Chapter 11: Creature
When Eun-woo opened his eyes, he immediately realized he was alone. The vehicle had stopped, the boxes were gone, and Rong Ye was no longer by his side.
The soft roar of the wind and the pitter-patter of hundreds of drops against the gravel filled his ears. It was raining.
His eyes widened, and a smile spread across his face. Instinctively, he brought his hands to his head and removed his mask as he jumped out of the vehicle. His bare feet touched the wet gravel, and although the fog still obscured his view of his surroundings, that didn’t stop him from enjoying the moment.
The tingling of the drops on his skin, the icy breeze, and the humidity enveloping the air. It was perfect.
His sense of smell was filled with a strange, yet pleasant odor, which intensified to his right.
He started walking in that direction, but slipped and rolled down a slope. He ended up with only a few scratches and a body covered in mud. A small price to pay, considering what awaited him at the end of the fall: enormous structures looming before him.
They were trees.
Eun-woo had never seen trees in person.
He didn’t have time to allow himself to smile; he felt a prick on his finger that made him look down. Before him stood a strange creature, resembling a jellyfish in its shape, color, and body texture. It also had large eyes like a rabbit’s and its limbs were like roots.
The strange creature shuddered, and Eun-woo’s blood began to flow from his thumb to the roots. The action didn’t cause him pain; on the contrary, it felt pleasantly tingly.
Suddenly, a crash like thunder echoed in the air. Eun-woo flinched and instinctively stepped back. At that same instant, the creature disintegrated before his eyes. It left nothing but a faint vapor and a trail of its blood dissolved among the roots.