This cannot be happening…
My mind was racing as I was hiding behind a huge debris that fell off from a destroyed office building in the streets of Myeongdong with Haein crouched right next to me.
One thing led to another after the scene at the Moonbucks, and I ended up going shopping with her in Seoul's most famous shopping district. It has become more of a tourist spot in recent years than for the locals, but Haein wasn't from Seoul anyway so she was excited. I couldn't shake off the feeling that this felt like some sort of a 'date', and being a girl who's never been on a 'date' before, it was both an exciting and nauseating experience.
Then all of a sudden, the whole area turned dark as if some heavy clouds suddenly formed and blocked the sun entirely. As I looked up with a growing sense of inevitability in my heart, I saw the Hell Beast towering over the busy shopping area. It was probably at least as tall as a 60 story tall building as it stood on its two feet. It had very broad shoulders, its whole muscular body was covered in the coarse fur of a wild beast burning in red flames, and it had two demonic-looking horns on its head that pierced the sky. Despite all its other fearful features though, the scariest of them all was its eyes, which shined with a green glow that seemed to be something between a ball of liquid and flame.
"What… what the hell is that…?"
Haein was hugging my arm tightly, pressing her body against it and shivering like a little lamb about to be eaten alive.
"It's… the Hell Beast"
"They have this in Seoul?!"
Silly girl…
"I saw it in Busan too"
"What?! I never…"
"RUN!"
I shouted before Haein could finish her words.
The Hell Beast found us and it was approaching us quickly, squashing people below to death with its stomps as it did so.
We ran at frantic speed wearing our silly matching couple look, but I knew it was a futile effort. There was no escaping the Hell Beast, and I've never managed to 'stay alive' for longer than five minutes after seeing this ghastly creature.
I never got physically destroyed by it, but every time it came close enough to kill me I would black out and wake up back in my bed. This was something I was used to, but it has never happened before on any other day than November 9th. For it to happen today, out of all the days I've gone through, was just something extraordinary. An inconsistency that I have been longing for to break the infinite loop I was stuck in, but I would have given anything to have just another boring day now.
Just as the Hell Beast was getting closer and I felt like it was right behind us, I heard Haein scream from behind me.
"YUIIIIII!"
I was still holding her hand while we were running, but when I looked back to check if she was OK I realized that I was only holding her severed arm with blood spouting out of it while the Hell Beast had Haein in its grip and was moving her to its mouth.
MOTHERFUCKER. It's gonna EAT her?
I quickly dropped Haein's severed arm and grabbed whatever I could to throw at the Beast, but it was of course no use. Within seconds, Yui disappeared into its mouth and even from way below I could see that he was chomping and chewing on her body now.
All was lost.
Whatever break from the pattern I had been hoping for, this wasn't it. She would have died eventually anyway once the Hell Beast made its way across Korea and all over the world at some point, but there were still forty more days. Nobody had to die today, so why…? Why today? Why here? Why her?
Just as I was lost in my thoughts and waited for the inevitable, the Hell Beast looked down at me and its eyes flashed.
There and then, my body disintegrated into a thousand pieces, and I felt every bit of pain from each flake of my broken existence.
"AAAAAARRRGH!!!!"
I woke up screaming in cold sweats, with the piercing sun poking my eyes through the window. I could tell I was back in my bed again, but the pain I felt just a moment ago was so excruciatingly real I ran my hands all over my body to check I was in one piece, which I was.
Once it was secure that my body was intact, I hurriedly grabbed my phone from the bedside table and checked the time. It was 12:04. The same as always.
Like a possessed woman, I forced myself to follow the same routine I had established to check the news on Neyver. It was all the same old same old and… OK, the same number of people died from the fire breakout too, good.
And… it felt like a super silly thing to do at the time, but I clicked on the special edition prawn curry-flavored potato chips, and to my shock and horror, the order went through and I was greeted with payment options.
No way…
For a very long time I thought I wanted nothing more than the prawn curry potato chips, but no - this is not what I want now. And this is not how I wanted to get it.
Not like this.
I jumped out of bed and ran to my wardrobe so I could quickly get dressed to go out. I didn't know where I was planning to go, but something was just not right and I knew I just had to get out and see the world in this new light again. When I saw myself in the mirror on the wardrobe door though, I collapsed onto my knees.
I was wearing the striped T-shirts that Haein gave me.