GAME 4 – THE CITY BREATHES PANIC
Han Tae-yang charged down the concrete stairs, the cheap sneakers hammering the chipped steps in a desperate beat. His body was in motion, but his head was elsewhere, in another dirty world. He was running and thinking and mostly stumbling over his feet.
Why is my heart pounding? Why, why, why am I so excited now? He asked himself, holding his chest as though the sound might escape and make him ashamed.
The city center was a tempest about him. The crowd pressed and yelled, and their voices were like the waves breaking against one another. There was car exhaust, sweat, and fried food from the vendors who had left their carts in the middle of their work. There were bags of roasted chestnuts on the pavement that a runaway ajumma had left behind her apron. The people were pressing in front of the subway station and pushing one against another as though their mass would suffice.
Han Tae-yang pulled his broken phone out of his pocket and started to write a message to his younger sister, Han Ha-neul. The phone was smashed to spiderweb the glass, yet it was working. He had been saving for months to get her one, not fancy, but enough in case of emergency.
Tae-yang: Ha-neul, get inside. Do not open the door to anybody. Do not go out at all costs.
His finger wavered on by the send button. He bit his inner cheek. Words were too little when the world was coming apart. He eventually sent it. The screen almost immediately had a bubble on it.
Ha-neul: Oppa, when do you return? It is terrifying here. The television went black—no signal.
His chest tightened, and he forced a smile he didn't feel. He typed back fast, fingers shaking.
Tae-yang: I'll come back. Promise. Just stay inside. Keep the blanket over your head like we practiced. I'll bring snacks.
It was a dumb promise. He had no idea if snacks, or even safety, would exist tomorrow. But lies could be softer than truth, and his little sister deserved soft.
He shoved the phone back into his pocket before his fear could leak into his eyes.
From the crowd, a voice broke through like a hammer on glass.
"What's the fastest train to Busan?" a man yelled, waving his arms as if the question itself might pull a miracle out of the tracks.
Someone beside him snapped back, voice raw with panic. "Busan? Are you stupid? Even if you run to Busan, you're still trapped. The Tower is everywhere. We need to cross the border of Korea if we want a chance!"
"That's reasonable," another voice chimed in, a deep tone with a strange calm. The man introduced himself as Kwang Hoo, though no one cared about names when death was this close. "We must leave the country. Survive somewhere else."
But then a man named Jin Won raised his phone high, the screen glowing with a shaky livestream. "Nonsense! Look for yourself! Towers appeared in Japan, in China, and even in America. It's global. You think you can escape? There is nowhere to run!"
The crowd rippled with shouts, questions firing in every direction.
"So where do we go now?"
"Anywhere but Seoul!"
"Forget Seoul, forget Korea, forget everything! Just move!"
Fear spread like fire, and the subway entrance became a boiling pot of sweat, curses, and elbows. Mothers dragged crying children. Office workers in wrinkled suits stumbled with briefcases still clutched like shields. Students in school uniforms clung to each other, pale, and trembling.
And through it all, Han Tae-yang slipped like a shadow, sliding past the chaos with the calmness of someone who had already decided. His shoulders brushed against people who shouted and pushed, but he moved with his eyes fixed ahead.
At the subway entrance, the escalators whirred, carrying people downward like a mechanical river. His gaze caught on the moving steps, the steel teeth grinding, and the rubber handrails slick with the sweat of hundreds of desperate palms. He stood still for a breath, staring down into the underground.
Now is not the time to retreat, he thought. Now is the time to advance.
He inhaled once, sharp and deep, as if he were breathing in courage from the smog-filled air.
"This place," he whispered under his breath, his voice almost drowned by the chaos, "the Korean server… this subway is the outer zone."
He took his first step onto the escalator, the groan of machinery echoing like a war drum beneath him.
"There are… what, thirty Towers across the country? Something like that. And this one is closest to me." His lips curled into a strange grin, part fear, part thrill. "So be it."
Step by step, he descended. Each clank of the escalator teeth sounded louder in his head, like a countdown he couldn't stop. His fingers tapped nervously against his thigh, as though the rhythm could drown out the sound of his heartbeat.
The air grew cooler the deeper he went. The hot stink of the city gave way to underground dampness, the smell of rust and mildew, old gum stuck to the walls, and faint electricity buzzing through the tunnels.
At last, the escalator spat him into the underground concourse. The wide space, normally filled with the chatter of commuters and the footsteps of office workers, was now a battlefield without corpses.
The system's cold voice chimed inside his head, flat and merciless.
[Notification: You are entering the Event Area.]
Han Tae-yang blinked, then smirked at the surrounding emptiness. "Thanks for the warm welcome, System. Couldn't you at least throw confetti?"
The scene before him was messy, almost surreal. Bags were torn open, belongings scattered across the tiled floor—jackets, bottles, even wallets abandoned mid-panic. A child's plastic toy lay crushed near a vending machine. The screens that once showed train times were blank, only faint lines flickering.
But he wasn't alone.
A handful of other players lingered, each one stiff and silent, watching the room like hungry dogs eyeing scraps. Their eyes darted at one another, their hands clenched tight around whatever makeshift weapons they carried: a broken pipe, a sharpened umbrella, or a fire extinguisher torn from the wall.
Han Tae-yang's lips twitched. "So this is it. Everyone playing the opening stage of the Tower of Challenge, packed into one subway. Great. Nothing screams survival like sweaty strangers with trust issues."
It was clear why they looked so tense. Items were about to appear, limited in number, enough to drive people into bloodshed if necessary. The System wasn't concerned with kindness. It cared about rules.
Han Tae-yang opened his system interface, the faint blue glow reflecting off his dark eyes. His gaze lingered on the odd skill he had received earlier: cloning "Clones, huh?" He rubbed his chin, eyes narrowing. "How is that supposed to help me in this mess? Can I make one carry snacks? Or maybe send one to die for me while I run away?"
A stupid grin spread across his face. He pictured an army of himself, each one more shameless than the last. Too bad he could only summon one clone at his level.
Before he could test the idea, a voice cut through the underground silence.
A voice behind him.
Low and Familiar.
"Aren't you… Han Tae-yang?"