Chapter 7: Chapter 7. We're Human
"Don't shoot," I said while holding my hands up, "I'm human."
The two policemen looked at me, confused. They didn't seem to understand what I said, however they lowered their guns nevertheless. They said something in Korean. Now it's me who was unable to understand what they said.
I saw several people peeking from behind a wall to the other room. They were probably survivors that were able to hide inside this police station when things started to get chaotic this morning.
One of the policeman said something to me to which I couldn't even make a word out while pointing at door.
"Close the door," someone finally said it in English, something I could understand. He was a young boy, probably not even 10 years old. He was standing in front of a lady whom I guess should be his mother judging from their similarity.
"Right," I replied. I entered the station completely and let the swing door close itself.
The police said something and the boy translated again, "Sit down there."
I followed their instruction. Now I got to see the others that were hiding in the other room before. Aside from the boy, there were two elderlies, three women and two other children. The mothers were probably bringing their children to school when all these happened. The elderlies were probably going on their morning exercise. The two policemen must've been on night duty the night before and didn't get the chance to go home.
"Mister, where are you from?" the boy asked in place of the police.
"Wait a minute," I took out my passport and showed it to them. The older policeman took it and flipped through it. He should be the supervisor. After reading a while he gave it back to me.
When the older policeman handed my passport back he gave me a difficult-to-decipher expression.
"Do you know how to get to airport?" I didn't want to ask complicated question. Since my current goal was to get home, airport was an important part of my plan.
The older policeman said something. The boy relayed to me, "Nothing works now. No transportation."
"I need to go home. My family is waiting for me."
"All of us want to go home as well," the policeman said through the boy.
I looked at them. All of them. They had worry, fear and confusion all mixed on their faces. I knew those feelings. Those were my feelings as well. I totally forgot about it. Being a foreigner in this city and country somehow clouded my thought and made me think I was the only one feeling that way. Whatever happening now was happening to everyone, no matter who or where they were.
The policemen must had family that they couldn't get in touch of. The elderlies and the three pairs of mother children must also had other family member and were separated from them too. Everybody had someone or something they wanted to find out about.
"What do you think I should do now?" I asked.
They were talking amongst themselves. There seemed to be disagreement but the older police made the final words that the boy translated for me, "Wait for a while. Our military will come save us."
I was silenced. They still believed that?
This city, a capital of a nation, had been overrun by monsters for half a day but there was no military presence of any kind in sight. I didn't want to dampen the morale of people in this police station so I did not tell them my honest opinion.
In the middle of our silence we heard some scream. It was from outside. Although South Korea was a country notable for their many famous TV series, they couldn't have been shooting a drama right now. So I presumed it was someone yelling for help.
We hurried to the door. From there we could see four people running away from two monsters. These people was running as hard as they could and was able to keep the distance. However, one of them tripped and fell down.
It was a young girl. An older girl, probably her sister judging from the way they called each other, took her hand and tried to lift her up. The younger one seemed to have twisted her ankle. She looked so frightened and was trembling. It took her a few seconds to stand up and started moving again. The other two were running without stopping and their direction was exactly this police station.
Seeing that, the two policemen pull out their guns. They stood by the opened front door. When I saw them trying to aim at the monster I understood what they were about to do.
"Don't shoot! The sound will make more of them come!" I hurriedly said. The boy immediately told the policemen.
The two policemen looked at each other. They were at lost of what to do. The two people running in front would be able to reach the police station with enough time to spare but the two girls in the back would not. The monster would reached them long before that.
The two girls at the back were trying to run faster but it wasn't easy with one of them being injured. The people in police station were watching with horror. Those girls would not make it. The two policemen gritted their teeth and both grabbed their batons.
When I saw the two policemen ran toward the two young girls, I immediatelly took my kitchen knife out and followed behind them.
The policemen yelled something. If I had to guess, it must be some kind of threat to the monsters. Unfortunately for them it didn't have any effect, not even the slightest. If I, a human, didn't understand it how would strange monsters understood it? Even if, by some weird chance, the monsters understood it, they wouldn't be fazed.
"Zrreeeeeee!" the monsters roared. That's about all the conversation the policemen and the monsters would ever have.
The monsters' expressions were that of savageness and total ridicule. That was enough to let me understand how they would treat the policemen's threat. Obviously, the monsters were still running toward the two girls and they were catching up even with their lower speed. It didn't look good for the two girls.
The people in the police station were yelling to give support for the four people. I felt much aggravation because of these people. Didn't I just tell them that noise attracted the monsters?
The first two girls reached the police station soon. Right about that time the policemen also reached the two attacking monsters.
I was right behind the two policemen and it was clear to me that these two were scared. However, despite their own fear, they dutifully did their job.
"YAH!"
The two parties met and the policemen swung their batons with all their might. One of the monster blocked it and the other completely ignored it. The onlookers were gasping, the baton didn't do what it was supposed to do.
The older policeman whose baton was blocked try to hit again. The monster instead swung its arm. The baton met with the arm and it flew away. The older policeman was pale, his hand was trembling from what I thought was numbness.
The other policeman was not in any better position. The monster ignored his hit and punch him in the chest instead. He was thrown down and coughing blood in that instant. He was lucky that the monster's punch power had been reduced by his baton attack.
