Red Dot - 96

Chapter 96

In the middle of a messy environment, like a place where a robbery happened, a gift box sat neatly and looked very out of place. Even though the box was small, only the size of a palm and rectangular, its mint color was so vivid that even if someone looked around, their eyes would eventually land on it.

Junseong’s steps felt heavy as he walked toward the counter.

Because he knew who left such a tasteless box, he didn’t want to touch it at all. But since he also knew how cunning that person was, he thought he had to check what was left behind. There was no way they came all the way here to leave something meaningless.

Junseong stood in front of the counter and reached for the gift box. Hanseo, standing beside him, suddenly grabbed his wrist and stopped him.

“Don’t look.”

Did Hanseo feel something bad too?

When Junseong turned to look at Hanseo’s face, it showed no expression. Not only that, but Hanseo also lacked any sense of calm, which was unusual.

Though Junseong hesitated because of Hanseo’s strange vibe, he turned his head back toward the gift box. Even if he didn’t check it himself, his group, who already saw the box and were approaching, would find out what was inside anyway.

Junseong shook off Hanseo’s hand and picked up the gift box.

The box felt heavier than expected. From the outside, it looked like a light accessory box, maybe for a necklace or a long brooch.

With a slightly tense face, Junseong touched the lid of the box.

If it was something left by that person, Nam Ki-hyuk, it wouldn’t be anything normal. Since Ki-hyuk was the craziest of the crazy, it could be something like a “human body part” that would make someone scream, a dead animal, or a creepy insect. Or maybe something even more horrible that Junseong couldn’t imagine.

But, against his expectations, the gift box contained something completely normal.

A phone.

Seeing a brand-new phone with no bloodstains or even a trace of use, Junseong felt the tension he had loosen by half. His group, who came closer, also looked puzzled when they saw it.

“What’s with the phone?”

“Whose is it?”

Hearing his group’s confused voices, Junseong took the phone out of the gift box. It wasn’t the horrible things he imagined, but since Nam Ki-hyuk went out of his way to leave it, it surely had some meaning.

“For communication… probably not.”

Since communication was completely cut off, there was no way this phone could make calls or send texts. Even if it could, Junseong wouldn’t answer.

Junseong turned on the phone and realized it was completely new, not even activated.

Three days after he started having dreams about the zombie outbreak, he got confused by the strange dream world and accidentally stepped on his phone, so he had to go buy a new one. The default wallpaper he saw while looking at phones back then was exactly the same as this phone’s. The warning to activate it was identical too.

“Did he rob a phone store?”

If it was Nam Ki-hyuk, he could do that with a calm face.

The question was why he bothered to do it.

Maybe to do some “kind of act” that could be done even with a brand-new, unactivated phone.

A chill ran down Junseong’s spine, and he shuddered.

With a stiff face, Junseong clicked on the “gallery” on the phone’s main screen.

As expected, there were a few photos and one video inside. Junseong, staring nervously at the small thumbnails, finally clicked on the first photo.

“Argh!”

A short scream from Jian came from the group, who gasped.

It wasn’t surprising.

Seeing a photo of a man with a knife stabbed in his neck, everyone, including Jian, was understandably shocked.

The person who took the photo seemed to have grabbed the man’s hair, pulled it back, and calmly aimed the camera. The man, with his mouth open as if desperate to breathe, had clear tears streaming from his eyes as much as his bl00d.

Eyes still focused.

Clear tears, unlike those of zombies.

A hand slightly raised in the air, as if struggling.

The man in the photo was clearly a “living person.”

No, he was probably a person who “had been” alive.

“What, what is this?! Who… who did this…!”

Jian cried out, almost sobbing. Changmin, who was patting her shoulder to comfort her, had a face twisted as if holding back anger. Gyeong-oh, clearly shocked, was breathing heavily and quickly took out his inhaler to use it.

Junseong’s fingertips trembled. Still, he slowly slid his finger across the phone screen to check the other photos.

