Teeth
It didn't bite; they pulverized, ripping into her shoulder with the sickening wet crunch of a hyena tearing into a rotting carcass.
"Still warm." The man from Unit 1412 mumbled, blood freezing on his chin as he tore. "Core's still warm. Get it before it freezes."
A massive chunk of indigo hair and ragged bleeding flesh tore away from Alessia's collarbone. Arterial spray crystallized into red mist the instant it hit the subzero air, glittering like frozen rubies before shattering against the ice.
"Shoulda staked her sooner." The man from Unit 1409 rasped, fingers digging into Alessia's hip, voice muffled by frozen snot. "Meat turns quick in this cold. Goes stringy."
"Hold her." The man from Unit 1412 ordered, mouth full, breath steaming black. "She's kicking. Don't waste the liver."
"Not kicking." The man from Unit 1409 countered, yanking. "That's nerves. She's done."
A wet laugh cracked through his frozen lips. "Tastes like iron and perfume."
Jae-min couldn't scream, a suffocating terror locking his ruined throat. His trachea was shredded, veins exposed to the -70°C air, the cold searing open wounds like acid.
He could only watch, a freezing impotent despair paralyzing his muscles.
The neighbor from Unit 1412 buried his face directly into Alessia's soft stomach, a feral insatiable hunger driving his jaws.
"Shut her up!" The man from Unit 1412 hissed, fist slamming into her jaw. The crack was muffled. "Biting's easier when they don't twitch."
'A buffet. That's what we've become. Livestock.' Jae-min despaired, a hollow freezing weight settling in his gut.
Through the shattered window at the far end of the corridor, the city was gone.
Snow had buried Manila to a depth of ten meters. Only the rooftops of taller buildings broke the white plain, dark silhouettes jutting from an ocean of ice like the fins of drowned whales.
The Shore Residence tower itself was half-swallowed, lower floors entombed in blue-white ice packed so hard it had the density of concrete.
From the fourteenth floor, the snowline sat eight meters below the window ledge. A chasm of glittering crystalline white stretched to every horizon, featureless and absolute.
"See that?" The man from Unit 1412 jerked his chin toward the window, cheek bulging with flesh. "Whole damn world's a freezer now. She'll keep a week if we pack her right."
"Won't last a week." The man from Unit 1409 muttered, teeth working. "Not with 1406 listening. Smells it already."
Alessia's eyes found his through the freezing gloom. Those calm sweet blue eyes, now wide, now bulging, now glassy with the dull sheen of approaching death.
Her mouth opened in a silent scream, a raw guttural agony tearing at her vocal cords. No sound came out, just a wet choking bubble of thick dark blood bursting from her lips.
The blood already froze black as it ran down her chin, turning to dark iron crystals in the lethal cold.
'No.' Jae-min pleaded, a desperate suffocating horror tearing through his chest.
— FLASHBACK —
It was a Tuesday, a nothing Tuesday in the middle of a nothing month. He'd been carrying a box of instant noodles from the lobby courier when the door to Unit 1419 swung open.
Indigo hair. Blue eyes that caught the fluorescent hallway light like stained glass.
She was wearing a cream-colored cardigan too big for her, the sleeves pulled over her knuckles, holding a potted succulent in both hands like it was a newborn.
She looked at him. He looked at her.
"New neighbor?" Alessia offered, a small curious warmth brightening her voice.
"Yeah. 1418." Jae-min answered, a nervous flutter quickening his chest, shifting the box under one arm. "Jae-min."
"Alessia." Alessia supplied, adjusting the succulent against her hip. "I'm a doctor."
"So if you ever need someone to tell you that instant noodles are not a food group, I'm right next door." A playful easy confidence softened her face.
He'd laughed. A real laugh. The first one in weeks.
— FLASHBACK END —
That was eight months ago. Now her face was being eaten.
Jae-min tried to crawl, a frantic desperate will forcing his ruined limbs to move.
His fingernails, blackened with frostbite, scraped violently against the frozen concrete. A sharp grinding pain shot through his fingertips.
Nails snapped backward, tearing from the nailbeds, a blinding agony shooting up his arms. Bright red blood smeared the slick black ice, blood that froze the instant it left his skin, crackling into dark crimson frost.
