Ch.91Reuse, Reduce, Recycle Movement (2)

“Are you okay?”

Seok Hyunmin asked me.

Choi Serim, Heo Yoon, Jung Haewon, and the AI guy too. Everyone is safe.

Suddenly, a great sense of relief washed over me.

“Yes. But Daju…”

I couldn’t continue speaking.

There was no need to explain further.

Drip, drip.

Daju tilted the plastic bottle filled with her blood and smeared it thickly on her palm.

Somehow, an empty canvas was now placed in front of her.

“What’s going on? Why is Daju acting like that?”

“Did she see something strange?”

Seok Hyunmin and Heo Yoon were bewildered.

I could hear her muttering incessantly in front of them.

“It’s a canvas. A canvas. White. It’s empty and needs to be filled with pictures. If I leave it like this, everyone will just forget it. It’ll be discarded as worthless, rotting away in the ground.”

“Um… Daju…?”

Choi Serim approached Daju with a trembling voice.

The silence stretched taut like a string.

Daju’s innocent voice shattered everything.

“Ah! Serim unni!”

Yoon Daju smiled brightly and showed her blood-covered fingers.

Empty eyes.

Her t-shirt had long been soaked in wine-colored blood.

A bright smile spread across Daju’s face as blood flowed freely.

The wound looked serious at a glance.

It was easy to think of the term “excessive bleeding.”

But as if she didn’t care, Daju tilted her head and smiled.

“Serim unni! What do you think of this?”

“What…?”

Like a child explaining a cartoon character only she knows about.

In front of the frozen Choi Serim, Daju held up the plastic bottle filled with blood.

“This. I think it would be good as painting material. Mixed with blood, it has the right viscosity and texture, and when it dries later, it can express black, then brown, and even yellow as it spreads. It might have been more suitable as paint rather than recycling. Our thinking might have been wrong. Deconstruction. Reconstruction. It might be uncomfortable, but this is the process of art. Going further, the beauty that comes from such discomfort could be said to be modern art itself. Not just the visible form, but also breaking down the thoughts, concepts, and common sense in our minds, and piecing those fragments together…”

Choi Serim’s hand, which had been reaching toward Daju, remained suspended in the air.

Her pale fingertips trembled.

Why?

Choi Serim can read other people’s thoughts.

Furthermore, she can interfere with them.

Erasing memories, modifying them with different ones, or even brainwashing is possible depending on the situation.

And this ability becomes stronger the closer she is to the subject.

At this distance, she should be able to return Yoon Daju to normal.

At the very least, she could make her faint immediately to prevent further self-harm.

It’s such a simple thing for Choi Serim.

Why isn’t she moving?

Choi Serim remains frozen, not moving.

Like a statue, Serim noona stopped with her hand stretched out in the air.

Is this contagious too?

As soon as that thought occurred to me, fear washed over me.

My breathing became rough and my heart pounded wildly.

Of all times…

My mind was so filled with fear that I couldn’t think of anything else.

What should I do?

I felt like I might faint from fear at any moment, and that fact itself was frightening.

If I passed out in a place like this, I felt I might never wake up again.

No, that would certainly be the case.

A place full of discarded items that enchant people.

If I get consumed by this place, I’ll end up tearing apart my own body for “recycling.”

If I collapse here, I’ll end up in a terrible state.

The image of myself covered in blood, “recycling” my own body.

I tried to imagine that scene but forced myself to stop thinking about it.

I have to survive.

Somehow I need to escape from here and survive.

Yoon Daju. I must return Daju to normal and take her back with me.

I gritted my teeth and clung to my fading thoughts.

I haven’t been broken by the fear before me.

I’m just in a state of panic, unable to think properly.

So. What should I do?

I searched through my mind frozen with fear.

I’ve been in panic states several times before.

I was afraid of being alone and avoided being trapped in small spaces.

But.

I was fine when there were other people around.

“Ah… ugh.”

I had to somehow alert others.

The others who must be nearby.

I waved my arms in the darkness.

Forcing my voice out.

“…help me.”

With a jolt, I felt something warm touch my fingertips.

The fact that I wasn’t alone here gave me courage.

“Help me.”

“Please. Help me.”

“Hyunmin hyung. Yoon noona. Jung Haewon.”

“Anyone, quickly.”

Then I heard voices responding.

“#@%.”

“!@$! must.”

“^&*^%.”

Thank goodness.

I’m not alone.

Relief filled the bottom of my heart.

Gradually, light returned to my vision.

And my breathing returned.

Feeling a calmness like after a storm had passed, I opened my eyes again.

“@!%.”

“$!&&must.”

“&^%$.”

No.

I was alone.

A yard covered with pebbles.

The same words from before repeat in my ears.

Unfamiliar people were standing in a line, speaking.

“@!%.”

“$!&&must.”

“&^%$.”

What was mere noise gradually takes shape and puts on the clothes of language.

“This was the answer.”

“We must regenerate here.”

“Let’s collapse.”

And it conveys its meaning to the listener’s mind.

“This was the answer.” Our bodies have no value. Even if we leave right now, we’ll die in vain. Then.

“We must regenerate here.” Eternal value.

We. Ourselves. “Let’s collapse.” And be reborn together.

