I'm still alive

Breathe out, and a thick sweet smell escapes from your mouth. The smell of blood from those who had been dirtying the surroundings no longer smelled, and the speculation that had disturbed the head slowly began to clear up. When the sticky life that tickles my skin was completely gone, I swept the blood away by swinging a black old sword. And with blood-stained sleeves, he steals sweat and blood that has stained his face.

'However, sir.

And it was the little voice that stopped my hand motion that called me from one side at the same time as I lifted up my sleeve. I naturally turned my head towards the direction of the voice, and there I could find a young guard guarding the barrier like me. He was hastily sticking out the towel he was wearing to me, and perhaps he found me wiping the sweat off my sleeve.

'Here's a towel. Use this!'

I think I brought this from home. It's still a clean towel. Although it was a towel with cartoon characters drawn that didn't match the situation, I had to be thankful that there was a clean towel now, not a time to cover cold and hot rice.

And without hesitation I bowed to him, who turned over his own towel, and accepted it without hesitation. The scent of fresh cucumber soap from the towel seemed to make my dirty nose clean. And at that moment under the barrier comes the sound of a dragon calling me.

'Brother, you have to go now!’

Turning his head and looking out of the barrier, the city was already in the twilight, creating orange despair. It's 6 p.m., when the sun begins to set. After I broke up with the old man, I rushed here again with the Supreme Prosecutors' Office and a gun. For hours of such a frantic fight, we were able to join forces with those on the Wall to finish the scene just before sunset.

Listening to Yong-pal's voice, I hurriedly wiped the blood and sweat off my face. Then he took out two of his cherished and cherished carvings from the tandel and held them out to the guard who gave him the towel. Now it is only one coal mine per person. Still, he seemed to have taken care of two of them because he was the head of a group, but it was worth saving ammunition when he handed over the heavy ammunition to the guard. And I took it in a daze and spoke to the guard looking this way.

'Thanks for the towel. Save your ammunition, and I hope to see you again later.’

This is a world where one foot becomes life and death. This bullet should be enough for the towel he handed over. The guard, who received the ammunition I gave him, gulped and nodded his head in a stupor, and all the men who had suffered with me here stood up and bowed their heads toward me.

See you later. This was not a farewell, so we shared dry greetings promising for the future. And as he descended below the barrier, the dragon-arm hands over the bucket and the energy bar.

Brother, you haven't eaten yet, have you? Eat this first, and after the meeting, go to the dorm and eat properly. And the people I paged are all gathered in the conference room, so it will proceed as soon as you arrive.’

The meeting started a little later than the time I promised to take care of things at the Wall. I hurriedly received water bottles and energy bars and replenished water and calories like a machine. Perhaps because of the lingering tiring and fighting, there was no taste in the terribly sweet energy bar. I hurried to the conference room, soothing the texture of my stiff throat with cold water.

*

When I opened the door of the conference room, the hot air brushed my face. The buzz from the corridor soon turned into the noise of people's noisy meetings, and what I saw was a busy scene in which no one was playing and focused on drawing up countermeasures. And when I heard the door open, all the people who had been looking at the map for a long time fixed their eyes on me.

'Sorry, I'm a little late.’

I spoke with a heavy sense of responsibility in that familiar gaze. The officials and the party then straightened out their clothes and hair, which had been all tangled up, and soon came out with a calm face to greet them after a long time. And as I crossed the center of the conference room, the hot atmosphere was subtly reversed like a neatly arranged fireplace, and people breathed evenly and focused their attention on me. Later, the old man said, "It felt like the cogs that had gone wrong had found their place."

Where did Doo-sik and Detective Kang go?’

It's a crucial meeting where our fate is at stake. That's why most of the people in charge of the parts attended, and even two people from the station were accompanied. However, Detective Kang and Du-sik, who were always in charge of the battle, were not seen. And to my question an old man waiting on one side answered in a slightly melancholy voice.

' Detective Kang was injured this afternoon and is in the hospital room. And Du-sik collapsed while eating dinner. You haven't left the Wall all week, so it's worth it.'

Each and every group of people who survived through hardship and adversity were veterans and outstanding survivors who could support the people. As such, their influence on the defense of the barrier was enormous, and they were now an indispensable and vital resource. Is that why? We were forced to demand twice and three times more activity than others, and detective Kang and Doo-sik, who always work in the front line, ended up being retires today.

'I'll take care of the vacancies for both of you. Detective Kang and Dooshik, give them enough rest......don't let me work for a while. Then let's start the meeting.’

Although two positions are vacant, the meeting must continue. With my heavy declaration, people began to sit down looking for their seats, and the conference room desk, which had only felt small, became full of my people. I exhaled a tired breath in my seat. Then, he takes out the first topic for people by drinking the coffee that the glasses bring him.

'The first suicide came out last night.’

This has not been reported except for the elderly, me, and a few employees. The comment, which was brought up as a topic, seemed to have come as a big shock to people, and the male audience lowered their heads with a stiff face, and the female camp hurriedly closed their mouths with a shocked face.

A suicide who took his own life, not the one who was killed by them. In the first incident in Eden, where people were firmly fighting the end of the world, people remained silent. And I reminded them of reality with unbecoming long words between those political opponents.

'They're attacking every day. Gunshots and shouting continue on the Wall, and hospitals are flooded with injuries. The school was closed a week ago, so the children don't laugh anymore. And people have to watch it 24 hours a day. Staring in front of me, my people, and my children, who are in anxiety, inside the Wall.’