Hands grabbed his ankles, a crushing immovable grip locking around his bones. Bony. Impossibly strong.
Jaws clamped down on his calf, a savage tearing pressure ripping through the muscle. Muscle tore like wet paper, fibers snapped.
The fibula shattered like a frozen twig with a muffled crack that sent a freezing jagged fire traveling up his spine and detonating in his skull.
He didn't look back, a stubborn defiant refusal anchoring his gaze. He kept his eyes locked on her.
'I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.' Jae-min begged, a frantic self-loathing despair crushing his mind.
More hands. More teeth. They dragged him backward across the ice, a brutal scraping friction burning his exposed skin.
A child from the 10th floor sank its teeth into his exposed ribs, a feral gnashing hunger driving the bite, cracking bone and tearing out a mouthful of lung tissue.
The wet crunch echoed off the frozen concrete walls, muffled by the howling wind that funneled through the corridor like a dying animal.
A woman, Mrs. Dela Cruz, gnawed on his wrist like a starving feral dog, a sickening relentless pressure crushing the joint, grinding the radius bone to powder.
The smell of copper, ozone, and frozen iron filled the corridor like a suffocating fog.
Through the blinding freezing agony, his mind fractured, a desperate escape retreating into the burning past.
— FLASHBACK —
He didn't find out about Marcus Dela Cruz until two weeks after he found Kiara's second phone, the convicted felon she'd been sleeping with behind his back.
'Marcus Dela Cruz. Convicted felon. She was fucking him for two weeks before I found out.' Jae-min recalled, a cold disgust churning his stomach.
And he didn't find out about Marcelo Villacorte until a month after that, the forty-three-year-old businessman who called Kiara his 'investment' while she was still wearing Jae-min's promise ring.
'Three men. She was running three of us at the same time, and none of us knew.' Jae-min remembered, a hollow nausea rising in his throat.
"You're suffocating me, Jae-min." Kiara seethed, a venomous rage lacing her voice, already halfway out the door. "You're too much. You've always been too much."
"The touching. The needing." Kiara continued, her voice sharpening. "God, the insatiable thing you do where you can't keep your hands off me for five consecutive minutes. I can't breathe around you."
He'd sat on the floor of Unit 1418 for six hours. Didn't move. Didn't eat. The unit was dark.
His phone buzzed: Ji-yoo, Uncle Rico, his mother, but he didn't answer. The silence was so heavy it pressed against his chest like a physical weight.
At midnight, there was a soft knock at the door. He didn't answer — another knock, gentler.
"Jae-min?" Alessia called, a soft probing concern muffled through the door.
He didn't open the door. But he heard her slide down against the wall on the other side.
He heard her sit there quietly for twenty minutes. Then, through the door, softly:
"You don't have to talk." Alessia breathed, a tender, unwavering warmth softening her voice. "I just wanted you to know that I'm here."
"Door's right next door. Literally." Alessia continued, her voice steady despite the hour. "I brought sinigang. It's on the floor. I know it's midnight. My shifts are weird."
"The rice might be clumpy." Alessia added, a tired self-deprecating warmth barely audible through the door. "But it's there if you want it."
She left. He found the container outside his door at 3 AM. Sinigang, still faintly warm, wrapped in a kitchen towel. There was a sticky note on the lid.
You're not too much — Alessia
Three words. Blue ink. Neat doctor handwriting.
He ate the whole thing sitting on the kitchen floor, crying into the bowl like a child. She never mentioned it. Not once.
The next time they crossed paths in the hallway, she just smiled that same small smile from moving day.
"Your pupils are unequal." Alessia pressed, a sharp clinical concern narrowing her eyes. "Have you been sleeping?"
She'd reached up, tilted his chin with two fingers, and peered at his eyes like he was a patient.
"Mild anisocoria. Probably fatigue." Alessia stated, a crisp matter-of-fact authority snapping her voice. "Sleep. Water. In that order."
She was already turning to leave. She kept leaving food at his door. Sinigang on Mondays. Adobo on Wednesdays. Sometimes just a Tupperware of cut mangoes with no note at all.
Two weeks after Kiara, he finally left his condo unit, a fierce restless need driving his legs. Not for work. Not for groceries.
He walked to her door. Unit 1419. Raised his hand. Lowered it. Raised it again.