This is the only truth.

Our bodies have no value, and from an eternal perspective, they are no different from a speck of dust or a pile of bones.

Especially in this place.

The apartment is filled with dangerous anomalies and malice, so even if we leave right now, we’ll die in vain.

Then. How about leaving an eternal mark here?

Sacrificing lives that would disappear so meaninglessly to create immortal art.

Regeneration.

Like Picasso who brought artistry to discarded items and Duchamp who deconstructed urinals and denied their purpose of existence, and many other artists.

We must recycle here. We must collapse ourselves and be reconstructed.

Like a choir, the strangers standing in a line kept repeating the same words.

I examined their faces one by one.

“Dabin.”

Choi Serim calls my name.

With an expressionless face.

“Are you there?”

“We need to hurry.”

“Opportunities like this are rare.”

Seok Hyunmin, Heo Yoon, Jung Haewon, and even the AI.

They all look at me and speak in turn.

They weren’t strangers.

But their appearances looked unfamiliar because of their faces.

Their faces were hardened white.

As if they had suddenly lost weight, their cheeks were deeply sunken, and their eyes were hollow.

“Ah. Aah…”

Facing that unfamiliarity, my body felt fear on its own.

Only after taking a few steps back could I stop.

“Huh. Huh.”

The panic state began again.

My ears were buzzing.

Through that, I could still hear Yoon Daju chattering.

Talking about recycling, how it has disadvantages but nothing compares to it.

“Huh.”

I don’t know how long I was out of it.

Suddenly, Choi Serim was gripping my wrist.

A chilling touch that made me flinch.

Usually, it felt much warmer and cozier.

“Noona. Let go.”

I firmly twisted my wrist, but it didn’t work on Choi Serim.

Without releasing her grip.

Serim noona slowly closed the gap between us.

“Let’s just stay here. Okay?”

“Let go, please.”

“Hmm? Let’s stay here, Dabin.”

A dull sensation followed.

It’s the feeling of having my thoughts manipulated by Choi Serim.

Sentences that I would never think of myself keep flowing into my mind.

[Let’s stay here.]

[Let’s discard our bodies, which are no better than trash, and be recycled as works of art.]

If this continues, my thoughts will truly be transformed.

I locked my mind firmly and roughly pulled my wrist away.

“Dabin…”

Serim noona approaching unsteadily with unfocused eyes.

I somehow moved my trembling legs and stepped back.

Thud.

My foot touched a bag.

It was my belongings that I had been rummaging through earlier.

Since I had put some distance between myself and Choi Serim, I should have enough time to take “that” out.

Actually, the solution is already available.

The reason others have become strange is probably because they’ve been exposed to a “memetic kill agent.”

A “memetic kill agent,” which is dangerous information in itself, can drive people insane simply by reading or recognizing it.

I already had something that could eliminate this.

Zip-

I opened the bag and took out a book.

Written inside is an “anti-memetic.”

And it’s an “anti-memetic” that can eliminate all “memetic kill agents” at once.

The method of use is simple.

Just like a memetic kill agent, it takes effect just by reading it.

“Dabin. What’s that? A book?”

Choi Serim had approached right in front of me.

“What kind of book is it?”

Choi Serim showed interest, peering at it.

“Is that an anti-memetic by any chance?”

I hugged the book preciously while flipping through the pages.

I needed a little more time to find the page I wanted.

“Noona. Stay still.”

“…Give it to me.”

“Just a little longer. Just a bit more.”

“GIVE IT TO ME!!! I SAID GIVE IT TO ME!!!”

Flip.

I turned the book over and showed it to Choi Serim.

“I said… give it to me…”

“Huh?”

“What about the others? What have I been doing all this time…?”

Choi Serim returned to her senses.

The moment I saw that scene.

My consciousness was cut off with a thud.

“Dabin! Dabin!”

Blink.

I forced my eyes open.

Had I unconsciously attempted “anomaly observation”?

The surrounding landscape now appears properly.

Everything here was recycled.

The spirits and flesh of people remain here, forming a landscape.

After all, outside this space, they would only die in vain.

What was spread on the ground wasn’t pebbles.

Rounded, worn-down bones. Teeth.

I was lying on top of other people’s remains.

“Are you awake?”

“…Yes.”

Choi Serim was crouched by my head.

Her dejected voice conveyed the situation so far.

“You were unconscious. And the others wouldn’t come back to their senses no matter what I said. They kept saying we should move to another place.”

“So even thought manipulation didn’t work.”

“Yeah. When I thought about it earlier, it seems like just approaching to manipulate thoughts was enough to get infected. That’s…”

“A memetic kill agent.”

“Yes. That must be the problem.”

“Then, what about the others?”

Choi Serim looked like she might burst into tears at any moment.

“…I don’t know.”

“Did they go far?”

“Probably. They were moving almost at a run, and I couldn’t stop them by myself.”

“But you saw which direction they went, right?”

“Yes.”

“…Then it’ll be okay.”

I got up.

A wide open space.

No matter how far I looked, the same landscape repeated.

Pebbles made from carved bones.

Bizarre piles of discarded items erected here and there.

Could we find people once lost in this place?

“Let’s get up first.”

Before things get worse, we need to find the others.