These days, I feel like I finally know what that old friend lurking in my bunker’s darkness really was.

Probably resignation.

The phrase “it gets easier once you give up” tempted many people and lured them into eternal sleep.

I’ve lived more than anyone with that resignation heavy in my chest.

Even drowsiness, something I no longer feel much—looking back, wasn’t that another form of resignation?

Negative emotions are always shifting their shape.

Sleep has now turned into darkness, forever waiting for a chance to drag me back into eternal rest.

That was when the comms unit rang.

“Senior. I witnessed something strange. Do you have any idea what it might be?”

Kim Daram.

Knowing her personality, she wasn’t calling just to ask how I was doing.

She had something urgent. I could tell from her first words.

And sure enough, I was right.

An Extermination Type.

Outside of rare sightings near erosion zones, they weren’t supposed to appear in uncorrupted areas. But just as I once saw, the Extermination Type could be found even outside the gray-white zones.

“A new type called Extermination is now brazenly walking under the sun.”

I gave her advice, what I could.

After ending the call, I grabbed my firearm and stepped outside.

“Where are you going?”

Mark Two asked.

“Patrol.”

I knew what he wanted.

“Can I come too?”

“Yeah.”

Even though the weather had warmed, it was still minus ten.

Once he was bundled up properly, we left the bunker together.

It was around 10 a.m.

During the war, you couldn’t even dream of being outside at that hour, but times had changed.

Even if the war hadn’t ended, I doubted Jeon Si-hoon or Sejong could have kept fighting in this cold.

White and gray are separated by a razor’s edge, but the emotions they inspire are worlds apart.

In the gray world, all I felt was despair and death.

In the white world, I felt beauty and longing.

Come to think of it, I hadn’t spoken much with Mark Two.

Other people pointed it out too—he was quiet, not easy to talk to.

But today he had volunteered to come out, the weather was fair, and despite the cold, it felt warm enough. Maybe today was the right day to say a few things.

“People used to live here.”

The first place we looked back on was Rebecca and her daughter’s cabin.

Rebecca had built it herself, a skilled carpenter’s touch.

“Really? What kind of people?”

“An American mother and daughter.”

“Americans?”

I pulled out my phone and showed him a picture of them.

As expected, children are most interested in other children.

Seeing Sue as a little girl made his eyes sparkle.

“There’s a girl too?”

“There was. Her name was Sue.”

“Sue. Strange name.”

He thought about it, then looked up at me.

“Where did they go?”

“America.”

“America? Really? How?”

“They took an airship. I’ll tell you about it later. For now—”

I showed him a picture of Sue grown up.

At once, his fascination turned cold and uninterested.

“What do you have to eat to get that big?”

“I wonder that myself.”

Sue’s growth was a mystery to me too.

But if I had to guess, it was because her mother’s hunting skill provided rich protein.

Her craving for juicy things might have come from eating nothing but stringy meat—building a strong desire for fresh fruit.

Besides, her mother had been a solidly built woman too.

The most noticeable landmark in my territory was, of course, Ha Tae-hoon’s House.

True to his love of reinforced concrete, he’d tried building his house with it too.

Even though it had been demolished roughly, it was so solid that the frame and structure remained intact.

But also true to his thoroughness, he had destroyed the place so completely that no one else could ever make use of it. I had to give him credit for that.

Ha Tae-hoon’s house now served the same function as the industrial waste that used to litter my front yard—repelling curious intruders.

All around my territory, remnants of the outer wall once protecting Skelton’s group lay scattered.

Like Ha Tae-hoon’s house, they were destroyed beyond reuse, now just ugly piles of concrete rubble.

“······.”

Ugly to look at.

That ugliness might have been useful once, to keep my territory safe.

But now? Now was a time when even the most oblivious knew the end was near.

Most people would soon be gone.

Just as we doomsday believers, myself included, had always foreseen.

It was a sudden thought, but—when humanity was mostly gone, I planned to decorate my territory.

The construction materials once stacked in my garage—now almost gone—had been for making Skelton’s House look good after mankind was finished.

My plan had been farmland.

But with Mark Two here, and Woo Min-hee possibly returning, maybe I’d make a flower garden.

Woo Min-hee liked flowers. A child with her genes would surely like them too.

“Want to climb the hill?”

“Yes.”

“Tell me if it’s too hard.” 𝙛𝒓𝓮𝒆𝔀𝒆𝙗𝓷𝒐𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝒄𝓸𝓶

“Okay.”

We climbed the hill that was like the roof of our territory.

Low, but steep.

Snow made it treacherous, so at times I had to pull him up.

Kim Daram’s advice helped: with kids, don’t pull by one arm or it can pop their shoulders. Instead, wrap both hands around to the far shoulder and pull carefully.

On top, traces of past comrades remained everywhere.

The straw mat Baek Jae-hyuk’s mother had laid to prevent slipping.

The camouflaged watch post where Sue always sat alone.

The power line Ha Tae-hoon ran to keep it warm.

The drone platform Da-jeong built, only to tear down soon after.

Each remnant held memories.

Looking at them, old thoughts resurfaced.

It had been the doomsday already back then.

More people longed for the past than dreamed of the future.

“······.”

I knew I wasn’t the kind to plant an apple tree even if the world ended tomorrow.

But that didn’t mean I had to see everything only in the bleakest way.

