Liam Wei took a deep breath, trying to suppress the tension in his chest. He had no confidence in this mission, so he took out his stash of whiskey from the cabinet and drank a sip.38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ9ObYix5LwO
He knew that if he continued to execute missions blindly, he would come to a bad end.38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡL5EDxG0i5d
Thinking this, he picked up his radio and switched to a long-unused channel. His trembling right hand pressed the transmission button, and a faint voice emerged through the white noise.
“Pop…”38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡoR69eQtf8K
A woman’s voice came through the other end of the radio.38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡnpnk26GN52
“Who is this?” she asked.38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡrEZ9uqE0SW
“It’s me — the rabbit mourns for the fox.”38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡlSrNohBC4K
“Oh? W-11? What is it?” Her tone was cold and indifferent.38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡn5ODwALJcr
“I have a piece of information…” Liam briefly reported everything about Experimental Subject Zero, then waited silently for her reply.38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡjki1Jy8807
“So what? What are you trying to say?”38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡO9bayq6CxB
“I want to leave the Rabbit Federation. I need your help, sister.”
After a brief silence, the woman replied, “You people from the Federation were raised on a single ideology and belief. You’d even execute your own parents if ordered. Why should I help you?”38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡzJNcoPtA4O
“That’s not important. You already know why I want out, otherwise why did you have your informant contact me in the first place?”38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡsoZSrsRbKD
Liam took a hard gulp of whiskey, his voice trembling. “Ideology and belief? Those are just the disguises of self-interest!”38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ5jzxFbG7Lu
“I appreciate your bluntness,” she said, “but talking about profit doesn’t make me trust you. You’re no longer the kind of rabbit the fox needs.”38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxLsWbBVS4A
“You know as well as I do that under the Rabbit Federation, people like me can be replaced at any time. I’m just a tiny screw in the machine. But at least I can still think, unlike others who blindly obey orders, no matter how absurd they are.”38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ2FDp3efBbJ
His hands trembled as he clenched them, forcing himself to keep speaking. “Even if I numb myself to carry out orders, I could still endure it. But things have changed. If this continues, I’ll bring disaster on my entire family — all because this target, Sophia, is too unpredictable…”38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡA9Cdm3OYRy
“Fine. The value of a rabbit lies in its flesh. When a rabbit disobeys, we usually make it into a specimen. I’ve recorded everything you just said. If you try to leak anything about Number Pink to the Federation, I’ll release it publicly…”
Knock, knock, knock… came the sound from outside the door.38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡmVIjp751SP
Through the peephole, Liam saw that it was the neighborhood aunt.38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRKmhgys9kv
When the Number Pink member learned of this, she threatened him, “Kill that irrelevant woman. We don’t know what she might have overheard. Eliminate all risks. This will be your pledge of allegiance.”38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡscG92ETcqy
“But…”38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡsvPI6NCZGG
“No buts. Isn’t your belief in self-interest more than just talk?”38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡaxN7kCQQNs
“…Fine.”
Liam bit his teeth in frustration and took out a neon-light device from the room.38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡuWw230HN6Y
He remembered how the aunt had once helped sew his coat.38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRBVybHHgyv
Then the cold female voice came again, commanding: “Pledge. Of. Allegiance.”
His palms began to sweat. The light flickered. On the wall, two shadows of himself seemed to face off.
Meanwhile, Kim Jeok-woo was in his room, training while replaying the day’s events. He stopped only when his shirt was drenched in sweat.38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡuDMDaveJzH
He slowly took off his shirt to change.38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡO2PFGY0xZB
His muscles were even, his scars scattered — each one a mark left by time, except for the round one on the back of his hand.38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡP7ZnjQBvDW
That scar did not belong to time, but to fear.38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡf172qO7fSa
He knew true fear did not come from the wound itself, but from the reminder it gave — that he was still alive.
As he walked through the corridor, a blinding, multicolored light illuminated the entire community.38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ1o7uK43d24
The residents all poked their heads out to see what had happened, but Kim immediately sensed disaster.38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡUGo6pSC7Kw
“Everyone back to your rooms!” he shouted.38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡwDlRYNW0iT
“Photogenetic Sequence infection…” he kept repeating under his breath.
Running toward the source of the light, he recalled the first friend he had lost to light-based infection, along with Father Phano’s lectures on biology. He silently prayed that fate would not take another person from him.
But fate did not listen.38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡsMxMEqnQUm
A middle-aged woman stumbled toward him, clutching her abdomen, mumbling, “My daughter’s… chocolate…”38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡp6Z7Ueq5YP
As he approached, blood streamed from her eyes and mouth, forming a trail along the hallway floor.
Sophia appeared suddenly, lifting the woman into her arms. “She can’t be saved,” she said calmly. Golden light burst from her hand, dissolving the woman into floating particles. Her expression was not sorrowful — she looked as though she were simply enforcing a law of nature. “This is the cycle.”
Nearby, a young woman who witnessed everything screamed and fainted.
Kim was overcome with rage. His fists clenched tight; blood seeped from his bitten lip; veins bulged visibly on his face and neck.38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡkK19cyWQ9V
Like a wild beast, he charged down the blood trail toward its source.38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡp1MNgYVBud
Liam Wei’s door was half open. Kim kicked it down — inside were shards of glass and a window rattling in the ocean wind. Liam was gone.
“LIAM! WEI!”38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡkjNiARRzUk
His roar shook the air — like thunder, like an erupting volcano, like the breaking of the earth’s crust.
Suddenly, a projector in the room flickered to life, as if sensing his fury. A recording began to play. Liam’s face appeared on the wall.
“Bro, if the end of reason is truth, then once humans obtain truth, can they still distinguish good from evil?”38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡK905BMdSZa
“That’s the question you always asked me. I never had an answer — until now. If the human world only had black bears and white bears, then in the end, we’d all be eaten by gray bears. Everything I’ve done today… is to fight the gray bear. Farewell.”
“Utter nonsense!” Kim roared again.38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQqWQNtkiIf
He couldn’t understand why his old comrade would choose betrayal, nor what “gray bears” even meant. In confusion and fury, he pounded the wall where the image had been.
“Stop it!” Sophia wrapped her cold, lifeless body around him, trying to halt his rage.38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡbIZ7OSjbCI
“Get off me!” he barked.38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡsypYUWSjDz
“If your anger is the fire of hell, then let it burn me to ash!” she cried.
Perhaps it was male pride, or perhaps her sincerity pierced through him — but Kim finally calmed down.
“My dear… seeing you like this hurts me… Wait — am I sad now?”
Kim looked at her. For the first time, he found her ridiculous — and for the first time, he found himself fragile.38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ5kxbPgTISZ
That half-smile, half-cry expression, that stage-like exaggeration in her tone — he could only sigh helplessly.38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡasnPixRHTu
“I’m going to sleep. Goddess or lunatic, go wherever it’s cool and stop bothering me.”
That night, Kim Jeok-woo’s emotions rose and fell like waves. It was his second sleepless night.38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQ6J1Ope32V
The starlight above Fog City spilled down like liquor poured into the complexities of human nature, leaving him drunk, disoriented, and lost in his own heart.
and then Add to home screen.