End of the World

Chapter 36

"Mina!" Jihyo sobs helplessly.

The girls are all looking on in utter despair, their eyes stained with tears.

Nayeon snaps out of her daze when she hears the sound of helicopter blades cutting through the chilly morning air.

Mina stands up from the couch limping slightly.

Few of the bolts on the shutter comes unhinged.

New footsteps rush on the rooftop towards the dome.

A man in a military uniform peeks at them from the rooftop. "The heli can't land in the lobby. The dome is too small. You'll have to come up one by one using this rope."

"Nayeon-chan, take the rope and go." Mina says calmly. She knows she's dying, she's fully accepted it. She wants to see Nayeon to safety before she gets eaten.

"Put the strap around your waist and hang the loop to the hook at the end of the rope." The officer explains to Nayeon as he lowers the rope.

Nayeon leans past the railing a little and catches the edge of the rope. She then looks down at Mina.

Mina smiles at her encouragingly to go up.

The shutter gives in.

Nayeon climbs over the railing.

Mina's smile freezes.

Because Nayeon is jumping down with the rope instead of waiting to be pulled up.

If what Nayeon did once to save her life was madness, this is suicide.

Nayeon has literally jumped to her death.

The crowd of undead pushes the shutter down.

Nayeon lands on her feet next to Mina. Mina wants to yell at her, demand her what possessed her to do this.

But Nayeon smiles and Mina wants to cry. She wants to cry for their fate. Cry for the future they'll never have.

She clutches Nayeon's shirt and pulls her in for a kiss. She doesn't notice Nayeon slipping the strap around her waist. "Why did you do this Nayeon-chan. At least now tell me why!!" She sobs between the kiss, their tears mingling together.

The zombies are a few feet away from them.

Nayeon wants to tell her the three words that's rattling in her chest, but the rational part of her knows this isn't the time to dump that information on Mina.

She wants Mina to have a future, have a closure and telling the three words would only make these difficult to obtain for the younger girl.

Mina smashes their lips together again and again, until a lurker abruptly grabs her T-shirt and she stumbles a little.

Nayeon's eyes widen as she watches Mina being pulled away from her.

She takes Mina's arms and twirls her around blocking her from the zombie. She proceeds to plunge a knife into the lurker's eyes.

"Fuck!!" She groans, when she tries to pull back the knife but it remains stuck in his rotten flesh.

She pulls out the baseball bat from under her leather jacket and swings it in circular motion, the wooden bat hitting, cracking, breaking the zombies' skulls whenever it came to contact with their body.

There are still about fifteen of them left.

"Minayah, watch out." She pulls the girl into her arms and head butts a lurker behind her. When another lurker jumps on them, she spins the girl back out and he falls on his head onto the floor, stumbling over their linked hands.

Nayeon spins Mina back into her arms.

It almost looks like they can make it out of their alive, because the number of undead have dwindled down to ten now and Jihyo is praying to every deity she knows for them to make it alive but all her hopes shatter when the shutter in block B begins to shake.

A new army of undead are pushing the shutter, eager and hungry for human flesh.

"There are at least hundred of them there." The officer notes, "Even if these girls beat these ten, they won't survive the hundred."

"Is there nothing you can do?" Jeongyeon demands through her tears. "Like shoot those fuckers or something."

"It's difficult to take aim, if we tried to shoot we might accidentally kill your friends." Another officer explains.

"Turn on the sprinklers." Dahyun tells the security.

He shakes his head sadly, "The dome is the only place that's not fitted with sprinklers."

"They need to come up before the shutter breaks." A third officers remarks, "That's their only chance of survival."

All their hopes get completely destroyed when Mina gets thrown onto the couch by a lurker and Nayeon jumps on him rolling him over on the floor.

Mina desperately looks for Nayeon but the back of the couch is hiding her view. She hears the girls in the rooftop scream and cry but doesn't understand why.

She scrambles to her feet and swings a chair on a zombie who appears before her. Another hand grabs her from behind and she almost swings the chair again but drops it and falls into a hug when she sees it's Nayeon.

"Are you Okay?" Nayeon pants, putting distance between them, her breath coming more ragged than usual.

"I am." Mina nods, smiling through her tears.

Nayeon sways a little and shakes her head as if to concentrate.

"Nayeon-chan," Mina steps closer to her, confused, but Nayeon takes a step back.

Mina takes another step closer and brings a hand up to cup her cheek, "You don't look ok."

She pulls her hand back when it slides down the older girl's cheek and comes to contact with something warm at the back of her neck.

Blood. Thick, fresh blood.

Her hand is stained with Nayeon's blood. She stares at it with her eyes wide, welling with tears.

"Nayeon-chan!" Mina sobs, her heart breaking.

"Stay away." Nayeon warns when Mina takes a step towards her.

"You-" Mina stutters through the onslaught of tears, "You've been bitten."