"I heard you pacing." Alessia murmured, a knowing quiet amusement leaning her against the doorframe.
Indigo hair loose around her shoulders. Bare feet. An oversized hospital scrub top that said ST. LUKE'S in faded letters across the chest.
"Your footsteps are distinctive." Alessia observed, a perceptive doctorly precision lacing her words. "Heavy left heel. You drag your right foot when you're tired."
"You've been tired for two weeks." Alessia noted, her blue eyes tracing the shadows under his.
"I'm a doctor." Alessia offered, a gentle unpretentious simplicity in her voice.
"Why?" Jae-min asked, a raw cracked vulnerability scraping his throat.
"Why, what?" Alessia tilted, a curious patience lifting her head.
"The food. The door. The—" Jae-min stopped, a raw aching frustration choking the rest. He swallowed. "You don't know me."
"I know you bring your sister instant noodles every time she's here." Alessia replied, a quiet observant warmth grounding her words.
"I know you stay up until 2 AM because your living room light is always on." Alessia continued, her voice steady and sure. "I know you have terrible posture when you read and excellent posture when you're angry."
"I know you talked to the stray cat in the parking garage for fifteen minutes last Thursday." Alessia added, the corner of her mouth lifting.
She paused. Her voice softened.
"I know what it looks like when someone is breaking." Alessia whispered, a heavy compassionate weight settling in her voice. "I see it at the hospital every day."
She stepped aside. Held the door open.
"Come in." Alessia murmured, a tired welcoming smile softening her face. "I made too much tocino."
He went in. He didn't leave until 4 AM.
They sat on her couch and talked about nothing. Hospital stories, the building's broken elevator, the difference between Korean and Filipino instant ramyeon, whether aliens existed.
"Probably." Alessia offered, a playful speculative tilt in her voice.
"That's a very unscientific opinion for a doctor." Jae-min countered, a dry teasing warmth edging his tone.
"I'm a doctor, not an astrophysicist." Alessia retorted, a mock-defensive indignation straightening her posture.
"Close enough." Jae-min returned, a quiet genuine amusement easing through his exhaustion.
She threw a pillow at his head. For the first time in months, the silence between them didn't feel like a wound.
Two, three times a week, one of them would knock. Or text. Or just leave their door slightly ajar, and the other would appear with food or a bad movie or a bottle of cheap wine that Alessia swore was medicinal.
Their spot was the hallway. Always the hallway.
The 14th-floor corridor of Shore Residence 3, Building B, at 11 PM. The fluorescent lights buzzing. Their backs against opposite walls, sitting on the cold tile floor, facing each other across a two-meter gap.
She'd bring a blanket. He'd bring whatever junk food Ji-yoo had stocked his kitchen with. They'd eat. Talk. Sometimes not talk. Just sit.
He fell in love with her on a Wednesday, a slow devastating current pulling him under.
'I'm in love with her.' Jae-min realized, a profound terrifying certainty settling in his chest.
He said nothing. He buried it.
'Love is a weapon. Kiara taught me that.' Jae-min hardened, a cold surgical lesson carving itself deeper into his chest. 'Vulnerability is an invitation to be destroyed.'
Every time she laughed, that quiet tired real laugh that crinkled the corners of her blue eyes, every time she tucked her indigo hair behind her ear, every time she fell asleep against the hallway wall and he carried her to her door, gentle, careful, never going inside, always leaving, he knew.
He knew. He just never said it.
— • • • —
She'd knocked on his door at 10 PM, a bone-deep exhaustion sagging her shoulders. He'd opened it.
She was standing there in her hospital scrubs, hair tied back, looking exhausted.
"Bad day?" Jae-min asked, a quiet concerned warmth in his voice, already sliding down the wall across from her.
She nodded, a heavy resigned fatigue pulling her down. Slid down the wall to the floor.
He sat across from her. Their usual spot. Two meters of hallway tile between them. She was quiet for a long time.
"I held a seven-year-old's hand today while he died." Alessia declared, a steady surgical detachment anchoring her voice, her hands trembling in her lap. "His mother was in the next room. She didn't make it either."
"He looked at me." Alessia continued, a raw bleeding grief cracking beneath the detachment. "Right at the end. Like he thought I could save him."
