Drip. Drip. Drip.
The sound of water falling in the darkened pool rang out unusually loud. Perhaps because the space was so vast and quiet, the sound of droplets — impossible to pinpoint from where — seemed to bore straight into the skull and reverberate against the eardrums.
The slowly brightening sky had cast the pool’s floor and walls in a distinctly blue glow, and the smell of chlorine drifted up from the water that filled it to the brim.
How many seconds would someone have to be submerged in that water before they died.
Chae-rim had been sitting with her knees drawn up, staring at the water and mulling over that thought, when she finally raised her head — at the moment a name no one had dared to speak aloud was finally released after a long silence.
“The reason Jae-i ended up like that….”
It was Jae-yun who had worked up the nerve to speak first. Well — calling it “working up the nerve” felt slightly off, given that he was sitting with his knees up and idly swinging his feet in a rather unbothered way, but his expression was unmistakably serious.
Chae-rim tore her gaze away from the water at her feet and looked at Jae-yun.
“Either way, it’s not your fault, Do-hyun. You know that.”
The way Jae-yun said it sounded almost carelessly tossed out, but his voice carried a weight to it that wasn’t usually there. And that, Chae-rim thought, might just be Jae-yun’s way of offering comfort to Do-hyun.
It made sense. Coming face to face with Han Jae-i as a zombie must have hit Do-hyun harder than anything else could have.
Chae-rim silently turned those words of comfort over in her mind, and found herself replaying everything that had happened in the hallway outside the music room.
The first sign that zombies were flooding up to the fifth floor had come right after the commotion with Hong Seok-hui in the music room had died down. The heavy, dull footsteps rising from the floor below, along with the sounds of zombies filtering in through the windows, were anything but ordinary.
The one saving grace, if there was any, was that Hong Seok-hui — who had caused an uproar the moment he stepped into the music room — turned out to be the most proactive one when it came to escaping.
The first thing Seok-hui had reached for, the moment he sensed the zombies closing in, was a red fire extinguisher tucked away in the corner of the music room. It was coated in dust from never having been used, but the pressure gauge was, thankfully, within the normal range. Seok-hui had snatched it up first and tucked it under his arm before speaking.
“We can fight after we survive. Fight first, survive later. Hey, Han Chae-rim. You’re good at pissing people off, right?”
“The fuck? What are you on about all of a sudden.”
“Draw some aggro. You’re good at that.”
With that, Seok-hui tossed over the black plastic bracket that had been holding the fire extinguisher in place. Chae-rim caught it as it arced through the air and stared at him with an expression that made it clear she had no idea what he was talking about. So he elaborated.
“Me and the ridiculously strong one over there will hold the front door together. You and that one go out the back door first. Once you’re out, throw that thing toward the stairwell, or out a window — whatever — to draw the zombies somewhere else, and clear a path all the way to the skybridge.”
The “that one” Seok-hui referred to was Lee Min-jae. It was only then that Chae-rim caught on to what he was planning, and she asked:
“Past the skybridge — where do we go?”
“The annex with the pool and the archery range. It’s connected to the building next door. There are no zombies there.”
The confident, knowing tone with which he said it made Chae-rim tilt her head.
“And how would you know that?”
“This guy just spent the last while climbing along the outside of the building. Looking at it from out there, the annex looked fine.”
“‘This guy,’ my ass….”
It was hard to take his word for it, given that it was Hong Seok-hui saying it, but right now, trusting him was all they could do. And it seemed the other three felt the same way.
Jae-yun appeared to think it over for a moment, then tossed his bamboo spear over to Do-hyun and picked up what looked like the sturdiest metal chair in the room.
“So basically, we fight fire with fire.”
The way he said it, he almost seemed excited — hard to believe this was the same person who’d been furious just moments ago. Do-hyun chimed in as well.
“We have to escape the music room to survive anyway. Seok-hui just pushed the timeline up a little.”
“Hey, why is that my fault? You all ganged up on me—” Seok-hui shot back, sounding aggrieved, but the zombie sounds growing clearer and closer cut any further bickering short.
Lee Min-jae, who had been watching everything unfold, spoke up in a firm voice.
“I’ll take the lead.”
And so the desperate fight against the zombies began. While the others held the front door as long as they could, Min-jae swiftly secured a path to the skybridge, and Chae-rim did as Seok-hui had said — hurling the bracket to scatter the zombies’ attention so the others could follow.
The problem was that, in the middle of all that, Chae-rim had also seen Jae-i.
“…….”
What would it feel like, to come face to face with the person who was your closest friend in the world — as a zombie.
Chae-rim found herself going back to the moment when she and Min-jae, after securing the path, had turned back toward the music room.
The white powder sprayed across the floor. Blood and zombies scattered everywhere. And Han Jae-i — whose face had stood out with painful clarity from among all the rest.
And standing before that Jae-i, his face white with terror — Cha Do-hyun.
But the strangest part of it all, if she had to name one….
He didn’t look like he was going to attack….
It had been only a split second, but Han Jae-i — standing perfectly upright in front of Do-hyun — had looked nothing like any of the other zombies.
Unlike the rest, who lunged at anything that made a sound, there was almost no aggression in him. And his gaze, fixed on Do-hyun, was sharp and focused. Ordinary zombies had a strange, slightly unfocused look to them — as though they’d lost their sight — but Jae-i was different.
It was as if he knew, with perfect clarity, that the person standing before him was Do-hyun.
