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The rain pours endlessly. Flashes of lightning replace the sunlight, thunder roars as if the sky is collapsing, the sound of fierce wind, the stench and fishy smell seeping into my nose, and the dampness sticking to the soles of my feet.

I stand by the open window, looking down at Villa Street.

“Is it the rainy season?”

It didn’t seem like a passing shower or just ordinary rain.

It’s been a few days since I returned from Professor Kim’s apartment, but I haven’t seen clear weather. The rain hasn’t stopped for days. The rain might thin out at times, but the sky never clears.

“Well, at least we don’t have to worry about water.”

I looked around at the ruined streets.

Abandoned corpses were bloated, and trash, soaked through, flew around in the wind or floated down the water flowing on the roads. The trash either disappeared into drains or covered them.

Raindrops splashed on my fingers as I tapped the window frame.

“The drains are probably going to break soon.”

No matter how much I clean, there’s a limit to what one person can do. Besides, isn’t this the apocalypse? In a world where trash, whether recyclable or disposable, is carelessly left on the streets, the drains quickly clogged.

Disaster was coming to the city covered in asphalt and concrete.

“According to the materials Professor Kim gave me, epidemics tend to break out in areas after floods.”

Lost in thought for a while, I slammed the window shut and returned to my desk. On the desk were a few books and printed materials I brought from Professor Kim’s house. The paper was damp, but it was still readable.

In a world where the rainy season made it hard to go outside, I studied Professor Kim’s materials.

***

I gave up on studying. After about 30 minutes of flipping through the book, I slammed it shut and tossed it into the corner of the desk. This wasn’t a book. It was in a foreign language I couldn’t read.

“I can’t understand a single thing.”

I stared blankly at the book cover. It was an engineering book I thought would be useful, but I couldn’t read it from the start.

Engineering related to electricity or machinery. I couldn’t understand the alphabets or symbols. I couldn’t even read the Korean. Some strange words kept popping up, and I had no idea what they meant.

I wanted to take apart vehicles or electronics, repair them, make something, or try more efficient recycling, but this wasn’t going to work.

My head hurt, and I pressed my scalp hard, then swung a hammer in the air.

“Right, what’s with all this studying? It doesn’t suit me.”

Does studying make you a pillager? It’d be better to kidnap an intellectual, chain them up, and make them work.

As I was thinking that, someone suddenly knocked on the front door. I heard Jeondohyeong’s voice.

“Come out! The water’s rising outside!”

“What?”

I jumped up and looked out the window. The rain was pouring down heavily. The scene outside was tinted with a hazy gray, as if a gray filter had been applied.

I threw on a raincoat and hurried outside. Jeondohyeong was stomping his feet, pointing to the rooftop.

“That scammer and Park Yang-gun are on the rooftop.”

“Let’s go.”

We hurried up to the rooftop. Sajihyeok and Park Yang-gun, holding black umbrellas, were standing by the railing, staring blankly below.

I joined them and looked down at the street again.

It was chaos. Thin streams of water covered the roads, and manhole covers rattled, spewing water like fountains. Turning my gaze, I saw water flooding into the semi-basements of the villa buildings.

It was almost like a flood. No, if the rain kept pouring like this, a flood would happen. I quickly thought it over.

“There’s nothing stored in the semi-basements or first floor. We have enough food for now. No major issues for the time being. The problem is later.”

Sajihyeok muttered.

“The cars are going to get flooded.”

“We won’t be able to use the air conditioner anymore.”

They were right. Until now, we’d been using the car engines to generate electricity, albeit insufficiently. But if the cars broke down, we wouldn’t even be able to use our phones. We couldn’t charge them.

It was the apocalypse. If something broke, there was no way to fix it.

I looked at the flowing water. The water was sweeping away the remnants of modern civilization. Like death approaching, the water was rising.

From ankle-deep to knee-deep, the water level rose. Now the roads had become rivers, and the buildings were islands. Trash floated like buoys.

In a short time, we were isolated in a building without any rescue. I calmly said.

