He closed his eyes then, using the burning sensation in his chest as fuel, opened his mouth to shout for help.
"Someone please help my brother. He is bleeding!!!"
The shout was so awkward and pitifully low that even he couldn't hear himself clearly. What did he expect in this loud crowd? It was already a miracle he could say a sentence that long without going out of breath.
Probably because of shame, the burning sensation had extended to his entire body, but his breathing was unlikely comfortable. He felt strange all over. Strangely healthy yet hot.
TAE WOON opened his eyes to the strange sensation. Puzzled, he saw two holographic screens in front of him.
[ Welcome to the system of survival TAE WOON!]
[Congratulation on awakening the Blue dwarf (first circle), the fifth flame out of the eight flames of oxygen! Click on the DESCRIBTION for more details!]
TAE WOON blinked a few times and then raised his hand to rub his eyes, only to stop midway. A hissing, fuming blue flame covered his hands. Behind his hands, he saw his entire body in the narrow steel bed frame. It wasn't only his hands; it had covered his whole body!
Staggering back with his backpack still in his arms, TAE WOON noticed the floor under him had gotten affected by the flame. The place he had been sitting until a second ago was now melted into nothing and there was no trace of the red carpet.
"Unbelievable!" He gasped. Since yesterday, he had seen lots of people who suddenly started shooting things out of thin air like his brother. They were the only reasons the remaining people were still alive and could hide away in this hospital, but it was still too unbelievable for him.
"unbelievable!" He claimed again as he looked from and back between his backpack and the floor.
'How is this possible? The always unlucky me?'
He wanted to shout and share this news with Theodore, but reality was always a step ahead of him. All his excitement flared down, so did the blue fire on his body.
Plopping back next to the burned floor, he looked at his brother's state before hesitantly stretching his hand forward. Taking Theodore's wrist, he placed his, now full of warmness, fingers on it. His brows got closer as he found it hard to discern.
"Is it mine or his?" He mumbled to himself as he tried to focus.
The heat acceleratingly spread from his heart again. He suddenly could see things far ahead, heat, cold, movement and voices. It felt strange.
He could even see things that not only weren't in his vicinity, but didn't even have a visual property. It was impossible, but he could swear he could see the green heads on the third flour smashing and biting down people's flesh. The smell of the warm blood flooding towards the ground place wasn't out of his vision either. He could see those vicious creature's footsteps rushing towards this way and he could see Teodor's heart steadily bumping.
With no remorse, he slapped him as hard as possible. Theodore's eyelashes shook, but he didn't wake up. The second slap was even harder and TAE WOON kept slapping him hysterically with his dilated eyes kept on the ceiling. It was a damned habit.
To be exact, it was an evolution of a damned habit. He would freeze whenever he panicked. It was so severe that he couldn't even move his pinkey finger. However, now he could keep slapping Theodore in the hope he would save them both as he had done in the morning.
In the next seconds, as TAE WOON still saw the blood storm getting closer down, he also felt the energy drown from his body and his slaps becoming less and less powerful. The last thing he felt before entering the familiar world of unconsciousness was a hand gripping his wrist tightly. A hand with a familiar crafted Celtic steel bracelet with a familiar quote on it.
"Friends Forever!"
***
EUN-WOO numbly looked at the hospital's blinking lamps in the empty hallway. The ceiling was vibrating. Something dropped from the celling and wetted his emotionless face. He wiped it with his white uniforms sleeves without looking at the liquid. EUN WOO didn't need to look to know what it was.
The cursed liquid had become one of his nightmares ever since he was only fifteen. This smell had woven itself into his darkest memories and followed him to adulthood, but he was way over that time. The time he would faint at the sight of it and throw up nonstop with a whift.
Everything seemed pointless. He had eight surgeries since the morning and 50 surgeries in this month. Forty of them had gotten killed today. Including the teen boy with a silly smile that looked at him, saying he wanted to grow up to become cool like him.
Trying to clean his watch coloured with blood, his glance fell on his other wrist. The small sniffing girl who sat next to him wanted it, the friendship bracelet Dawn had made. The loud little spoiled girl had gotten it too, not from him but from Dawn.
Her name was SAE-BYEOK, with the same meaning as Dawn's name. She had always been too dwelling on names and so she had been extra tolerant against this little girl who wasn't even a patient but stayed at the hospital for 360 days of the year.
SAE-BYEOK was SAE-BOM's younger sister. His patient, who had died in front of his eyes today, together with his parents. He had been so shocked that he hadn't even held her eyes, the demanding little girl clinging to his foot to marry her while her parents laughed at her actions.
The black portal opened right above their heads, and grey enormous ghouls fell on the three. Thier smiles didn't even have the time to fade as they got smashed to death.
'Do I really deserve to live, Mom? Am I really not sucking others' luck?' He thought as he lifted the still crying girl under one of his arms. It seemed like the other 10 on the third floor had also died. What did he do all the surgeries for?
The phone in his pocket vibrated one, two,..., five times. His wife seemed to do okay. Taking a Mountaineering Pack from his locket, he ran towards the emergency stairs. No matter how much of a chaos there was outside, it wouldn't be worse than the one going on upstairs, is what his alarming institution, as an always in the center of catastrophes, told him.
Reminded of how much nagging he will hear if she finds out he hadn't tried to save at least children, he took two more children on his way out while shouting at the top of his lounge:
"Everyone out! Monsters are coming downstairs!"
He wasn't of help at all as the chaotic crowd became even more chaotic, cursing and screaming. All of them had seen what kind of chaos was going on out there. No one followed his lead. Not the people, nor the door guards who had held all the exits sealed with chains and all kinds of huge furniture.
'What would have Dawn done in this situation?' He thought before casting ice shards through one entrance with no notice. Clearing his way with ease, as if he had the power to control ice and wind his whole life.
"What is this crazy bastard doing?"
"Someone control this monster!!!"
"We are all gonna die!"
Suddenly the ceiling broke, and blood poured down like a river together with laughing monsters with sharp teeth.
"AAAAAHHHHH! Mo-Mo-Monsters are coming down!"
"Run to the open door!"
"Get out of my way! Get away!"
***