Gallery for Loners After Demise - Chapter 1

Ep.1  The Fresh Newbie – 1

In every creative work, “The End” is often a pretty vague concept.

Because the definition is too general, it’s hard to tell if this “The End” simply means the collapse of human society or humanity, or if it means the extinction or the disappearance of the entire planet, including the ecosystem.

And the content is usually very provocative. Either a sudden outbreak of World War III, or the violence of nature that humans cannot resist, or the apocalypse due to the zombie virus.

To me, “The End” was just that much of a concept.

I believed that despite being vague, it’s still full of tension, and something like “Eventually, it’s not meant to be with me”.

“…It’s a lie.”

ㅡPANDEMIC OUTBREAK

ㅡDOOMSDAY PROTOCOL

ㅡTOTALLY FUCKED UP

ㅡGOOD LUCK, PAL

Looking at the green-type mixture full of old monitors, I murmured.

How did everything get screwed up?

Because the younger me longed to see the vast universe and dreamed of becoming an astronaut?

Because I put the first step on Mars after becoming an astronaut with a bone-cutting effort?

Because we landed on Mars for exploration, and the spacecraft made a mistake in landing and the landing function got broken?

Because The Earth’s rescue ship said that they would come to save us within half a year and told us to hold out as much as possible, but it’s been a year and they haven’t come?

If not then is it because we’ve lost contact with the Earth and tried to communicate with the orbital space station?

“What a load of crap is this, fuck.”

No, it’s just that I already know things are going wrong.

It can’t be normal when the rescue ship was already sent out but we didn’t hear anything from it, and we can’t even reach out to NASA.

Even so, this is impossible. What? An epidemic breaks out and mankind dies? Within just a year? Does it make sense?

“Tell me this is just a lie. Tell me this is a lie…”

But the answers we got from the space station only made the disastrous reality more concrete. They said that it was the prelude to all tragedies that MERS was combined with Coronavirus and mutated in the Middle East, resulting in a hybrid that was different from the previous one in both infectious and fatalities.

Pandemic itself is a disaster, but thanks to the explosion of each country’s economy and society, chaos has grown out of reach, and China, which can no longer suppress internal opposition, has thrown its people’s anger into the outside world.

Since then, researchers at the space station said that they have no idea. It seems like they have maintained communication a little longer than us, who are stuck in the remote region of Mars, because it’s much more strategically important, but now they are in the same distress.

How many days have passed since I heard such hopeless news?

I thought nothing could be worse, but bad things came continuously.

Three days ago, my colleagues from the Mars exploration team killed themselves. They said they would just die honorably rather than fight unsightly with insufficient oxygen and food. To be honest, now I regret that I should have died with them. The rescue ship won’t come anyway. Even if the chaos on Earth was resolved and a spacecraft was sent to Mars, I would be dead by then.

It’s not like I have a great sense of duty or tenacity to hold out. I’m just afraid of death, so I live this catastrophic life day by day. I’m wasting resources like a pig, taking even a little bit of oxygen and food which my colleagues left after making their decision. If there was anything significant that I did, I would say that I buried my colleagues’ bodies under the ground on Mars.

Yesterday, even communication with the space station was cut off. Did they not receive communication or did they become unable to receive it? Either way, it’s the same for me. It’s impossible to contact the outside world now.

Today, I checked that there’s only enough food for three months. Honestly, considering that the three of us have already endured about a year, there’s still a lot. For a one-time exploration, emergency food and oxygen were abundant enough. But it’s meaningless in the end because there’s no way back to Earth.

So I just spent my time endlessly. Maybe, someone will reach out for help. It’s not like I don’t have any expectations left.

But someone said, “You will be betrayed, the more you expect”. Nothing happened until half of the food left disappeared.

By the time I turned another half of the remaining half of the emergency food into poop, something unusual finally happened. But not in a good way, but a bad way.

“Fuck, what the hell is that?”

While I was looking at the Earth blankly since I had nothing to do, suddenly flames soared from the surface of the Earth. The scale of the explosion would have been beyond imagination if it could be seen from Mars far away.

“They’ve shot a bomb. How many shots is that?”

More than a few hundred shots must have exploded simultaneously, not just one or two shots. It didn’t explode in one place, but every big city that seemed to have a lot of people was in flames.

“…I guess I’m lucky that I’m here.”

I couldn’t say that I’m in a good situation right now, but I think it would be better to film a castaway movie on Mars than to get caught up in an epidemic and a nuclear war. Unlike the movie, the only flaw is that there is no rescue ship to come to save me no matter how long I endure, but there’s no way to complain about what I can’t do.

So another three days have passed.

“……”

In a spaceship lying on Mars, I just lay still with my eyes wide open. It has been a year and 10 weeks since I was beholden to this damn spaceship. I’m just tired of everything now. Looking at the decreasing food and oxygen, I wasn’t very anxious anymore. Even if two gravestones protruding from the side of the spaceship got into my sight through the window, I began to not feel any excitement.

The only thing that still significantly soaked my heart was the thoughts about my family who were left on Earth. My parents were so happy when I said I was going to Mars, but how are they doing now? I don’t know whether they are alive, but regardless of whether they are alive or not, the past year or not must have been a yoke of hardship for them. I still sometimes have nightmares about the plague and the flames of war devouring my parents.

With that thought, I suddenly realized my situation. The fact that I’m completely alone.

It’s not just that there’s no one around right now, but I realize that even if I return to Earth by luck, no one may welcome me.

Come to think of it, isn’t it strange that humans remain after so many nuclear bombs in the first place?

“Haa…”

I was about to curse it out, but I suddenly closed my mouth, realizing that I’d been talking to myself lately. Since there has been no one to talk to, I’ve been talking to myself more and more. Even if I pretend to be crazy and draw a face on the wall of the spaceship and hesitate if I should swallow Wilson, I quit because I only have less than a month left, it’s meaningless anyway.

“Shit.”

When I feel depressed, I look for something interesting to refresh myself,

“It’s so boring.”

There’s nothing interesting about the spaceship, and I’ve already tried everything for a year and 10 weeks, so I feel bored.

“……I feel like shit.”

If I think about this and how to overcome boredom somehow, I end up feeling depressed again.

It’s a so-called vicious circle.

“Why the hell is my life like this?”

I thought I finally got my honor and wealth after an endless struggle, but Mars, which I thought was a bonanza, was actually a prison. I couldn’t be a good son to my parents. No one will mourn my death even if I die here. Those who deserve it have already died before me.

“If this was a novel, I would have gone back to before this Mars exploration after I died by now, right? Or maybe I could put up a status window while playing SimCity to rebuild civilization?”

It makes me laugh even if I force myself to think about the delusion that I have already done dozens of times.

“Status window! Status window! Status window!!”

I mean, honestly, it was no longer a laugh or anything. Something that couldn’t even be laughed at, the lump of emotion like the ashes that were burned, flowed down my mouth.

“Status window, status window!! Where’s the status window, you mother fuckers?!!!”

Anger, injustice, fear, solitude. When I scratched the remnants of my heart and spilled them out, all I had left was emptiness. As my rough breathing gradually returned to normal, the last remaining fire in my heart cooled down.

“Haa…?”

What am I doing right now? There’s no one who can listen to me no matter how hard I try.

It was about the time when I was thinking about giving up my life, holding my forehead as I ridiculed myself

ㅡConfirmation of eligibility requirements.

ㅡConnect to a network between dimensions.

Someone’s voice in the middle of a spaceship, where there would be no one, shook my mind.

ㅡSpecified IP… 001.068.712.931. Access authorization.

ㅡWelcome to the ‘Gallery for Loners After Demise’.