darling, lee cheongsan.

TWO

ii., chapter two

what's a king to a god?

LEE MINSI WAS NOT GOD—the supreme role properly reserved to a divine being of creating life. Victor Frankenstein believed himself to be God the Creator and it was that very conviction that ignited his descent into madness. That the being he crafted sought murderous revenge on its creator; succeeded in ruining its creator. Lee Minsi is not God, her father was the embodiment of Pestilence which sought out the harbingering of plague in the manipulation of man—picking apart and reestablishing the cells within the human body.

          ...my form is a filthy type of yours, 

          more horrid even from the very resemblance. 

Hadn't the monster-without-a-name said that? A being made of the dead pieces of humans crudely stitched together before it was supplied with a consciousness of its own? Minsi may not be the monster-without-a-name, may not be God the Creator; usurped her human attributes away to the devil but, Cheongsan is human. 

Cheongsan has blood that runs through his body, a core temperature that sings in the ears of the infected and drives them forward to attack like cornered prey at the hands of a predator—to attack him, infect him until his blood runs the same way theirs does, until he becomes the mutilated form of prey they are. The science lab is behind them, and despite it having been Minsi's original choice of destination it felt as if it was on the other side of a canyon. 

It's not her own fear she feels, it's the frantic beating of the heart beside her, the hand that—for some reason grasps her own. The virus has a particular nature that translates any perceived emotion into the assumption of an attack, so his breath, his warm blood, his heart that hammers away in fear, is all that they need to charge ahead. He'd never realize that they'd completely ignored her. 

"Move!" He falls into her, stumbling forward from the force of her pull.

One of the infected dives into the place where he had just been standing, Minsi bit back a snarl—humans don't snarl like bloodhounds. If she couldn't go back then she'd go forwards. A head caught on the wooden door hisses and snarls, tries to catch Cheongsan's foot in its teeth and from behind the thin doorframe, it's only a torso without legs. Yet for its lack of movement, another larger figure ambles forward on a solid set of feet; hisses and snarls and slams its entire body against that cheaply made door until the entire frame collapses down. 

The sound it makes when it hits the ground only serves to help more bodies chase after them, their eyes following the beating heart of Minsi's wayward companion. Adrenaline—Minsi hated the way it felt, loathed the way it made her head spin and her thoughts hard to reach; she shoved him out the way again, falling further down the hall. It's too late, the twisting revolting bodies start running faster in either direction. It severs any chance of moving past the hall and down the stairs, maybe Cheongsan knows that from the way he swears violently under his breath. 

He holds her hand tighter, if that was at all possible, running down the hall until his only choice seems to be throwing them in a random classroom and hoping for the best. 

Cheongsan heaves when the door slides closed, freehand swiping along dried blood and sweat. She had to tug him back when he jumped at the sound coming from the fallen piano. "It's stuck," Minsi separated their hands and faced the opposite direction. "The music room has two doors. I'll go make sure the other one is closed."