Ryu Jaehyuk took a sip of his coffee and sat it down while he stretched.
"You look like a wreck, did you get caught up in another night mission?"
He nodded with a sigh, digging into his pocket and pulling out eyedrops and squeezing a few drops into his eyes.
Ryu Jaehyuk, a 27 year old police officer on the special task force. His job was to go deal with all the big dangerous things that normal officers or desk workers wouldn't. Things like armed robberies, human trafficking cases, hostage situations and the like.
Jaehyuk was only a week into his job and was already exhausted, he himself hadn't been too involved in the action yet since he was still a newbie but he still accompanied his superiours when they worked to learn first hand, and get prepared mentally.
Only, nothing could prepare him mentally for the things he's seen, not a test, not a book, and not even crime documentaries or tv shows.
"I haven't had much sleep, I'll live though. I'll get used to this routine eventually."
Jaehyuk spoke but not so much to the officer, more so to himself than anyone else. Trying to convince himself that he'll get used to the environment and things would get better.
However, he knew deep down. While the crime rate in South Korea isn't the worst, a lot of the cases are among the worst there could be. The crime scenes and cases he'd seen had all been enough to scar anyone.
Luckily, he had some experience with death, gruesome and unsettling as it may be, he had gone to the army, and there he had witnessed his first death. Even after being out of the army for a whole year he's still haunted by the sight and memories each day.
Since that day, he decided to work as an officer to uphold justice and keep others safe, that's why despite the hardships of his new position he didn't regret his decision and decided that all he could do was be patient as he settles into his new job.
Everyday was spent the same, working constantly, he basically lived in the office since he could be called to work at any time.
He didn't sleep much, not that it was a problem since he had sickening nightmares whenever he did manage to fall asleep.
Everyday he simply drank several cups of tea and coffee, and listened to his co-workers and superiors as they spoke about their home lives or cases.
"Jaehyuk, why don't you take the weekend off. You're new and you should rest while you still can."
Jaehyuk looked over his shoulder at the superior who had approached him, resting his hand on Jaehyuk's shoulder as he spoke. Handing him a coffee, he smiled warmly at his junior as the other officers greeted him.
"Ah- it's Keith hyung-nim, good evening!"
One of the officers stood from his desk and bowed while greeting the superior. The man with medium-length blond wavy hair and hazel eyes smiled warmly at his fellow officers and gestured for them to sit comfortably.
"There's no need to be so stiff, we're all friends here and we'll be seeing one another often. I just came to check on you guys and hang out since you're working hard."
The officers, a total of 6 in the room including Ryu Jaehyuk, were all touched by their superior's kindness. They spent the next half an hour chatting and joking with one another.
It was an enjoyable time for everyone involved, especially when so many had been feeling tense or anxious about the increasing workloads lately.
The superior officer made his way to the doors and began to push them open while he spoke to them. He was likely going home for the night or maybe he had somewhere else to be but he didn't seem to be in much of a hurry.
Smiling warmly again at the junior officers he spoke once more.
"Then, I hope that you take the next couple of days off to rest before things get too het–"
The superior didn't get to finish his sentence before his words were interrupted by a loud noise.
Beep, beep, beep-
He turned his head sharply in surprise and the officers all simultaneously stopped speaking and stood up. Outside, they couldn't see what was happening but they knew that it must have been one of their cars outside making noise.
"Hyung-nim, what's wrong-"
Before Jaehyuk could finish his question, he saw his superior get hit by something, in the blink of an eye his body disappeared as it flew to the back of the building and hit the brick wall leaving nothing but debris and a thick cloud of dust and smoke visible. Everyone was in shock until they heard a blood curdling screech from outside.
CREEE–
Jaehyuk was the first to react, immediately bolting outside the building, the doors now broken and left wide open with glass broken everywhere which crunched loudly as he exited.
He saw a young man, no older than 20 bloodied and breathing raggedly as he held a bloody broken large piece of cement in his hands.
Before the officer could utter a word or process what was happening, he saw a spider-like monster at least over 2 meters tall.
The monster was injured and had a grotesque appearance as several broken bones and a missing eye bled profusely. Despite that, the monster screeched and swung a sharp boney arm down and pierced the man in his stomach.
Uffh-
The boy coughed up blood and tried to let out a pained scream but his voice came out choked and strained as he struggled.
'W-what the hell is going on??'
Jaehyuk felt a chill run throughout his entire body and he wanted to run away, his instincts were screaming at him to leave but despite that he bit his lip and it bled, the pain causing him to snap out of his panic as he immediately ran back inside and grabbed the nearest weapon he could find.
Coming back out, without thinking he simply threw the weapon at the monster, a baton hit the monster and it turned towards him.
"Fucking hell.. ugly bastard."
He spoke with a nervous grin as the monster took its attention away from the young boy it had impaled. The monster was now wobbly towards him at a disgusting speed with a look half full of glee and half of anger. Jaehyuk had no time to dwindle and ran inside while screaming for his fellow officers.
"Move, get ready to run!"
He ran inside of the building not because he wanted to endanger his fellow officers but because something that big and dangerous needs to be contained as soon as possible, but having no way to contain it and no idea how to kill it, trapping it inside of a building was the fastest and smartest idea he could come up with in those few split seconds that he had to react.
It didn't take long for the monster to catch up, as it reached the entrance and tried to force its way inside, it got stuck in the opened doorway.
Just as it had been inside of the alleyways before, it struggled to get fully through the tight space because of its large body. This worked in Jaehyuk's favour as he quickly snapped his coworkers out of their stupor.
"Snap out of it! This thing is dangerous, we need to immobilize it!"
He turned to the nearest person who was shaking in fear behind him with wide eyes. He spoke as calmly as he could manage while the others stumbled about looking for weapons to use.
"You, please check if hyung-nim is alive and help him get to the back where it's safer."
The coworker nodded and rushed to the back to check on the superior officer who had been injured earlier.
Next to Jaehyuk, a female coworker spoke orders to the coworkers.
"Don't get too close, it's torso is through the door and we don't know what it can do."
The officers weren't allowed to carry handguns, only in rare cases and usually only higher ranked officers or special task force officers were allowed to carry. Not normal patrol and office working officers.
So instead of guns, the officers grabbed things like tasers and batons and anything else they could use and attacked the creature together with as much distance as they could maintain.
The weapons didn't do much damage alone but anything could do a lot of damage if done in large numbers and that fact applied even now.
Being attacked from multiple angles by 3 officers at once upset the monster as it let out a screech again and began flailing its arms, trying to pull its body through the entrance.
While this happened, water and cables began falling loosely from the ceilings as the lights flickered because of the monster breaking the building.
This made fighting harder as visibility was starting to waver and if they were unlucky it would become completely lost and that would mean their immediate demise.
"Shit, there's no time to worry about consequences."
Jaehyuk pulled out his gun from his holster, he had never used it for anything other than practice until now, he never needed to since he had only ever been an observer and the most he had to do since he was new was to just apprehend suspects from time to time.
He pulled his gun and with shaky hands aimed for the monsters' exposed vital points. He fired at the monsters remaining eye, and then also at its neck and chest. He had hoped it would kill the monster but he knew he'd be lucky if it even managed to weaken the monster.
Luckily, or unluckily, the shots fired succeeded in blinding and injuring the already gravely injured monster. It was almost way too easy to injure it considering that the attacks from the other officers had done little damage.
After being shot the monster froze for a moment almost as if incapacitated for only a moment before it unleashed several attacks in fury, even it's 3 spider like legs which were stuck outside of the building began to flail and stomp aggressively into the concrete as if trying to force itself into the building even if it had to lift the entire building.
Not even taking into consideration that it could collapse the building and kill itself, it became overwhelmed with rage.
A deep chill ran down everyone's back as they backed away from the monster and some officers covered their ears as the monster screeched loudly, the sound deafening.
'Could it be weak to bullets?'
CREEEEEEEEE
"D-DIE– I.. W-WILL-"
'This thing can talk?! What the hell is this??'
Jaehyuk shook his head and thought as he immediately followed up with more shots this time aiming at the monster's arms that had started to swat blindly at any and everything as it roared out in pain and anger.
Unfortunately, the shots didn't do much damage to the creature's arms besides breaking through the skin and lightly grazing the bone which seemed to be hardened.
The monster swiped its outreached hand once more, this time its bones stretching out like claws and slashing the 3 officers that had been closer to the monster.
2 of which were cut perfectly in half and one who had a deep slash across their stomach and chest. Jaehyuk stared down in fear, disgust and anger as he saw the state of his female coworker choking in her blood and lying limply at his feet after having been slashed.
His face and body were covered in blood, as were the walls and floors, the thick smell of murky iron and damp air filled his lungs making him want to vomit as a burning knot formed in his stomach. The monster's body was now beginning to slip through the entrance and the building was beginning to crumble.
"H-hyung.."
Jaehyuk heard a voice behind him and turned. His heart raced and his head felt foggy, he had almost forgotten about the one officer behind him and his superior who were both together in the back.
The young man who called his name was Jaehyuk's only makane in the department and despite the flickering lights that were threatening to completely fail, Jaehyuk could see the pale expression on the man's face as he tried to look past him at the monster and the scene.
Jaehyuk moved in front of the man shielding his view and spoke in a low voice while holding a finger to his mouth.
"The monster is blind now, we need to stay quiet so that it can't hear us. I don't think it knows if we're still alive right now."
He said as he approached the man and began helping him to pick up the superior's body.
"Is he..?"
The young man shook his head and responded shakily.
The superior was alive but barely holding on after being launched across the room and hitting a wall as hard as he did.
Understanding this, Jaehyuk nodded and spoke again.
"I'll help you carry hyung-nim to the back exit where you and him will go get help."
As he spoke the young man's expression changed and he responded frantically.
"H-hyung what about you?? You're not coming?"
Pushing a hand against the man's mouth and speaking in a slightly raised hushed voice he shook his head and responded.
"There's a civilian out there. I don't know if he's still alive but if he is… I can't just leave him alone to die."
The younger man wanted to argue back but he knew how stubborn and resolute his hyung was. He could only stifle his groan and grit his teeth as he turned and carried the man over his shoulder as he and Jaehyuk made their way through the exit.
Once they made it to the door Jaehyuk left, heading towards the front he saw that the lights had completely gone out and the gaping hole in the entrance was now even bigger as the monster had escaped and was silently moving about while the sounds of water dripping, bones and glass could be heard crunching.
'Shit… it's inside… I can't see…'
He wanted to grab a flashlight, he knew where they were despite it being dark, he had memorized the layout of the building after all. The issue was that with the monster inside, the building was collapsing and with glass and rubble being everywhere along with the bodies of his coworkers, one wrong move and he would give his position up to the monster that was nearby.
Just as he began to steel himself to move again he saw something baffling.
The young man from before that had been impaled was standing at the entrance now. He was tall despite being hunched over likely because of the pain of his wounds.
His hands trembled as he moved and in his hand was a lighter with a small flame that flickered just enough for Jaehyuk to see his expression.
The boy had ghostly pale skin and dried blood on his forehead and mouth yet the boy had a sadistic looking grin on his face as he spoke with his hoarse voice.
"Thanks for distracting him… I'll take it from here."
'What the fuck is he doing?'
Jaehyuk thought as he saw the man and when he spoke Jaehyuk knew the monster would hear him and attack him. He could tell that the man was nearing death and a single attack would be all it took to end his life in an instant.
"You're gonna get yourself kil–"
Before he could respond the monster had already bolted towards the man but instead of moving, the man said something that Jaehyuk didn't quite hear and the last thing he saw was the lighter falling towards the monster, who then caught on fire and then the building collapsed.
Jaehyuk fell into a deep darkness unlike anything he had ever experienced before. He couldn't move, couldn't hear, couldn't even feel anything.
He couldn't tell if he was awake or not and could only lie there, his body felt heavy and numb. His mind raced and yet felt blank.
The events that had occurred on an otherwise mundane day flashed through his mind. Chaotic and tragic was the only way to properly describe what had just occurred. He had no idea that this was only the beginning of a bigger chaos that would come soon.