Chapter 44: Dog Days

Minseok’s strangled scream filled the air, echoing in the large space around him. 

Their fearless leader previously advocated nonviolence. Sheer strength of homo homo sapien will was enough to topple Johnny’s regime. Shame on the dog who bites the master’s sons and daughters. But the guilt inherent with superior genes died with his one, true love. 

Delirious, his face overflowed with snot, tears, drool. Streaming to form a gloss of wet, exposed loss. Pain. Emotion: fragile, sticky things. Disgusting, ugly, hate. Purest the moment he disarmed a White Coat and shot three times. Three humans fell, defeated by darwinism’s killer aim. 

The sudden escalation stunned the battlefield into a standstill. Minseok’s next three shots were lost in the ensuing mayhem. Stratagem now kill or die trying, Black Coats overwhelmed the inferior species within minutes. But Minseok wasn’t headed for the blast doors pried open by belief alone. He made for the Tower’s elevator, and Jongdae followed the bloodied trail left in Orthrus’s wake. 

Contrary to popular belief, Minseok didn’t kill Cadejo. Deo laughed at the very thought. “Shoe could never—he still pronounces gun as gah-n.” Minseok didn’t know how to say the words capable of death and destruction. Unluckily for the Tower’s fourth floor, Orthrus became a wild dog. Dogs don’t need language to kill. 

Near imperceptible sounds triggered a short detour beneath a desk, behind a shelf, under a table. They couldn’t beg past cliches. “Please, no! I don’t want to die!” the stick-thin man begged, pupils drowning in a sea of pure, white fear. Minseok yanked him from his hiding place. Dragged him to a window broken in the floor’s last stand against an archangel scorned. 

The Haven, a pure, white ocean, spread out as far as the northeastern dome wall. Dog-shaped clouds struggled to maintain shape, fizzing in and out. Barren trees reached plastic limbs towards the artificial sun, prepared for the fall. Forced to teeter on the edge, the man cried, “It’s beautiful.”

And Minseok promptly kicked him out. 

It took seconds to perceive the splat. Decades likening reason with happiness exploded like Fay’s brain: gooey chunks and bits spilled, squashed underfoot. Beauty is marred by the popped eyes of its beholder. 

Minseok begs for something real to happen to him. Reality is relative to order-breeding morals. Minseok currently sought to right Johnny’s skewed perception of humanity. Jongdae knew he shouldn’t leave him behind. He preferred having the murdering psychopath on his side, anyway.

“That’s the way, young man,” Johnny gestured with fatherly pride. 

The 13th floor was devoid of personnel. Floor-to-ceiling windows illuminated maroon splotches coating Minseok’s Black Coat garb. Caked guts and gore. His body count was 72 and counting.

“Even the teensiest, tiniest human life is priceless: how’s it feel to let go of that childish notion?” Johnny continued his sermon only after straightening his tie, “One, two, three Prayer Tickets—the desire to deduce worth is ingrained in any civilized society. It’s become clear now, hasn’t it?” Smoothing back blond hair. “Although I must admit—your early twenties had me mildly concerned.

“Your need to keep K alive, adorable at first, transformed into an unhealthy predisposition to value the crippled. Mild success as a Recruiter failed to change your perspective. Frightening thing: pity for the great chain’s weakest links. Yet look at you now!” Jongdae was trying not to. 

Minseok looked used. Chewed up. Spit out. Man broken by repeated attempts to fix what wasn’t.

“Passing judgement against we sinners who dared to breathe Mary’s air,” Johnny sympathized, traipsing towards the balcony. “Separating the worthy from the worthless—nothing feels cleaner.” There’s a resigned exhale, open arms, and, “Welcome home. Welcome home, Johnny.” 

Minseok delivered swift closure. 1, 2, 3. Jongdae discovered it takes approximately 12 bullets to kill a god. “We act in extremes,” he repeated as their Holy Father fell over the guardrails. He couldn’t properly remember the rest.

Empty streets greeted the liberated Black Coats: a sad excuse for a victory march. Johnny's fall and Laete Farland's successful revenge plot ushered in blanketing silence. 75% of the population enjoyed a last, tasteless supper before asphyxiation, courtesy of Asher’s Drop, decimated entire lineages.

The good doctor June met Yeol's dismal expectations. It was too late to save the human race. Whole DNA strands were wiped from the gene pool overnight—nothing was cleaner.

June provided painless deaths for the stragglers in the form of tiny, white pills. “I’m sorry!” children apologized profusely. As though being born special was some fault of their own. Left without the affirmation of some grand Society, weeping babes prayed for sweet release. Others, older, asked for a ticket on the first ride out. 

Minseok had little patience for sightseeing. Their constant push onward kept his loss at bay. Salvaged what good-intentioned sole he had left. A semblance of seams torn when the Dog Catcher stumbled through the crowd funneled at the dome’s western security checkpoint, hands catching his collar. “Where is she?” he hacked, little sisters in red dresses well-worth ignoring his physician’s advice.

It didn’t feel real until Minseok said, “I’m sorry.” 

A/N: The next chapter is the last.