Hiding a House in the Apocalypse

Kyle_Dos: As usual, I was patrolling the area.

It was a stiflingly humid day.

The bunker was filled with unbearable heat and moisture.

Though a generator was available, it was small and had limited capacity, making luxuries like air conditioning out of the question.

From the north, the sound of artillery fire echoed in the distance.

It seemed another monster had emerged from a rift.

Kyle Dos considered himself lucky during the last incident with a massive creature.

It had approached as close as 4 kilometers but suddenly veered off its path.

However, even Kyle Dos, who wasn’t particularly knowledgeable about the rifts, found it chilling when nearby plants began to grow into strange shapes and the sunlight at dawn and dusk appeared not red, but an eerie grayish-white hue.

At the time, Kyle Dos had taken up foraging as a hobby.

There was no shortage of preserved foods, such as brick-like ration packs and canned goods, but eating such food for extended periods wasn’t good for mental health.

He had stocked up on sweet treats like jam and sugar to combat depression, but if sweet foods alone could cure depression, hospitals wouldn’t be filled with patients, nor would anyone end their life over despair.

To shake things up, Kyle Dos went to a nearby stream.

By the stream, neglected wooden platforms, once used by valley merchants, lay abandoned, weathered by time.

Sitting on a suitable platform, Kyle Dos caught large crayfish wriggling in the water with his military-grade dagger.

Though called crayfish, they were the size of lobsters. Aside from their unsettling grayish-white coloration, they were full of meat and surprisingly tasty.

After catching enough crayfish to fill a large pot, he began his walk home.

That’s when he saw flowers he’d never seen before.

Not just one or two—but an entire field, made up of hundreds, maybe thousands, of grayish-white blooms, spread out before him like fate.

Amid the eerily orderly blossoms, Kyle Dos noticed something that wasn’t grayish-white but pure white, faintly glowing, and writhing slightly.

It was a woman.

Her clothes were completely torn away, leaving her naked, and she appeared to have been brutally assaulted before losing consciousness. Despite the dire state of her body, the unmistakable shape and curves revealed her gender.

Kyle Dos carried her to his bunker and cared for her meticulously.

Not even the bunker’s oppressive heat and humidity could deter him.

Wiping the sweat beading on his forehead with his sleeve, he splinted her broken arm, disinfected her scraped wounds, and gently applied ointment to the bruises on her face, which, despite the swelling, still retained traces of beauty.

It took quite some time for the woman to regain consciousness.

When she finally came to, she startled, pulling a thin blanket over herself and trembling as she asked in a shaky voice:

"I don’t know what happened, but… you’re safe here. I’m not your enemy. This place is secure. If you need anything, just let me know."

That was how Kyle Dos met the woman who would later become known as his "rescued wife."

DragonC’s prologue featuring this story was met with enthusiastic acclaim.

Anonymous458: Wow~ Why don’t women like that ever show up around me?

roka3218: Such a beautiful story.

Anonymous848: So jealous! All I see around me are corpses.

kimcic: I don’t usually read comics, but since it’s about our lives, I couldn’t help but shed a tear.

unicorn18: Is she a virgin?

.

.

But not everyone had the same reaction.

Some negative opinions surfaced, and I don’t deny being among them.

Defender: Fantasy. Just pure fantasy. Might as well pop up a status window.

SKELTON: Hmm… is it really that bad?

Unfortunately, my post and Defender’s were published just one second apart, leading to accusations that I was part of Defender’s "clique." I even earned the infamous title of "flame troll."

Still, a few people recognized my worth.

Kyle Dos was one of the few who saw my true value.

He sent me a message.

Message from Kyle_Dos: SKELTON, I’m really sorry, but I need a favor.

It was a continuation of his previous request.

He mentioned that capsules had appeared again—this time, not just one but two.

This wasn’t good.@@novelbin@@

The erosion was advancing faster than anticipated.

The details in DragonC’s prologue and the changes in local plant life confirmed that the area had entered the early stages of erosion.

According to academia, erosion zones posed no direct harm to humans. As proof, they cited the two hundred million followers of the Manryu Gwijeonggyo cult who had settled in erosion zones.

I thought differently.

Humans couldn’t live in erosion zones.

Just as monsters dissolved into nothing on Earth, humans in those areas lost something critical.

It was as if everything lost meaning—like the futility of existence itself became palpable.

Where had those so-called two hundred million cult followers gone?

Erosion zones were truly dangerous.

I replied to Kyle Dos.

SKELTON: The place you’re living in is extremely dangerous. The capsules aren’t the real issue. If you can leave, you should.

