It all happened on the spur of the moment; Nayoung witnessing the drastic turn of events when an undead sank its teeth onto Siyeon’s arm, their group of eight hastily splitting into groups of four, the misanthropic welcome they received at their allegedly new safe house, and then the foreseeable dispute between Siyeon and the possessor of the tree house they found. It takes Nayoung a mere second to recover from the initial shock when she saw the both of them fall from the platform of the tree house, and then she’s half jumping down the stairs, half breaking into a full-fledged sprint as she searches for the other two while Jieqiong and Eunwoo trail after her. She spots the both of them still engaged in a fatuous struggle, so when she sees the girl’s gun scattered a few meters away, she picks it up instinctively. And then she lifts it up and angles it, aiming not at the girl, but at Siyeon.

“Did you not know,” the girl scoffs, detaching herself from Siyeon as she keeps a safe distance between them, “that your friend is a zombie?”

Nayoung doesn’t offer a reply, nor does she spare a glance, and in any other situations, she might have been tempted to shut the girl down because of her snobbish and pompous attitude, but in this situation, she’d hate to admit that the girl was at least partially making sense.

“So you knew.”

“ you,” Siyeon spits at her, but she only responds by shrugging her shoulders and dusting the dirt off her legs.

“She’s not a zombie!” Eunwoo argues, her strident voice invoking a flinch on the girl’s expression, albeit the slight tremble. “She would’ve turned by now if she is! Nayoung, please, put down the gun.”

“What are you?” Nayoung says finally, the tip of the weapon in her hands still facing Siyeon. Her eyes doesn’t meet with those of a friend she’s come a long way with, reminiscent of the number of years they’ve spent with each other. Instead, she sees unfamiliarity in those eyes, and for the first time in their countless years of friendship, she’s afraid.

“Nayoung!” Eunwoo cries out, attempting to knock the gun off Nayoung’s grip, but to no avail.

“Do I look like a zombie?” Siyeon finally says, her eyes eerily dark and her voice uncharacteristically low, “Am I just a dead person to you?”

And Nayoung isn’t sure if it’s the pang of guilt that Siyeon sends to her or if it’s the absence of zombie-like symptoms that eventually convinces her to toss the gun away, but she does so, and even accepts the girl’s request to have Siyeon tied to a tree trunk, rendering her practically immobile. Eunwoo and Jieqiong don’t make any noise because they know that being safe than sorry is the ultimate number one rule in any perilous situation, but they do bring Siyeon food and water, and Nayoung can only sit at the far end of the tree house, letting the slight feeling of guilt and regret swallow her up slowly from the inside.

“Hey, care for a drink?”

Nayoung looks up to the sight of the original owner holding two filled bottles of water, and she nods, moving a little to the end to make space for the other girl. She takes a small sip of water, and when she feels the immediate effect of cooling down, she takes another, and sighs in relief.

“You know, you were quite brave,” the girl says, her own bottle untouched as she spins it idly on the wooden platform, “It would’ve been hard for me to do that to a friend.”

Nayoung only hums in response, her eyes slightly darting over to where Eunwoo is now breaking a beef jerky stick into small pieces, and Jieqiong is back to cracking jokes and telling stories with the usual exaggeration of her actions. And before her eyes move away, she’s sure she saw a slight upwards tug of the corners of Siyeon’s lips.

“I’m sure it must be hard for you too, dealing with the unsettling premonition that your friend might turn into an enemy.” The girl continues to talk, and Nayoung continues to drink. “But I promise we’ll let her go when we prove that she’s, you know, immune or something?”

“Sure,” Nayoung puts back the cap of the bottle, tightening it. In all honesty, she knows Siyeon is immune to the undead. No one has been able to survive a bite for a few hours, not to mention a few days. Siyeon, on the other hand, has survived from the very first bite for a few weeks now, but she also knows that actions mean more than words, and that the girl would see for herself over the next few days.

“Oh, right. I haven’t asked for your name, have I?”

Nayoung chuckles lightly, and finally turns to face the other girl. “I’m Im Nayoung.”

