NoveLight ™
"To start, you need to roll the wool into a ball with your hands. Beginners may struggle with getting the right amount, but you'll get the hang of it as you go."
The dim bunker is illuminated only by the glow of a monitor and the warm voice of a man streaming from it.
This video isn't a relic from before the war.
It was filmed in the present day, a full year after the war began.
The source? None other than our community, Viva! Apocalypse!.
This peculiar site managed to stay operational even after the nuclear strikes.
It felt like half a scam watching $100 leave my account monthly—excluding the cost of satellite communication equipment—but it turns out that our founder, Melon Musk, contrary to his reputation, was a surprisingly responsible and capable individual.
The city he lived in was obliterated in a storm of nuclear missiles, and he likely perished in the blaze, but his legacy lives on in the satellites orbiting above, with their onboard servers shining like eternal stars, forever intertwined with humanity's fate.
Viva! Apocalypse! is one of the few remaining internet communities still active today.
Although my mentor, John Nae-non, is no longer around, the community is still lively enough for Koreans alone to keep the discussion boards bustling.
Of course, not everyone is sane.
I've added four fellow users to my block list:
On the other hand, there are decent people too.
One such person is Anonymous337, the creator of the video I'm currently watching, "Making Wool Felt Dolls for My Daughter (Part 3).”
Anonymous337 is a kind, warmhearted man, embodying a paternal affection I lack.
Rather than drowning his boredom in booze or drugs, he crafts toys for his son and daughter, channeling his efforts into videos that he uploads to the forum. Each one is set to soothing music and peppered with witty editing.
His craftsmanship is impressive. The wooden robot model he built for his son was of such high quality that it could easily sell in stores.
I wanted to see his son's delighted reaction to receiving the gift, but Anonymous337 only ever uploaded footage of his quiet, methodical work. Perhaps he felt uncomfortable exposing his family due to security concerns.
Indeed, no voices other than his are ever heard in the videos, which only underscores how meticulous and cautious he is.
Inspired by Anonymous337's tutorials, I once tried crafting a robot myself. Unfortunately, with my clumsy, cat-like hands, I ended up creating something more akin to a grotesque idol you'd find in a phallic-worshipping cult than a robot.
Recently, he's been documenting the creation of a lamb doll from wool felt for his seven-year-old daughter.
The quality rivals the wooden robot he made for his son, and I can't help but eagerly anticipate the finished product.
"This is how you make the ears. It looks tricky, but once you get the hang of it, it’s simple."
Though the doll isn't complete yet, it's so cute and charming that I'm already considering picking up wool felt and tools the next time I visit Seoul.
*
One Year After the War
A year has passed since the war began.
Life has only grown harsher than when the war first started.
While nuclear missiles and air raids are no longer a threat, monsters now extend their reach not only near the DMZ but also into the southern regions, and trade has ground to a halt. The government has lost control, and recovery seems like a distant dream.
The winds of chaos blew fiercely across the community as well.
KaosGate: "Recently, I've noticed a sharp increase in refugees. They keep glancing at my bunker."
Anonymous121: "I’m down south, and refugees have been wandering around here for a while now. Be careful. If you help them out of pity, they’ll just come back as robbers."
Lately, the forum has been flooded with posts about refugees.
The surge in refugee sightings is real, but more concerning is the recent disappearance of several forum users.
Among the missing was one of the people I’d blocked—the narcissist who used to post a diary update every single minute.
The community was quick to pin these disappearances on refugees.
Qwer1234: "It’s the refugees. They killed those people and took over their bunkers. Probably slaughtered their families, too."
RealKorean: "If I see a refugee anywhere near me, I’ll blow their heads off with a shotgun."
Some users had already declared refugees as enemies.
I wasn’t so sure.
Refugees were just refugees.
Sure, there might be a few trained scavengers among them, but how many people in South Korea could truly claim such expertise?
Wasn’t it more likely just a case of spectacularly bad luck?
Interestingly, there was someone in the community who shared my perspective.
Ironically, it was someone I had blocked.
It was during a heated keyboard battle that I realized this person shared my doubts.
Their username was Defender.
Defender was infamous in the community as a human hunter—a vile individual who regularly posted proof of his kills.
His reports came in the form of two photos: one showed the victim’s corpse from a distance, and the other displayed the victim’s face covered in a black plastic bag, with their ink-stamped fingerprints placed prominently next to the bag.
Each time, it was a different victim.
His methods varied—sometimes he used a gun, other times a blunt weapon.