Having followed that thought to its end, Chae-rim suddenly pulled her gaze from the surface of the water and shifted it silently to Do-hyun. She knew it couldn’t be — and yet the faint suspicion stirring inside her fanned the embers of an unresolved question.
The Do-hyun she knew would surely be in a frenzy by now, insisting he had to go to Jae-i, or else sunk deep into despair — but the Do-hyun lying there right now, one hand propped behind his head, staring up at the ceiling, looked unsettlingly calm. Or perhaps it wasn’t quite calm — more like he’d gone somewhere far away in his mind, as if his thoughts had been seized by something else entirely.
Could it be that Do-hyun saw something too?
That was what she was thinking when —
“By the way, how did you know? That Jae-i would be somewhere close by. Did you hit him and run?”
Jae-yun, who’d been swinging his feet for a while now, turned toward Seok-hui, who was leaning against the wall shelf. Seok-hui flinched preemptively and answered.
“Why would I hit him?”
“So you hit him.”
“What? I didn’t hit him. I just… pushed him a little. That’s all.”
“You ‘just pushed him a little’ and the kid ended up looking like that?”
“Hey. He already looked like that from the start. And shit, I got hit too. And keep forgetting, apparently — I’m a survivor, and he’s a zom—”
Seok-hui’s mouth snapped shut the moment he felt the air around him go ice cold.
He glanced warily at Do-hyun, who was still lying on his back staring at his own wrist, and in the end changed course.
“…Whatever. Point is, we’re alive, so that’s something. No zombies either. Oh — there’s shower facilities attached since it’s a pool. Right?”
“Yeah. You’re so thoughtful.”
“But seriously, this place… it actually looks like somewhere we could hold out for a few days. …As long as the zombies don’t find us.”
The voice that cut into their exchange was none other than Lee Min-jae’s. He’d finished scouting around the pool on his own and dropped down between Seok-hui and Jae-yun with a thud.
“The ceiling’s high, we can wash up, and if it comes to it, we can even drink the tap water.”
At that, Seok-hui’s face broke into a wide grin and he dropped a hand onto Min-jae’s shoulder.
“Right? You’re the only one who gets it. Hey, what was your name again? Lee Jae-min? I feel like we’re going to get along.”
Jae-yun shook his head at that and knocked Seok-hui’s hand off Min-jae’s shoulder himself.
“Since when are you two close.”
“What’s wrong with getting close after surviving zombies together?”
“‘Surviving together’ my ass. You’ve known Min-jae for what, an hour?”
“Ah — his name’s Min-jae? Got it. Noted.”
“Stop noting things, you ass. He’s my friend.”
“That’s exactly why I’m saying let’s all be friends now?”
As the two of them bickered again, Min-jae quietly tilted his head up to look at the pool ceiling, covered in fluorescent lights.
The annex building, located beside the main school building past the skybridge, was a three-story structure — but each floor had a high ceiling, giving it an open, airy feel all the way up.
Just past the pool there was a small snack kiosk, and the archery range sat on the floor above. As long as the zombies didn’t breach the annex, this place could serve as a solid base to eat and hold out for days on end.
But the flip side of that was equally clear — it meant that within this school, the only place left where survival was possible was right here.
Min-jae stared up toward the upper floor where the archery range would be for a long moment, then carefully turned his head to look toward where Do-hyun was.
He had no idea what was going on in Do-hyun’s head, but he found himself wondering whether Do-hyun even intended to make it out of here alive. Min-jae had a gut feeling that the realistic path out of this place ran through Do-hyun — or more precisely, through Do-hyun’s father — and that was exactly why he couldn’t help paying close attention to what was going through his mind.
“Hey, Min-jae. Don’t ever let this guy rub off on you, alright?”
“The fuck did you just say? Hey, what am I, some kind of disease? ‘Rub off on you’?”
These idiots probably don’t think about any of that.
“Do-hyun.”
Amid the noise of those two, Min-jae quietly called Do-hyun’s name. The mouths that had been going a mile a minute both paused for a moment, attention briefly landing on Min-jae. He ignored the two pairs of eyes now fixed on him and spoke to Do-hyun again.
“What are you thinking of doing now? Are you going to hold out here?”
It was then that Do-hyun, who had been lying there with his arm raised, staring at his own wrist, finally stirred. He pushed himself up from where he’d been lying and rose to his feet. Then he looked toward Min-jae and Jae-yun and opened his mouth.
“I’m going to wash up first.”
It was the last answer he’d expected. The tone of it — utterly unhurried, as if fear had no place in him whatsoever in the middle of all this — left Min-jae momentarily dumbfounded.
But as if to prove that even his own bewilderment was his alone, Jae-yun beside him responded without missing a beat.
“Hey, you’re not going to get infected in the shower, right? Be careful.”
“How the hell would you get infected in a shower, you idiot. Honestly, the more I watch you, the dumber you get.”
“A zombie could’ve fallen into the water tank and died in there, genius. Have you never seen a disaster movie?”
“I told you not to call me that.”
Amid the absurd back-and-forth, Do-hyun gave a vague wave of his hand and headed toward the showers. Min-jae watched his retreating figure for a moment, then buried his face in his hands. Every time one of them lobbed something at the other, the buzzing in his head seemed to grow louder. He finally reached his limit.
“Can you two please be quiet for once…. My head’s pounding.”
Maybe the reason these guys had managed to survive this long, Min-jae thought, was precisely because of their reckless, brainless courage.
