Rain lashed the cracked asphalt of Mapo-gu, turning the narrow, trash-strewn alleyway into a slick mirror of neon and misery. Overhead, a broken sign for a local noraebang flickered with a violent pink hum, casting long, erratic shadows across the brick walls. Heavy smells of rotting food, wet cardboard, and engine grease hung thick in the cold October air. Seoul never truly slept, but in the dark corners of Mapo-gu, it felt as though the city was rotting from the inside out. Rainwater washed the grit and sins of the day down into the deep subterranean sewers. Ian Seo stood completely motionless in the center of the crime scene, his hands buried deep inside his trench coat pockets. Water rolled off the brim of his hat, dripping down his sharp, pale cheekbones before splashing onto his muddy leather boots. His jaw was clenched so tightly that the muscles in his temples throbbed in rhythm with his rapid heartbeat. Sirens wailed in the far distance, a faint, mourning sound that barely registered in Ian's hyper-alert mind. He kept his eyes fixed on the body, analyzing every tear in the synthetic fabric of the victim's jacket. Kneeling beside him, a young recruit looked like he was about to vomit onto his own shoes. Blood—dark, viscous, and rapidly diluting in the downpour—swirled into the rusty iron storm drain just inches from the victim's head. The body belonged to a male college student, his limbs twisted at unnatural angles like a discarded marionette. What drew Ian’s hyper-focused gaze, however, was not the shattered limbs. Ragged, deeply gouged wounds tore through the young man’s throat. This was no ordinary knife attack, nor was it the work of any wild animal known to science. The flesh had been pinched, crushed, and violently torn in clean, overlapping crescent shapes. "Detective Seo?" Officer Kim, a fresh academy graduate whose face was as white as a sheet of printer paper, held a plastic clipboard over his head to shield it from the rain. His eyes darted nervously to the corpse, his chest heaving with shallow, panicked breaths. Ian didn't look up, his eyes locked onto the jagged patterns in the raw flesh. His hands clenched into tight fists inside his pockets, his fingernails biting painfully into his palms. Kim cleared his throat, his voice cracking slightly. "Forensics is still stuck in traffic near the Mapo Bridge. Should we... should we cover the body to preserve the evidence?" "Leave it," Ian commanded, his voice cold, flat, and entirely devoid of warmth. Coldness was his armor, a protective shell he had spent ten long years building around his fractured psyche. But looking at these specific wounds, that protective shell was cracking under a sudden flood of memories. Ten years ago. Another rainy night, another dark alleyway just like this one. He had stood frozen, a helpless fourteen-year-old boy, watching his younger sister Min-ji get dragged into the pitch-black shadows by something completely invisible. When the authorities finally found her discarded hair tie, the only evidence left was a pool of blood and matching crescent marks on the concrete wall. Paralysis had been his curse that night. His muscles had turned to stone while Min-ji screamed, her small fingers clawing desperately at the dirt as she was pulled into the dark void. Guilt had festered in his chest ever since, a toxic poison that drove him to work eighteen-hour shifts and ignore the steady decay of his own health. Saving others was his only form of therapy, his only way to quiet the screaming voice of his younger sister in his head. Now, those identical crescent marks were staring back at him from this fresh corpse, proving the monsters had never left. Panic, hot and suffocating, clawed at his chest, threatening to shatter his cold detective persona. He had to know if the creature was still nearby, hiding in the dark spaces of Mapo-gu. Turning his back to the rookie officer, Ian shielded his face from the flashing red and blue lights of the patrol cars parked at the alley's mouth. "Give me some space," Ian muttered over his shoulder, his tone leaving no room for argument. "Go keep the onlookers back." "Yes, sir," Kim said, looking incredibly relieved to have an excuse to flee the gruesome sight. Once the rookie’s footsteps faded, Ian closed his eyes and inhaled a deep, steadying breath. Deep inside the locked chambers of his mind, he reached for a dark, volatile power he had kept hidden from the world. He forced his mind to turn the key, unlocking the forbidden sight. He gasped as a sharp, white-hot needle of pain drove directly through his optic nerves. Pain radiated through his skull, so intense that his knees buckled slightly in the wet grime. His teeth ground together in a desperate attempt to keep from screaming aloud. Veins