maybe it's time to consult a supernaturally gifted scammer like mum said?
What would they even say? That I'm cursed, that some ghost is stealing my life energy, and that I need to pay 50pax for a lucky talisman? What if I tell them I hear a voice in my head, what then? They would tell me I'm possessed right?
Well, I might as well be.
In fact he preferred that option, because if this left the realm of superstition, he'd end up at the bullet end of a firing squad. The peace of a fort was only maintained by weeding out the monsters after all. If the distinction between human and monster wasn't made, then it would end with the collapse of civilization. A second calamity, per se.
At the end of the day, superstition was safer than reality because it held no consequence. The supernatural wasn't real, superstitions were just superstitions. But the reality decreed by science was harsh, cruel even.
A monster was a monster. A person was a person. And the Hunters filled the role of protecting people from monsters.
There existed simple hereditary laws, natural hierarchies, and the average person was not responsible for questioning them. Hajoon wasn't a scientist, so the explanations that qualified scientists gave were enough. There were no supernatural powers involved when it came to the laws of nature.
No one questioned what was outside of their means, this was a law of society that Hajoon had never read in a textbook. There were many laws like that, never spoken, never written, but always followed.
It didn't concern him. He was just an office worker, so he simply indulged in superstition because it was lawless in a way.
So I'm possessed, sure, but what was that fog? Ando couldn't see it, but he's just an idiot. It could have just been the weather changing, but snow isn't born from fog as far as I know. Why did that voice talk about a game? What kind of game? They talked about survival…so a survival game?
Like the game shows where they take washed up celebrities and make them do silly competitions to milk some fame? Well, I wouldn't mind joining one if there was a cash prize…
"Hm…" Hajoon scratched at his left wrist, the hand that held the umbrella, absentmindedly, a habit he remembered no source for.
What was that voice anyway? The culmination of my hallucinations, induced by the pain of a relapse? I almost dropped dead right on the bloody floor…
But I'm fine now, for the most part. Then what about the power outage, was that a coincidence? Could a demonic voice in my head mess with the electricity to only one floor of a damn skyscraper?
Hm, but it's possible isn't it? Evil spirits do latch onto weak willed people…
There was a story circulating on the forums lately, an urban legend of sorts that overworked salary workers would inevitably get possessed and end up wandering aimlessly in the night. By dawn, they would be found in the river after having killed a person or two themselves.
The legend of Mulgwi Wharf, where a drowned spirit haunted the waters and led others to the same fate. It was said to be the reason for the surplus of monster corpses washing up for the fishermen to fight over. Depending on the type of monster, it was the same as fishing up a winning lottery ticket.
Realistically, it was just the way that the locals coped with the high suicide rates, sharing these superstitions on the web made sense. Besides, many people had a morbid curiosity towards such things, Hajoon wasn't strange for reading supernatural forums during work hours. It wasn't as if he had a computer at home, and the one at the local bookshop was always hoarded by game addicted teens he couldn't win against.
But a story was a story. Even if SpinxEye himself had made a blog post about it—which he had re-read every word of before it vanished only hours later, as per the anonymous figures routine—he shouldn't feel dread from reading theorized fiction.
Then why am I shaking..?
"It must be the blood loss..." Hajoon muttered to himself, shuffling to the side as the bus stop became crowded again, people rushing across the street as a bus chugged along in the distance, its headlights casting a stark spotlight through the falling snow. As it screeched to a stop in front of the impatient crowd, the blast of air emitted from the iron beast was welcomed by those at the forefront, as the hot air brought relief to their frozen limbs.
"Oh..! Tram 23's here, finally..!" Ando exclaimed, looking poised to sprint inside before his steps faltered, getting pushed aside by the less patient passengers until he was right back where he started. There was already a line, and quite a long one which moved at a snail's pace, which of course resulted in inevitable complaints from the stragglers.
"Bloody trams are always late...those drivers from the Riotbanks are bloody lazy...!"
"–It never snowed like this back in my youth-"
"I can't believe I have to wait even more–you're always wasting time shopping..!"
"Wha- how is a date a waste of time?? If you want a divorce just say it–" A lover's quarrel broke out in the snow, and Hajoon proceeded to tune them out.