The two monsters were growling at the two policemen, showing their sharp teeth, feeling superior. The shiny jagged teeth were glistening with saliva. The two policemen froze. It was their first time facing the monster directly and up this close.
Their batons were not effective at all and now they were cornered. At this crucial time their brain, unfortunately, went blank too. They even forgot that they had firearms. All they saw were the two monsters ready to feast on them and the claws that were ready to rip them apart.
"Hah!" My kick landed on head of one of the monster. The monster lost its balance and bumped on the other one.
I jumped again and this time it wasn't to kick. Right away, I stabbed the monster nearest to me. My kitchen knife landed on its chest with much difficulty. This was a quality kitchen knife. I thought I saw a commercial once that this kind of knife could chop chicken bones easily. Apparently the skin of this monster was tougher than chicken bones.
When I pulled the knife out, dark brown blood was pouring. The monster roared in pain and was swaying. Life was diminishing from this monster. This monster wasn't as strong as the one I ambushed in a house before.
"Get back!" I yelled at the two policemen. I didn't know whether they understand or not. I just pointed at the station. After that, I was focusing on the other monster. It now had made me as its main target.
The monster swung its arm at me. I was ready and had time to meet the monster's arm with my knife. Its arm was cut open. But the monster threw a backhand at me in response. This simple but powerful backhand from the monster managed to slap the knife out of my hand.
Darn, it still hurt so much! I cursed. My hand was trembling slightly.
"What are you doing? Get out of here!" I again yelled at the two policemen. They were just watching with silliness on their faces. The people in police station too. The two policemen finally regained their senses and got up. The older one grabbed the younger one who had blood trickling on his lips. But before they went back to the police station, he threw his knife to me.
Now this was a real combat knife! I accepted it with much delight.
The monster was angry and it was swinging the other hand wildly. Instead of dodging away, I stepped forward and blocked it with my arm. The monster was perplexed that I was bloking it with my own bare arm.
It hurt so much but I must have this chance! I thrusted the police knife toward its belly. I had no hesitation at all and focused all my concentration to hit it. It landed perfecly. The knife embedded itself deep into the monster's gut. I twisted the knife handle.
"Zreee!" the monster gave a loud grunt. It was trembling badly with blood pouring from its stomach. It wanted to hit me again but life was seeping out of it. It was shaking badly and then fell.
All the people at the police station were seeing all this with wide eye. I didn't pay much attention to them before but then I saw how they reacted to the two corpses of the monsters. They were obviously still startled. I motioned to them to go inside the station while I dragged the two corpses to a nearby alley.
On the alley, I took the two marbles coming out of those two and ate them right away. This time I watched as my strength and agility lines were improving. This really put a smile on my face.
I waited a bit and checked the surrounding to make sure no monster appeared because of the commotion. After I was sure I ran to the police station. We were lucky all those incessant screams did not create more trouble. When I entered the station the people were waiting for me. They looked at me with awed expression.
"What is it?" I asked the kid.
The boy said with fascination written on his eyes, "Mister, you are very strong."
"Me?" I looked at him. And then looked at the faces of the others. Now I understood a bit.
The older policeman said through the boy, "We didn't know you are an expert martial artist. Thank you for saving us."
"Ah, well, don't mention it," I said. It was better that they thought that I was an expert martial artist than being some abnormal human. I did not think explaining about some god speaking inside my head would help.
They were actually not treating me bad earlier but now they showed a lot more respect.
"You said you want to go back to your country, right? I have to show you something," the older policeman said. Of course through the boy.
He brought me to one of the desk. There was a laptop on the desk. He typed something and then turned the laptop screen to face me.
"What is this?" in front of me was some kind of map. I felt familiarity but could not be sure.
"This is a captured picture of Asia we received in our police network this morning before the internet went down," explained the older policeman.
"This.. is.. Asia?" I could not believe my eyes. This was my world now?
I could see that there really was some similarity. But it had grown. To be exact this map looked like our old world had some additional lands. Many additional lands. The lands replaced what was previously sea, lake or anything with water before. It wasn't like every single sea and ocean were replaced by lands but I roughly calculated that our world now had equal amount of land and sea. That was why, despite having some similarity, I couldn't right away put them together.
"How do you get this picture?" I asked him.
"This was sent by the American. This picture was taken by their satelite," said the older policeman.
"The American?" I thought of something. If the American got to know about this change earlier, could they have managed to prepare? I hoped they really had time to mount a resistance.
I always thought that we were ambushed and thus had no chance. But if we somewhat could have some counteraction, should we not be able to change the outcome? From what I saw until now the monsters, though abnormally much stronger than us human, didn't use weaponry and they could be killed even with simple weapon, like knife.
The way that god said it made me believe that we didn't have a chance at all before he or she butted in. Why was that?
"What are these dots?" I pointed several area that have white dots.
"That's usually city lights," the older policeman replied.
No way! Those were lights? I felt chills run down my spine. These dots existed not only in several areas with known big cities but also within the new lands. And the dots on the new lands were more dense and wider compared to our known cities. I didn't have a good feeling about this. I said nothing to the older policeman, though. If he hadn't realized this by himself, then there was no need to cause him panic.
CREATORS' THOUGHTS 
SunshineLightUp
SunshineLightUp I started posting on rr too. Check out: https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/22451/world-purgatory
I'm gonna see which one gets more attention :)
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone