Chapter 4: Chapter 4. Human or Not?
I decided to go back to my hotel. I tried to stop a taxi, as was many other people, but none stopped. Since the taxi wasn't stopping, many people gave up trying and started walking. I did too. Fortunately, my hotel was not far anyway, only a few blocks, and the road was pretty simple.
On the road, I saw many people trying to make a call. I had tried to make a call to my grandparents as well but failed. Somehow, the connection was lost. People were confused and so was I. Thus, I hurried my walk.
When I arrived at the hotel the first thing I did was to call my grandparents using the hotel phone. It took a few rings before someone picked up. It was my grandfather. Hearing his voice I felt somewhat relieved.
"Cheng-er, what happened? Was it earthquake?" my grandpa asked.
"Grandpa, did you feel it too? So it's quite big. Are you and grandma alright?"
"We're fine. We're on the couch watching TV when it happened. I think we fell asleep together. We woke up just a moment ago," grandpa told me. So they were unconscious too. Only difference was that they woke up later than me, probably because they were very old? I had no idea, it was only a wild guess.
"Grandpa, see if there is any announcement from the government on the tv and radio. Follow every instruction they gave. I'll try to get the next flight home," I told him.
"Cheng, don't worry about us. No need to rush home. You have to do your job properly," He advised before we finished our conversation.
My grandpa was a former soldier. Although he had an easygoing character he still kept his discipline and responsible attitude. Me? Not so much.
My grandparents were the most important people in the world for me. My grandfather had already retired and living comfortably when I was born. When my parents died, he started to work again. He understood that it would not be easy to feed a growing child with pension alone.
Fortunately, it wasn't hard for a former soldier with a clean record to find work, especially when one was not too picky. He was a soldier before retirement, an honest soldier. The kind of work available for him was also at low level. So he slaved out his old bones again, working as a night security. I could tell that he was happy to do it, because he did it to raise me.
And my grandmother? Did you have any idea how hard it was for an arthritic old woman to take care of an active growing child while handling the house chores?
I could accept losing a job but I could not afford to lose my grandparents. Not if I could do anything about it.
After the talk with my grandpa, I talked to my grandma as well. Despite what my grandparents said I called the front desk to reschedule my flight.
At this time, the phone service started working again.
I was soon disappointed. The government had halted the service of every public transportation going in and out of the country. They even put a watch on travelling within the country. There was also an announcement on the TV, broadcasted by all of the local or regional stations, that the government has enacted the crisis hour and a curfew was implemented. Supposedly it was for our safety.
Until the cause of quake and blackout was determined, we're heavily advised to stay home or wherever we presently were.
Wasn't that just swell? I cursed. I should have taken the flight home with Susan but who could have known such incident would happen? I saw on tv, it was happening worldwide. If I was home, at least I could be there with my grandparents.
Then I suddenly thought about Susan. I wondered how was she anyway?
'Are you safe? Anything happen to you?' I sent the text to her.
In a minute her reply came. 'I'm fine. Still trying to find a lift home. The taxi are all gone. Everything went crazy here. How about you?'
I told her about what went on here. She replied soon, 'It's the same here. I may have to stay at the airport hotel since the curfew is about to start.'
So, not only here, our government also put up a curfew.
Our conversation ended because she needed to immediately secure a room to stay. With so many people stranded it was not guaranteed that she would find a room. It was either the hotel or she walked home from the airport. I wanted to remind her to try calling her mighty and rich boyfriend because people with power usually had a lot more alternatives compared to us. But then I thought she would have thought about that too. She was, after all, way smarter and efficient than me.
With nothing better to do, I watched the TV. I browsed through many channels, but it seemed interruptions were everywhere. It wasn't only the repeated announcement of curfew and safety precautions, but something else too. There were disturbances on the TV channels, I figured they're like statics. They kept coming and going, although not to the point where I couldn't watch the intended broadcast. I thought maybe the earthquake might have something to do with this. I didn't dwell in it.
It didn't take long for me to get bored with the TV broadcast. I turned it off and went to sleep.
It wasn't easy for me to sleep with so many things happening. Added to all this was my worry of my grandparents' safety. When I did get to sleep, one hour had probably passed idly.