"And I couldn't." Alessia whispered, her voice fracturing. "I never can."
"You save people all the time." Jae-min murmured, a fierce aching tenderness gripping his chest.
"I fix people." Alessia admitted, a quiet devastating honesty pulling her gaze to his. "That's different."
And for a moment, the surgical mask came down. Underneath, she was just tired. Just human.
"Do you ever feel like you're waiting for something, Jae-min?" Alessia searched, a vulnerable hope softening her voice. "Like everything up to now has just been... practice?"
He stared at her. His heart was hammering so hard he was sure she could hear it.
"Yeah." Jae-min breathed, a profound terrified longing catching the words in his throat. "Every day."
She held his gaze for three seconds. Four. Five. The hallway hummed around them.
Then she smiled. Small. Sad. Real.
"Me too." Alessia whispered, a fragile unguarded warmth trembling in her voice.
He could have reached across those two meters and touched her hand. He could have said the words. He could have ended the silence that was slowly killing him.
He didn't. He smiled back. Nodded. Changed the subject to whether the building's water heater had been fixed.
She played along. They talked for another hour. He walked her to her door.
"Goodnight." Alessia murmured, a lingering wistful tenderness holding her blue eyes on his.
"Goodnight." Jae-min breathed, a profound aching regret catching the word in his throat.
He went back to Unit 1418. Closed the door. Pressed his forehead against the cold metal.
'Idiot. You absolute fucking idiot.' Jae-min cursed, a bitter self-destructive rage burning in his skull.
Two days later, the world froze.
— FLASHBACK END —
'I gave my heart to a whore, and when a real woman touched my soul, I was too much of a coward to say the words.' Jae-min grieved, a bitter annihilating weight crushing his shattered heart. 'Now she's being devoured, and I'll never get the chance.'
Something inside him broke. Not his mind. Something deeper. Something older.
The last thread of a man who had spent his whole life being too afraid to speak.
He wrenched his legs free, a desperate savage will tearing him loose.
The child's teeth ripped a strip of muscle from his ribs as he tore away, the flesh tearing like frozen meat, the wound instantly rimed with frost.
Mrs. Dela Cruz's jaws locked on his wrist, bone snapped like a frozen twig, ligaments screamed, but he pulled, a furious unyielding refusal bending the pain into fuel.
Three meters of frozen concrete between them.
His ruined legs dragged uselessly, leaving a smeared trail of blood that froze black against the ice, exposed tissue glittering with ice crystals.
His shattered fibula ground against the floor with every movement, a white absolute universe of agony compressed into every nerve ending.
He crawled, a relentless love-driven fury forcing his body beyond its limits.
As he dragged himself past the corridor window, the full scale of the burial pressed against the glass.
Ten meters of snow had turned Metro Manila into a graveyard of white. The EDSA highway was invisible, buried under a frozen ridge that had swallowed every vehicle, every overpass, every structure below four stories.
In the distance, the Makati skyline was reduced to a row of dark stumps poking from the ice, their upper floors sheathed in rime like bones picked clean.
— FLASHBACK —
She'd worked a thirty-six-hour shift, back-to-back emergency surgeries, and showed up at his door at midnight swaying on her feet, scrub cap still on her head.
"I'm fine. Just tired." Alessia insisted, a fading stubborn pride keeping her voice steady, swaying on her feet, a hand pressed to her temple. "My blood sugar is probably—"
He'd caught her before she hit the floor, a sharp protective terror surging through his arms.
She weighed almost nothing. Lighter than she should have been. He could feel her ribs through her scrubs.
He carried her to Unit 1419. Fumbled for her key, she'd mumbled something into his chest about "back pocket, don't look, pervert," and got the door open.
Laid her on the couch. Pulled off her shoes. Found a blanket.
She grabbed his wrist as he turned to leave, a fragile desperate insistence locking her fingers around his skin.
"Stay." Alessia whispered, a vulnerable unguarded need barely audible in her voice, her eyes already closing.
He stayed. He sat on the floor beside the couch, his back against it, and listened to her breathe. In and out. Slow and steady.
At some point, her hand found his hair. Her fingers, surgeon's fingers, precise and delicate, traced through the strands absently. A doctor's instinct to soothe.
