“If you can’t move, I’ll carry you. Medication? I’ll raid every hospital and pharmacy until we find some, however it takes.”
“……”
“So stop saying things like that. You know how much I — how much we care about you. How could you even say something like that?”
Baek Hyunwoo’s face had crumpled completely, and the hurt on it was genuine. Only then did I realize that what I’d said amounted to a denial of my hyungs’ love for me — and I had no choice but to bow my head, weighed down by guilt and shame and gratitude all at once.
“……I’m sorry.”
The apology I barely managed to get out was so small it could’ve gone unheard without careful listening. Baek Hyunwoo’s lips moved as if he had more to say — but he ended it with a long, deep exhale.
“Whatever happens, stay by my side. Remember — next to me is the safest place you can be.”
“Okay.”
“Good.”
He flashed a grin and thoroughly messed up my hair, then tilted his head as if to say go get those clothes, and I turned around right away and headed toward the two’s rooms.
He said to grab thin clothes.
I didn’t know why, but I figured he had his reasons — so I packed the bag full of clothes that looked as sturdy as possible while still being thin.
“Got everything.”
I came back to the living room carrying the bag, which felt a little heavy, and my oldest hyung seemed to be finished with his preparations as well, waving me over as he said:
“Let’s take your medicine before we go.”
The sight of all those pills, still as many as ever, left me with complicated feelings. Just a few hours ago, I hadn’t cared how many pills there were — but now the thought of having to somehow find them all again felt almost overwhelming.
“Come here.”
“I can put it on myself.”
“I want to do it for you.”
In the meantime, Baek Hyunwoo had fetched my coat and helped me into it, then laced my shoes up tightly.
“There.”
He stood up, looked me over once, and nodded in satisfaction.
We’re really going out now.
The front door I’d always seen every day felt like a gateway to the unknown for the first time. I couldn’t steady the violent trembling of my body and gripped the hem of my clothes — and Baek Hyunwoo took my hand and laced his fingers firmly through mine, as if to say it’s alright.
“What’s wrong? Scared?”
“……A little.”
“What is there to be scared of when hyung is here.”
Does he know that he himself is trembling, ever so slightly, as he says that?
Because of that, instead of feeling embarrassed or grumbling about being grown, all I could do was grip back just as tightly.
“Don’t ever leave my side.”
“Okay.”
“Even if you’re scared — you only look at me. Understand?”
“I understand.”
Click.
The front door opened, and the wind blew in. The outside air, which had always felt refreshing, carried a raw, unpleasant smell.
Whatever happens, I have to accept it.
I made that resolution and fixed my gaze on Baek Hyunwoo’s steady back as he walked ahead of me. Hoping, sincerely, that I’d be able to look at that back for a long time to come.
✽
I’d made that resolution — and yet it turned out to be entirely unnecessary, because the situations I’d been dreading never came to pass.
To be more precise: any danger that approached was over and done with before we ever had to act on it or make a single decision.
For instance — a signboard or a chunk of brick would fall and crush the head of a zombie charging toward us; or a man who’d completely lost his mind, mowing people down with his car in the chaos, would suddenly veer straight into a gas station right in front of us and kill himself……
“Hand everything over — gkh! Ugh, AAAAAAGH!”
“KYAAAAAAAH——!”
“Help me, help me, he- grrrgh……“
“Shh, don’t look.”
Right — like just now. Every time someone appeared threatening us, targeting us, a zombie would come surging out of nowhere and turn the tables, hunting the human instead — a bizarre, twisted situation where zombies were inadvertently saving my life, and I couldn’t decide whether to be grateful or horrified.
“Let’s go this way.”
Baek Hyunwoo looked visibly shaken as well, as though he couldn’t make sense of any of it — but he forced himself calm and guided me into an alleyway.
“It’ll be a bit longer this way, but going around is better. Are your legs okay?”
“Fine.”
They weren’t, honestly. They hurt a great deal, and I was exhausted. My back was already soaked through with sweat, and my head was past dizzy and well on its way to aching. Part of me desperately wanted to ask if we could just rest for a little — but I couldn’t. We’d only been out of the house for three hours.
Weaving around both zombies and people had kept us from even clearing the city yet. If I stopped to rest every time I was struggling, it would plainly take an entire week just to get out of here.
I knew I had no choice but to lean on my oldest hyung — but I didn’t want to be a burden on him this soon.
“You’re not fine — your legs are shaking.”
“……It’s not that bad.”
I rolled my eyes and shot back at him, and Baek Hyunwoo laughed under his breath, then swung his bag around to his front, crouched down, and offered me his back.
“Get on.”
“I told you, it’s really not that bad……”
“Come on.”
“You’re already carrying the bag……”
“Don’t make hyung say it twice.”