I was suddenly awake. My mind was still blank and my eyes trying to adjust to the soft light of morning sun passing through the window. I had left the curtain open.
Out of a habit, I walked toward the window and under the warm sun's light I started stretching my body. This was a habit that my grandfather taught me to do. While doing my stretching I looked outside.
I stared at the distance. There was red horizon far away. It looked like fire was raging in several places. Some place could be easily seen engulfed in fire and smoke while others were a bit vague due to the distance. I felt sorry that such things happened, and in so many places at once. Today would be one hell of a day for the city's firefighters.
Then I looked down at the street below. My eyes widen, blinked a few times.
"What the hell?" I thought to myself, "Am I dreaming again?"
I ran to the toilet and washed my face. While wiping the water from my face with a towel I hurriedly went back to the window. And they were still there! The scenes that startled me were still there.
It's definitely not a dream this time.
I was only at 6th floor so although I couldn't see any license plate number I could see the occurrence at the street level quite well.
In several places there were people running. I could not hear their voices from here, but judging from the frantic movements and panic looks, they must be screaming.
Well, I probably would too if I was being chased by weird looking monsters like what I saw running on the street now!
From this distance, they looked a lot like human. I meant humanoids. They were bipeds, meaning they walked with two legs. They had two arms, like us. Their skin was somewhat darker than most of us, brownish dark. The clothes they wore weren't unlike ours.
If they looked so much like human why did I say they were monsters? It's simple. It's because their faces were definitely not human. From this distance I couldn't see much detail, but it's enough to see that they had a resemblance of how fantasy games or comics portrayed the orcs.
Yes. Orcs!
I saw those faces before. I believed it was in my dream.
When I saw one of them managed to catch up to a person, what it did was obviously not something a human can do. At least not a normal human!
The creature, the monster or whatever it was supposed to be called, swung its arm and its hand struck the person's back. In an instant the poor person's back was split open and covered with red blood. The man was not dead and still crawling, trying to get up. But the creature stepped on him and then with another swing of its hand, slashed toward the poor man's neck. The man's head rolled down the road away from his body.
I grew up as a man with strong stomach, but this scene wasn't easy for me. I was terrified by it. What in the world happened?
The creature then dragged the headless body and disappeared from my line of sight between buildings.
That wasn't the only occurrence, there were others as well. One of the running woman got caught and slashed directly on her neck. Although she was not decapitated, looking at all the blood splattered, I doubt the woman had any chance of survival. Her lifeless body was carried away by the creature that attacked her, along with her almost detached head.
Everywhere, there were instances like this. I could not clearly see the others since the distance was too great.
"What's going on?" I sat down by the bed and pondered. Too many questions, too little explanation. There was no sense in what was happening.
Then I realized that sitting here pondering on it alone would not bring me any result. I needed to know more.
I got up and took out my luggage. I didn't bother to shower. I changed my clothes right away. Who in the right mind would think of having a shower right now anyway? I took out my bumbag, the one my grandma wisely put in for me. I put all my important stuff such as passport, identification card, keys, etc, inside, then I wore the bumbag on my waist. I drank some water, grabbed my things and then left the room.
Outside of the room, just as I exited, a man was walking down the aisle. When he saw me, he called out.
"Hi, excuse me," he spoke in English.
"Hi," was my reply.
"Do you know what happened? The TV has no channel working and no one picking up my call to service. This hotel is supposed to be a five star hotel," the man asked. He obviously hadn't known what happened out there.
"I don't think anyone will answer your call. I don't know exactly what happen either. As a start, I'd suggest you look outside of your window. There're things to see out there," I told him.
"Outside? But what...?" he looked confused. Well, that made two of us. I had no answer, so I cut his sentence short.
"Do it and I'd suggest you do it first, before you do anything else," I pat his arm and made a goodbye gesture. "Gotta go now."
"Uh, sure. Thanks for the tip?" he wasn't sure of how to respond to my suggestion, or the lack of it. The way he looked at me, he probably thought I was crazy or rude or both.
"Sure," then I walked toward the lift. I pressed the button and waited for the elevator to come. 'Good,' I thought to myself, 'The lift still works.'
