By Zephyria 
He had been performing tricks and making a grand entrance just moments ago, but now the magician’s neck was stained the color of cinnabar. After cowardly putting on the blindfold, he puffed out his chest as if his breath had stopped. He looked like he was in a panic.
Eden, sitting in the front row, stared intently at Do Ha-jin, who looked nervous on stage. A short groan escaped his lips. It was a magic show he had brought his nephew to in order to satisfy the boy’s unusual fandom, but the host’s guts were not worth the money. The audience, their eyes fixed on the dazzling hand techniques and blindfold, didn’t seem to notice his tension.
The moment Eden defensively crossed his arms and frowned, his pocket vibrated. As he quietly took out his phone to check the sender, Jeong Byeol, who was sitting next to him, said sternly in a whisper,
“Uncle.”
Byeol’s voice, with his missing lower tooth, was not at all threatening. Eden smiled with just the corners of his lips as if to ask for understanding. Then, a small hand snatched the phone away. At the same time, the violent vibration stopped abruptly.
“Jeong Byeol.”
Eden muttered in a low voice, and Byeol pouted.
“Bad manners.”
“I’ll just check it and give it back.”
Eden easily took back the phone and immediately checked his missed calls. It was a call from the situation room of ‘Blue Works’, the defense company Eden worked for. To be exact, it was a call from Hugo’s personal number, the person in charge.
Eden frowned. He had a bad feeling. Eden quickly cut off the continuous calls and sent a text message with one hand.
What’s going on? Tell me in a message.
Jeffrey, who was sitting next to him, leaned in and whispered.
[What’s wrong?]
[Situation room. Did they call you?]
[I turned mine off as soon as the show started.]
Eden hesitated for a moment and was about to get up from his seat. Suddenly, a bright light poured into the dark small theater. Someone had flung open the entrance door to the Atrium. Eden’s head reflexively turned.
“Aaaah! S, save me―!! Ugh!”
A man screamed heavily as he ran into the small theater. Following him, a woman with her neck drooping limply burst into the performance hall.
The man who opened the door rolled down the stairs, clutching his neck. The startled children screamed shrilly. It was hard to see clearly from the distance, but something unusual must have been happening upstairs.
All the audience members who were sitting in their seats turned around with bewildered faces.
“What is it? Is this part of the show?”
Park Chun-beom, who was sitting to Byeol’s right, muttered to himself. The ushers looked flustered as they ran towards the entrance. Everything happened in an instant. Unidentified people began to pour in through the open entrance door.
“Kyaaa! Don’t push!”
“Get out of the way―! Let go of me!!”
“M, mad, why is that person’s face like that…! Aah! Run, run away! Get out!!”
The people sitting closest to the entrance began to scream and come down. Sensing danger, Eden quickly picked up Jeong Byeol.
“U, Uncle. What’s wrong? What’s going on?”
“Don’t look.”
Eden somewhat roughly buried Byeol’s head in his chest. He left his seat, picturing in his mind the emergency evacuation plan he had carefully looked at before the show started, as he always did out of habit. Jeffrey and Park Chun-beom, who were next to him, also followed him in a fluster.
Eden held his nephew in one arm and touched the screen of his phone with the other. A reply had arrived from Hugo.
Hugo: Eden, I’ll send a Transport plane, so give me your exact location.
The Transport plane doesn’t move unless it’s an emergency situation. It meant it was a manual possible only in a Code Red situation.
“Shit.”
Recognizing the situation, Eden pushed his way through the bewildered people and began to run towards the door right next to the screen.
“Do Ha-jin!! Get out of the way!!”
Meanwhile, Mi-so’s desperate scream echoed in Ha-jin’s ears, who was frozen with his blindfold on. Ha-jin, who was in a state of panic, slowly lowered his blindfold. The muffled ears quickly opened up, and a bombardment of noise poured into his eardrums.
“Aaaah! Mom!! Let go of me!”
“Damn it, my arm! Aah!!!”
Ha-jin stared blankly, his mouth open, at the audience seats that had been instantly devastated.
“What… is this….”
Was it a hallucination? Or had he simply fainted during the performance? In his dizzying delusions, there was always a roar, and those who came to see his performance all became Aberrants and rushed onto the stage. It wasn’t like he hadn’t had that kind of chasing dream once or twice, but today it felt particularly realistic.
The distorted faces and desperate voices of the people were terrifying. Especially the sight of that zombie-like Aberrant biting people’s necks and making blood spurt….
“Do Ha-jin!! Wake up, please!! Go to the warehouse!! Hurry!!!”