in his temples throbbed violently, threatening to burst under the immense cranial pressure. He could feel his heart fluttering, skipping beats as the forbidden energy flooded his nervous system. Doctors had warned him that his optic nerves were severely scarred, showing signs of rapid degeneration that would eventually lead to permanent blindness or worse. But he didn't care about the tomorrow he might never see; his only goal was the monster standing right in front of him. When he forced his eyelids open, the world had transformed. Crimson light flooded his vision, painting the alley in shades of rust, dried blood, and deep violet. The falling rain looked like heavy droplets of liquid fire. Warm blood began to trickle from his left tear duct, running down his cheek like a crimson tear. This was the horrific price of his gift: every activation of his red-eyed vision eroded his sanity, eating away at his brain and physical health. But the agonizing pain vanished from his mind the moment he looked down at the corpse. Massive, grey-skinned limbs, thick as ancient tree trunks and ending in dozens of twitching, jointed fingers, writhed directly over the dead student. Grotesque and translucent, these appendages—The Hands—pulsed with a sickening, rotten light as they dug deep into the victim's chest. These fingers were feeding, drawing out faint, wispy tendrils of grey smoke from the dead man's mouth. They were consuming the lingering terror and despair left behind in the victim's final moments of life. Despair was their fuel, and Mapo was their feeding ground. Rage, hot and blinding, shattered Ian's remaining emotional numbness. "Get away from him," Ian whispered, his voice dropping to a dangerous, vibrating growl. One of the colossal hands froze, its massive knuckles locking in place. A multi-jointed finger slowly turned in his direction, sensing his gaze. For a terrifying second, the temperature in the alley plummeted, turning Ian's ragged breath into a white cloud of frost. Slowly, the massive limbs began to retract, pulling upward into the dark, rain-thick sky like ink dissolving in water. But they left a trace behind. On the wet pavement, a thick, bubbling trail of yellow residue remained. It glowed with a toxic, sulfurous light, completely invisible to the human eye, but burning brightly in Ian’s crimson vision. Sulfur filled his nostrils, a sharp, chemical stench that made his stomach churn with nausea. He pushed himself up, his muscles screaming in protest as his vision flickered violently with black spots. It was a warning that his brain was reaching its limit, but he ignored the danger. Ignoring the blood staining his face, he began to follow the glowing yellow path out of the alleyway. He stepped out of the cordoned-off zone, immediately colliding with the sensory overload of the main street. People rushed past him, buried under a canopy of colorful umbrellas, completely oblivious to the supernatural rot festering in their city. Modern-day Seoul continued its endless, indifferent hum; K-pop music blasted from a cosmetics store, and the smell of spicy rice cakes wafted from a nearby street cart. A few pedestrians glanced at Ian, whispering and quickly stepping out of his path. To them, he was just a disheveled, blood-stained detective with a terrifying, wild look in his eyes. Ian didn't care about their stares, his focus locked entirely on the bubbling yellow trail cutting through the wet pavement. His heart hammered against his ribs like a trapped animal, each thud sending a wave of exhaustion through his limbs. Every step felt like walking through deep mud, his body slowly breaking down under the strain of his activated sight. Up ahead, the trail led directly toward a small crowd gathered under the glowing neon awning of a bus shelter. Yellow residue smeared across the tiles, winding through the feet of the unsuspecting citizens. Ian slowed his pace, his fingers slipping into his coat pocket to grip the cold steel of his service weapon. A middle-aged man in a soaked business suit was looking at his phone. An elderly woman held a plastic bag of groceries, her eyes fixed on the distant flashing police lights. Suddenly, the sulfurous trail stopped dead at the feet of a young girl. She was wearing a local high school uniform, standing silently at the very edge of the shelter. Ian froze, his breath catching in his throat as the bustling sounds of the city seemed to fade into a dead silence. Dark hair hung over her face, completely obscuring her features in the shadow of her clear plastic umbrella. As Ian follows the trail, a nearby schoolgirl turns her head 180 degrees, her eyes completely black, smiling as she whispers in his sister's voice, 'You're still too slow, Ian.'

Chapter 1: The Crimson Rain of Mapo