He sat there until dawn. He didn't sleep.
When she woke, she looked down at him and blinked. Then she laughed. That quiet tired real laugh.
"You stayed." Alessia noted, a warm surprised affection softening her voice.
"Someone has to make sure you eat." Jae-min rasped, a rough gruff tenderness roughening his throat.
He stood before she could see his face. He made her breakfast. Pancakes from a box mix. They were terrible. She ate four of them anyway.
That morning, at her door, she'd touched his arm. Just for a second.
Her thumb traced a small circle on his wrist, right over his pulse point. Checking. Always checking.
"Your heart rate is elevated." Alessia murmured, a knowing quiet observation softening her voice.
"I know." Jae-min admitted, a raw aching fear choking the confession, turning away so she couldn't see his face.
— FLASHBACK END —
Now, crawling through blood and ice toward her, he would give anything, every organ, every bone, every remaining second of his miserable life, for one more morning of terrible pancakes.
One more night of her fingers in his hair. One more hallway conversation at 11 PM.
Fingers that barely existed anymore, blackened and peeling, reached for her, a final desperate love extending what remained of his hand.
Alessia's hand found his. Her fingers, cold, slick with blood, trembling violently, interlaced with what remained of his.
Her grip was weak. Fading. But she held on. She squeezed.
Their eyes met. Those empty ruined sockets where her beautiful blue eyes had been.
A man grabbed Alessia's face, a brutal possessive hunger seizing her skull. Sank his filthy thumbs directly into her eye sockets. Pushed. Popped them.
Thick gelatinous fluid and ruptured blood vessels squirted out, crystallizing into icy droplets the instant it hit the frozen air, running down her cheeks like dark tears of frozen glass.
Jae-min's heart stopped, an annihilating hollow shock detonating in his chest. Not from the massive blood loss. From the sound.
The wet squelching crunching sound of her skull cracking open like a frozen egg, brittle and sharp, the crack reverberating off the corridor walls.
More teeth. More hands. They descended on both of them now.
A frozen teenager sank broken incisors into Jae-min's shoulder blade, a ravenous tearing hunger ripping through muscle to the scapula, the wet crunch of bone and frozen flesh grinding together.
Another neighbor, a man he'd shared an elevator with a hundred times, buried his face in Alessia's exposed thigh, a feral gorging desperation driving his jaws.
The wet grinding sounds filled the frozen corridor like a nightmare symphony, each wet tear of flesh accompanied by the sharp sterile smell of ozone and frozen copper.
They ate them together. Slowly. Methodically. Piece by piece.
Jae-min felt each bite. Each pull. Each crack of bone and tear of flesh.
His left arm went numb first, the shoulder joint dislocated, then consumed. His hip shattered under the weight of three frozen bodies gnawing simultaneously, bones splintering like frozen branches.
Alessia never let go.
Even when her fingers were nothing but shattered bone and exposed tendons, she held on, a fierce unyielding love anchoring her grip beyond the death of her body.
Her other hand reached up, trembling, barely functional, and found his face, a final tender gesture guiding her ruined fingers to his cheek.
Her palm, wet and cold, pressed against his cheek. The last touch of warmth he would ever feel.
'Kiara never held my hand. Kiara never sat outside my door at midnight.' Jae-min agonized, a fierce gratitude tearing through his dying heart. 'Alessia did. Every day. For three months. Without asking for anything.'
'I love you.' Jae-min confessed, a profound agonizing grief ripping through his shattered heart.
He tried to say it. His destroyed throat produced nothing. Just a wet pathetic gurgle.
Dark blood bubbled between his teeth, freezing to black crystals on his lips the instant it touched the frigid air.
Alessia's mangled lips moved, a final fading effort shaping soundless words. He couldn't hear her. Couldn't see her eyes anymore.
But he felt her thumb trace a slow circle against his cheekbone. The same way she always did when she was nervous, when she wanted to say something but couldn't find the words.
Maybe she said it. Maybe she didn't. He would never know.
Ji-yoo's face. Mom. Dad. All of them gone because he was useless. Because he was weak.
'Please.' Jae-min begged, a frantic bleeding desperation escaping his soul. 'God. Anyone. Something.'
