I checked out of the hospital and wandered into the street. The entrance to the hospital was mobbed with people trying to find loved ones, people trying to get care for themselves, and authorities trying to keep everyone from trampling each other. Electricity managed to be restored to parts of the city, though underground power cables taken down by collapsing skyscrapers still left vast areas in blackouts.

I pulled out my phone and turned it on. It whirred into action, with battery power at 89%, I immediately made two phone calls. One with my wife, the other with my friend

Shin-Wae: "WHY HAVEN'T YOU CALLED?"
Me: "I just woke up from a coma"
Shin-Wae: "WHAT KIND OF MADE UP EXCUSE IS THAT?"
Me: "It's the truth, I was trapped in a tunnel that was flooding and blacked out"
Shin-Wae: "Are the cameras okay?"
Me: "Yes they are. I'm okay as well"
Shin-Wae: "You need to get on the next plane back to Kyoto right now before you get yourself killed!"
Me: "I don't think the airports even function right now, but I can call my friend Hua and ask him-"
Shin-Wae: "How do you know the airports aren't working? Do you see them for yourself or are you just assuming thing again?"
Me: "I'm going to call my friend Hua and have him get me. There's something that has come up and I won't be able to come home for a while"
Shin-Wae: "WHAT? You want to STAY in the country that just got ATTACKED?!"
Me: "It's difficult to explain, but yes"
Shin-Wae: "Hayou Mitiori if you have A SINGLE FUNCTIONING BRAIN CELL IN YOUR SKULL you will get on the next airplane out of Shanghai and GET YOUR A$$ HOME"
Me: "I'll try to call you later, I have to go"

(Hangs up)
(Calls Hua Ghenka)

Me: "Hua its me, you have a second?"
Ghenka: "Thank goodness you're alive! I was worried you were died! What happened?"
Me: "... You don't know?"
Ghenka: "Nobody does! All the news stations are down. The government has been censoring all news about the attack. Nobody knows anything except that something horrible happened and that 40,000 people are dead"
Me: "Did you say fourty THOUSAND?"

(Wife tries to call. I block it)

Ghenka
: "Forty thousand AND CLIMBING. Only a nuclear bomb has killed more people in a single instance. What the hell happened?"
Me: "Before I tell you, I need a huge favor to ask from you"
Ghenka: "What is it?"
Me: "I know that you've helped me out in the past before, and that I haven't been able to repay you. I know I haven't been a particularly good frie-"
Ghenka: "Hayou, you're my friend. If you need me to help you I'll do it. For $%'s sake you were just in the middle of some sort of attack!"
Me: "Do you think you could come pick me up? I don't know anyone else in all of China, I don't have a car-"
Ghenka: "Say no more. I'll be there. Just try to get to your hotel and DON'T STAY OUTSIDE"

(Wife tries to call. I block it)

Me: "The monster is gone, I don't have to worry about it"
Ghenka: "Monster? What monster?"
Me: "I'll explain when you get here, but basically you don't have to worry about me. I'm safe now"
Ghenka: "No you're not Hayou, you are in more danger than ever!"
Me: "What do you mean?"
Ghenka: "I don't know what has been going down in Shanghai, but everywhere else people are freaking out. People are trying to get gas, everyone's is trying to load up on food, banks are freezing withdrawals... Even ATM's are running dry. It's borderline anarchy out here, and if it's this bad out here its got to be way worse in Shanghai"

I never considered how the rest of society would react to news of a giant monster demolishing a city within minutes, but collapse of society itself seemed like a stretch even to me. Then again, there was similar worry after the Tokyo subway bombings and 9/11 attacks, so news of some monster killing 40,000 in Shanghai naturally would freak people out.

Me: "I'll get to my hotel as quickly as I can and hole up there"

(Wife tries to call. I block it)

Ghenka: "Good, I'll drive up there and meet you as soon as I can"
Me: "Wait, what about your family? Wouldn't leaving them by themselves in Fuzhou be putting them in danger?"
Ghenka: "They're vacationing in Cambodia right now, they're safer then either of us at this point"
Me: "Okay"
Ghenka: "Stay safe, I'll be there before you know it"
Me: "Okay"
Ghenka: "Tell me EVERYTHING once I get there, promise?"
Me: "Promise"
Ghenka: "Alright see you soon"
Me: "Thank you so much Hua. I'm forever in debt to you"

(Hangs up. Wife tries to call)

Will you learn to take a damn hint?

(Blocks the call. Turns phone off)


My trip back to the hotel was a much darker experience compared to my initial trip to the middle of the city, both figuratively and literally. The once remarkable clear sky was blackened by smoke from collapsed buildings and fires set by the monster. In almost every direction you looked there was some sort of plume of smoke rising from the distance. Once the power kicked back on, ever downed power line or busted pipeline suddenly sprang into life, causing all sorts of fires mayhem to pop up all around the city, spilling black smoke into the skies above.

The damage in the streets of Shanghai was also more horrific then before. Along the Yan'an road near the hospital, the same road that led to the tunnels I almost drowned in, the monster crossed the river left a wide area of rubble and smashed concrete in its wake. After crossing the river, it had used the highway as a path towards other skyscrapers it decided to eradicate, leaving a shattered highway filled rubble and debris in its wake. It took me nearly 10 minutes just to cross the highway due to how much rubble and smashed cars were in the street. It also didn't help that the road had buckled under the incredible weight of the monster as it moved, turning the street into a literal canal of carnage.

After I crossed the road, I moved south along Zhongshan road, which moved parallel to the Huangpu river just to the east. From the banks of the river, you could see the ruins of the financial center on the other side, a tremendous haze sitting over the area due to the collapse of several mega skyscrapers in close proximity to each other. Since electrical items were working again, I was now able to use my professional camera to take pictures of the damage. I did not try to cross the river to get a firsthand view of the area itself though, because the only paths leading across the river nearby were all tunnels, many of which were still flooded and packed with abandoned cars. I wasn't particularly interested in risking death a second time, so I just took pictures from my own vantage point and continued to move south.

Just south of the financial district was Yanlord Garden, a residential area populated with apartment towers that now lied in ruin. Although I didn't know it at the time, the beast crossed back across the river to damage these areas after it had finished destroying everything on the other side of the river. It laid waste to this residential area, then continued moving east before going into the Pacific Ocean. As I moved south along the riverbed, I stopped to take pictures of the area.

Thats when I ran into the first bit of trouble.

"What the hell do you think you're doing man?"

I turned around behind me to see what was causing the commotion, and saw an incensed 30 year old man local looking directly at me

Guy: "You taking pictures of those buildings like they're some sort of tourist site? People are DEAD in those buildings, have some respect!"
Me: "I'm so sorry I didn't mean any offense. I'm taking pictures for a newspaper I work for. I'm a reporter"
Guy: "Well take pictures of something else $&&hole, otherwise I'll take that camera and throw it into the river myself"
Other Guy: "Jin leave the guy alone"
First Guy: (Turns around) "No man %^&* this guy, he shouldn't be taking pictures of those buildings! You have family in those buildings!"
Other Guy: "He's just doing his job, he said he's a reporter"
First Guy: "Oh yeah?" (Turns back to face me) "What tv station you work for old man? The Senile Sentinel?"

I put my camera in my bag and attempted to move along.

Me: "The Kyoto Sun, It's a small newspaper that most people have never heard of. I'll move along-"
First Guy: "Oh you're JAPANESE eh?"
Second Guy: "Easy Jin"
First Guy: "So a Japanese monster comes to attack a Chinese city and you want to take pictures of it for your Japanese newspaper like its just another day in Japan for you?"
Me: "Japanese monster?"
First Guy: "You're kind worships giant monsters like that. You call it 'Godzilla'"

I never was much of a movie fan and wasn't particularly knowledgable about youth culture. As hard as it is to believe that a Japanese person doesn't know about Godzilla, we do exist, much like how there are some Americans who don't know anything about Star Wars.

Second Guy: "Sorry about him, we're all a little stressed out after what happened"
First Guy: "Tanka get your %&)(ing hands off me, I'm giving this guy a piece of my mind!"
Me: "I'm sorry about this. I'll move along. Have a nice day"
Second Guy: "Take care of yourself!"
First Guy: "Go %$# yourself!"

I scurried away as the second guy restrained the first guy, who proceeded on yelling all sorts of expletives both at myself and the other guy. I didn't know much about Godzilla or movie monsters, but if locals believe that the monster that attacked Shanghai is Japanese in origin, then it puts Japanese people like me in a dangerous situation. I decided to be more mindful of when I pulled my camera out to take pictures of anything.


The further away from the center of city I traveled, the worse things became, which was the exact opposite of what I anticipated. With police focusing their attention at their own stations and hospitals to maintain order (others skipped out to look out for their families) the outskirts of the town increasingly fell into disorder.

It started out light at first. At stores where all the employees already went home, someone might walk in and snatch something that was on the counter and keep walking. If a street was pretty empty and filled with abandoned cars, someone would poke through the cars and pocket anything of value. If a neighborhood got power back quickly, things would go back to normal, but those that didn't assumed the world was still ending, where things got bad.

I kept walking. Gas stations went dry fairly quickly, but not before those who owned the gas stations increased prices to exorbitant rates. The closer a gas station was to a blackout area, the quicker things went back. Ironically the opposite was true for grocery stores.

All grocery stores were mobbed pretty quick. In area's where power was working, people could still pay with credit cards, so thing remained relatively organized even though people were still incredibly anxious to say the least. In areas still without power though, only people who had cash could make any purchases. With ATM's down and banks locking people out pretty quickly, anyone lucky enough to have cash on them got all the good stuff. Everyone else had to standby and wait.

Thats when the looting started.

After crowds swelled up to a hundred or two hundred people outside, it only took a few pushy adults to muscle their way through, and then everyone else following. And then everything else fell apart.


10:44PM

(Turns on cell phone. 26 missed calls. All from Shin-Wae)

Me: "Hua, how are you doing?"
Ghenka: "Terrible. The roads are all at a standstill with people trying to get inland or to loved ones, I'm not even halfway there. Also why the hell did you turn your phone off?"
Me: "I had to turn it off because my wife was making my life hell"
Ghenka: "She's been doing that since the day you married her... Are you at your hotel?"
Me: "Not quite, but I'm almost there. My ankles are the size of mangos right now"
Ghenka: "Well hurry. I'm listening to the radio and getting calls from my friends, all of them are saying its going to sh*t... Stores raided, people attacking each other for bread. It's all coming apart"
Me: "News reports like to exaggerate everything. I would know, I work for them"
Ghenka: "Hayou you don't understand. This will absolutely get as bad as possible"

I looked around at my surroundings to make sure I was safe. No one was around, and everything was relatively quiet. I took a seat on the sidewalk.

Me: "What makes you so sure?"
Ghenka: "Sure about what?"
Me: "So sure that everything will get as bad as you think it will"
Ghenka: "Do you watch a lot of apocalypse movies? The ones where everyone has a family they're trying to protect?"
Me: "I don't watch movies, you know this"
Ghenka: "I forgot how boring you Are... You know how China's one child policy has completely screwed up the average family dynamic in a country of over a billion people?"
Me: "Yes... It's expected to cause huge problems for wages, healthcare, school systems, etc in the future"
Ghenka: "It also makes everyone that much more desperate"
Me: "I don't understand"

He sighed, then spelled it out for me.

Ghenka: "In this scenario people aren't fighting just for their families, they're fighting for entire generations... Thanks to the one-child policy, there is basically only one person that an entire family can depend on to protect them and get food for them. If that person fails, the entire BLOODLINE could be extinguished"

He paused.

Ghenka: "People aren't just fighting for their families or themselves Hayou, they're fighting for everyone before them, with them, and after them... They will fight like they have nothing to lose, because they have EVERYTHING to lose"

I didn't notice the person behind me until they pressed something hard and metallic against the back of my head.

"Drop the phone, pull out your wallet, and anything valuable in your bag"
Ghenka: "Hayou? Are you there? Hayou?"

I stood up slowly.

"Hang up the phone. Now"
Ghenka: "Hayou can hear me? Is there another attack going on?"

I hung up.


I turned around and faced the man robbing me. He had a 6 shooter revolver aimed at my head, and was very calm. Young guy slightly taller than me, very fit. Looked like he could be a steelworker, he certainly didn't need a gun to put me within an inch of death.

Him: "I don't want to hurt you, and I'll make this pretty simple. Give me your phone, wallet, and things in your bag, and you get to walk away nice and easy"
Me: "You can have my wallet, thats fine. But I really need to keep my phone and my bag"
He shook his head. "Wallet, phone, bag. All of it. Lets go"
Me: "How about my phone and wallet? They're the two most useful things I have. I'll give you both of them"

He thought about it. He could tell it was a sincere offer, but unfortunately, he wasn't the one in charge.

"The hell is taking so long?"

I looked to my left and out of a nearby alley came a gang of 4 people, one of them 6 foot 2 and looking like an olympic athlete.

Ringleader: "Take all of his stuff or shoot him. Lets go"
Other Guy: "He's willing to give up his phone and wallet without a fight"
Ringleader: "And you were thinking of accepting that offer?... Can never get good help these days"

The ringleader made his way right over to us and socked me in the jaw. I turned away at the last moment, but he still got a pretty good hit on me, and I crumbled to the ground. He snatched the gun away from the other guy

Ringleader: "If the guy is offering everything except one thing, then thing is the most valuable one of them all"

He snatched my bag off of me as I rolled around on the ground in agony and started ruffling through it.

