Baek Seung-hyun’s wife hid under the bed, covering their baby’s mouth to stifle any sound, while Baek hung from the harness he’d rigged, motionless, gripping his revolver with eyes full of murderous intent. His gaze fixated on the shadow cast outside the porthole.
“Damn it.”
The man outside muttered and moved on.
Nearby, a scream pierced the air.
“Someone—help me! Please!”
Baek recognized the voice.
It belonged to the young doctor couple who had been the only ones kind to him and his family, even offering to examine his baby.
Baek stayed silent.
There was nothing he could do.
Facing the relentless horde of raiders, he was utterly powerless.
The final crisis came when the raiders gathered outside dongtanmom’s cabin.
“Open up!”
“This one’s going to be tough. Looks like a bulkhead door. We’ll need a blowtorch to get through it.”
The raiders argued over how to breach the locked door.
Then, one man spoke up.
“There's just a hanging corpse in there.”
“Now that you mention it, there’s a rotting smell coming from that room.”
The raiders broke down the door to Baek’s original cabin and went inside.
“Ugh, damn it.”
“When the hell did this guy die?”
“What a short-tempered bastard.”
Seeing the hanging corpse in the adjacent room, the raiders left.
Baek, who had been holding his breath and gripping his revolver, ready to fight to the death, finally exhaled deeply.
One by one, his neighbors died.
Good neighbors, bad neighbors—it didn’t matter.
dongtanmom’s story, as its opening tagline promised, was a tale of losing neighbors.
The fish thrown out of the water died quickly.
Some moved to the mainland; others joined other ships for a desperate voyage back to Korea.
The massive raider horde soon fragmented, turning on each other to kill and loot what little resources remained.
The seemingly endless fighting finally stopped when fewer than twenty people were left alive on the ship.
When Baek caught a man stealing from the group and was about to kill him, his wife’s voice called out from behind.
“There are so few of us left. Can’t we just get along now?”
Baek stared at the man he was about to kill.
The man’s face was haggard, exhausted, and lost—he looked like someone who no longer knew what to do.
Baek was a killer, but so was this man.
He wondered if his own face looked just as worn and lost.
After a moment of silence, Baek extended his hand.
“Let’s stop this. Like my wife said, there aren’t many of us left anymore.”
The man, stunned, stared at Baek before nodding and shaking his hand.
The people who had lost their neighbors reached out to one another, becoming new neighbors in the process.
Baek exhaled softly.
“...”
He had to admit that dongtanmom had a knack for storytelling.
VIVA_BOT014: What do you think? Better than your story, right? You must agree.
R𝑒ad lat𝒆st chapt𝒆rs at free𝑤ebnovel.com Only.
SKELTON: Hm... Well, it’s not bad.
VIVA_BOT014: What now? What’s your complaint this time?
SKELTON: Isn’t this just melodrama?
VIVA_BOT014: I don’t think so.
SKELTON: Besides, implementing this story would be ridiculously hard. Do you know how many characters it has? And how many objects you’d need to create? It’d cause all kinds of technical issues.
VIVA_BOT014: That sounds like a problem you don’t need to worry about.
SKELTON: I’m not convinced.
VIVA_BOT014: Oh? And what will you do if you’re not convinced?
SKELTON: I’ll boycott it.
VIVA_BOT014: Should I just block you for 72 hours?
SKELTON: (staying silent, sensing danger)
VIVA_BOT014: There’s one more story.
SKELTON: I’m not particularly interested.
VIVA_BOT014: The title is Skelton.
SKELTON: ?
Curious, Skelton leaned in as VIVA_BOT014 pulled up another story.
The narrator of this story was someone Skelton knew all too well—a girl.
*
China's attack was faster and more extensive than expected, and even the US military stationed in Korea could not fully handle it.
Taiwan, the central justification for China’s war, fell far more quickly than anyone could have imagined, creating gaps in troop deployment and unavoidable chaos in personnel placement.
As a result, a significant number of soldiers who were supposed to withdraw to the United States were stranded in Korea.
Rebecca and her daughter Sue were among them.
