After Seoul

Neo Seoul. 2047.

The immigrant massacre of 2045 triggered an uprising that came to fiery end – a mysterious explosion which cast a dark, toxic cloud over the capital. 

Nobody knows for sure who gave the order, or who engineered it –  though most had an idea.

Underground Samsung labs had been rumoured in the months prior to the blast. The leaders of the uprising anticipated a response, but nothing like this. 

When the virus spread it was devastating. After three weeks, Seoul was deserted.Two months later, the peninsula was quarantined.

Five years on Korea was still a no-go zone. Only the concrete wastelands of the doomed metropolis harboured the last remains of life.

As native survivors began to turn on one other, one outsider remained. 

Every conception is merely an abandoned endeavour, unburdened from creators.

This city. This cursed virus.

Nothing we make is ever complete.

Even memories. Nothing’s set in stone.

Bittersweet memories are better than nothing.

Yet nothing is ever completely lost.

When all is abandoned, hope can blossom from the most unlikely of sources.

The uprising. I should have tried to stop it. What were we trying to do?

We could have just left this place then. Before the riots, before the outbreak.

Before I inhabited the creature I see in these blood-stained mirrors. 

I never stopped looking for the cure.

They must have made an antidote. They couldn’t have meant to contaminate the whole city. Could they?

Surely, man is the cruelest animal.

What had I become? I hardly remember who I was.

The line between life and death is determined by what we are willing to do.

Birds of prey have the best vantage point.

Death from above.

I gave up on the idea of allies out here. I’ve learned that lesson.

Just the hunter, and the hunted.

I used to fear the screams.

I miss that.

Fear.