"Hah-Hah-Hah! Cough! Cough! Hah-Hah!"
"Is this how I'm gonna die? I am bleeding! Someone help me... Please, I don't wanna die!!"
"My child? Has anyone seen my child?"
"Hah-Hah-Hah! Cough! Hah-Hah!"
"Where is the government?"
"Hah-Hah-Hah! Cough! Cough! Hah-Hah!"
"Didn't you see those building sized monsters? We are all gonna die!"
"I'm sure the government will com to save us!"
"Hah-Hah-Hah! Hah-Hah! Cough! Cough!"
"Do you have internet? Is there any news? Where should we run away to?"
"Cough! Cough! Hah-Hah-Hah-Hah-Hah! Cough! "
"Doctor! A doctor my wife is bleeding?"
"The government would have come until now if they were really gonna come!"
"Hah-Hah-Hah! Cough! Hah- Cough!-Hah!"
"Everywhere is like this! The net is full of videos of people getting attacked by monsters all over the world! It's not only our city and country! It's the entire damn world!"
"Oh, dear god! Help us!"
"Hah-Hah! Hah..." The panting teenage boy didn't even have the strength to cough.
"Do you think you are more innocent than the small kids that were eaten by those green creatures? God won't help you, so just shut the trap up!!"
Actually, the people chattering around could get counted as the lucky ones compared to the ones that were devoured by gigantic monsters without even having the chance to run away. However, they din't feel lucky.
They had no chance of survival against those scary monsters that had turned the entire city upside down. Everything was on fire, the fallen skyscrapers, smashed cars and destroyed roads. With a scene like this is something they can't forget, even for a second.
It had been like this since yesterday. Everything was chaotic, and if anyone wasn't in a state of insanity, it would be more strange. They all wished to wake up, but it was too hard to think of this nightmare as just another dream.
People had seen family members, friends, coworkers, strangers, and children die in front of their eyes. Many had lost their motivation to live and only followed a blind instinct whenever there was a monster.
"Why-don't- Hah-I feel- Hah-lucky?" He murmured to himself. The boy too had seen many die.
He hugged his backpack tightly as he looked at his unconscious older brother on the hospital bed. His name is a TAE-WOON, TAE (태) as in great and WOON(운) as in fortune.
'What kind of great fortune is this?' He thought, feeling the sharp edges of the inhaler boxes under his fingers. TAE-WOON always had at least ten extra inhalers in his backpack.
Since 21th he had even more, a backpack full of survival supplies. He wanted to live. Not even getting picked up on by the other kids had prevented him from carrying them around. Why was it that his life was always full of challenges?
It hadn't even been a year since he lost her mother and not even a week since his father passed away. Until yesterday, he thought nothing could ever make him feel more miserable, but here he was.
Weighting between dying slowly of the asthma or using his inhaler and getting devoured by a monster. He clenched the backpack tighter. Is Theodore even breathing? He is his only hope left, yet he pathetically was afraid of getting closer to check his breathing.
TAE-WOON never felt like he belonged anywhere, not even with his family. His parents were too old, he was too young for his siblings or nieces and nephews. He was even younger than the youngest grandson of their family.
Alone, if until yesterday he just felt like he was all alone in this world, he know it as a fact that he was now. To think that he had the audacity to not want a new sister.
He must have been out of his mind! Or should he try finding her? She indeed had eye color similar to his. Dark blue, like Theodor, and like him. Wouldn't she tell him it was okay to want to stay alive?
For the 10th time that minute, he checked the forum of the community that held him pushing despite the harshness of the world towards him.
Despite never being understood, never understanding, the bullies, despite the sorrows, despite the unwanted possessions and wanted never gets.
Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding!
The familiar notification sound made him clasp the phone tightly without even being able to unlock it. His tears finally found their ways down his cheeks as he stared at the pile of new post notices.
Eventually, while still persistently staring at his phone screen, he pushed his hand inside his backpack. The hand coming out has the cold inhaler in it. He inhaled the content and waited for his breath to even out.
A new post in "Introverts life guide" from the owner "The extrovert introvert" X5 one second ago:
[I'm buried in the dirt.
From head to toe.
But I refuse to give up...
World still owes me a lot.]
'Yes, that's right! I have endured a lot so I won't give up this easily. It would be too shameful if I did!' He became determined. It wasn't like he had gotten buried under the ground like EI was.
EI is how the people in the community called the administrator. It stood for the administrator's nickname, Introvert Extrovert.
[This is a blog to show you how to survive.
However, I realized I have released no real survival content yet.
Therefore, here are the first and second rules of survival for introverts:
- Distance yourself from extroverts. They might not be bad people but just like a chemical materials properties, some chemicals are just not to be blended. Introverts should keep a distance from extroverts, even more, if they are someone dear.
*To be clear, don't follow this when it is on the superficial level, only on the emotional level. Just don't put your heart on them... Cause their brains don't work the same way as ours...
- Bland in, only if you don't have the skills to survive alone! But don't try too hard to blend in when you can survive on your own. Just do it.
*Don't you know how to bland in? You don't actually have to bland in on a deep scale. It is enough to do it on the surface, like how you have done so far.
Do your own part and don't be a burden. Then, don't concern yourself with the rest. You have done your part! Pushing it will do you no good and decreases your survival chances! ]
He took mental notes as he hacked those rules in his mind and soul.
[ I am not lazy.
I'm just in the energy saving mode...
Did you know lazy people are the smartest ones?
Stick to them!]
His eyes shimmered as he looked around and started searching for anyone that looked lazy. Not finding any visibly lazy but intelligent person, he looked at his phone again. There were more, but they weren't loading yet.
Just these two messages were enough for him to come back to his senses.
Touching the screen, he pressed the like icon. He wasn't the first to like. In just two minutes, there had been 1 billion likes. There wasn't a view count nor a subscriber's count, but he always knew it should be significantly more than the number of likes.
There were plus 1 billion people out there like him. Motivated to live on. Even in this condition. TAE-WOON felt his heart beat with a new flaring energy. He won't die and he will get everything the world owes him.