𝓑𝐋𝐄𝐄𝐃𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝓗𝐄𝐀𝐑𝐓𝐒 ✯ 이은혁

⤷ twenty three

There was a heaviness in the pit of my stomach. I nodded once and stepped back.

Minah didn't stop me as I left.

--

I found Jae Heon near the supply boxes. He was wiping his sword with a rag, moving with the grace and focus of a man who believed every action should be done with purpose—even the cleaning of a blade. His brows lifted as I approached.

"You saw it?" I asked.

He paused. "Enough."

"What do you know about him?"

"Pyeon Sang Wook?" he confirmed, and I nodded.

Jae Heon's eyes drifted to a point just past me, somewhere in the hazy middle distance. "We spoke briefly. The place where we buried the bodies... before the rain got heavier. He told me why he's here."

I waited.

"He was hired," Jae Heon continued, "to find a missing girl. Someone's child. She'd been kidnapped." His voice was low now, barely audible. "The man he killed—the one today—was the kidnapper. He tortured her. Left her to die."

My stomach twisted.

"He found her body, Eun Hyuk. Found the man too. That's why he said the bastard didn't deserve to die peacefully."

It made a grim kind of sense. Still didn't make it easier to swallow. My fingers curled around the railing beside me.

"I see."

I didn't say thank you. I didn't need to.

--

We didn't get more than five seconds of silence after that. A scream rang through the hall.

It was Ji Su.

I turned, the sound punching through the air like a bell. By the time I reached her, she was already staggering forward, her nose bleeding heavily. Her eyes... weren't quite right. Not fully gone, but distant. Wild.

"Everyone, back!" I barked, and then I whistled, loud and sharp.

People scrambled. Jae Heon didn't hesitate—his sword was drawn in a blink, and he placed himself between Ji Su and the rest of us. She snarled, a hand twitching upward and groaned, but then—almost as if something inside her pulled back—she blinked and collapsed.

Just like that.

I rushed forward. "Is she—"

"She's out cold," Jae Heon murmured, already checking her pulse. "Not turned. Not yet."

Around us, murmurs rose. Panic. Questions.

And then a slow, steady clap cut through the tension like a knife.

Eun Yu.

She was leaning casually against the wall, arms crossed, lips curled into a smirk that didn't reach her eyes. "This is just great," she said. "You all seemed to be having fun."

No one spoke.

She turned and walked off without another word.

--

That night, I wrote new rules on the blackboard.

Always move in pairs or more.

Food will be distributed once per day. No more, no less.

Every resident's temperature will be checked at 8 PM sharp.

The infected must be isolated. No exceptions.

I underlined the last line.

Cha Hyun Su is only allowed outside the storage room to go upstairs—if someone needs medicine, clothes, batteries, anything. He'll retrieve them. He agreed, without much resistance. Whether it was guilt or just indifference, I didn't know.

I was fucked in the head, yet I couldn't bring myself to admit it.

One of his supply runs nearly didn't end well.

He came back soaked to the bone, blood on his hoodie. Said something about a "fast one." Eyes wide, fingers trembling like he'd just seen death blink.

"The deaf monster," Minah muttered beside me. "Shit."

Still, he'd returned with the antibiotics.

--

Later that evening, Mrs. An came to me. Quiet, trembling.

"There's... there's something outside."

I followed her to the viewing panel of the side hallway door. A monster stood there. Huge, covered in thick hair, pacing slowly like it was trying to remember how to be human.

People had scrambled back again, muttering.

She sniffled. "That's—" Her voice broke. "That's my husband. Seok-hyeon."

I said nothing.

We all watched through the glass as he turned, his face grotesque and warped, but still faintly recognizable. And then, as if he knew someone was watching, he stepped closer.

He looked at her.

She stared, frozen.

And then he mouthed something.

She whispered it aloud. "I'm sorry."

The door creaked in the wind.

She didn't cry.

She just nodded once and turned to retrieve the cleaver we'd stashed under the kitchen sink.

No one stopped her.

--

When the blood dried and the hallway was quiet again, I sat in my corner and stared at the blackboard.

It had begun.

Not just the monsters.

But us.

We were starting to split—morally, emotionally. Whatever thread we were all hanging by was fraying.

I glanced up at the top corner of the board where someone had written "Hope" in small letters the first night.

Tonight, I almost reached for the eraser.

But I didn't.

Not yet.

--

when i tell you i LOATHE this chapter.