What was eating us was the fear that came like an epidemic, not a mutant. No matter how high the barrier is, no matter how high you raise your arms and shout, you cannot stop the fear. Man is not a bread-eating creature. Man is not a living being trapped inside a barrier. And I could realize it again by looking at the cold-dead baby and mother. A barrier was built to live, but without a way out of hope, this place was no different from a coffin to lock up the invoice.

'There is no hope. Then people die.'

I let out the uncomfortable truth that we had so concealed and shunned, without filtration, to the front. Shouldn't we just hang in there? Wouldn't it be okay if I just block it here and then stop it again? If there is no hope, one does not look into the future that will come. That's why they are waiting for a way out without any countermeasures, just passing the crisis right in the eyes. The ones that are clogging everywhere and the items that are being consumed. We were lonely and lonely because we were isolated. Our end may be to die a miserable death to them, or we may have to kill ourselves like the mother of a child.

So... what do we do?’

There was a quiet reciting voice from the desk in the conference room. The voice was so small that I didn't know who said it, but it was enough for everyone here to hear. And people looked at me only in the middle, not in the direction of the sound, whether it was what they wanted to say. Their eyes were filled with the word despair for the first time in a long time.

Chick

And at that moment, a faint smell of tobacco poked me through the tip of my nose with a flash of fire in the lighter. I naturally turned away, feeling vague with the smoke, where I could find an old man holding a cigarette as before. The old man also stopped by the barrier before coming here, and the blood of the dirty men was dried up on the beanie and his face. Then the tired-looking old man sighed and spat out the cigarette smoke he was holding with a short sentence.

'If you got a foreign head, you're gonna have to pick up the organ quickly.’

The short sentence reached me across the frozen crowd. I clenched my hands on the desk in a flash of lightning on my head. Tighten the limp spirit in your head.

I picked up the sweaty tension on my skin again. Risks and hardships, and the ever-present adversity, come down on me like rough waves, but I could not fall, even though I might be bent. The steel planted in my heart feels slowly resonant with my firmness.

They don't decrease in number, as they constantly come up from hell. That awful, vicious instinct burns us like a burning firewood and makes this place hell. The continuing war of attrition, Eden is getting tired, but they don't get tired. At the moment that simple formula was established, I neatly conceded defeat and threw away the chessboard in my mind.

Yeah, I lost. The battle of the Wall is my defeat. But that didn't mean that he could lose even his talent. I rose slowly from my seat and said,

'Escape. We need to get people out of the containment area.’

It has already been decided that it is impossible for everyone to escape. But with all projects suspended, we had no time to ask for help but the blockade. Public opinion? The press? By the time they know our story, Eden will already collapse and many people will die.

We have reached the end of the cliff, and there is no longer a way to escape. Then it's time for us to run towards that front, as we always have. Yes, paradise does not exist where it fled.

Paradise, Eden. If this is where we got away and arrived, now there was another place to go. I straightened my back with firm eyes. And the moment I made my decision, people stood up in their seats, and the old man recited in a solemn voice, rubbing his cigarette against the ashtray.

'I have an idea. So curl up as much as you can and stop them as if they're dead. If you bear it quietly, and wait for it, you will surely have a chance.'

The first problem to solve is the ones that surround us. And the secondary problem is the army that is blocking the blockade. Unless these two things are resolved, it is almost impossible to escape with these large numbers of people. The old man, however, lit his sharp eyes with words telling him to believe in himself if there was a way to solve the problem.

The time suggested by the old man was two days. The old man said he would take full responsibility if there was no change within that period. And I and the people who absolutely trust the elderly nodded and excluded all secondary and secondary issues from the document that were blocking the plan like obstacles. Check the remaining firearms and food, and all the personnel we need to take. In the mouths of smugglers we have taken prisoner tonight, we will give out our desired answers with painful screams.

*

At 1 a.m., I came back to my quarters and lay down. But I heard a rustling sound on one side, and Chae-yeon, who was waiting for me without sleeping, creeps up this way. When I asked her what she was doing until this late hour, Chae-yeon came to me, showing her paintings without saying anything. It seems like yesterday that Chae-yeon held crayons with just one hand, and her amazing drawing skills were so beautiful and amazing that she was amazed by herself.

The figure of Eden, and the faces of the people working in it and the children running with pinwheel. Everything was painful and hopeless at this moment, but Chae-yeon's painting alone contained a bright light of hope.

I stroked the paintings with trembling hands. And in the last picture Chae-yeon gave me, the hand stopped. There was a picture of a man walking only forward in front of countless people.

'Chae-yeon, what do you want to do first if you go outside?’

I stared at the picture and asked the child. Then Chae-yeon, who was swallowing her sleepiness in my arms, stayed still for a long time to see what important worries she was having, and soon put her face up and smiled back and forth. And I feel the pain and fatigue of covering my whole body wash away with that plain clear smile. The child said, dozing off that day.

My uncles and aunts......with friends......and my mom and dad...….’

It didn't matter what you wanted to do to the child. Just being with someone was important. Chae-yeon finally fell asleep in my arms, unable to continue her words, and I put her down on the blanket and quietly handed her bangs over. My hands, which had been shaking finely since the morning before, were no longer shaken.

*

The hellish hour went on and on, and the end of the period claimed by the old man came. And after a day and twenty-one hours, we were able to witness the sight of bombs falling from afar with the faint sound of heavy noise. The location is a containment area where we have to go. The moment I saw the flash and flickering light in the middle of the night, I had a hunch.

A new edition has been laid.