"–My heels will get soggy at this rate…!"An asinine complaint caught his attention for a moment, and he glanced towards two women who stood by the side of the tram. They were only a few steps away from entering, but Hajoon wasn't sure if they were patient enough to wait that long.
"Where is that Wright…?? I agreed to his offer to chauffeur, and this is what it gets me? Forcing me to take public transport of all things…" She scoffed out, as if the thought of stepping foot onto a bus for a common citizen was sickening.
"Oh my..! Mr. Wright seemed a reliable fellow, but even appearances can deceive..!"A honeyed agreement came from Mrs. Baek, the rude old hag with the gaudy butterfly hairpin.
"If only my chauffeur didn't crash on the way…damn fool went and died…no matter, I will see you home myself, Ms. Veincliff!" She continued, holding an umbrella up for the young Viencliff, who was preoccupied with trying to save her red gilded shoes from the piling snow.
I hope she gets frostbite.
Hajoon looked back at the tram car in front of him, staring at the intricate phoenix reminiscent designs that were ingrained into its metal exterior along with the number 23. They were a sign of artisan crafts from the North, with both Nawia and Buxiu historically feuding for the trademark over Phoenix imagery. Which meant that he was wrong to call it a bus. In fact, it would have been quite embarrassing if anyone had heard him call a tram a bus.
It would be more graceful to shout 'I'm poor!' at the top of his lungs.
"Hey…are you going to be okay, Mr. Park..?" Ando suddenly asked, and Hajoon almost flinched as he found his hand on his shoulder. "You take tram 13 right? It looks like you'll have to wait for a while..."
"Yes...are you alright? You look a bit pale..." Lee Hyejin said, joining the pity party with her hazel eyes looking up at him in, well, pity.
What about me is pale?
Hajoon could have almost laughed at that, but he didn't.
"Ah...no, I'm fine! Haha, it's nothing serious, don't worry!"
Yeah! Don't worry, being possessed by an evil spirit is no big deal! I definitely haven't gone insane! He thought sarcastically as he smiled to rid himself of the pity party that he hadn't asked for.
"Oh...then we'll be going ahead..."
Hajoon waved them off as they joined the que, ignoring the cold that set into place as the crowd around him depleted. It was still painful, the task of breathing. The icy air didn't help.
As he was left alone to feel the cold seep straight into his bones, the heated and well lit interior of the tram started to look rather inviting; but he couldn't exactly follow after Hyejin and Ando. This type of tram would never-so-much-as step foot in Nagwon, so it was pointless to get on.
So Hajoon stood there, shivering as he watched strangers and coworkers file into the warmth of the tram, chatting with the oddly friendly driver as they went. Mrs.Baek, being the prissy old hag she was, looked less than amused at the driver's cheery greeting, glaring at the poor man who simply smiled at her.
"You were late...and not so much as an apology for your customers? If this is how the workers are, then it was no wonder they cut your funding."
"Oh I got here as fast as I could…you don't see no other bus round ere ya? That means you can rely on me ma'am! So don't you fret, you'll be right where you belong soon!" The driver with the greying hair and a raccoon-like smile to him chuckled with a nonchalant air, earning a scowl from the old hag.
"This is a tram, Driver. Not a bus. And a tram does not arrive late, no matter the circumstance." The ash haired Ms. Veincliff huffed, looking down her nose at him.
"Apologies missy! It won't happen again! But please don't hold up the line, the poor lad is freezing!" The driver ushered her forward as she grumbled in distaste, but he ignored her, instead looking over at Hajoon who could have been mistaken as a part of the street light that he was leaning against in the darkness.
Hajoon's eyebrows darted upwards in surprise, wishing to vanish into the darkness as unwanted attention fell onto him from both the driver and the passengers aboard the tram.
"Don't just stand there, hop on lad! You'll freeze waiting for that rust bucket, it ain't coming!" The old man called out impatiently.
He knew where Hajoon was headed. It really only took one glance at him to guess huh?
Hahh...just leave me to freeze. Annoying old man...
"I can get you to Hongno, it's close enough to the wharf right? Sorry if it ain't, can't go any further than Red Street tonight..."
…What in the moons? Now he knows where I live? If that isn't a red flag I don't know what is-
Hajoon could hear the other passengers starting to complain, so he quickly made his way inside, bowing at the driver.