His entire bearing said he wasn’t going to move a single step forward unless I got on — so I had no choice but to climb onto his back.
“Speak up if it gets hard, alright?”
“Hard? You’re all bones.”
He scoffed and stood up, then walked on as if it were nothing at all. I’d been prepared to ask him to put me down the moment he showed even a hint of struggling — but if anything, he seemed to move faster than when I’d been walking on my own.
“Relax your body. If you stay that stiff and tense, it’s harder on hyung.”
“Oh — right.”
He even broke into a run at times, yet Baek Hyunwoo didn’t so much as roughen his breathing, let alone break a sweat. Only then did I ease a little of the guilt I’d been carrying, and let myself look around.
We’d come out of the alley and up a little higher, and the city spread out clearly below us. The home that had always been noisy and chaotic but warm with the smell of people living in it — it was nothing short of hell now.
Screams and pleas erupting in every direction, the raw smell of blood carried on every gust of wind……
“We’d best avoid the city as much as possible going forward. Even with the weather cooling down, the smell of decay will be overwhelming in three days.”
“We just keep walking the whole way?”
“Yeah — whatever it is, there’s nothing good about drawing attention to ourselves.”
“I see……”
“Still, being out here like this, it almost feels like we’re on a trip. Doesn’t it?”
Kyaaaaaagh……
A scream rang out in the distance — and Baek Hyunwoo smiled brightly and asked me that. I could tell he was trying to put me at ease, but thinking of this as a trip was stretching it a little far, wasn’t it?
“Yeah, it does.”
But still — my hyung mattered more to me than any of that. I was sorry to the person who had screamed, but there was nothing I could do. I’ll pray for your peace in my heart — please be born somewhere good in your next life.
Setting that aside, now that things had settled a little, the questions came creeping back. Zombies — why on earth had zombies appeared in this world? And simultaneously, all across the country at once, making it impossible to contain — how did that even make sense?
We hadn’t seen a single soldier, let alone a police officer or firefighter, by the time we’d fully cleared the city, so it seemed safe to say the country had truly collapsed. What I was curious about now was whether zombies had appeared in other countries too.
“What about overseas — is it okay there?”
“No — if anything, it’s worse, not better.”
“How do you know?”
“……I checked before the internet went down. My colleagues at work said the same thing.”
So this is how human history comes to an end. After all that struggling and fighting to survive, and the ending is a zombie apocalypse — I’d felt it in my past life too, but truly, life is meaningless and hollow.
Well — maybe someone would survive and carry history forward. Like in the usual movies and dramas, perhaps there were people with immunity, and a vaccine could be made from them…… but whatever came of it, just as my oldest hyung had said, it would no longer be the world we knew.
“What are you thinking about?”
“What will happen to the world, whether it could ever go back to how it was…… and if not that, when things might stabilize. How many people will survive……”
“……”
“What?”
“Our baby doesn’t need to worry about any of that. Whether the world ends or not, you won’t be living in discomfort.”
“Who are you calling a baby.”
“Someone riding on hyung’s back is a baby.”
I thought we retired that nickname back in middle school. Even in a situation like this, I was mortified at the thought of anyone hearing that.
“Close your eyes!”
I was play-strangling Baek Hyunwoo’s neck and letting go, just messing around — when he suddenly yanked me off his back without warning, pulled me tight into his arms, and shouted urgently:
BOOM——!
Not understanding what was happening, I squeezed my eyes shut — and a massive explosion, loud enough to feel like it was ripping my eardrums apart, hit alongside a blast of scorching, forceful wind.
Piiiiiiii——
My ears went numb with a piercing ring. What, what is it? What just happened?! I desperately wanted to open my eyes and see for myself — but the air was so hot that all I could do was curl up as small as possible and bury myself in Baek Hyunwoo’s arms.
At a noise this loud, something had to have exploded, or exploded, or…… exploded. That’s the only thing coming to mind. If a bomb had dropped, I should’ve died before I ever felt this heat. So what around here could explode like that? A factory? A gas leak?
Gas explosion or bomb — if I’m going to die, please let it be before I can feel it, let me go without even knowing I’m gone. Or let some miracle happen where time reverses. Reincarnation exists, possession exists — so why not regression?
I know that’s a ridiculous thing to think in a situation like this. But if I didn’t do at least this much, I felt like I was going to lose my mind — so I couldn’t help it. People really don’t grow more mature just from living longer. Then again, the adults I’d watched in my past life weren’t all that mature either. Even the ones said to be well-educated and brilliantly intelligent were like that — so how mature could someone who’d spent their whole life inside a house ever be? Right. This is only natural. The fact that I wasn’t crying and screaming and begging to be saved was already something.