'I'll do anything.' Jae-min vowed, a manic terrifying resolve seizing his mind. 'Give me one more chance.'
'I'll save them all. Ji-yoo. Mom. Dad. Alessia.' Jae-min pledged, a fierce overwhelming love obliterating the pain. 'I'll find the words. I'll protect her. I'll kill every single one of them with my bare hands.'
'JUST GIVE ME ONE MORE!' Jae-min roared, an explosive shattering defiance tearing from his core.
Something inside him snapped. Not his body. Something deeper.
A metaphysical cord that connected his soul to the dying world. It vibrated. Hummed. Shattered like spun glass.
Time stopped. The teeth in his shoulder froze mid-bite. The blood hanging in the air crystallized into perfect floating red spheres.
Alessia's falling eyelash was suspended in the air like a feather. Their hands were still interlaced. Her broken fingers locked with his.
Even in frozen time, they held on.
A crack split through the air in front of him. Black. Fractured. Wrong.
An absolute void in the fabric of reality. Space tore open. And Jae-min fell through.
— • • • —
Warmth. A low electrical humming. The smell of expensive lavender and stale split-type air conditioning.
Jae-min gasped, a violent desperate inhale burning his lungs with hot air.
His hands flew to his throat, a frantic disoriented terror searching his own skin. Whole. Smooth skin.
His chest. Whole. His legs. Whole.
He scrambled up, a wild disoriented panic tangling his legs in the bed sheets. He fell to the floor, a graceless crash slamming his elbow hard against the cheap particle-board nightstand.
Pain. Normal pain. A sharp throbbing ache in his joint. Not teeth. Not bone-crushing jaws.
He was hyperventilating, a ragged uncontrolled panic burning his lungs with every breath.
The room was sweltering. 36°C. Even the split-type AC mounted high on the wall struggled against the brutal Philippine summer, its constant hum fighting a losing battle as waves of trapped heat lingered inside the room.
He looked around, his eyes wild, a frantic searching terror sweeping the room.
Shore Residence 3. Building B. Unit 1418.
His phone buzzed loudly on the floor where it had fallen. The screen lit up, blinding him.
March 17. 6:47 AM.
Jae-min stopped breathing, a cold calculating terror gripping his throat.
The plane hadn't taken off. Ji-yoo was alive. Alessia was alive. Next door. Unit 1419. Just a thin cheap wall between them.
'I held her hand while she died.' Jae-min realized, a bitter suffocating guilt crushing his chest. 'I didn't lose her because of the apocalypse. I lost her because I never said the words.'
He pressed his palms against his eyes, a shuddering overwhelming grief wracking his shoulders.
Not from the cold. From the weight of remembering.
Her fingers on his wrist checking his pulse. Her falling asleep against the wall and him carrying her home.
Terrible pancakes and 11 PM silences and her laugh, God, her laugh, and the way she said "stay" like it was the easiest word in the world.
'Not this time.' Jae-min resolved, a fierce unyielding determination replacing his despair. 'I won't stay silent.'
He reached for the spiral notebook on his desk, a focused urgent need driving his hand. Pen in hand.
He pressed so hard the plastic tip nearly snapped against the paper. He wrote three words.
TWENTY-NINE DAYS LEFT
He stared at the dark ink. The shaking slowly stopped. The crying stopped.
In its place, something steadier settled into his chest, a warm unyielding certainty that comes not from cold but from love fierce enough to burn.
'I don't know what tore me out of hell. I don't care.' Jae-min declared, a fierce burning resolve igniting his mind.
Kiara was still alive. The neighbors were still alive. But Alessia was alive.
And this time, he wouldn't stay silent.
He had twenty-nine days to save his family. Twenty-nine days to turn Unit 1418 into an impenetrable fortress. Twenty-nine days to become someone who could protect her.
Jae-min stood up, a resolute iron will forcing his legs to hold his weight.
He walked to the front door, a cautious urgent need driving his steps. Just to check. Just to make sure the world was real and not another freezing nightmare.
He unlocked it. Opened it.
The hallway was quiet. Warm morning light filtered through the dusty windows at the end of the corridor. Normal. Peaceful.
Then he looked left. Unit 1419.
The door was open. Just a crack. A sliver of cool darkness.
And someone was watching him through the gap.
A single piercing blue eye.