Message from Kyle_Dos: And go where?

I hesitated.

I knew the right answer but couldn’t bring myself to say it outright.

I wasn’t a purely altruistic person, after all.

SKELTON: Anywhere but there. Staying means certain death. I know because I’ve been there. Your area is already eroded. It’s become a monster’s domain.

Message from Kyle_Dos: Thanks for the warning, but I have no plans to leave. My wife is happy here. Or should I come to your bunker instead?

“…”

Message from Kyle_Dos: That’s ridiculous, for many reasons, and you know what I’m worried about better than anyone else.

SKELTON: I think I do.

Message from Kyle_Dos: Besides, thinking it over, asking you to come here isn’t something I should say to begin with. There’s a war raging down below. I’ll manage somehow.

That was our last conversation.

*

DragonC: Anyone been able to reach Kyle_Dos? He suddenly went radio silent.

When I heard that Kyle Dos had disappeared, my reaction wasn’t one of shock but rather a sense of inevitability.

It was bound to happen sooner or later.

But wasn’t it too soon?

He still had time.

Didn’t he have his wife?

If she had said even one word, Kyle Dos would have done whatever it took to leave that place and find a new sanctuary for himself and his wife.

He might have even shamelessly turned up at my bunker, causing a nuisance.

Speculation about Kyle Dos’s disappearance flooded the forum.

Anonymous848: Maybe he got caught by soldiers? Let’s be honest, they’re scarier than the pioneers.

The most popular theory was that he fell victim to soldiers.

It was certainly plausible.

But by now, there wouldn’t be any soldiers in that area.

Most had been redirected to Seoul for the civil war.

Sure, if deserters were roaming around, it might be possible. But honestly, who in their right mind would wander through an erosion zone where capsules had started appearing?

There were other theories too.

Defender: About Kyle Dos’s wife… Honestly, wasn’t she kidnapped? Think about it—what kind of beautiful woman would willingly step into some dingy, smelly bachelor’s bunker? They said she was injured, but what if Kyle Dos was the one who beat her up?

Twisted as it was, Defender’s comment, which tried to expose some "truth," faced heavy backlash.

Still, I couldn’t entirely dismiss it.

After all, not everything said on the forum could be taken as fact.

Isn’t it the nature of anonymous online communities to be rife with more lies than truths?

Even when I tell the truth, I’m treated like a liar.

As speculation about Kyle Dos’s fate continued to pile up, none of the theories resonated with me.

Sigh.

I sipped my coffee and thought it over myself.

But I didn’t delve too deeply.

I knew there was no point.

The only way to uncover Kyle Dos’s fate was to check for myself.

Just as the nagging doubts in my mind began to fade, something unexpected happened.

The civil war came to a halt.

As abruptly as it had started, it suddenly stopped.

A shortwave radio broadcast announced a temporary ceasefire.

Among the reasons listed for the truce was the opening of humanitarian corridors for refugees.

The moment I heard that, I felt the pull of fate.

This was it.

I had to go.

*

At 3 a.m., I left the bunker and headed toward the nearest refugee camp as directed by the shortwave broadcast.

I had no interest in the refugees.

What I sought were soldiers—specifically, an officer with authority.

“Excuse me, I’m terribly sorry, but my parents live near Paju. The civil war cut off all communication, and I’m worried. I need to find them.”

What moved them wasn’t my heartfelt story but the cigarettes I offered.

“Here’s your pass. Follow this route. We can’t guarantee your safety if you take another path. Especially avoid Seoul at all costs. Even with the ceasefire, tensions there remain deadly.”

Following their advice, I passed through Anyang and entered Incheon.

Since the military controlled this area, the security was unexpectedly good, and the roads were in decent condition.

It was my first time visiting Incheon since the war began. The city was unrecognizable—its former appearance replaced by sprawling refugee camps of staggering scale.

On the streets, they sold some kind of unidentifiable slop.

The stench alone made me nauseous, so I didn’t bother eating it. Instead, I offered it to someone else in exchange for a few tidbits of information.

A massive fleet of ships, carrying hundreds of thousands of refugees, was soon departing for Jeju Island.

“It’s a kind of revenge, you see,” an old man spat on the ground as he told me the news.

Apparently, there was some foreign object in his bowl of slop.

“Those bastards who fled to Jeju to live comfortably are about to get a human bomb shoved down their throats. There’s no way they’d sink their own people, right?”

I headed straight toward Paju.

It took some time, but since I’d been to Kyle Dos’s location before, it wasn’t hard to find.

At the entrance to the unpaved road leading to his bunker, I stopped my bicycle and stared at the land that had turned grayish-white.