When it came to women and children, he only used the black plastic bag.
But he didn’t kill for fun.
His reasoning was always the same: the victims had trespassed on his territory.
To me, whether it was a psychopath killing for pleasure or this guy, it made no difference. Both were monsters, just different shades of the same dark.
Out of curiosity, I unblocked him and searched his posts.
Defender: "It’s not the refugees."
Defender: "You all called contractors when you built your bunkers, didn’t you?"
Defender: "Watch out for those bunker construction companies. They know exactly where your bunkers are."
At the end of his post, he attached his usual kill proof.
But this time, something was different.
The victim’s face wasn’t covered with a black plastic bag.
The corpse, pale and frozen in a terrified grimace, was displayed alongside not only the ink-stamped fingerprints but also a construction contract and an ID card.
It was clear.
The dead were employees from the construction company he had hired.
The community ignored his warning.
Was it because they didn’t want to hear it from a human hunter?
Or was it because his post forced them to confront an uncomfortable truth they couldn’t accept?
That’s up for interpretation.
But there was something far more pressing.
My favorite community user, Anonymous337, had disappeared.
The man who was the most caring, devoted father, and an unparalleled craftsman, was gone.
His absence hit me like a punch to the gut.
*
From Autumn to Winter
Time moved forward, and autumn gave way to winter.
Temperatures dropped below freezing, and toxic, fallout-laden winds blew from the west to the east.
The mood in the community grew colder as well.
Anonymous231: "Anonymous423, are you still alive? It’s been a while since your last post. If you’re alive, at least hit like. I’ll return the favor next time."
Lone_wolf: "What about Kaos_Gate? Did something happen to them too?"
Disappearing community members were no longer uncommon.
Many users vanished.
Even though they had prepared and planned for the apocalypse, the harsh realities of survival proved too much, and they disappeared from the forum altogether.
No one posted tributes or farewells.
No one knew who might be next.
What I never imagined was that I could be next.
They appeared when radioactive, dandruff-like snow had blanketed the golf course and my territory.
A group of people arrived in a truck at the golf course and moved straight toward my bunker.
Through binoculars, I observed them and recognized a familiar face.
“...That bastard, huh?”
It was likely Hong Bu-jang.
He had worked for the construction company that built my first bunker.
He was Kim Wang-soo's boss, not very talkative, and often kept to himself. His reputation wasn’t great.
He half-assed his work and never joined in on drinking sessions.
The company’s owner frequently complained about him whenever he wasn’t around.
"That Hong Bu-jang guy. I’ve known him for over ten years, and he’s never changed. You’d think after all these years in construction, he’d at least be a foreman by now, but with that childish attitude, he’s stuck being an eternal errand boy."
The man who used to leave gatherings early, using his family as an excuse, was now back in my territory—and it couldn’t mean anything good.
Especially not with four armed men under his command.
I remembered the human hunter’s post.
Defender: "Watch out for those construction company bastards. They know where your bunkers are."
It’s always someone close by.
People from the construction companies that built bunkers remembered the locations and returned to their former clients.
Call it a deathly “after-service.”
Their voices were transmitted to my earbuds via the surveillance devices I’d set up around the area.
“Is this the place?”
“Yeah, this is it. That’s the golf course, and that’s the air force base. Somewhere between them—under that low hill—I helped build a bunker.”
“Are you sure it’s a bunker?”
“The guy said it was for underground performances, but who the hell comes to the middle of nowhere for concerts? I’ve bid on and built a few more projects like this. No doubt, it’s a bunker.”
“How many people are inside?”
“One, as far as I know. At most, it’s a family.”
Their short conversation summarized everything.
Hong Bu-jang.
He had come to kill me.
To kill me and take everything I had.
I turned off the lights, opened the bunker’s entrance, and waited for them in the dark.
I didn’t bring a gun.
Instead, I armed myself with two axes.
Step, step.
Two men appeared at the open entrance of the bunker.
The one in front carried a reinforced plastic riot shield and a baton, while the man behind him was armed with an M16.
“The entrance! It’s open!”
The man with the rifle turned on his flashlight and scanned the bunker’s interior.
Both men cheered simultaneously.
“Jackpot! Cigarettes! There are cartons of cigarettes!”
Those were cigarettes I’d deliberately left out to lure them inside.
But these raiders weren’t amateurs.
Despite spotting the loot, they didn’t let their guard down.
They moved as a well-coordinated team.
Hong Bu-jang was no pushover either.