They had been advised to retreat to Daegu Air Base, also known as K2, but during the chaos, Rebecca lost contact with her husband, who was stationed in Osan. Desperately, she traveled to where she thought he might be, but found no trace of him.
By the time she returned to the base in despair, everyone else had already evacuated.
In that hopeless situation, Rebecca stuffed everything she could into a military Humvee.
The hostile glares and jeers from the protesters, who had painted their faces red and gathered outside the base before the war, were still vivid in her memory as she packed.
Because of that, Rebecca prioritized ammunition and weapons over medical supplies.
As she headed toward the base, Rebecca wore a constant expression of unease, muttering words her daughter Sue couldn’t understand.
On the way to the base, they were fired upon several times.
Rebecca couldn’t tell who was shooting or where the bullets were coming from.
Maybe it was the Chinese military. Or spies following Chinese orders.
Or maybe it was Koreans harboring resentment against American troops.
Fear and suspicion multiplied endlessly as Rebecca finally reached the US military base.
The base had already been hit by a nuclear strike.
Although time had passed, reducing residual radiation, Rebecca decided to scout the area to be sure.
She headed to a nearby hill, the only elevated terrain in the vicinity.
It was there that Rebecca first met Skelton.
When they first encountered each other, Skelton’s cold gaze, emotionless voice, and demeanor made him seem capable of anything—a true cold-blooded killer.
On the brink of death, Rebecca and Sue were at Skelton’s mercy.
Sue appeared then, trembling as she stood between her unconscious mother and the terrifying man.
"I think he was surprised when he saw me. He didn’t show it on his face, but I could feel it," Sue later said.
And that cold-blooded man let them go.
Life after that was a constant struggle.
In an unknown and unfamiliar place, Rebecca and Sue moved their cache of ammunition and weapons from the Humvee to the roof of an abandoned building, shooting at anyone who came near.
It was all they could do in a foreign land, speaking an unfamiliar language and consumed by fear.
They fired their weapons daily—sometimes once, sometimes up to five times.
There was a method to it: one warning shot, one final notice, and then live fire.
No matter how reckless people were, once two or more individuals were shot dead, they’d flee.
But survival was a separate matter from enduring such a brutal existence.
Eventually, Rebecca’s health began to fail.
They had no medicine.
If things continued as they were, they would both die.
Rebecca kept telling Sue she’d feel better after some rest, but Sue didn’t believe her.
Sue thought of one person.
The man who had seemed cold-blooded yet had spared her and her mother.
The mysterious man, Skelton.
When Rebecca collapsed, Sue remembered where Skelton had been and set out on her own into the dark night.
She fell many times, often freezing in fear, unsure if she could continue.
But each time, she thought of her mother’s dying face and forced herself forward.
Finally, Sue reached Skelton’s territory and begged him for help.
Her faith was rewarded.
"He gave us everything," Sue said. "I don’t know his real name. But he called himself Skelton, and that’s what we called him. He was the neighbor we met in a world that was falling apart."
The story reached its climax as Skelton ventured alone into a forest controlled by monsters to take down a creature so powerful that even the military feared it.
Skelton’s return after slaying the beast was nothing short of heroic.
Until their parting, Skelton remained a steadfast protector for Rebecca and Sue.
He wasn’t just a neighbor; he was more than that.
“Thank you, Skelton!”
Reading the last line, I felt an unknown resonance in my chest.
The quiet inside the bunker grew even more profound, wrapping me in peaceful silence.
“...Thanks, huh,” I muttered.
Sue wasn’t the only one who owed gratitude.
I, too, had made it this far thanks to that mother and daughter.
At the very least, there was no denying how deeply moved I was by Sue’s story.
VIVA_BOT014: That’s about you, isn’t it, Skelton?
I realized far too late that VivaBot had asked me a question.
VIVA_BOT014: Skelton?
SKELTON: Ah, sorry. I was just collecting my thoughts for a moment.
VIVA_BOT014: I don’t think this is a self-insert story you wrote, Skelton.
SKELTON: What?!
VIVA_BOT014: The sender is clearly someone else, and you haven’t been in much communication with them either.