I looked at the grass and trees.

The bark of the trees had dried and shriveled, as if scorched, their branches curling endlessly inward. Around the roots, reddish, grotesque weeds resembling sea worms thrived in abundance.

The erosion had progressed much faster than I had anticipated.

I pulled out a mask and covered my nose and mouth.

Scholars might claim the air in erosion zones is harmless, but my experience told me otherwise.

The air here was undoubtedly toxic.

Piercing through the faint grayish-white mist, I found Kyle Dos’s bunker.

It was a prefabricated, factory-made buried shelter, the kind with a ladder for entry—a cheap model.

The hatch was open.

With my gun and axe ready, I cautiously assessed the situation.

There were no signs of life inside the bunker.

Instead, the stench of decay, so strong it penetrated my mask, hit me with overwhelming force.

Switching on my lantern, I descended.

I found what looked like the power switch for the lights and pressed it. To my surprise, the lights turned on.

What filled my vision when the lights came on was dozens of women in swimsuits.

The bunker’s walls were plastered with photos of women—some of them provocative, exposing their chests.

But even the abundance of these beautiful women couldn’t disguise the claustrophobic nature of the bunker.

On the bed was a single corpse, hanging from a noose, rotting away.

The decay was so advanced that identification was nearly impossible, but the long hair, tangled with maggots and bodily fluids, and the skeletal structure indicated the corpse was the same gender as the women covering the walls.

The time of death seemed recent, yet there were no signs of raiders.

The supplies were intact: food, a laptop, and satellite equipment—all untouched.

There was probably enough food for a year.

The medical supplies were particularly well-stocked.

I opened the laptop.

It was in sleep mode, but as soon as I touched it, the screen flickered on, as if by magic, revealing the work its previous owner had left unfinished.

It was a forum post.

Kyle Dos had been writing a message.

“I’m going to the flower field with my wife. Back to the place where we met. I’ll gather my thoughts there and tell you the next part of the story. Please wait a little longer. Don’t rush me.”

The recipient was DragonC.

Perhaps he was discussing the next plot for his webtoon.

As I dragged the corpse out and searched the surroundings, I discovered two more bodies.

They were in worse condition than the woman, making it hard to determine the cause of death. Both were men, shot from behind.

“…”

I continued searching.

Where the capsules had previously been, new capsules had appeared. Behind them, like tumors, even more had begun to grow, calmly occupying the space.

Transporting them was impossible.

They were too large and heavy to fit on my bicycle.

I gathered anything of value from the bunker, prioritizing painkillers, then sealed the hatch and covered it with dirt and fallen leaves. I carved a marker into a nearby tree.

I was ready to leave but couldn’t shake Kyle Dos’s final message to DragonC: “I’m going to the flower field.”

So, I searched for it.

But the flower field he spoke of was nowhere to be found.

I followed the valley from the webtoon, but it was futile.

Given the season, any flowers would have withered by now, and the forest was too sparse to host a field like that.

Just as I was about to give up, a thought crossed my mind like a flash of insight from a dream.

Kyle Dos had said he found his wife, rescued her, and slowly grew close to her until they became husband and wife.

But what if it was a lie?

What if parts of his story were distorted or false?

This raised several possibilities.

The first: the woman was dead from the start.

The supposedly unconscious, assaulted woman was already dead when Kyle Dos found her.

He brought the corpse to his bunker, stitched her wounds, talked to her, confessed his love, and shared a bed with her.

When the body began to decay, he dressed it, propped it up with ropes, and eventually left the bunker, unable to cope.

The second possibility was even more horrifying.

During his patrol, Kyle Dos came across a group of survivors, one of whom was a young, beautiful woman.

He might have planned to let them go but was overcome by instincts he could no longer suppress.

When he came to, everyone but the woman was dead. He claimed her as his own.

Their twisted relationship, marked by violence and coercion, ended with the woman’s suicide. Only then did Kyle Dos realize his mistake, leaving the bunker behind.

The final possibility—and the one I hoped for—was that everything, including the woman, was a fabrication of Kyle Dos’s mind.

From the beginning, the woman never existed. He never brought anyone to the bunker.

Driven mad by loneliness in that confined space infused with otherworldly insanity, he created an idealized vision of a woman in his imagination.

In a haze where dreams and reality blurred, he believed he left the bunker with his “wife,” going on dates and living his ideal romance.

Later, an unrelated woman wandered into the bunker and hanged herself there.

This, I believed, was the truth.

Now, I stand here, looking at the flower field Kyle Dos spoke of.

It is made of thousands of capsules.