It was a moment when even the gods bowed their heads, as the Bangkok sky became shrouded in an unsettling shade of dark red, resembling dried blood.
Low-hanging clouds threatened to crush the spires of the Grand Palace, and the air felt thick and viscous with a rusty gelatinous quality. The bustling city fell into a deathly silence, broken only occasionally by cold, flickering sparks from a severed BTS Skytrain line in the purple-black mist in the distance.
Ah Zhan stood by the broken window of his hotel and watched the first raindrop land on the windowsill.
It wasn't transparent, but a murky, dark red liquid. It fell onto the concrete with a faint hiss, like hot oil being poured into a pan. As it sliced across the glass, it left dark red streaks that lingered, as if the entire city were silently slitting its own veins under this sky.
'It's begun,' he murmured to himself.
To him, this was more than just rain; each drop contained an extremely concentrated 'desire'. It was a curse from the depths of the Earth, swept up to the clouds by the monsoon and fed back to all living beings in the cruelest way possible.
His chest began to burn intensely; the 'Life-Eating Curse' tattoo beneath seemed to sense a maternal call, trying desperately to burst through his skin and absorb the nourishment from the red rain.
Below the inn, on the street, the survivors who had been hiding in the shadows erupted into the most desperate howls the moment they were drenched by the rain — not screams of injury, but the sounds of internal organs being forcibly reorganised and some foreign will brutally invading.
Ah Zhan closed his eyes and could hear the city writhing in decay. This 'red rain' was both a baptism and a judgement, filtering out all weak souls and leaving only pure demons driven by desire.
He tightened his grip on the long sword at his side, his palms clammy with cold sweat. In this crimson, damp world, he felt like a drowning prisoner, desperately searching for the coolness of the north. The crimson rain formed a dense curtain, tearing the concrete jungle of Bangkok to pieces.
Ah Zhan had to leave the hotel because the inhibitor's effects were rapidly waning in this eerie rain. He could feel the black buds rubbing merrily against his spine as if awaiting a grand feast.
'Dad said that when the red rain falls, you must find clean water; otherwise, even your bones will turn to wood,' he thought, gritting his teeth as he tightly tied a rag soaked in strong liquor to his mouth and nose. This folk remedy had been passed down from the slum's corpse collectors. Though pungent and irritating, it blocked the cloyingly sweet smell of spores in the air.
He had just stepped through the hotel's back door when he bumped into an uninvited guest.
It was Officer Zack.
The once spirited young policeman was now huddled pathetically under the awning by the back door of the hotel, his tattered uniform exposing blistered arms — scars from the 'red rain'. Even more alarming were Zack's bloodshot eyes, with a ring of fine red veins spreading rapidly around the edges of his pupils.
'A-Zhan… help me…' Zack leaned against the damp brick wall, his body trembling violently as he clutched a bottle of unopened water tightly in his hand — almost his last shred of sanity. 'They... they've all gone mad.'
A-Zhan glanced at the street, his pupils contracting sharply.
The pedestrians, drenched by the red rain, were kneeling in the mud and vomiting frantically. They weren't vomiting food scraps, but clumps of dark purple flesh and blood, still slightly writhing. With each clump, their eyes grew redder until they finally became deathly figures, crystalline and ruby-red, devoid of any emotion.
"That's 'tyre changing'," said A-Zhan, pushing Zack's outstretched hand away coldly. 'They're spitting out the parts that belong to "humans". You're running out of time, Zack."
'I have medicine in the police station's armoury. There's a military-grade neutraliser.' Zack gasped for breath as he pulled a keycard from his pocket. 'There's a water purification system there; it can shield us from this rain. A-Zhan, take me there. I can give you the armoury code."
It was a deal he couldn't refuse because A-Zhan needed heavy weapons and a secluded space to escape the red rain.
The two of them rushed into the rain.
The red rain fell on A-Zhan's skin, causing wisps of white smoke to rise. It felt like being bitten by countless burning ants; with each step, he could feel the asphalt beneath his feet softening. Giant tropical plants mutated by the Gu poison were growing at an astonishing rate, nourished by the rain. Thorny vines coiled around the streetlights like giant pythons, transforming the once orderly street into a bizarre jungle.
"Turn left! Go through that 7-Eleven!" Zack shouted.
As the effects of the drug wore off, A-Zhan's vision began to blur. As they passed the convenience store, three 'red-eyed' infected leapt out from behind the shelves. They moved even faster than the previous Desire-like beings and their fingers had mutated into raptor-like talons.
A-Zhan drew his longsword, a cold, silver flash slicing through the dark red rain.
'Thud!'