Ringleader: "Weh-heh-hell, what do we have here?... Looks like you've been holding out on us, old man"

The single change of clothes I brought with me he tossed to the ground, and pulled out a camera. It was neither of the Kwanon 1933 camera's I needed most for my mission. Instead it was the main Nikon camera supplied from the newspaper that I used for regular business. It was worth about $1,800 and its modern bulky look made it obvious to anyone that it could fetch a pretty penny

Ringleader: "This here looks might expensive" he turned to me. "You trying to hide this from me?"

I finally managed to pull myself together from the punch to look at him. He was far bigger and more terrifying up close. From the angle I was at on the ground, he looked almost a head taller then any of his other accomplices and far more fearsome then them, even if they were armed.

Ringleader: "This is why you don't make deals with those you steal from" he waved the camera around so that the rest of his gang could see it. "They'll keep the most valuable thing for themselves and try to get away by making us look stupid.

He tossed the camera behind him to one of his associates and then grabbed me by my shirt. Hoisting me up in the air clean off my feet

Ringleader: "You trying to $#% me old man? Trying to hide what rightfully belongs to me?"
Me: "I'm sorry. I just- I just don't want to die in this country"
Ringleader: "Your Chinese is &%#*... What country are you from?"
I lied. "Korean. I'm South Korean"
Ringleader: "Heh... I would have pegged you as a filthy little Jap"

He dropped me to the ground. I crumbled on my ankles that were already sore from walking so far and writhed around in pain.

Ringleader: "Take his phone and his wallet. Take the bag as well, we could use it to store anything else we find... Leave his clothes"

One of the gang members snatched my phone and my wallet out of my pockets while the original guy with the gun stood over and watched. Another guy dumped the compartments of my bag out onto the street. The Kwanon camera's hit the ground and made a distinctly metallic sound, before one of my other articles of clothing landed on top of it.

None of the other gang members noticed as they walked away. None of them except for the ringleader.

Ringleader: "Haiwa, what are you doing?"
Gang Member: "I took the bag like you said to"
Ringleader: "Do you know what came out of it?"
Gang Member: "Nothing but clothes"

The ringleader rolled his eyes and cursed under his breath. Yanking up one of my shirts off the ground, the two Kwanon camera's were revealed in the plastic bags, one just a collection of parts, the other in pristine condition"

Ringleader: "More toys?" He picked up the camera in good condition and examined it. His face soured. "The %$# kind of camera is this?"

Still rolling around on the ground, I put on the best acting performance I could muster.

Me: "It's my fathers camera... He had someone fix it up for him, and I was picking it up and returning it to him. Then the attack happened"
Ringleader: "Looks like an old $$ camera to me"
Me: "It's a piece of &^%$ to be honest with you. It's not even digital. It needs film like those cheap Kodak camera's people threw away 20 years ago. This one means a lot to him though"

He examined the other bag with parts in it.

Ringleader: "And this?"
Me: "Another camera of the same type. Wanted to see if the guy could put it back together but he couldn't, so I brought it back"

He paused for a little bit.

Ringleader: "Your father fight in the war?"
I hesitated, not sure what he meant
Ringleader: "Did your dear old man fight in the war?"
Me: "Not WW2, but he fought in Korea"
Ringleader: "Interesting... So did my grandfather..." He paused again and examined the camera "He died fighting against South Korea"

He then turned back towards me a second time and walked towards me. Picking me up by my shirt, he once again hoisted me up into the air

Ringleader: "What do you think are the chances that your father was the man who killed my grandfather, hmm?... What are the odds that I could make up for his sacrifice right here, right now"
Me: "Impossible! It's not possible... Not possible at all..."
Ringleader: "And how can you be so sure?"
Me: "Because, he was a medic! He was just the guy who tries to help others, not kill"
Ringleader: "My father was in the infantry. He would always be on the front lines and face the most danger"

He dropped me once again, this time I managed to brace for it.

Ringleader. "How coincidental. You see, my grandfather was strong and brave and stood on the front lines, and just like him I am strong and brave and lead other men... Your father stayed off the battlefield to try to help others because he was weak, and you are too weak to defend yourself"

He dropped the camera on the ground and put the full force of his heel into it, breaking it in half.

Ringleader: "If your father was stronger and served on the front lines, then he would deserve to have his precious knick-knacks fixed for him. But cowards who stay off the battlefield like your father don't deserve the same honor as those who died fighting, like my grandfather"

With that, he took my cellphone, my wallet, and my main work camera and walked away. The rest of his gang members followed him, and they left me alone in the street behind them. After mustering what strength I could, I picked up my clothes strewn on the ground around me along with what was left of the two Kwanon cameras.

Deep inside me, in that same cavern that was illuminated by the flame of adventure and desire, the little flame that popped into existence and held its ground blew out. My dream was once again dashed, and I was in a far worse state now then if I had just played it safe.