“Well, at least we don’t have to worry about zombies or unwelcome guests for a while.”

“That’s true.”

Park Yang-gun muttered, looking at the floating corpses.

Normally, this would be a significant disaster, but in a crumbling world, it felt like nothing. The dangers of zombies or pillagers directly threatening our lives were too numerous.

As I was thinking that, Sajihyeok suddenly jumped up and pointed somewhere.

“Look! Isn’t that canned fruit?”

Among the trash swept away by the muddy water, there was canned fruit. At a glance, it looked new. It wasn’t just an empty can.

Sajihyeok looked around, regretfully watching the canned fruit drift away.

“I wanted to eat fruit… What a shame.”

“Are you serious? You want to go out there for one can of fruit? You’d die.”

“But it’s fruit. Even if it’s not fresh, it’d be nice to have something sweet.”

Ignoring Sajihyeok and Jeondohyeong’s bickering, I turned my gaze. Though I couldn’t see it through the rain, I looked in the direction of the mountains.

Not all survivors are in the city. Some went up to the mountains, and others are farming in the outskirts or countryside. But what would happen if the rain kept pouring like this?

“The crops are probably ruined.”

The grains, fruits, and vegetables that were growing would probably rot.

Maybe the rainy season poses an even greater indirect threat. It destroys the remaining cars and infrastructure, ruins farming, and crushes civilization and resources.

I pressed down my rain hat and turned around.

“I’m going back. Watching this won’t change anything.”

***

The rain continued for two more days. The water filling the roads rose and fell repeatedly, and only after the rain stopped and more time passed did it finally disappear somewhere.

The streets were much dirtier than before. Trash littered the black asphalt like wallpaper, and cars were painted with something resembling mud.

It was a real wasteland. Not the makeshift wasteland our pillager group had created, but a mess swept through by the flood.

We went out to the streets and looked around. Park Yang-gun kicked a car.

“We can’t clean all this up.”

“Let’s just leave it. Let’s find a car that still starts first.”

Cleaning wasn’t necessary. This was natural camouflage. It gave off the vibe of an uninhabited area.

Jeondohyeong actively walked around with car keys in hand. In his other hand was a dead phone.

“Please, just start.”

He seemed bothered that he couldn’t charge his phone during the rain and couldn’t contact his girlfriend.

Meanwhile, Sajihyeok was rummaging through the trash on the street, looking for something. I approached him and asked.

“What are you doing?”

“Checking if anything useful washed up.”

“Like that canned fruit from before?”

“Yeah.”

Well, I’d like to eat fruit too. Not just fruit, but fresh food like meat, eggs, and milk.

I muttered, recalling an old news story.

“It’d be nice if a cow or chicken washed up.”

I didn’t know how to slaughter them, but still. If it were a hen, we could at least get eggs without slaughtering it.

Sajihyeok burst out laughing.

“Haha. Do you think a cow would float all the way to this city? You’ve got quite the imagination. Even if it did, it’d probably be too rotten to eat.”

What was that? Was he picking a fight? I blinked and sighed. Sajihyeok’s snarky remarks weren’t new. I had to let it go; there was no other choice.

I swung my hammer and looked around.

“I’ll keep watch for zombies or people.”

The rain had stopped. It was time for people who had been trapped indoors during the rainy season to crawl out. The rainy season was dangerous, and they’d be moving more actively to replenish the food they’d eaten while stuck inside.

Zombies were the same. Whether they had stockpiled food or starved during the rain, they’d come out to get food.

Leaving my hardworking companions on the street, I went up to the rooftop.

I could see a bit of the ruined city center. The entire city must have been swept by the rainy season. More areas would have lost power, and resources would have been further depleted.

The world, muddied by the floodwaters. The gray concrete city took on a more natural hue, and civilization crumbled a bit more.

“People must have become a bit closer to nature too.”

I thought of the people and zombies I’d seen. It had been months since the zombie outbreak. People who had lived in civilization had become primitive humans competing for survival.

I couldn’t fall behind either. I had to think and act more like a pillager.

 

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