Chapter 3. Countdown
"No one will find us here," Shin said to Elena and his grandmother as they arrived in the garden of a once-grand mansion. It belonged to one of the wealthiest families in town, but now it was nothing more than rubble and ash. The walls were scorched black, the windows shattered. Bodies of the mansion's owners were scattered across the garden—twisted, mutilated, and left to rot like dead rats. This only showed Shin that the massacre hadn't just swept through his neighborhood—it had engulfed the entire town, or the entire world.
"This used to be where Grandpa worked," Shin murmured. "He showed me a secret CCTV room underground once."
He knelt beside a patch of disturbed earth and pulled open a hidden safe embedded in the ground. One by one, he helped his grandmother inside, then Elena, before slipping in himself and reaching up to pull the hatch shut behind them.
The tunnel was narrow and reeked of old metal and soil. Just ahead was a reinforced steel door. Shin pushed it open and stepped into a small, lit room that still had power and the monitors were working perfectly. There was a single bed pushed to the corner, beside a desk cluttered with laptops and various electronic tools.
He let out a soft, relieved chuckle. "The cameras are still working..."
"You want us to live here?" Suzune asked, eyeing the room with fear.
"It's safer than being out there in a real house where we could be attacked at any time, Granny," Shin replied. He gestured to the bed. "Look. It's even comfortable. You two can sleep there—I'll take the floor."
Elena collapsed onto the bed, burying her face in her hands. Her voice cracked. "Just what the hell is going on with the world?"
Shin sank into the desk chair as he tapped a glowing blue button that had appeared in front of him ever since the chaos began, and a screen with his name and everything appeared before him.
"I don't know either. But it feels like the world has turned into some kind of... survival game. And these screens—they're like systems."
"Systems?" Suzune asked, confused. "Is that what killed my husband?"