Whether natural, an accident of science, or something by design, I can’t decide. I’ve always thought of it as the Bomb, if only to grant some minor degree of sense to the matter. The devised had appeared soon after, turning apartments to rubble, infesting the city with monstrous facsimiles and impossibilities. Airborne trains careering wildly into apartment blocks, dark and broken versions of self pursuing or idly observing, thronging crabs that skittered in the periphery of my vision, and more. Soldiers of the North manifested soon after, amid the chaos, and amplified the madness. Was this an invasion or were they now trapped as we were, surviving as best they could in this dream-infected city?


We pass a small shrine, an alcove carved into the mountain and filled with offerings of soju and makgeolli and glimmering statuettes. Shaman chants come through the trees close by, soft songs and ringing bells. Bora whispers something blessed and places a bottle of soju by the shrine.

“Can we spare that?”

“I don’t know.” She pauses for a moment, but leaves it in place.

We round a looming boulder and the cityscape opens up before us. Seoul, washed red and orange as the sun melts into the horizon, city lights twinkling. Namsan tower flickers blue and green in the distance. Dark shapes, vast many-winged things, soar around the peak. Several reptilian eyes open in the darkening sky, crooked and curious. Disembodied.

We sit and eat kimbap, impatiently checking at our watches while we wait and ignoring the giant devised that searched the city.

“Where is he?”

Bora shakes her head. Then, eyes suddenly wet and wide, she points to the remains of the Japanese prisoner of war camp far below.

A great thing clambers across it, moving with an undulating gait, more legs that I can count blurring, rippling. A gargantuan ink-black horror.

“The centipede...” I wipe my brow. “It’s roaming again.”

It slips across the rooftops of the prison and disappears into the city, weaving around the surrounding tower blocks.