My original spirit had been to enjoy becoming the last of humanity.

Even if a grim ending awaited, there was no reason to spend the days until then beaten down.

“When it warms up—”

I said to Mark Two.

“Let’s plant seeds there.”

“Flowers?”

“Yeah. Flowers, and other seeds too.”

“You have those?”

“There used to be an old man who lived here. Want to see his place?”

We walked slowly along paths paved with memory.

“Nothing here.”

Now it was hard to find even the ruins.

But in my memory, by the village entrance, old man Kim’s house had stood tall.

He’d kept chickens too—the kind that crowed all day long, not just at dawn.

“He passed away long ago.”

“Passed away?”

“In peace.”

If death came without pain—quick and merciful—that was a good death.

Looking at where his house had been brought another memory.

Yes. That had been the start.

Meeting old man Kim had been the beginning of my doomsday life.

Since then I had lived only by one side of things: the doomsday side.

I could have been more positive.

There’d been good women, good chances.

Maybe I could have had a child Mark Two’s age by now.

But I’d buried myself in doomsday, and given up too much.

My ultimate goal was still the same: wipe monsters from this world.

But I admitted it—it was abstract.

Since I’d thought of it, I asked Mark Two:

“Min-hee.”

“Yes. Commander Woo?”

“Yeah. Did she really say I was the savior?”

“Yes.”

He answered without blinking, dead serious.

“Why do you think she said that?”

“I don’t know. I asked too. Shouldn’t Savior Kang Han-min be the one to save the world? Everyone at my facility was {N•o•v•e•l•i•g•h•t} his kid.”

“And what did Commander Woo say?”

“Well—”

He made a troubled face.

It was exactly Woo Min-hee’s expression.

No, it was her.

“She said she didn’t really know either.”

“Really.”

“But she smiled when she said it. I remember that.”

His eyes filled with longing.

“She almost never smiled.”

I’d known Woo Min-hee as a woman quick to laugh.

But maybe I was wrong.

Or maybe all the laughter I remembered had been cynicism and scorn.

“She really did believe in you, Hunter Park. So you should cheer up too!”

“Telling me to cheer up all of a sudden?”

“You seem gloomy lately. Even the dog notices you.”

“I’ll cut back his feed then.”

“I agree with that.”

A strange feeling.

Hearing Woo Min-hee’s true thoughts, indirectly, from a child who looked just like her.

“Yes. I understand now. Why she sent you to me.”

It was faith.

That was the proof.

With that proof, I had to look at the future with more positivity.

Tomorrow I’d fix the water system.

And then, start studying in earnest.

The records Valentine left behind.

Step one to resisting resignation:

Make things to do.

The temperature had risen.

The hateful cold wave had finally lifted.

The world was preparing spring’s promised miracle.

The world was peaceful.

No more chatter on military frequencies in our area.

Jeon Si-hoon’s army had long since moved into Seoul, and Sejong had pulled his back.

It was still a snowfield, but beyond it I could feel spring approaching.

Clang! Clang!

Breaking ice from the stream by my house and loading it onto a sled was an important morning ritual.

Before, it had been my own grim work, a kind of self-reflection.

Now, I had company.

Mark Two cheering beside me, John Nae-non III ready to pull the sled.

“Good job, Badugi.”

Mark Two had brightened so much since coming here, and it brightened me too.

Food was running low—I’d have to hunt soon.

I’d seen animals in the area.

Goats, ordinary goats, not mutations.

Mutant beasts made better game, but even a goat would feed the three of us well.

Time had passed since I returned to the bunker.

Contrary to worries, everything was fine.

Not abundant like before, but the scarcity gave life a necessary tension.

One worry remained: communication.

I needed the internet.

Valentine’s records existed, both voice—heavily influenced by John Nae-non—and written documents.

They’d been too technical and cryptic, so I’d only stored them away.

But since my patrol with Mark Two, I’d forced myself to take time to listen.

According to Valentine, the most important factor in catching Necropolis transmissions was location.

Signal strength varied by position.

Among his belongings was a Necropolis signal strength meter.

I’d found it in his abandoned bunker.

Now I carried it everywhere, like an old man’s cane.

Beep— beep— beep—

Weak signal.

Well, no one gets full on the first spoonful.

With the world perfectly cut off, my task was still to reconnect it.

Internet or Necropolis, somehow, I had to tie this fragmented world back together.

That was my greatest goal this year.

I could talk with a handful of acquaintances on K-WalkieTalkie, but those without radios had no way to get information.

Even the shortwave broadcasts Jeon Si-hoon’s side used to send each day had stopped.

So in the end, it was up to me.

“To pull in a big signal you need an amplifier. But folding that signal into our network is another dimension entirely. Just like drawing water isn’t the same as making a waterwheel spin. Damn. If I’d known IT was just hard labor, I’d never have touched it.”

Listening to Valentine’s calm voice, I searched for a signal.

If I could find the right point of leverage, maybe the waterwheel called SkeltonNet would start to spin.

The important thing was not to lose to doomsday.

Thinking about it, that was my duty as a doomsday believer.

To prepare for doomsday was already to declare I wouldn’t lose to it.

When spring came, I’d get serious about it.

For the world’s sake. And for my own.

Unsettling rumors were circulating in Seoul.

When this long winter ended, I’d have to go see for myself.