I absently lifted my phone to check the time.
12:36 AM.
I turned my gaze back to the road, where fog had begun to settle under the streetlights, as cold as dry ice.
At some point, I must have been staring so intently that the area around my eyes felt sore.
But the attention of my fellow guard, a friendly, clean-cut squad member named Han Myeong-un, was fixed solely on the two people kissing.
As if he’d finally found something interesting to watch during our boring guard duty, Han Myeong-un was smirking and had even put his phone away in his pocket.
But it wasn't long before both Han Myeong-un, who had been watching out of simple interest, and I, who had been staring only at the fog, found our faces beginning to harden.
"Uuungh... Uuph... Mmph..."
There was something strange about the man and woman, who I had thought were just in the middle of a deep kiss.
The movements of the middle-aged man and the firm-bodied young woman, who seemed to be locked in a passionate embrace, even looked grotesque.
Whack! Whack!
The middle-aged man was pounding on the woman's back.
It wasn't an embrace; he was even clenching his fists, hitting her with a force that anyone could see would leave bruises.
He was even stumbling backward, his posture faltering.
The woman, on the other hand, was clutching the man's head as if pulling him into a tight hug, refusing to let go.
As the man stumbled back and was about to fall, she supported him, helped him lean against a wall, and then seemed to kiss him even more deeply.
The more she did, the more violent the man's reaction became.
He started digging his fingernails into the nape of her neck, shaking her as if trying to tear the flesh.
I could see the skin where his nails dug in tear and blood begin to flow, even from this distance.
"Euugh... Uuph..."
Seeing this, Han Myeong-un's face hardened. He readjusted his grip on his rifle and took a step forward.
It seemed that Han Myeong-un, contrary to his appearance, had a strong sense of justice.
In that moment, it was no coincidence that the page I received in the small auditorium came to mind.
I called out to stop Han Myeong-un as he was about to leave.
"Han Myeong-un-ssi. It's foggy."
"Huh?"
"Survival and Engagement Rules for the Restricted Zone, number six. Rescue of human life is strictly prohibited."
At my words, Han Myeong-un blinked a few times before shooting me a look of contempt, as if I were garbage.
Tsk.
Han Myeong-un clicked his tongue loud enough for me to hear, adjusted his helmet, and started walking toward the couple again.
"What a fucking coward..."
Han Myeong-un's mutter was loud enough to be a deliberate statement.
Objectively speaking, Han Myeong-un was in the right. Unlike me, standing idly behind the sandbags and vehicle barricades, he looked like a noble knight going to rescue a woman so wounded her skin was being torn off.
His handsome looks and friendly demeanor probably helped.
At the very least, he wasn't a coward like me, using the fog and the sixth engagement rule as a rationalization.
But even as I felt like a coward, I had absolutely no intention of following him.
Because under the streetlights, the fog accumulating on the road seemed to be rising with every passing moment.
If you've ever had the experience of listening to a scary story, at first nonchalantly, only to get goosebumps later when you finally realize which part was supposed to be scary, you'll understand.
One might think it's just a coincidence for fog to roll in at dawn, but as the area around the road grew so damp that even the streetlight glow became a murky blur, a single line of cold sweat trickled down my back.
In that instant, I remembered what First Lieutenant Shin Han-gi had said.
[These characters were discovered within the Restricted Zone.]
I pulled out the Special Lecture on Magic from my pocket.
Only after seeing the hand holding the booklet did I realize my hand was trembling.
And only after seeing my trembling hand did I realize I was feeling a chill more severe than when I'd had enteritis.
I frantically flipped to the page with the strange character, the symbol he had named the Heptagon.
Beneath my deathly pale fingernails, the symbol was drawn on the firmly held page, with a detailed interpretation written on the adjacent page.
The enlightenment I had sought in solitary contemplation was returning.
It was instinct.
Like our ancestors who, under a dark night sky with not even enough moonlight, came face to face with the swaying eyes of a tiger in the pitch-black darkness.
Beneath the blurred, flickering streetlight beyond the rising fog, I could see this strange character, this bizarre symbol, returning to its original form.
You could call it an optical illusion.
A hallucination created by a brain under psychological duress would be a more natural explanation.
But when the fog had risen to the level of my left hand holding the Special Lecture on Magic, and covered the page, my eyes saw the character I had assumed was an overlapping triangle and square squirm and align itself as if it were alive.
"...."
-Gulp.
It was hard to swallow.
Should I trust proven science, or follow my uncertain intuition?
Should I believe my eyes were deceiving me, or realize the meaning of the moving letters?
I understood a little, just a little, of what our ancestors must have felt when they faced the tiger's eyes. The single thought of being devoured consumed my mind.
From this point on, common sense would crumble. The prejudices and preconceptions I had built up my entire life would twist and melt like stretching taffy.
To go further is to venture into the unknown out of curiosity, a recklessness that invites death, a realm of madness that puts oneself in danger.
At that moment, I saw that the sweat from my hand had soaked the page.
Now I could see what the fully aligned symbol was.
An overlapping triangle and square. A rectangle, crushed and crammed into an elongated triangle.
This wasn't a character.
An eye.
Forcing a human, who can only see three, to see four or more...
...Magic.
"Retch..."
The moment I realized it, I vomited.
My legs gave out, my body went limp, and I collapsed over the sandbags.
Even throwing up was a struggle; I gasped for breath.
I hadn't eaten anything while in confinement, but something lumpy poured out of my mouth along with stomach acid, landing with a splat in the fog that had now thickly blanketed the entire road.
But my eyes—my eyes that had now awakened to Magic—were burning like crazy.
The blood vessels in my forehead and head swelled, pounding with each pulse, heating my brain as if to cook it. A wave of deathly nausea washed over me. Eventually, I was just dry-heaving, with nothing left to bring up.
But in contrast to my hot head and burning eyes, I felt a chill seeping into my spine.
A shiver that wracked my entire body forced me to my feet.
And without even wiping the vomit from my mouth, I instinctively loaded a live round.
Clack.
The fog had already risen to my chest. I couldn't see clearly beyond it.
Each time the blurry light of the crosswalk signal blinked through the fog, I could only see a damp shadow thrashing beneath it.
The man and woman who had been at the alley entrance were now three people.
In place of the now-limp middle-aged man, Han Myeong-un's back was flailing desperately.
Perhaps "flailing" is too cute a word.
Han Myeong-un was kicking his feet like someone being strangled to death, like a man hanging from a rope.
I raised my M16, shouldered it, and aimed at them.
I could see the muzzle trembling, and I hadn't even zeroed the weapon properly so they weren't centered in the iron sights, but I kept it aimed and watched silently.
I couldn't even breathe.
Then, from the three-turned-one, Han Myeong-un's resistance finally succeeded.
Screeeaaak!
Have you ever played with clay as a child? Or chewed a piece of gum until the flavor was gone, spat it out, then mixed it with another piece and chewed it again?
Once mixed, it's hard to pull apart. Once entangled, they are practically one.
So when Han Myeong-un finally pulled his face free, his cheek was melting and stuck to the back of the woman's head.
Flesh and flesh were one. Even from a distance, I could see the dark blue veins beneath his cheek skin twisting and tangling like a skein of yarn.
The most definite change, however, was that the middle-aged man's face was melting and mixing with Han Myeong-un's.
"Aaargh... Aah..."
Han Myeong-un's mouth was no exception.
He was desperately trying to turn his mouth away, but it had long since connected with the man's, which was starting to tear wide open.
The middle-aged man's face melted, mixing with Han Myeong-un's.
Han Myeong-un's left eye had already merged with the man's right eye; their eye sockets had become one, and the eyeballs were overlapping, tangled like a compound eye.
Only Han Myeong-un's right eye was looking this way, streaming tears madly.
With a gaze filled with fear, pleading, and a silent scream.
Han Myeong-un wailed, somehow moving the tongue that had not yet merged.
"Haelp me... Haaalp!!!"
I didn't move an inch. I just kept my rifle aimed, watching what my eyes were seeing.
The outline of the three melted people was visible even through the thick fog.
One connected head, three bodies.
"HAAAAALP!!!!"
Han Myeong-un's face was already a tangled mess.
He—the three who were now one—wreathed their faces together like bizarre conjoined twins, mashing their three mouths into one.
The tongue Han Myeong-un had been desperately sticking out began to melt as the others' tongues forcibly wrapped around it, weaving them into one.
"Aaaargh... Aack..."
Even his vocal cords were no longer his own.
All that was left of Han Myeong-un was his right eye. He wept profusely, but I had a gut feeling that even those tears were no longer his.
A groan that couldn't even form a scream, a sound like scratching at his own throat, was all that was left of Han Myeong-un.
And the three-in-one head turned to look this way.
With its arms and legs dangling limply, it nevertheless maintained its bizarre gait as it stood clearly.
I now understood why everyone had a different interpretation of the same symbol.
A power that forces one to see what humans are not meant to see.
I was seeing time—the future of how the monster would move.
The places where the thick fog on the road stirred were the future; they were the monster's approaching footsteps.
As I followed those footsteps with the muzzle of my rifle, the monster simply watched me in silence.
Then, the monster moved once more.
This time, Han Myeong-un's arm swayed limply.
A feint. The other side, the woman's leg, would move. The middle-aged man's limbs were sandwiched in the middle, maintaining its center of balance.
When I turned my rifle toward the woman, the three-footed monster made no more provocations.
Instead, it just stood there stock-still, watching me from beyond the fog.
Cold sweat trickled down my skin.
With my eyes burning and my brain feeling like it was boiling, I couldn't fathom how long I could endure the pain.
But with my eyes feeling like they would burst, with my hands slick with sweat, I did not let go of the rifle.
I couldn't even tell if I was breathing.
I couldn't tell if the dampness was from the fog or my sweat.
And at the end of the standoff, the three-footed monster once again folded its faces together, showing only the backs of its heads, and disappeared beyond the fog, dragging its limbs.
There were no more screams, no more groans.
But I remained standing still for minutes, for tens of minutes, my rifle still aimed.
Then the fog began to clear.
By the time the blinking light of the crosswalk signal became distinct again, I was the only one left at the intersection.
Still, I stood frozen stiff, my rifle in Shoulder Aiming position, aimed across the road.
Not until someone placed a hand on my shoulder.
"Baek Jemin-ssi, Baek Jemin-ssi!"
"..."
It was Kang Daniel.
Behind him, squad members were getting out of a truck that had brought a searchlight.
Kang Daniel looked around, then studied my face, and asked as if he'd noticed the strange atmosphere.
"Where's the other Night Watch guard?"
"..."
"Where did Han Myeong-un-ssi go?"
I tried to speak, but my lips were frozen.
No. My whole body was frozen solid. Still in the Shoulder Aiming position.
I could feel the gazes of people from the nearby villas, who had heard the commotion late and were opening their doors to peek out.
But only one thought surfaced in my mind.
I have to escape Seoul.
No, I had to leave this country.
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