COLLECTING WASTE

Passing through a police cordon, Woo Jin-Chul walked towards where several police cars were parked, all with their sirens blaring.

"What do we have here?" he asked the uniformed officer who seemed to be in charge.

"It's something I've never seen before... although it looks like the aftermath of a wild animal attack, it's the result of a brawl between criminal groups," the officer responded, trying not to show his discomfort.

Jin-Chul rubbed his brow as he looked at what lay before him.

On the ground, twelve black plastic bags, typically used by forensic teams, were lined up in a row.

He crouched down to unzip one of these bags, seeing something extremely unpleasant. One by one, he opened them all, recognizing the faces of the deceased.

Afterward, he walked towards the office where the bodies had been found, and the bloody scene made him swallow bitterly, fighting back nausea.

"Damn... is this really the result of a gang fight?" Jin-Chul exclaimed bitterly upon returning from examining the crime scene.

"As I said, that's the hypothesis," the officer replied with a frustrated expression. "I'm not sure if you know, but the docks are under the control of-"

"The OREX group, I know," Jin-Chul quickly responded. "They control ten out of fifteen docks."

"Yeah, and the other five were controlled by... well, they were controlled by the guys inside those bags. The thing is, this dock was under OREX's control," the officer explained.

He approached one of the bags and opened it. "This guy was part of the OREX group. He and his five helpers, apparently, were killed yesterday a few hours before the other five."

Jin-Chul stepped closer and took a look at the body the officer was showing him. Unlike the first one he saw, this one appeared to have only one wound to the chest.

"So does that mean the OREX members came and took out the invaders?" Jin-Chul wondered aloud.

"I'd like to think so, but..." the officer gestured towards another area, where several private cars and some patrol cars were gathered. "All the evidence points to the invaders orchestrating the kidnapping of the SW Group president's granddaughter."

"Damn... this is more complicated than it seems," Jin-Chul said, looking towards where the officer pointed. There, he could see several men dressed in assault gear, as if they were part of a special military force. Next to them were some police officers handcuffing a few individuals.

"And how is the girl?" Jin-Chul asked.

"She's fine, her friend too. It seems SW's security force arrived first and managed to apprehend almost everyone involved in the kidnapping," the officer replied. "But when they checked this place, they only found the bodies."

Jin-Chul looked around, searching for a specific point where he might find something to help solve this case. After a moment, he spotted CCTV cameras about a hundred meters away.

"Have you checked the security cameras?" he asked.

"We're still working on it, but I don't think it'll be of much use," the officer replied, adjusting his jacket. "None of the cameras point to this area, and the few people we've interrogated didn't see anything out of the ordinary."

"Of course, as always, no one saw anything," Jin-Chul smirked sarcastically as he took out his phone and made a call.

[Hello, Chief Woo, how are things over there?] a voice came from the other end of the phone.

Jin-Chul seemed not to have heard his subordinate's words as his eyes began searching everywhere for the source of that strange but familiar sensation.

[Chief, are you there?] without receiving an answer, the junior detective spoke again.

"Damn... I think this is starting to get to me," Jin-Chul thought as he shook his head.

"Ah... yes, sorry, I lost focus for a moment," resigning himself to finding nothing, Jin-Chul spoke into the phone with a tired and frustrated tone. "It looks like we won't be getting any sleep tonight, we've got a big case on our hands."

[Does that mean there were several deaths?]

"Yes, and this time I think there will be more trouble than usual," Jin-Chul walked slowly as he looked towards the river. "The two Hwang brothers, along with their men, all of them were brutally slaughtered and shot... it's a damn massacre."

[Damn... so there will be trouble] 

"The evidence collected suggests that the Hwang brothers were behind the kidnapping of Shin Yuna, the granddaughter of the SW Group president. They sought refuge at the dock controlled by the OREX group, so possibly they are the culprits... but their plan didn't work out well."

[Are the ones responsible for killing the Hwang brothers members of the OREX group?]