The next photo showed the same man. The only difference was that his half-open eyes, now lifeless, lay in a pool of his own bl00d. Taking photos of the moment before and after his death was incredibly twisted.

Hanseo, who only twitched his eyebrow and showed no other change on his face, glanced at Junseong’s expression.

As expected, Junseong’s eyes were shaking violently on his pale face.

It made sense.

The man in the photo was one of the people Junseong saved right after the zombie outbreak began.

Yang Jiwoo.

A young-faced college student and a friend of Junseong’s sister, Kang Chaeyi.

“Ha…”

Junseong’s faint breath sounded shaky.

Knowing exactly where he last saw Yang Jiwoo and recognizing the background of this photo, Junseong found it miraculous that he hadn’t collapsed yet.

The third photo showed another face he knew well.

Lee Soyeon.

She was also Chaeyi’s friend and someone Junseong left at the shelter.

Soyeon, wearing glasses, looked like she had been punched, with broken lens pieces stuck around her tearful eyes. Sitting on the floor against the wall, she held her palm forward, as if telling the person with the phone not to come closer. The fear on Soyeon’s face came through clearly via the phone.

The fourth photo, as expected, showed her dead.

A military dagger, deeply stabbed into the top of her head as if fighting zombies, felt terrifyingly brutal.

The fifth photo was Kim Cheolho.

It showed his back as he crawled on the floor, bl00d pouring from both ankles. The terrified look in Cheolho’s eyes as he glanced back was vivid enough to haunt dreams.

The next photo, as expected, showed Cheolho’s corpse. His bl00d-soaked body, stabbed repeatedly in the heart, was utterly horrific. Even scarier was his distorted face, as if screaming in extreme pain.

There were four more photos after that. But those photos only showed the shelter filled with people’s corpses.

After checking all the photos, Junseong, unable to breathe, pressed hard on the final video.

He didn’t want to watch it.

But he had to.

“Chaeyi…”

His sister wasn’t in the photos. His sister, who should have been safe in the shelter.

“Are you… okay?”

He wanted to believe that.

Even though he saw the state of the shelter with his own eyes and knew zombies were roaming outside, he held onto the hope that his sister might still be alive.

His fingers, which had turned white from pressing so hard, let go, and the video started.

-Junseong.

A horrible voice came from the video, which began by showing the wide-open door of the shelter. Junseong, resisting the urge to cover his ears, stared at the video with bloodshot eyes.

The screen slowly moved, following a long trail of bloodstains.

The bl00d-covered interior of the shelter gradually appeared.

The once-white walls and floor were covered in bl00d, and the tents people had carefully set up were all destroyed.

The camera, panning the chaotic shelter, soon showed the center where corpses were gathered.

The shelter’s people, now corpses, were propped against each other, sitting closely. They had bled out from fatal spots like the head, neck, or heart, completely still.

-My gift. Do you like it?

An excited, cheerful voice came from the video. Junseong, resisting the urge to throw the phone, kept watching.

Biting his lip until it bled, he examined the corpses.

Though the horrific sight could make anyone look away, Junseong didn’t even blink. He had to make sure his sister wasn’t among them.

-Don’t worry. Your sister isn’t there.

As if reading Junseong’s mind, Nam Ki-hyuk spoke softly and turned the camera to show himself. With bl00d splattered on his face, Ki-hyuk smiled brightly, clearly not normal.

Like someone wanting to look pretty or cool, he tilted the camera from above at a 45-degree angle and smiled.

Because of that, someone sitting slumped beyond the open door was visible. It was dark, and only a bowed head was seen near the doorframe, but it was clear it was a “woman” with “short hair.”

Junseong’s breathing stopped completely.

Nam Ki-hyuk, smiling like a devil, aimed a bl00d-stained dagger at the short-haired woman by the door.

-I haven’t killed her “yet,” but do you want to meet her?