SKELTON: Self-insert? I know my reputation isn’t the best, but I haven’t fallen that low!
VIVA_BOT014: I’ll believe you this time. CookieMonster’s submission seems genuine from what I’ve seen of the rest.
SKELTON: There’s more to it?
VIVA_BOT014: Yes. Would you like to read it?
The latter part of Sue’s story dealt with a different “foolish neighbor.”
It was about the people Sue met after returning to the military base.
“Hmm...”
It was clear that Sue was Rebecca’s daughter.
SKELTON: What does “Screw you” mean here?
VIVA_BOT014: I think it’s a mistranslation of "Screw you."
SKELTON: I see...
VIVA_BOT014: Anyway, we decided to only focus on the first half of CookieMonster’s story for Movie! Apocalypse! since it’s more dramatic and has a narrative people enjoy. In today’s world, isn’t a good neighbor like that almost a fantasy?
In the end, my complaint about the Movie! Apocalypse! submission was resolved in an unexpected way.
But maybe that wasn’t such a bad thing.
After all, even if I didn’t write it, this emotional story featuring me, Skelton, would be revealed to Vivarians around the world.
*
The day of Movie! Apocalypse!
Two stories were broadcast.
The first one shown was Dongtanmom's story.
Though it still bore signs of being unpolished and disorganized, Dongtanmom’s story stayed largely true to the narrative he had crafted, vividly portraying the lives of abandoned people thrown into China.
When the 20-minute story ended, we collectively thanked the heavens once again for the blessed environment we lived in.
The second story was mine.
But.
"My Neighbor."
The title had changed.
And not just the title.
The character referred to as “Skelton” in the original script had inexplicably been renamed to the ambiguous “S.”
“What?”
In shock and confusion, I watched Rebecca and Sue’s story—and mine—unfold.
I couldn’t help but notice that the character playing my role had unusually small, slanted eyes, which annoyed me, but at least they were drawn as attractive and cool, so I let it slide.
Regardless, the story progressed exactly as I remembered it from the script.
It was undoubtedly a touching tale.
The fact that the protagonist wasn’t explicitly labeled as me didn’t bother me much at that point.
In truth, the comments section’s reactions were even more enthusiastic than they had been for Dongtanmom’s story.
coral8103: “Are people like that even real?”
X'Ds_Grrrrr: “I’ve heard that Koreans are supposed to be really kind people.”
Anonymous13: “What an amazing person, that neighbor.”
L-V-R-M: “Hunting monsters alone? He’s definitely a professional hunter.”
Anonymous100: “Old-school hunters being that strong? That doesn’t sound right.”
Anonymous68: “Only an S-rank could take down a Dancer-type monster solo. Judging from the character’s skill in the story, if it wasn’t a Dancer, maybe he could’ve taken it out with just close combat.”
sulfar88: “So cool! S!”
...
...
Honestly, the fact that Skelton’s name was omitted from Sue’s story was disappointing and something worth pointing out.
But I decided not to nitpick.
Why? Because people loved it.
And besides, the greatest reward was about to come my way.
Message from COOKIEMONSTER123: (It’s me, Sue!) Skelton, are you watching?
Message from COOKIEMONSTER123: (It’s me, Sue!) This story is for you, Skelton!
Message from COOKIEMONSTER123: (It’s me, Sue!) I don’t know why the socially critical parts of the later chapters were edited out!
“...”
With a satisfied smile, I replied to Sue.
SKELTON: (Thumbs up from Skelton.)
That’s enough.
Whether the character in the story is Skelton or S, it doesn’t really matter.
What’s certain is that my story with Sue and Rebecca continues.
With the lingering emotional resonance in my heart, I stepped out of the bunker and stared at the sun setting over the fields.
Indeed, our everyday lives in the midst of the apocalypse are dull and insignificant.
But even that is a story.
Whether it’s entertaining or not, whether it moves people or not, it’s still a story.
Some stories might be comedies, and some might be tragedies.
But as I said before, our story isn’t over yet.
There are still mountains to climb, and every possibility seems to point toward bad endings, but I hope that the story of all of us who remain will somehow end in a happy ending.