When the zombie bites his hand, Oh Joonyeong knows it's all over for him.
He gasps in pain due to the strength of the bite, and he falls to the ground. Staring at the bloody mark, he's in disbelief. How could he have let this happen to him? Maybe the senior he argued with earlier, Park Mijin, was right. Maybe they should've covered the top of the barricade.
Well, it's no use wondering now. He's a dead man walking.
He barely pays attention to Mijin when she drops down next to him, frantically asking if he's okay. Instead, he decides to assess the situation to see what he can do in his last moments.
He observes his friends, none of whom look at him because they're rightly focused on keeping the zombies at bay. Cheongsan, Onjo, Suhyeok, Namra, Daesu, Hyoryung, and Woojin. They were such good friends to him. He's going to miss them so much.
Finally looking at Mijin, who's calling for him, he suddenly realizes what he has to do.
If I can't help them here...then maybe I can help from the outside.
"Shit," he finally says, wishing he had been more careful. "I shouldn't have said I'd take responsibility."
Then, without a second thought, he stands up, runs to the barricade, and jumps onto the wire.
"Yah! What are you—"
"Hey, wait!"
"Joonyeong!"
"Hey! Stop!"
"What the hell?"
"Joonyeong!"
The cries are expected as Joonyeong finally tumbles onto the ground, rolling from the zombies' outstretched hands. He quickly pushes them off and runs back to the barricade, wrenching the rabid zombies off of it.
"Get off, fuckers!" he yells, hissing as more zombies scratch at him. "Get off, you bastards!"
He grabs onto the barricade.
"Push!" he begs, trying with all his might to help pull the barricade towards the door. "Hurry! Push!"
A zombie tries to pull him, but in angry desperation, he shoves it off.
"Let's go! Let's go home!" Joonyeong yells, his voice ripping to shreds as another zombie clamps down on his shoulder. Mijin shouts for him, and Joonyeong's heart breaks as he sees how desperate she is. Daesu is sobbing heavily while Cheongsan looks on with horror.
"Let's go home!" he yells again, trying in vain to boost the morale of his friends. The zombies manage to drag him down, but he's determined to get them out. He has to.
Jumping back up, he pulls the zombies off and grabs back onto the barricade.
"A little more!" he encourages, now feeling the full weight of the fact he won't make it. "Just a little more!"
But there's no time left. Mijin grabs Joonyeong's hand in a desperate bid to keep him longer, but the zombies are too strong. They pull Joonyeong off the barricade, overpowering him as they each fight to get a piece of his body.
Mijin's screams fill the air as the scent of rotting corpses overwhelm Joonyeong's senses.
Suddenly, he realizes something.
Oh God, what if the door's locked?
That's the last thought Joonyeong has before he blacks out.
—
Growls.
Steps.
A faint scent of rotting corpses.
Cracking bones.
A wave of light. A gym ceiling.
And then, biggest of all: a rush of sound so frightening and unexpected that Joonyeong shoots up with a strangled cry.
The zombies instantly turn in his direction, but Joonyeong can't move. Why can he still think? Why is he thinking rationally?
Shouldn't I be dead?
But the thing is, he's not.
He's not dead.
Suddenly, he feels a crick in his neck, which is quickly resolved of its own accord as his vertebrae pop back into place.
Now that's fucking creepy.
Looking out the window, he sees that there's still light out. Scrambling up, the squeak of his sneakers attracts the zombies again, but they don't run towards him. In fact, they walk right past him.
So I'm a "hambie" now. Got it.
Thankfully, he paid close attention to how Namra handled her state of half-zombification. In his current state, he has superhuman strength, a high pain tolerance, enhanced hearing, and a keen sense of smell.
In other words, he's a superhero.
Though the situation is very harrowing at the moment, Joonyeong finds that this small detail is quite amusing.
Furtively glancing at the exit where his friends were trying to get to, he feels a flood of relief wash over him as he doesn't see any of them walking around as zombies.
His friends escaped.
"Thank God," he breathes aloud, rushing to the door to pull it open. He needs to catch up with his friends lest they think him dead (which they most certainly do).
It's at that moment when his stomach is engulfed with pain, a large rumbling noise escaping it as he realizes he's terribly hungry.
Joonyeong, his own voice commands him. Eat.
But what, he wonders? He can't possibly eat a human. God, no. That's disgusting.
Sighing, he resolves to worry about eating later. For now, he needs to find his friends. They're at the top of his priority list.
Finally wrenching the door open (surprisingly easily, he thinks a second later), he bursts out into the sunlight, deciding to utilize his newly acquired sense of smell to try and locate his friends.
Only a moment later does he catch their scent, and with a rush of exhilaration, he begins running up the path that, unbeknownst to him, his friends ran on just thirty minutes earlier.
Running through the tennis court, he stops in his tracks when he catches sight of a familiar orange apron.
Cheongsan's mom.
Overcome with curiosity, Joonyeong—now able to walk amongst the zombies—steps closer to her, memorizing her features and beginning to form a picture of what she must've looked like before she turned. The picture is kind, sweet, making him feel a pang in his heart.
"You must've been such a good mom to him," Joonyeong murmurs, watching sadly as her zombified form wanders around in aimless directions. "Your son's protected us all the way through. We owe him a lot."
Logically, he knows she won't hear him. She's probably lost her mind, too far gone to recognize anyone. She certainly wasn't able to recognize Cheongsan when they encountered her last night.
"Though I never knew you before this, I'm still grateful," he says as a parting message. "Thank you." Then, he runs out of the tennis court, following his friends' scents once more. He manages to climb the steep, hilly forest as he spots yellow ribbons tied on the tree branches. He briefly wonders who left those.
Once he finds his way out of the forest, he comes across a construction site. Looking up, he feels relief flood him once more as he sees his friends sitting at the top.
And none of them died! his mind supplies.
Sprinting towards the building, he climbs up the many flights of stairs, wondering how his friends managed to make it past the zombies crawling around there.
When he reaches the top, he feels a giddy sort of anticipation as he hears his friends talking to each other. He thinks he hears one of the girls crying, which worries him a bit.
Sneaking towards the opening, he hears Mijin's voice.
"Fuck. Nothing is working out. We keep on hitting dead ends."
Her voice is tired. Angry.
"Be quiet," Daesu snaps at her. Voice raising, he says, "It's your fault Joonyeong died."
"Daesu-ya," says Woojin. "Don't."
"If you hadn't bitched at him earlier, he wouldn't have jumped out," Daesu continues.
At this, Joonyeong feels angry. He jumped out because he was trying to save Mijin, and now that he has his new abilities, he doesn't regret it one bit.
"That's not true, Daesu-ya," he finds himself correcting, making his way forward. Poking his head out of the opening, he says, "It's because my hand was bitten by a zombie."