THE VARIANT: ZERO HOUR

12. A Face Among the Monsters

The evening wind blew through the shattered window of the Archive Room. The air no longer carried a refreshing chill. Instead, it brought a thick, stomach-churning stench of burning asphalt, melting rubber, and the metallic tang of blood pooling everywhere.

Jaemin stood frozen at the edge of the warped aluminum frame. His hands, coated in black blood, gripped the window ledge so tightly that his knuckles turned a sickly white.

Down below, roughly three stories from where he stood, hell was throwing a feast.

The hospital courtyard was swarming with dozens of the undead roaming aimlessly, dragging their broken legs or busily tearing into the remains of victims who had failed to escape. But among the sea of repulsive monsters on the asphalt, Jaemin's silver eyes locked onto a single spot.

Right near the security booth pole.

A woman crouched with her back facing the building. Her knee-length maroon dress, the exact same outfit his mother had ironed that morning, was now torn at the shoulder and heavily stained with dark spots. The woman was hunched over the corpse of a hospital security guard whose stomach had been ripped wide open.

Crunch. Slurp.

The noise should have been incredibly faint from the third floor, but in Jaemin's ears, it echoed like a concert speaker. The woman in the red dress tore at the guard's intestines, pulling them out like tough noodles before shoving them into her own mouth.

Jaemin's world stopped spinning. Time seemed to freeze completely.

His brain suffered a massive lag. A short circuit. A total system failure. He saw the scene, but his rational mind refused to translate the horrific visual into reality. The mental defenses he had painstakingly built to protect Jihoon were now completely obliterated.

He did not cry. He did not scream hysterically like before. Jaemin simply stood in absolute silence. His mouth hung slightly open. His breathing was shallow. His hollow eyes stared blankly at his own personal apocalypse happily chewing on human organs down below.

"Jaem."

A hand gripped Jaemin's shoulder tightly, forcefully pulling him back from the window. It was Jinwoo. The young police officer's face was as white as a sheet of paper. Cold sweat drenched his temples.

"Step back, man. Stop looking at it," Jinwoo whispered, his voice trembling violently. He tried to pull Jaemin away, but his best friend's body was as rigid as a concrete statue. "Jaemin! Snap out of it, damn it! Look at me!"

"That is not Mom, right, Jinwoo?" Jaemin muttered. His voice sounded incredibly distant, hollow, and devoid of emotion. "Mom hates it the most when her clothes get dirty. She always gets mad when I spill soy sauce on the table. Why is she playing with blood on the asphalt? That is so dirty."

Jinwoo swallowed hard, the act feeling like swallowing crushed glass. His heart broke listening to Jaemin's rambling. "Jaem, please. Your mind is in denial. Take a deep breath. Step away from that window right now."

"Her hair is so messy. She just got a hair treatment two days ago." Jaemin kept rambling, his unblinking eyes staring downward. "Jinwoo, I have to go down there. I have to tell her to wash her hands. She is going to get a stomachache eating such gross things."

SMACK!

A hard slap landed squarely on Jaemin's left cheek. The sharp sound shattered the silence of the Archive Room.

Jaemin stumbled to the side, his head whipping violently. A burning sensation spread across his cheek, slightly rebooting his offline brain.

Min-Ji stood in front of him with her hand still raised in the air. The former fixer glared at Jaemin with eyes as cold as polar ice. There was not a single ounce of sympathy in her gaze.

"Snap out of it!" Min-Ji snapped mercilessly. "Do you want to lose your mind? Fine. But not right now! The thing chewing on intestines down there is NOT your mother anymore! It is a monster! A parasite! A walking corpse that just happens to be wearing your mother's clothes!"

"Min-Ji, what the hell! Are you completely heartless?!" Jinwoo immediately shoved Min-Ji's shoulder, pushing her away from Jaemin. The police officer's emotions exploded. "His mom just died right in front of his eyes! His brain is in severe shock! Can't you give him five minutes to breathe?!"

"Five minutes for what, Officer?! To write a condolence poem?!" Min-Ji fired back sarcastically. Her voice rose an octave but remained suppressed to avoid drawing attention from outside. The woman pointed at the steel door of the Archive Room, currently barricaded by a cabinet. "Do you hear the scratching outside that door?! The blood from this bald old man is already reeking all the way into the hallway! Do you think those zombies care that Jaemin is heartbroken?!"

"Yeah, but you did not have to slap him!" Jinwoo pointed a trembling finger at Min-Ji's face. "He just strangled a monster to save all of our lives! Can't you just give him a moment to grieve?!"

"In the world we live in now, grieving is a luxury paid for with your life, Jinwoo," Min-Ji hissed sharply, looking straight into the officer's eyes. "If he stays in that lagging mode, who is going to protect his little brother? You? You only have four bullets left. Me? I will leave both of you behind if you become a burden."

"You are insane," Jinwoo cursed, grinding his teeth.

In the corner of the room, Kim Minseok, who was tied to the metal rack, could only cower and weep silently. His shoulder, torn by the monster's bite earlier, continued to drip blood, making the room smell even more like a slaughterhouse.

"Enough. Both of you, shut up."

Jaemin's voice sounded hoarse and raspy. The young man looked down, staring at his hands. They were still coated in the zombie doctor's black blood and the red blood from his own left arm.

Min-Ji's slap certainly hurt, but the woman was right. The psychological horror that had just struck him was far more agonizing than any knife wound. His chest felt as if it had been torn open from the inside. It was empty. Hollow. He had lost his purpose. His plan to bring Jihoon home, eat his mother's rolled omelets, listen to her evening scolding. It was all incinerated without a trace.

"Jaem? Are you back with us?" Jinwoo asked cautiously, slowly approaching his best friend.

"I am fine," Jaemin whispered. He wiped his face roughly, desperately trying to banish the image of the maroon dress from his retinas. But he failed. Every time he closed his eyes, that sickening chewing sound echoed once more.

"Jaemin?"

A small, trembling voice interrupted from the direction of the stacked medical record boxes.

Jihoon slowly stepped out of his hiding spot. The twelve-year-old boy's face was deathly pale. His eyes were swollen. He hugged the thick encyclopedia book he had used earlier to bash the monster.

"Uncle Jinwoo. Jaemin. Are you guys fighting?" Jihoon asked in a trembling voice. His innocent eyes looked at the three adults in the room one by one.

"No, kiddo. We are not fighting. We are just discussing how to get out of here," Jinwoo forced a fake smile that looked incredibly pathetic. He hastily blocked Jihoon's line of sight to the window.

But a child as smart as Jihoon knew something was wrong. He saw the tears on his older brother's cheeks. He had heard their argument about his mother earlier.

"Jaemin." Jihoon ignored Jinwoo and walked toward his brother. The boy stopped two steps away from Jaemin. His eyes darted toward the empty window frame where the evening wind blew in. "Mom is really down there, isn't she?"

Jaemin froze. His heart felt like it had stopped beating. "Jihoon, stay right there. Do not go anywhere."

"You said Mom was waiting down below." Jihoon took another step forward. His curiosity overpowered his fear. There was a glimmer of naive hope in the boy's eyes, wishing that his mother was waving at them from the parking lot. "I want to see Mom. I want to call her so she can come up here."

"I said stay put!" Jaemin snapped in a hoarse voice.

But Jihoon was already too close to the window. Through the gap beside Jinwoo's body, Jihoon's small eyes caught the scene on the asphalt courtyard far below.

He saw the burning cars. He saw the walking corpses. And amidst that sea of nightmares, his eyes caught something incredibly familiar. A maroon color. A dress he recognized perfectly.

"Jaemin." Jihoon's eyes widened. His pace quickened toward the edge of the window. His trembling index finger raised, pointing at the crouching woman tearing into the security guard's corpse. "That is Mom, isn't it?! That is Mom's dress!"

"Jihoon, do not look!" Jinwoo yelled reflexively, trying to grab the boy's arm.

But Jihoon was quicker. He ducked past Jinwoo's hand and leaned his head out the window. His lips parted to scream the one word that would destroy everything. "MOM!"

Before another syllable could escape Jihoon's mouth, before the boy could clearly see the ruined face of his mother chewing on human intestines, Jaemin snapped out of his mental lag.

His protective instinct exploded instantly, completely overriding all the trauma and sorrow in his brain.

With full speed, Jaemin lunged forward like a predator. His blood-soaked hands roughly grabbed the back collar of Jihoon's jacket.

"Mhmpfff?!"

Jaemin yanked his little brother backward with brutal force, slamming Jihoon onto the floor of the Archive Room. Ignoring his brother's wince of pain, Jaemin immediately pinned Jihoon down with his own body.

Jaemin's left hand clamped tightly over Jihoon's mouth, locking the boy's jaw so that not a single sound could escape. Meanwhile, his right hand cradled Jihoon's head, burying the boy's face into his chest so he could not see anything else.

"Shhh! Be quiet! Stay quiet!" Jaemin whispered into his brother's ear. His breathing was heavy, and tears began to fall once more. "Do not call out to her! That is not Mom! That is not Mom, Jihoon!"

Jihoon thrashed hysterically beneath his brother's weight. He pounded his fists against Jaemin's chest. His legs kicked the floor wildly. The boy cried uncontrollably, his tears soaking Jaemin's palm that still covered his mouth. The sound of his weeping was stifled into deeply agonizing, muffled whimpers.

Out there, down below, whether due to sheer instinct or an incredibly cruel coincidence, the woman in the maroon dress suddenly stopped chewing.

The monster snapped its neck with stiff, jerky movements. It looked up, staring straight at the shattered third-floor window. Its cloudy white eyes seemed capable of piercing through solid concrete, searching for the source of the sound that had almost been screamed.

Inside the room, Jaemin continued to clamp his hand tightly over his brother's mouth. He squeezed his eyes shut as tears of utter despair streamed heavily down his cheeks. His own personal apocalypse had officially begun.