"Sorry...and thank you. Don't worry, Hongno is fine."
Hongno, or Red Street as the foreigners called it, was the name for the belt of entertainment sectors that lay in proximity to the city. It was so that city dwellers could crawl down for the night after their day jobs wrung them dry. Vices, as they call it, left the air of Hongno stinking of alcohol, legally sold illegal narcotics, and the poisonous cosmetics that adorned too many faces.
Hajoon couldn't say he felt comfortable walking those streets at night, but it was close enough to his apartment that he could hypothetically walk home in an hour or two if the weather didn't get any worse.
Well, that was if the driver wasn't out to get him. In that case, he would be staggering home missing another kidney.
"What a polite lad! Tell the missus her tea is the best in town! Us drivers would freeze without her!" The driver laughed, clapping Hajoon on the back before he stumbled into an empty seat.
He was struck silent by embarrassment and confusion as the tram jostled into motion, opting to ignore the unfortunate seating mistake made in his haste, as well as the nosy result of it.
Missus...who..?
"I didn't know you were married...wow, congrats!" Ando said with a sting of jealousy in his voice. He had complained about being single before, so it made sense that he would react like that.
But that wasn't the point..!
"I'm not..?"
"Hajoon-ssi...why didn't you invite us to the wedding...?" Lee Hyejin asked with some faux sadness. It wasn't clear if she was making fun of him or not.
This was ridiculous.
"Because there wasn't one to invite you to...?" Hajoon laughed awkwardly, feeling another wave of a headache starting to pound between his eyebrows.
He must have meant missus as in mother...but my mother doesn't live here. Is it boss he meant? Oh whatever, that old man just knows someone who knows me, it doesn't matter who. At least then I don't have to worry about organ trafficking.
"If you're sure, but– you should tell us about important things like that, at least, right? We're on the same team..." Hyejin tried to smile sweetly, but it didn't have the desired effect as Hajoon's smile flipped to a frown in a split second.
He could tell that it wasn't about the imaginary wedding, her line of questioning. Whatever she was getting at in her roundabout way, he had no obligation to answer.
You have no right to lecture me, Hyejin.
"Of course, but am I at fault when the event you missed was something that never happened?" Hajoon kept his smile as polite as possible, hoping that Hyejin would notice his discomfort and shut her mouth. It was getting hard for him to fake a smile while his head pounded with a migraine that made him want to rip out his brain and stick it in the snow outside for relief.
"Well...yes, sorry. It's just that you keep to yourself, and I didn't want there to be a tense environment at work..! We're a team! Right Ando-ssi?"
"Eh..? Oh, of course!" Ando seemed nervous as usual, his eyes jittering between his coworkers who were smiling at each other threateningly.
"...Then I apologize, for making you feel as though I don't trust the others of the publicity team. That isn't the case." Hajoon relented first, focusing on the flurry of snow outside of his window, which seemed to grow in intensity as time passed and the tram continued onwards without making a single stop.
That was strange.
Many of these passengers lived in the residential quarters that encircled the business sector, and no matter how incompetent this driver was, he should have made at least a few stops by now.
"Excuse me driver...you were meant to make a stop at Ashford Square? Was there a change to the route perhaps...? " The polite voice of a blue eyed man was the first to question this peculiar predicament, receiving barely a look back from the old man in question.
"Our stop too...! You missed it, it's-"
"Hey..!! Stop..! I see my stop-" Another voice cut over the last, multiple locations being called out as the tram moved past them all. Many of the faces Hajoon saw were panicked, as one would be during a potential kidnapping. They obviously had the healthy organs and ransoms to merit the risk the driver had taken, unlike him.
What would happen to him then?
He didn't want to think about it, but he did.
"Why aren't you stopping you crazy bastard-!" One of the middle aged men stood up suddenly, trying to grab the shoulder of the driver who ignored their words. But at that moment the tram accelerated without warning, and the spindly salaryman stumbled back, swearing as he managed to grab onto a handrail and not come crashing into the people who sat behind him.
"Please stay seated when the tram is moving, it's dangerous!" The driver finally spoke, but the standardized words he trilled out only added fuel to a fire that had begun to burn within the confined space.