The foremost infected creature was cut in half at the waist, but did not fall. Its terrifying red eyes remained fixed on A-Zhan and black fleshy buds protruded from the wound, trying to grab his ankle.
'These monstrous things don't die in the rain!' A-Zhan turned and kicked the severed torso away, smashing open the heavy riot doors of the police station.
The moment they stumbled into the lobby, the police's automated defence system blared an alarm.
'Biological contamination detected. Isolation procedure initiated.'
The heavy gate slammed shut, blocking out the torrent of red rain and screams. Inside the lobby, several desiccated corpses in police uniforms were scattered across the floor, while the red rainwater slowly trickled down the drains.
Leaning against the wall, A-Zhan gasped for air. He turned to look at Zack, who was staring intently at the four-faced Buddha statue in the centre of the lobby. The red light emanating from his eyes was so intense that it seemed as though it was about to bleed. 'Zack, wake up!'
A-Zhan grabbed Zack by the collar and slammed him against the bulletproof glass.
Zack's teeth chattered as he pressed his abdomen desperately, a low, inhuman chanting sound emanating from his throat — the lust-inducing poison was taking control of his vocal cords.
"Kill me... Ah Zhan... I saw them... I saw the 'voices'... They were saying... this is divinely granted evolution..." Zack squeezed out the words through clenched teeth.
Ah Zhan looked at the policeman who had once upheld justice. A sense of absurd sorrow rose within him. Before this red rain, all laws, order and badges were no match for a few drops of blood corroding reason.
'There is no evolution; you are just rotting.' Ah Zhan's voice was cold and devoid of warmth, but his hand trembled so much that he could not grip the knife.
He pushed Zack aside and rushed towards the armoury, unlocking the hidden lock with his access card. However, instead of the life-saving medicine, he saw a scene of despair:
In the centre of the armoury, the cold storage cabinet had been torn apart by purple vines. All the serum and inhibitors were encased in a viscous, sporangium-like substance. These pulsated slowly in the moisture seeping in from the red rain, emitting a nauseating, heart-pounding rhythm.
This curse had completely assimilated Bangkok's last antibody. 'There's no more medicine...' A-Zhan slumped to the ground, staring at the black blood seeping from his chest. The tattoo of the Hanuman war god on his body seemed to mock his incompetence. The festering flesh had spread to his collarbone and was advancing towards his neck.
Suddenly, the police station's surveillance screen flickered.
The static image disappeared and was replaced by a high-definition camera feed from a light rail station in central Bangkok.
On the light rail platform, which was completely covered in strangler fig trees, a slender figure stood amidst the swirling red rain. She wore no protective clothing, allowing the highly corrosive rain to lash her body. However, when the red rain touched the air a few centimetres around her, it automatically dissipated, turning into wisps of azure smoke.
It was Marin.
The Naga staff in her hand emitted a faint yet resolute light, illuminating her clear, stubborn yet compassionate eyes.
She seemed to sense the camera's presence, or perhaps she sensed the despair in A-Zhan's eyes behind the screen.
Marin slowly raised her staff and pointed it at the camera, moving her lips barely perceptibly.
Although Zhan couldn't hear her, he could read her lips as she said two words:
'Wait for me.'
Immediately afterwards, the power system at the police station completely collapsed, plunging the area into utter darkness. Zhan heard Zack vomiting violently behind him.
The viscous, fleshy sound of flesh hitting the ground foreshadowed the death of the last policeman.
In this desolate city of red rain, Zhan's long-dormant heart, the symbol of humanity, trembled once more — a faint yet painful tremor — because of that strange girl.
In this rotten world, hope brought more excruciating pain than a curse. The backup power supply inside the police station hissed ominously, the dim emergency lights flickering in the darkness and casting distorted, eerie shadows of the two men onto the wall.
'Ugh—!'
Zack gagged again, this time vomiting purple fibres and a calcified bone fragment with teeth marks. He knelt on the ground, digging his fingernails deep into the marble tiles in agony, snapping three nail beds in the process. Blood mixed with the remnants of the crimson rain, forming a grotesque arc on the floor.
'Ah Zhan... help me... help me end it...'
Zack raised his head. His left eye had turned completely translucent ruby red; the pupil had disappeared, replaced by a slowly rotating black vortex — the sign that the 'Desire Gu' had fully parasitised him, devouring his reason with its emptiness of desire.
Ah Zhan gripped his longsword tightly; the blade reflected a ghastly white light in the dim light. The 'Life-Eating Curse' on his chest was becoming increasingly violent due to the resonance of the War Reserve Kuli spore pods. He could feel countless cold hands crawling up his veins towards his brain, trying to imprison his will in a dark cage.