“Does it smell like a corpse in there?”
The men at the front shook their heads.
“Nope. No bad smell.”
“No rotting stench or anything.”
Hong Bu-jang’s voice came through next.
“Search inside thoroughly. Every corner.”
This wasn’t their first time looting.
Whoosh—
But their bad luck was me.
I spun the axes in my hands like a dance, waiting for the flashlight beam to fall on me.
The moment the light illuminated me, I lunged forward like a beast, delivering a powerful kick to the riot shield.
“Ugh!”
The man with the shield toppled backward, knocking over the man with the rifle behind him.
Bang!
The thunderous sound of a gunshot echoed through the bunker as a flash lit up the room. I locked eyes on my two targets.
As the shield fell, sliding down like slow motion, I counted silently.
Three. Two. One.
And then I threw the axe.
Whoosh—
The axe arced through the air, burying itself into the forehead of the man with the rifle, piercing through to his brain.
“Aaagh!”
The scream came from the man with the shield.
Seeing his companion die before his eyes, he struggled to stand, but I stomped on him, pinning him down with the shield.
In one swift motion, I yanked the axe from the rifleman’s skull and swung both axes at the shield bearer’s head.
Crack!
The voices of the remaining raiders echoed in the bunker.
“Cheol-ho! Hyeong-sik!”
I melted back into the shadows, waiting for the next victim.
Hong Bu-jang proved his cunning.
“Yeong-sik, calm down! Don’t go in—you’ll die.”
“But Cheol-ho is dead!”
“Do we have tear gas? Toss it in. Don’t crawl into a raccoon’s den—flush it out.”
I smirked.
Hong Bu-jang wasn’t an ordinary raider.
In response, I simply shut the heavy bunker door.
“The door’s closed!”
“Forget it. There’s gotta be a vent.”
Hong Bu-jang responded immediately.
“The entrance is here—I built it, remember? I’ve seen the plans. Everything else is sealed with concrete. Find the ventilation shaft and gas them out. We’ll see how they like it.”
It was a chess game.
I never thought I’d be locked in a tactical fight with a mere raider.
But Hong Bu-jang didn’t know one thing.
After the construction company finished building the bunker, I had expanded it myself.
One of the modifications was an emergency escape route that only I knew about.
Hong Bu-jang could never have imagined I’d become a better craftsman than him.
With a single gun, I slipped out through the secondary bunker and looked back at the main bunker.
I saw the raiders wandering near the vents.
Bang!
A gunshot rang out, and one of them fell.
Bang!
Another dropped before they could react.
That left only Hong Bu-jang.
Unarmed, he raised his hands in surrender.
As I approached him with my gun trained on him, I asked, “How many have you looted?”
Hong Bu-jang offered a bitter smile and shrugged lightly.
“This is the first time.”
I pressed the barrel to his forehead.
His expression twisted as he confessed.
“...Four. Four bunkers.”
“Quite a haul.”
I ordered him to load the bodies into the truck they came in.
As the corpses were stacked in the cargo bed, I noticed something familiar.
A wool felt lamb doll.
The sight of it made something snap inside me.
“Where did this come from?”
“A bunker we looted before.”
Hong Bu-jang, panting heavily, answered.
“What about the people inside?”
“A man. Just one man.”
“What about his family?”
“...”
“Did you kill them all?”
Whack!
The rifle stock slammed into Hong Bu-jang’s temple.
He cried out in pain, but I silenced him with more pain, kicking him in the gut until he collapsed to his knees.
“It’s true! He was alone! Alone, damn it! He was already dead when we got there!”
“Where was it?”
The distance wasn’t far.
A 30-minute drive by truck.
I forced Hong Bu-jang to lead me to the looted bunker.
It was unmistakable.
This was the place from the videos.
The bunker had been thoroughly ransacked, and at the center was a workbench.
Slumped over it, partially decomposed, was the man himself.
The blood spatter across the workspace suggested he had taken his own life.
The bunker was painfully small—barely enough for one person to live alone.
“You’ll let me go now, right? I kept my promise!”
After adding one more body to the truck, I returned home to review the videos.
Looking back, I realized something.
Not once had the voices of his children been heard in those videos.
It had always been that way.
I noticed a comment I’d overlooked before.
Defender: "This guy’s videos are great, but have you noticed? Not once have we heard his kids’ voices. He keeps mentioning them, but maybe they’ve been dead this whole time?"
Why hadn’t I noticed this sooner?
Ah, that’s right.
I had blocked him.