Then Mi-so’s sharp shout was heard again. At the same time, a strong impact struck Ha-jin’s shoulder. He fell helplessly onto the stage, and his mind snapped back as if he had been hit in the back of the head. An audience member trying to avoid the grotesque creature had pushed him hard.
“Kaaa―ack!”
A grotesque creature spewing blood rushed towards Ha-jin. The approaching creature’s movements were replayed slowly, like a scene from a movie. Instead of applause and cheers, the audience’s piercing screams filled the small theater.
Ha-jin reflexively picked up a hard, brown stick that had fallen on the floor. He was so surprised that he couldn’t make any sound. He was just instinctively sticking the stick vertically into the air in order to live.
“Cough!”
The gaunt Aberrant, struck in the neck, slid under the stage. Ha-jin’s eyes widened as he looked at the Aberrant’s falling leg. Only blood-stained bones dangled from the leg where flesh should have been.
“C, crazy…!”
Ha-jin scrambled backwards and turned his head. This wasn’t a dream. There was no way he could have imagined such a vivid and grotesque nightmare. Ha-jin shook his head and belatedly burst out with a voice.
“Yun Mi-so!! Jin-woo!!”
In the chaos, there was no sign of anyone who looked like them. The side door where Mi-so had been standing was already blocked with people trying to escape. The piercing screams made his ears ring.
“Haa, ha….”
Please, please! He waved the stick frantically and got up from his seat. At that moment, a bloody hand popped out from under the stage and grabbed Ha-jin’s ankle. Ack! Surprised, he fell on his butt.
“Krrr….”
It was the Aberrant whose neck Ha-jin had struck earlier. The Aberrant, grabbing his ankle, opened its mouth wide towards Ha-jin.
Ha-jin frantically moved his hands again. Figurines and dinosaur dolls used as stage props instantly popped out onto his palm. The dolls were thrown straight into the Aberrant’s wide-open mouth.
“Kwoeok!”
The grayish-white eyes met Ha-jin’s gaze. The Aberrant, which looked like a corpse, rolled its grayish-white eyes. The dark red blood flowing from the Aberrant’s nose began to soak the back of the doll’s neck.
The Aberrant nodded its head, trying to chew on the doll in its mouth. It didn’t seem to be able to even think about taking it out. Ha-jin took in all those bizarre moments and quickly got up from his seat.
Even as he ran at full speed to live, corpses followed him one by one. He moved his hands and quickly swung the cards he had in his arms.
“Heok, sh, cr, azy, what the hell!”
He threw the cards wildly, one by one, down his back, as if skipping stones.
“Kueaek!!!”
A card was embedded in the eye of one of the Aberrants that was following him. Ha-jin swallowed a horrified groan as he confirmed that the card had been lodged. He felt scared and disgusted to death even though he was the one who had done it. The corpse, its vision blocked, thrashed and jumped in the wrong direction.
“Haa, haa…!”
The small theater, which had become a scene of carnage, seemed to offer no escape. He hurriedly searched for the secret passage installed under the stage, but it was full of Aberrants tearing apart a woman’s waist.
Think, think. Please, please. Ha-jin muttered as if repeating it to himself, and soon found the transparent carriage and ran straight towards it. There was no one inside the carriage except for a teddy bear. He jumped in and closed the door, and just as he did, thump! The carriage shook with a creaking sound.
“Heok, heok….”
Ha-jin, trembling and catching his breath, slowly turned his head. An Aberrant was banging its head mindlessly on the entrance of the carriage. It seemed that it had failed to follow in by a narrow margin, and continued to thump, thump! threatening Ha-jin with its blood-stained forehead.
Ha-jin, clutching his heart that was tightening painfully, faced the Aberrant’s face.
“Krrreeee…. Grinding.”
The Aberrant, probably a corpse called a zombie, gnashed its teeth and glared at Ha-jin in the transparent carriage. The eyes, with their black pupils gone, were a cloudy grayish-white. It was the same eyes as the Aberrant he had encountered earlier. Moreover, even the black blood flowing down from under its nose….
“Kim… Cheol-hee….”
Ha-jin, who had stopped breathing, covered his mouth. A silver name tag that read ‘Trainee Kim Cheol-hee’ was attached to the Aberrant’s chest. He wanted to deny it, but the zombie’s left ear, with half of its neck torn off, had a heart piercing.
‘Um… Magician. Would it be okay if I shook your hand? I’ve been a true fan of the Magician’s channel since it had 10,000 subscribers.’
…That’s right, that person from earlier.