On the ground floor I saw many people standing behind the hotel big entrance door made of thick glass. They were looking outside and talking to each other. Their faces were that of horror. I guessed they saw what I saw too. And at a much closer range.
"Hey, what happened out there?" I pat one of the hotel employee, judging from his uniform.
He was startled but then calmed himself before answering me, "We don't know, sir. I think there are murderers on the loose."
"Murderers? What do you mean?" I was curious.
"Yes, they're probably escapee from prison," the staff said. "The police will handle them."
I looked at him quietly, nodding just a little. Escapee from prison? Was this guy an idiot? Any prison escapee would try hard to hide themselves for fear of recapturing. They were definitely not going on a broad-daylight-killing-rampant!
This staff was closer to the scene than me, how could he not see that those weren't human? One or two people might have unique appearances, aka monster-like, but all of them at the same time? No way! They had to be not human. Or some mutated human who were subjected to evil experiment somewhere. My mind wondered wildly here.
Whatever they were, during time like this, it was better for me to stay put first and saw how the situation changed.
"Are you leaving, sir?" the staff asked after he saw my luggage.
"Yes, right after those things outside is taken care of," I told him. He politely muttered an okay. Then we both returned our attention to what was happening outside.
Some people from outside managed to run to hotel entrance and the hotel security let them in before locking again. But others were not so lucky. Long before the unlucky ones could reach anywhere, they were captured and killed by the monsters.
"Those mad men!" some people cursed in fear. I decided to keep calling those 'mad men' monsters unless proven otherwise.
More and more hotel tenants were coming down from their respective rooms and converged in the lobby. The staff asked them to wait inside the closed hotel area.
At first some people were quite stubborn. They were asking questions and demanding complete explanation. To this, the hotel staff could only politely admit that they didn't know anything and let the customer see what was happening outside by themselves. This usually made them shut up, with some went trembling in fear.
They gathered up at the closed area like the rest. Among the people in security team there were two that was holding firearm. This brought a little bit sense of security. Although, to be honest, after seeing what the monsters could do I was not sure if pistols would be enough to stop them. Nevertheless it was better than nothing.
After an hour pass by and hearing no siren anywhere I was already quite sure. The looks of everyone in the hotel lobby were also showing despair. There was nothing showing on tv display either. The security team had been trying to contact police, but to no avail. It was like in one night the nation had gone silent.
All of those things elevated the uneasiness.
"What is it?" I asked when the hotel staff near me suddenly perked up.
"I thought I heard something," he looked at the direction of the restaurant adjacent to the lobby. The restaurant was a half closed area connected to the lobby. It also was connected directly to the kitchen and, from the kitchen, the food storage area. The food storage area should also be connected to the outside unloading area. But according to the information from the security all access points to outside area had been locked and guarded by their team member.
"Are you sure?" I asked again.
"I'm sorry, sir. I probably heard wrong," he was apologetic. I could see that he was trying to maintain his composure.
"Oh no!" someone said loudly. Everyone attention were directed to what caused the exclamation.
Outside, three people, a woman and two children, were running toward the hotel reception gate. However they were not alone. They were followed by two monsters.
The woman and her children almost reached the large door. She kept yelling something in Korean. I guessed she was yelling something like, "Open the door. Please. Open the door!"
One of the guard holding the door handle looked at his supervisor and said something. He seemed to be asking permission from him. His supervisor was hesitating.
"What are you doing? Quickly open the door!" one of the hotel guest yelled in English.
The supervisor made his decision. He said something to his guards and then pulled out his pistol. The other subordinate, who was also holding another pistol, pulled it out too. The two of them stand in front of the door. Just as the woman and her children got near to the door, other guards opened them.
The woman and her children went in, falling at the floor from exhaustion. The monsters were reaching the door as well but the two security guards fired their pistols.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
The sound of shooting was so loud it was deafening. Many people closed their ears but still they jumped every time gunshot were heard. At such close range it was easy for the two security guards to hit their targets.
Strangely enough, those monsters didn't even try to avoid the shots. They weren't even stopping.
What the heck?
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone