Savior Proto-Call Chapter 9

Chapter 9. No Longer Human (9)

Saviors and Redeemers are the government's dogs.

Have you ever heard that saying?

Anyone who had completed South Korea's compulsory education would have heard that derogatory nickname for Saviors and Redeemers countless times since childhood.

There were plenty of other insulting names, too.

Germs. Zombies. Pests.

However, those insults were generally derived from the individual characteristics of ability users.

The term government dogs, on the other hand, referred to the very purpose ability users served.

Once their abilities manifested, they were treated as property belonging to the state until the day they died.

Even ability users who opposed the government were no different.

After all, their activities were still confined to South Korean territory.

Ultimately, they were doing little more than walking around in the palm of the government's hand.

For that reason, Yoon Doha had often heard stories about Saviors and Redeemers being summoned for all sorts of miscellaneous work or being worked to the bone.

But she'd never imagined that even their training would involve being driven insane in such a dog-like manner.

If you're going to hide something, at least hide it somewhere easy to find...!

Nearly two hours had passed since she'd begun combing through the enormous building.

And Yoon Doha had reached what felt like the greatest crisis of her life.

Even when loan sharks had beaten her so badly that her ankle twisted beneath her and she'd been forced to crawl across the floor, she hadn't felt this utterly hopeless.

The building was already eerily empty.

And the abundance of metal equipment and metallic walls only made its atmosphere more unsettling.

Wandering through such a place alone in search of a tiny identification tag was enough to make her laugh bitterly.

Whenever her reflection appeared on a stainless-steel surface, she was forced to confront just how haggard and miserable she'd become in only a few hours.

To make matters worse, something else was strange.

Even if there were only a dozen or so trainees in this intake, how was it possible that she hadn't encountered a single person?

The unnaturally silent surroundings made her feel as though she'd been thrown into a horror movie.

She could hardly keep herself from trembling with fear.

"Ah... Where the hell is it? Did she even bother hiding them in the first place?"

She hadn't found her own identification tag.

She hadn't even caught sight of anyone else's.

At this point, she was beginning to question whether the tags had actually been hidden inside the building at all.

If they'd ordered her to undergo physical training or take a written examination, she would have participated diligently.

But being told to find some random object, as though she'd been assigned a trivial errand, was enough to leave even someone who had prepared herself for hardship feeling utterly defeated.

Eventually, she stepped onto the fourth floor.

This floor housed the Phantasm simulators, equipment rooms, and various other related facilities.

Compared to the floors she'd already searched, there were nearly twice as many unlocked doors.

The search area was far too extensive for her exhausted body.

She surveyed the hallway with irritated eyes before opening the nearest door and stepping inside.

The sign read:

SIMULATOR WAITING ROOM

As expected of a waiting room, the interior was relatively simple.

It was roughly the size of an ordinary classroom.

Tall gray cabinets, each taller than Doha herself, lined one wall.

Chairs and folding beds were arranged in front of them.

Yoon Doha closed the door firmly behind her and gave the room a quick visual inspection.

Unfortunately, there was no sign of the object she was searching for.

It was almost as though the instructor had deliberately hidden the tags somewhere they couldn't possibly be discovered without thoroughly searching every corner.

A troubled sigh escaped her lips, seemingly dragging the surrounding atmosphere down with it.

Fidgeting with the sleeves of her cardigan, which covered the backs of her hands, she approached the cabinets.

Their doors looked somewhat cheaply made.

And since none of them had nameplates, they didn't appear to belong to anyone in particular.

In other words, there probably wouldn't be any issue with opening them without permission while searching for her tag.

After confirming that much, Yoon Doha began opening the cabinets one by one.

The first contained a badly crushed piece of chocolate.

The second held an inexplicable syringe.

The cabinets that followed contained little more than objects resembling lost-and-found items.

Her dull, exhausted eyes fell upon her empty hands.

She didn't even have enough energy left to feel disappointed.

Having accomplished absolutely nothing, Yoon Doha finally closed the last cabinet.

She pressed against the already closed door with both hands, as though trying to force it even farther shut.

Then she squeezed her eyes closed so tightly that the smooth skin around them wrinkled.

Frustration surged across her normally impassive face.

"Seriously, how am I supposed to find something that tiny in a building this—"

Her faint complaint abruptly stopped.

Because she'd heard something.

A chilling voice, as though she were hearing the dying echoes of a sound originating from somewhere impossibly far away.

"AAAAARGH!"

The strange scream came from somewhere at a considerable distance.

Yoon Doha's hand, which had been needlessly tormenting the innocent cabinet door, suddenly froze.

The sound had originated from somewhere she couldn't identify.

By the time it reached her, only a faint, lingering resonance remained.

Her entire body stiffened with fear.

Slowly, almost mechanically, she turned her head toward the waiting room's window.

The glass was perfectly intact, without so much as a crack.

Beyond it lay the corridor.

But the hallway was as quiet as it had been moments earlier.

It was still a peaceful morning, filled with sunlight.

"...W-what was that?"

She'd been hearing ringing in her ears repeatedly since earlier.

And after staying awake all night, her brain felt heavy and sluggish.

Perhaps she'd simply imagined the scream.

That reasonable explanation seemed far more plausible than the ominous possibility that something had gone terribly wrong.

Suppressing the anxiety creeping up her spine, she released the cabinet and rubbed her face with both hands.

She deliberately attributed the strange scream she'd heard to her exhausted mental state.

After all, wasn't there such a thing as a self-fulfilling prophecy?

The last thing she wanted was to imagine something terrible only for that very thing to become reality.

"Am I so tired that I'm hearing things now? I need to find that stupid tag so I can get out of here..."

Even after muttering those reassuring words to herself, her heart continued pounding violently.

In the end, Yoon Doha slowly walked toward the window.

Almost defensively, she pulled the front of her cardigan closed.

Then she peered through the evenly fitted glass panels above the waist-high section of wall.

She anxiously inspected both directions.

But the corridor was completely empty.

Not even an ant was in sight.

Relief loosened her stiff fingertips, causing them to tremble uncontrollably.

...See?

It's just my nerves acting up.

Convinced of that, she was about to turn toward the door.

That was when—

A piercing scream, accompanied by the desperate pounding of running footsteps, struck her ears.

Yoon Doha's head instinctively snapped toward the left side of the corridor.

Her pupils dilated as she hurriedly searched the space beyond the transparent glass.

When she narrowed her eyes slightly, the far end of the hallway finally came into focus.

A human silhouette was approaching.

It grew steadily larger.

As the distance narrowed, the sound of shoe soles scraping against the floor grew louder.

And with every step, the desperation of the approaching person became increasingly apparent.

Yoon Doha had already recognized every aspect of the situation as an ill omen.

Her breath caught in her throat.

"AAAAAH! SOMEBODY SAVE MEEE!"

"...Isn't that Hyun Noa? The girl from earlier...?"

The words barely escaped her lips in a strangled murmur.

She couldn't even bring herself to step backward.

All she could do was stare at the human figure growing larger on the other side of the glass.

And when the distance had closed enough for her to distinguish not only Hyun Noa's outline but also the precise colors and shadows of her appearance—

Yoon Doha's eyes widened in horror.

"...What... is that?"

Hyun Noa's appearance had been horribly disfigured.

Her face, which had ordinarily been pale and unblemished, was now drenched in dark-red blood, as though someone had covered it in thick syrup mixed with food coloring.

As if that weren't enough, her black zip-up hoodie and sweatpants were also soaked with blood.

So much blood clung to the fabric that it appeared unnaturally heavy.

Liquid dripped from the hems of her pants.

Behind her, bloody footprints formed grotesque patterns across the floor.

But even among all those horrific details, one thing stood out more than anything else.

The left side of her face.

The area she was desperately covering with her hand.

All the blood was pouring from there.

Like water gushing from the source of a spring.

"AAAAH...! Haaah... C-cough! S-save... Save me...!"

Hyun Noa seemed to be in such a severe state of panic that her rationality had completely collapsed.

She rushed past the window without even noticing Yoon Doha standing on the other side.

The wet, sticky sounds of blood splattering against the floor formed a nauseating rhythm.

Only when Noa came that close did Yoon Doha finally understand what terrible thing had happened to her face.

Her face was gone.

More precisely, everything on the left side, from the tip of her jaw to beneath her brow bone, had been crushed beyond recognition.

It looked as though something had chewed the entire area away.

Where her eye should have been, only a dark, hollow cavity remained.

One instinct seized Yoon Doha's shoulders, urging her not to confront whatever catastrophe had befallen Hyun Noa.

But another instinct moved faster.

It forced her to turn her head and look at the girl's mutilated figure as she staggered past.

Something fell onto the floor along the trail Hyun Noa left behind.

A spherical object roughly the size of an adult woman's fist.

It landed with a dull, wet thud, like a lump of cotton soaked in water.

Yoon Doha's rational mind immediately understood what that lump of flesh was.

Her instincts, however, refused to accept it.

The moment its name surfaced in her mind, she held her breath and froze completely.

Before her heart could even begin pounding from shock, her lower jaw stiffened and started trembling uncontrollably.

An eyeball.

A human eye.

You know, the organ responsible for sight.

The thing humans have two of.

The organs that allow people to observe the world, and...

The image of the blood-soaked lump of flesh finally forced its way into her consciousness.

Acid surged up from her stomach.

The sour liquid shot up her esophagus and struck the back of her throat.

Yoon Doha barely managed to raise her stiffened hand and clamp it over her mouth.

Her thin back heaved violently as she fought to suppress the urge to vomit.

What the hell is happening in this building?

And then—

A tremendous series of impacts began shaking the entire structure.

The vibrations came in rapid succession, far faster than the rhythm of ordinary footsteps.

Naturally, Yoon Doha's gaze turned toward the left side of the corridor.

The direction from which Hyun Noa had appeared.

That was where the noise was coming from.

And there, Yoon Doha saw it.

Something she'd occasionally encountered only in news broadcasts or posts on internet communities.

Something she would be forced to encounter as frequently as she blinked throughout the life awaiting her.

A Fragment.

At a glance, it stood more than three meters tall.

Its appearance resembled an enormous humanoid stuffed doll.

Because of the low ceiling, it had to bend its body forward.

Its right arm, which gripped the ceiling, ended not in a stuffed hand but in a pair of iron scissors.

Its other hand was fitted with a metal clamp.

It used that hand to support itself against the floor as it moved.

The resulting posture was grotesque, like a human body that had been crudely modified into something unnatural.

The creature continuously fluttered the torn fabric where its mouth was presumed to be.

It followed the bloody footprints Hyun Noa had left behind.

Its cloth body was already covered in bloodstains.

But that wasn't all.

Small pieces of flesh clung to the tips of its metal scissors.

The scraps were turning black with necrosis.

Yoon Doha instinctively understood.

That thing did this to Hyun Noa.

At the same instant, a crushing sense of helplessness descended upon her.

It felt as though someone had wrapped heavy iron chains around her shoulders and was violently dragging her downward.

A profound sense of alienation swallowed her.

It was the kind of disconnection people inevitably experienced when confronted with something far beyond the limits of human understanding.

As though something essential within her had suddenly gone missing.

...Fuck.

Is there someone in this building with some kind of traumatic memory involving stuffed dolls?

Phantasms developed through memories.

That meant the creature's appearance must have originated from something, somewhere.

Yoon Doha felt so weak that she wanted to collapse onto the floor immediately.

But she desperately clung to her survival instincts.

Dragging her legs with great effort, she quietly backed toward the wall beside the metal door.

Then she pressed her back against it.

Hidden in the blind spot, she held her breath.

She bit her lips so tightly that blood began seeping from them, terrified that even the smallest sound might escape.

Every nerve in her body was stretched to its limit.

The wet scraping of fabric against the walls.

The hideous sound of metal scratching the ceiling lights.

Each noise caused knife-like veins to spread farther across the whites of Yoon Doha's eyes.

She was even afraid that the sound of her own heartbeat might give her away.

Ridiculously enough, for that brief moment, she wished all the biological functions keeping her alive would simply stop.

Thud. Thud. Thud. Thud. Thud.

With her senses heightened by terror, she cautiously glanced toward the window within her field of vision.

The creature she'd been so desperately afraid of was now reflected clearly in her vacant eyes.

It had approached so closely that it was practically pressed against the glass.

And now that she could see it properly, its appearance was even more revolting.

From head to toe, its body was covered in layers of filthy, stained fabric.

Clusters of maggots, each resembling a grain of rice, crawled across the cloth.

Every time the creature moved, the vibrations shook entire clumps of them loose.

They fell to the floor in writhing masses.

Please.

Please, just keep walking.

Yoon Doha prayed desperately.

On the very first day of her enrollment, she'd witnessed a scene of brutal slaughter.

For a moment, she wished desperately that it were all a dream.

Then something occurred to her.

The reason Class 4 became Class 4.

The thought suddenly consumed her mind.

What if this entire intake is destined to be declared dead, too?

The Fragment, which she'd expected to continue past the window, suddenly stopped.

Perhaps it had detected someone's presence.

Or perhaps it was simply looking around.

Its head began to turn.

A dreadful tearing sound accompanied the movement, like muscle fibers being ripped apart.

Slowly—

The Fragment's face tilted toward the window of the room where Yoon Doha was hiding.

Its movements were thick and sluggish.

Doha desperately prayed that not even the smallest part of her body would enter its field of vision.

She couldn't endure the oppressive gaze of something unknown, something that couldn't possibly be described in human language.

Her entire body trembled like an aspen leaf.

Unable to control the shaking, Yoon Doha squeezed her eyes tightly shut.

Am I going to die here?

As an ordinary, ignorant human being standing before something so utterly incomprehensible—

She had no way of knowing what would happen next.