'You're a cop, Zack,' said Ah Zhan in a low voice, as if he were speaking to himself. "Don't let that thing flaunt itself in your skin."
"Kill…" A puff of dark red smoke escaped from Zack's throat.
The next moment, he lunged at A-Zhan with superhuman speed, like a drawn crossbow. His movements were no longer those of a policeman, but were instead possessed of a primal purity born of plunder. His fingertips left faint purple streaks as they sliced through the air.
A-Zhan dodged to the side, his longsword slashing horizontally. However, the instant the blade pierced flesh, he felt no resistance from cutting through muscle; rather, it was as if he were slicing through a clump of resilient, withered grass.
A huge gash had been ripped open in Zack's abdomen, but none of his internal organs had spilled out. Instead, countless thorny, reddish-brown vines sprouted from the wound. They seemed to possess a mind of their own, quickly coiling around A-Zhan's blade and spreading up his arm.
"Damn it!"
Zhan discarded his knife and delivered a heavy Muay Thai-style knee strike to Zack's face.
With a crack, Zack's nose shattered, yet a strangely compassionate smile appeared on his face, as if a deity were looking down upon all beings in a temple.
'Azhan... I saw it... it's paradise...' Zack's voice overlapped, as if a thousand people were whispering in his throat simultaneously.
Azhan felt an unprecedented wave of nausea. He grabbed a contraband item from the armoury shelf intended for cleaning biological waste: a thermite grenade.
"To hell with paradise."
He pulled out the pin abruptly, shoved the grenade into Zack's wound, which had now closed, and leaped backward with all his might.
"Boom!"
A blinding white light instantly engulfed the police station lobby. The thermite exploded at 3000°C in the confined space, providing a near-divine purification. Azhan was thrown back by the aftershocks of the explosion and slammed heavily against the bulletproof glass. A wave of ringing washed over him.
Amidst the swirling sparks, he saw Zack's body writhing and charring in the flames. The purple vines, shimmering in the intense heat, emitted a piercing scream like a baby's cry before finally dissipating into foul-smelling wisps of black smoke.
At that moment, Zack's remaining right eye regained its clarity. He looked at Azhan, silently opening his mouth as if to speak.
He said, 'Thank you.' Flames licked at everything flammable inside the police station, billowing thick smoke.
Azhan knelt at the edge of the inferno, vomiting profusely. The explosion had left him with severe injuries: three broken ribs on his right side and extensive burns. However, he was even more terrified by the fact that these seemingly fatal injuries were healing rapidly under the influence of the 'Life-Eating Curse'.
He could hear his bones returning to place and see pink flesh growing rapidly beneath the charred skin, accompanied by black runes.
'What am I...' He looked at his regenerating hands, his eyes filled with disgust.
He had become a prisoner, forever trapped; death was a luxury he could only dream of. Zack died in the afterglow of justice, yet he had to continue his journey through this decaying ruin.
He remembered the girl who had appeared on the monitor screen earlier: Marlene.
In that desolate, blood-soaked wasteland, she was the only 'cold and serene' presence. While A-Zhan represented life struggling against decay, Marlene was a ray of holy light forcibly cleaving through this filthy hell.
A-Zhan staggered to his feet and took the unopened bottle of purified water Zack had left on the ground; those heavy weapons were utterly powerless against the 'Desire Gun'.
He stepped out of the police station. The red rain outside had gradually subsided, but Bangkok had been completely transformed.
The streets were awash with red mud and groups of infected people, still vomiting, lurked in the shadows. Their backs were slightly hunched and their eyes gleamed like rubies in the darkness. They didn't attack Ah Zhan, but watched him leave with a gaze that was almost awe-inspiring and almost sympathetic.
This look chilled Ah Zhan to the bone.
He looked north.
The sky above Chiang Mai was still shrouded in purple mist, but the resonance of the Naga Staff grew clearer — a cool power carrying the scents of jasmine and damp earth that slowly soothed the restlessness and depression caused by the curse.
'Wait for me,' he repeated softly.
He was no longer running away to find an inhibitor; he was running away to find someone who could truly end his 'immortality'.
Ah Zhan turned away from the police station, which was engulfed in flames, and stepped onto the railway tracks leading north. In the cracks of the embankment beneath his feet, countless exotic flowers, nourished by the red rain, were quietly blooming. Crimson patterns intertwined on their petals to form intricate scriptures.
Meanwhile, far away in the jungles of Chiang Mai, Ma Lin sat beneath a withered strangler fig tree, stroking her staff. She seemed to hear a heavy sigh carried on the wind.
Two souls, cursed by fate yet driven by hope, had finally embarked on a blood-soaked expedition that was destined to reshape all of Siam after this baptism of red rain.