Red Dot - 64

Though he felt his hair being gripped, there was no pain. Instead, a chilling voice, laden with eerie desire, pierced through his ears like a blade.

Junseong slowly opened his eyes.

He saw the kindly face of a man tainted with eerie desire. His smile, illuminated by the bright light, seemed strangely distorted.

Meeting the man’s gaze, Junseong struggled to suppress the fear creeping up from deep within him. However, his legs were already immobile as if paralyzed, and his arms and shoulders trembled as if left naked on a cold winter day.

It felt like if he showed even a slight gap, his sanity would collapse entirely.

“Pull yourself together, Kang Junseong.”

He repeated it in his mind several times, but his cursed body could do nothing but tremble. Despite just meeting the man’s gaze and hearing his voice, he felt a corner of his mind slowly crumbling away.

The man had been someone Junseong trusted most in his dreams.

Back then, he had relied on him so much that he would have been willing to reveal everything to him. Whenever he was on the verge of falling apart, the man had been there, always comforting him with a gentle smile.

Even after revealing everything about his dreams, he had been the person who believed and embraced him purely. He had been the one to comfort him and seek solutions together, even after revealing everything.

The man that Junseong had trusted so deeply had changed.

Recalling the day when the man changed, he blamed himself.

No, he had always been like that; he had just been wearing a mask and pretending to be a good person all along.

The man was someone who didn’t wish for this hellish world, yet he was a murderer more sinister than zombies.

He tortured and killed those who knew his secret, dragging them in front of Junseong one by one. Their screams, replacing his own inability to feel pain, shook the entire factory, and within it, Junseong deteriorated day by day.

“I don’t want to share your secret with anyone else.”

The man’s chilling words, spoken while smiling like a child, as he plunged a knife into the neck of a living person, still echoed in his mind.

At that time, Junseong had been unable to do anything but lie there helplessly, amidst distant horror and a crushing sense of defeat. Sometimes, he desperately clung to his crumbling sanity while the man played with him like a toy.

The man had found pleasure in watching Junseong’s spirit gradually decay.

More than he did in his favorite ‘murders’.

“Crazy bastard… Crazy psycho.”

As he remembered that time, emotions of resentment and hatred began to rise, overshadowing his fear of the man.

Junseong grabbed the man by the collar, glaring at him fiercely. The man’s pupils widened slightly.

“Let go, you damn bastard.”

A different voice than before flowed out. It was completely different from the voice that had trembled in fear and pleaded for him to stop.

The man looked at Junseong and lifted one corner of his mouth.

“What’s wrong with our Junseong? Acting up like this.”

As soon as he said that, a sharp impact struck Junseong’s abdomen.

“Ugh!”

There was no pain, but he could definitely feel that he had been struck. Above all, the sudden blow to his abdomen, causing his breath to hitch, was separate from pain.

Bent over and swallowing his breath, Junseong was then twisted, his neck grabbed, and pressed down onto the floor. A heavy weight was added on top of him.

The man laid Junseong down and climbed on top, laughing.

“Are you not properly educated?”

The man’s hands reached out towards Junseong’s neck. Seeing this, Junseong instantly felt his breath becoming rough. His breath seemed to be swallowed up on its own, as if something large was stuck in his throat, preventing proper exhalation.

Gradually, the man’s hands gently wrapped around Junseong’s neck. By then, Junseong’s breath had become so rough that it seemed he was about to suffocate. The panic-induced hyperventilation brought on by the fear enveloping his body gradually blurred Junseong’s vision.

In dreams, he couldn’t feel pain.

But sensations remained.

As if to prove this, the sensation of not being able to breathe properly shook Junseong to the core. The physical pain and this difficulty in breathing were entirely separate sensations.

The man, who had Junseong’s full attention, noticed this difference as well.

Watching Junseong struggle to breathe, the man seemed to savor it. His grip on Junseong’s neck began to tighten.

“Cough, Ugh….”

Moans mixed with Junseong’s wheezing. In his already breathless state, the external pressure only intensified Junseong’s sensory pain.

Underneath him, Junseong writhed. But in his weakened state, with the man’s body pressing down on his arms, Junseong’s resistance was merely a feeble struggle.

Junseong’s vision gradually blurred, and his eyes seemed to roll upwards as if he were about to pass out. Tears welled up in his eyes, devoid of focus.

“Ha… I’m going crazy, seriously.”

A voice tinged with exhilaration pierced Junseong’s ears. Suddenly, the man’s face was right next to Junseong’s ear.

“Do you know how pathetic you look right now?”

As if to confirm the man’s trembling voice, the area of Junseong’s abdomen that was in contact with the man’s hand was as hard as a rock.

‘Perverted bastard.’

Even in this situation, Junseong’s mind was clearer than ever. Perhaps because he didn’t want to feel that pain again, or maybe because he thought it was just a recurring dream.

“Junseong.”

The man called his name kindly and warmly, just like any other day.

“Please, try to save me.”

As the pressure on his neck eased slightly, Junseong felt a slight relief. Just enough to feel a breath escape amidst the hyperventilation.

“Hyung, I’m scared, please, save me, I’m begging you like this.”

Despite his blurry vision, Junseong knew exactly what the man’s face looked like. He enjoyed hearing those words from Junseong’s mouth. Whenever he felt endlessly weak, he wanted to see himself begging, laying everything down and begging. If Junseong rebelled, he would inevitably bring someone over and torture them, or, as just now, he would make Junseong beg for hours by choking his neck.

He found it comforting to speak.

If he spoke as he pleased, he would become the kindest person in the world, comforting and caring for Junseong, petting him. But when the spark returned to his eyes, he repeated the same actions.

Looking back now, it seemed like he wanted Kang Junseong’s value as a source of information to diminish. Once he became nothing more than a doll, he seemed quite pleased with the trembling, fearful person beside him, as he had always been so afraid of himself.

‘A doll that’s good to torture and obediently listens… It’s not even funny.’

But the current Junseong was different from his past self.

The day after dragging zombies around who happened to wander near the factory, where people were extremely scarce, and facing death.

Junseong started to seek out and kill the man. He killed him over and over again. He couldn’t even count how many times he killed him.

Only after killing him for a long time could he turn away from the man. He deliberately avoided any encounters with the man and didn’t make any contact with him.

That’s how much time had passed.

It was clearly different from the past when he was dragged to this abandoned factory.

The current Junseong had no intention of surrendering, like he did back then, pleading for his life.

Junseong, as if mimicking the smile the man had shown earlier, lifted one corner of his mouth.

“Just kill me….”

Since he knew it was just a dream, even if he died at the hands of the man, he would just restart or wake up from the dream. Dying from suffocation would certainly be quite painful, but still, it wouldn’t be bad if he could escape from the man.

With this realization firmly in mind, he opened his eyes wide. Though his breathing was still labored, his blurry vision felt somewhat clearer.

Junseong’s eyes locked onto the man’s somewhat surprised face as if swallowing it whole.

“I said kill me, you son of a b*tch!”

The man’s eyes widened in surprise. Then gradually, his expression turned menacing.

The large hand grabbed Junseong’s hair once again.

“You still haven’t come to your senses.”

Just as the man’s other hand was about to grip Junseong’s neck.

Bang!

A loud noise echoed from outside the factory. It felt like someone was hitting something with a pipe or a pipe-like object.

“What’s that?!”

The attention of the gathered crowd and the man turned towards the source of the noise outside the abandoned factory.

It wasn’t just the man and the people who were surprised.

“Such a sound… wasn’t there before?”

Junseong, too, was startled by the sound.