[ D-day 0 ] [ 00 : 00 : 59 ] [ South Korea ]
Kim Jinchul stood ready at the subway station sixteen, where a portal had been opened.
The animal of this portal is the copper winged bat, rat bat, as the netizens call it.
Jinchul is still amazed that he was able to live to see this day. He expected he would die in some sort of accident the moment he threatened the president. Perhaps it's because of the last dreg of conscience, or because of the suddenly overflowing approval rate, the president has chosen to promote him rather than squash him.
At least, that's what it looked like to outer eyes.
Yet, Jinchul knew better.
The so-called promotion is a hot potato. He was made the Hunter Association's president.
Hunter Association is an non-government agency which administers hunters and associated cases.
It has no military power, i.e. it can not punish the soldiers.
It has no penal power, i.e. it can not punish the citizens.
It has all the duties of listening to citizen's claims and referring them to relevant departments.
Simply put, he will suffer all the wrath of the public, while the rest of the departments in government will have an opportunity to shake their hands off any controversial issues, saying it's not relevant to their job.
Jinchul decided he will resign at the first sign of trouble. Sure, he could solve it, but he doesn't want to.
He knew the moment he lays groundwork and makes the hunter association powerful, the greedy and powerful will come flocking to the position like moths to a flame.
He had no reason to involve himself in that sort of headache. He would rather be a house husband. He had no qualms eating soft rice, given how cute his wife and daughter were.
For now though, since it is in his hands, he made the decision to keep the situation as much under control as possible.
First of all, there's drone supervision, where most of the males who do not meet active duty physical needs work. He was the one to push for it, where every man in the country needs to work for the hunter division in one manner or another.
There was no great need for this administrative work, however, Jinchul wanted those who would otherwise sit at home to look and feel the hard work of their compatriots. In a nation that's usually swayed by netizen's response, the naysayers could always make enough of a force just to steal benefits.
For now, only the teams are allowed, not guilds.
The team leaders are to be awarded with tokens, so unless two military officers offer a commendation, a person could not be a guild leader. Before he could come up with a better measure, this should prevent undeserved people becoming guild leaders.
Five drones with cameras and all three TV stations were all focused on the portal as the clock reached 0.
At this time, one would think that a lot of people entered the portals in South Korea to clear them, given the amount of exposure they are given.
On the contrary, there was not even a single hunter who entered the portals.
The government locked them down seamlessly. Instead, they focused all their efforts on analyzing and organizing the army and volunteers, as well as figuring out a system. They don't have men to spare, nor do they have resources to spare.
All of their current wealth is built on communications and industry. If they lose their exports and imports, the country may have to revert to their old days of meager variety in food and resources.
It's more important to conserve their people and current infrastructure while keeping the country's border than it is to explore the portals to the last T.
As such, the moment the clock struck 0, when the flashes went off, there was but a measly little bat which flew out of the portal.
All the flashes and lights went off, stunning the little thing to stupefaction.
The bat fluttered its little wings aggressively in the air, before losing consciousness and falling to its death.
" Awww.. " sighed many of the girls at the cuteness of the little bat.
"Huuaah! " sighed many of the boys with disappointment at the wimpy look of the beast.
All this lasted but for a second.
The next moment, the ground under their feet changed.
The land expanded, leaving the crowd which had gathered to the point of not letting a grain of sand fall to the ground to something similar to a crowd that perfectly obeyed social distancing rules.
Most of those who could leave Seoul had been sent off to their homes in the countryside. Even so, the population of the capital city is not small. In the first place, their country was small, with a behemoth of capital city that had absorbed all its surrounding villages.
So, while many left the city, there are more who have no place to go to but the city.
" oh ! oH ! OOOOOHhhhhhhhh! OHHHHHH ! " The journalists and cameramen exclaimed as they were moved away from their standing equipment and the wires pulled the camera's backward.
Some with quick reflexes picked up their cameras and started running towards their vans, from which the power cord extended, yet others just pulled off the power plugs in an attempt to save their expensive cameras.
Now, a wind of bats flew out, pulling on people's hair, equipment and weapons.
Jinchul and his team were alert.
" Stand your positions ! " Jinchul shouted. There wasn't much effect.
" Attention ! " he screamed at the top of his lungs.
Perhaps the average citizens are far too used to this word in their schools and army… their trained response kicked in.
They automatically turned towards the sound while standing still, better yet, most men turned and saluted as if by instinct.
" Legs down ! Draw a weapon ! " Jinchul screamed, in the same drill master tone.
" Aim ! Shoot. " he ordered.
It doesn't matter if bullets fly stray.
A lock down had been in effect as of tonight, and almost every business was told to follow at least one or two protective measures, so as to protect their property.
Most restaurants pasted all their glass windows with stacks of old news papers, quilts. Those who could close shutters closed shutters all around.
The electricity and gas were both turned off at midnight.
Except for the flash lights run with diesel generators, there are no lights to be had.
As such, the situation at the bat portal is all too exaggerated.
The volunteers at the edges ran back to the subway stations away from the portal. The bats landed on some, biting wherever they could lay their teeth on.
No one could find the directions any more, as the buildings were jumbled, and the subway stations and the train tracks were preserved as they were apart from each other.
It created the situation where the subways are nothing but glorified underground caves.
People pushed one another as they rushed into the subway stations. The people who entered first wanted to return, while the crowd that was entering the station was too panicked to hear any words at all.
In the scuffle, a teenager with a phobia of rats fell to his knees. The crowd stepped back, their military boots falling right on his thin ankles.
" AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH...…" the teenager screamed.
The scream attracted the wildly spreading beasts to the subway station.
With the animals grouping around, the people entering the dungeon were even more forceful, given safety lied just beyond those steps.
The person who was standing at the back of the crowd trying to go out fell back flat on his back as the crowd surged.
The person who stepped back stepped right in between his legs.
Another scream echoed in the dungeon, distracting those who were pushing out.
As the animals gathered, panic increased in the crowd pushing in.
In that single second when the crowd pushing out was distracted by a scream, the crowd outside pushed in.
More than one person on the back of the crowd fell down.
The people running in did not care for their fallen comrades at all.
They rushed in, stepping on thighs, arms and even faces of the fallen comrades. The smell of blood spread in the dungeon as the people were injured.
At the same time, it excited the beasts outside.
It was a totally avoidable disaster.
It needed just one brave man willing to rush out, or willing to listen to the shouts of people inside.
Only, this crowd is made up of cowards and deserters. After all, it is all the people who chose to stand on the periphery rather than the front line or even middle of the resistance. The government forced them to act, but they were only ever willing to eat the fruits of other's sacrifices.
In that crowd, there wasn't a single person that was willing to spare one of the smallest thoughts to their fellow comrade.
As such, as the animals rushed, the crowd drilled even deeper.
At first, the panic of the crowd and their footsteps killed rats as well as bats.
The resulting gene fragments subtly increased their hearing and sense of danger, like pouring oil into the fire.
As beasts changed from rats to bears, the dungeon became a mere food trough for the beasts.
In between all the carnage, one person survived, by hiding in a crack on the rocky wall.
Thus was born the first human monster, Gollum of the Gil Dong subway station.