"Stop this tram at once..!" Ms. Veincliff snapped, and of course she received nothing but a raised eyebrow.
Hajoon wondered if she was a moron, expecting a driver to understand aenglic and heed her command. In fact, everyone was too busy screaming their own commands, and or simply screaming, to notice her. The driver, who hummed a jaunty tune, was all too happy to ignore her, along with everyone else.
Haha...so this really is a new human trafficking tactic? Stealing a tram and acting as a driver to kidnap high profile people to get a big ransom?
Damn old man, couldn't he leave me out of it? He knows I'm as poor and desperate as he is...
"Hey...that was my stop..." Ando spoke up as the panic rose within the speeding metal death trap.
"Why isn't he stopping..? Wait–are we on a bridge right now..??" He pressed his face against the glass, and upon seeing next to nothing in the darkness, he pushed the window open with surprising strength. The passengers near him yelped as the safety locking mechanism gave way and the freezing winds and snow billowed inside, sucking the comfortable warmth away in a heartbeat.
"What are you doing..??" Hajoon yelled over the howl of the wind, grabbing hold of Ando's arm as the man stuck his torso out of the window to stare at the churning water below.
"Close that..! It's dangerous..!!" Lee Hyejin's shriek was barely audible over the deafening sound of the engine blending with the wind that gushed into the tram.
"There's something in the water..!" Ando yelled back, ignoring the hands that tried to pull him back inside as he stared out at the black water and the waves that crashed against the pillars that stood as the bridge's foundations. It resembled the splashes made by a thrashing school of fish being herded by a predator, but it was too dark to make out anything but the shadow of something that lay under the waves.
"It looks damn huge..!! Wait–Do you think it's a monster!? How's a monster out here..?!"
"What..?? Forget that..!! Get back in here– idiot..!! You'll fall..!!" Lee Hyejin had gotten up, stepping on the seat to reach the madman who was dangling halfway out of a speeding tram, especially one that had accelerated to speeds comparable to a train.
Hajoon's grip on Ando slipped as he took his glasses off of his face, trying to get a glimpse of what Ando was so transfixed on. His fingers gripped onto the window ledge as he tried to see through the snow that pelted his face, but Ando's scarf—which flapped like a windmill in the wind—slapped Hajoon in the face.
"Gh..!" He yelped, shielding his face as he squinted into the greyscale world that his cursed eyes relayed to him. The cement of the bridge's edge, the snowfall that blurred together like a curtain, then the churning water below–he saw it all plain as day.
He saw what Ando could not. A giant fin jutting out of the water. To a human eye, it could have been mistaken for the sail of a sailboat. Hajoon wanted to see it as that too, he could have believed it was a sailboat, until it moved.
The sail rose from the water, becoming miniscule as the body of a serpentine creature blocked out the faint visage of the moon behind its towering mass. Jagged teeth off mass quantities became visible as the monster opened its mouth, then blurred in a moment of scrambled movement as the window slammed shut and Hajoon was pulled along by Hyejin's grip as they all fell to the ground
He was shaking, his breath coming in puffs as he stared at that closed window, seeing nothing but the silver moon and the snow that shrouded it as his own eyes dilated, drinking in the silver light.
"There's nothing there..." He chuckled to himself, blinking away the tingling sensation in his eyes before he searched around for his glasses and put them back on his face.
He staggered to his feet, watching Ando struggle to do the same as the tram lurched forward to leave the bridge and the monster behind. Lee Hyejin, who finally let go of the collar of the snow-covered Ando, had a dark expression on her face, from which the nervous man looked away.
I must have seen wrong. It can't be a monster. Monsters can't leave the perimeter of a dungeon. Only dead corpses wash up here. A living monster can't be here. It can't.
\\ Now Entering Unnamed Dungeon \\
As if to mock him, those words appeared in front of his face. Solid and without a voice, they stayed, even as a pressure started to squeeze his lungs until he saw red.
What..? What Dungeon..? It hurts...Hahaha...
But this time it wasn't just him; the others around him keeled over when he managed to stay upright, splatters of blood painting the floor of the tram whose engine sputtered, fizzled then cut out, taking the warmth and light with it.
In the cacophony of screams and groans of pain, a single voice rang clear in Hajoon's head.
[The game has begun.]