"I don't think so... if they were capable of doing that, they wouldn't have lost five docks to the Hwang brothers in the first place... I'm not sure yet, but it seems there are more people involved."

[Do you think... you-know-who's people are involved?]

"I don't know... it's possible, it may be not... this is going to get messy," Jin-Chul rubbed his brow again. "Call the Seoul General Department of Organized Crime and inform them about this. We'll soon have to deal with the uproar that all underworld groups will cause."

Jin-Chul ended the call after giving his orders.

Sighing once more, he walked around the cordoned perimeter as if searching for something, but this was more of a feint than anything else because his mind was currently in turmoil.

The reason? These past few months had been extremely chaotic.

Starting with the disastrous storm that ravaged all of Korea over half a year ago, violent crimes had been on the rise, with gang skirmishes and several murder cases.

And the latter were what worried him the most, as most of them stemmed from gang fights over control of various territories in different cities across the country.

"While South Korea has historically averaged around three hundred homicides annually, in recent months it seems like the criminals are trying to set a new record!"

"Ah, damn, that horrible storm messed everything up... Why couldn't things just continue as they were before that phenomenon," Jin-Chul bitterly complained as he continued walking.

It was because in the weeks leading up to the great storm, there had been a significant decrease in homicide and violent crime figures due to the strange and curious behavior of the criminals.

It was as if a divine mandate had decreed that South Korea be rid of these types of crimes!

This thought crossed Jin-Chul's mind due to the way crime rates were decreasing.

Because what was happening with the criminals was 'curious.' They began turning themselves in to the police.

And the reason was even crazier than the action of turning themselves in!

They all claimed that if they didn't do it, if they didn't stay locked up in jail, the humanoid 'monsters' from the darkness would kill them.

Did they all become idiots?

But, crazy as it may sound, like they were all hallucinating and suffering from the effects of some kind of drug, in the end it turned out to be true.

Jin-Chul himself had witnessed these beings, these monsters, actually existing!

Due to the existence of so many cases claiming this, the police department conducted a test where they kept some criminals out of jail to see if the monsters would indeed finish them off.

Against all expectations and rationality, what the criminals said ended up happening before their eyes in a bloody spectacle!

This left a deep impression on Jin-Chul's mind because for him it was not only the irrefutable proof of the existence of paranormal beings, but something more, much more!

For many years, Jin-Chul had experienced a strange sense of loss, as if he had forgotten something important.

But no matter how much he thought about it, he couldn't remember anything. The more he tried to think about what he had lost, all he could find was emptiness in his mind.

However, when he saw those shadow monsters appear, humanoid in shape with ant heads, besides the terrifying sensation he experienced, and as strange as it may seem, he felt nostalgic.

It was as if there was a time when he was accustomed to this situation.

And to his surprise, those monsters seemed to understand him because upon seeing him, they didn't attack; they merely chuckled?

This further piqued Jin-Chul's curiosity.

But the moment those monstrous shadows disappeared, he felt the familiar void in the corner of his heart return, and slowly he thought about those specters.

However, no matter how much he searched for cases related to those insects, he couldn't find much, as common criminals stopped turning themselves in for several days.

After the great storm, things had gotten a bit out of control with all the hysteria some people generated, but it was something that could be managed in the following days.

Nevertheless, over the months, crimes began to increase to figures higher than before the appearance of those humanoid ants, which was disheartening for the homicide department.

And the issue that had Jin-Chul pondering was related to these latter beings, as since the storm, they hadn't been seen anywhere.

"Ah, this is a disaster. If those ants are out there, I at least hope they return to torment criminals... perhaps then they can deal with this problem."

As he spoke ironically under his breath, Jin-Chul walked back to his car to sit down. The prosecutor and forensic experts would take some time to arrive, and he had to wait for them.

However, unbeknownst to the detective, two flashes of purple-blue light shimmered in the darkness at the place he had scrutinized carefully earlier.