She isn’t sure because it happens in a flash, as if she’d flip a switch, as the girl’s expression morphs from a cheeky grin to a mixture of shock and surprise, and then back. Now that she’s smiling again, she speaks, “Ah, Im Nayoung?” And again, Nayoung isn’t certain, but the thinks she hears a slight emphasis being placed on her surname.

“Yes, and you?”

“I’m Kim Sejeong,” she says, extending a hand, “I hope we get along well. And I apologize if I was rude the first time we met.”

“Oh no, it’s fine.”

Sejeong breaks into a wider grin, and Nayoung thinks that maybe she isn’t that bad after all. Sejeong says she’ll keep watch that night (“It’s quite isolated here, so there usually aren’t any dangers at night”) and Nayoung volunteers to keep watch with her. Unexpectedly, their conversations over the night are less awkward and much more comfortable, but occasionally, Nayoung does turn back to look at the others, observes the way Eunwoo moves a lot in her sleep, and the way Jieqiong releases muffled string of murmurs. She looks at Siyeon, whom they let sleep on the floor with one hand tied to a tree trunk, but she never does sleep. Her eyes are either wandering, or staring straight. And when their eyes do eventually meet, Nayoung looks away, and Sejeong talks again.

//

The rustle of leaves against the wooden tree trunks somehow provide an odd sense of comfort, as the blue sky dotted with white clouds seem brighter and clearer today, as compared to many other days. If it weren’t for a check on reality, Nayoung would’ve let herself indulge in the mesmerizing scenery, forgetting all sorts of worries and troubles. And as her eyes travel further and further outside, she can only pray that everyone else is safe.

She feels a light tap on her shoulder which makes her jump a little, but she turns around and sees brightness and comfort all contained in the form of one small, jovial smile.

“I’ll be outside for a bit. Sejeong needs help collecting fruits and nuts, she says there might even be fishes in the ponds nearby!”

“Sure, be careful,” Nayoung says and watches the way Jieqiong’s nose scrunch up the way it always does whenever she’s in a good mood. Her steps are light as she scurries away, and Nayoung’s heart doesn’t feel as heavy anymore.

Suddenly, she hears laughter, and out of curiosity and surprise, she tracks the source of it. It takes her by mild astonishment to find Eunwoo by Siyeon’s side, hands filled with a bottle of water and fruits that they’ve collected. To her amazement, she sees Siyeon grinning back, her smile reaching her eyes and laughter erupting from . Nayoung feels an odd sense of betrayal, and inadvertently clears . Eunwoo gets to her feet within seconds.

“I’m going to just throw these away,” Eunwoo says to Siyeon as she picks up the scattered fruit seeds on the floor, and Siyeon simply waves her off with her loose hand.

Once Eunwoo’s gone, Nayoung proceeds to take her place on the floor, a thousand thoughts running through her head but not of them coming out from . Eventually, she settles with, “Are you okay?”

She hears a scoff from Siyeon, one that she probably deserves, but she doesn’t bother coughing out a string of apologies that perhaps wouldn’t even mean a thing to the younger girl.

“I’m alive and kicking, so yeah.” The hint of sarcasm that drips from her tone don’t go unnoticed by Nayoung, who throws a glare at her innocent feet. The two of them allow a silence to form, until ultimately, Nayoung decides to break it.

“I’ll let Sejeong know that you’re immune and get her to let you go soon,” Nayoung says, getting to her feet when she sees that Eunwoo is back, even though a part of her desperately wants to stay and talk to Siyeon about anything and everything under the sky.

“Sejeong, huh?” The dark undertone in Siyeon’s voice halts her movements momentarily, and she feels the same unsettling feeling that she felt when she first suspected a bite mark on Siyeon. “Don’t trust her too much.”

//

The desert is a vast plain full of sand and nothing else, the scorching sun setting the land on fire directly, the sweltering heat enough to incinerate any living thing that is exposed to the sun for a prolonged period of time. Yebin feels the sweat trickling from her forehead, feels go dry, and there’s just this much of perseverance within her to keep her going. She hears a distant and strangled shout, and she cranes her neck, squints her eyes and sees a blur of a girl focus into the face of a clumsy Eunwoo, and with every bit of energy left inside of her, she smiles.

Eunwoo trips over her own feet at least thrice before she reaches Yebin, forehead equally clammy with sweat, but her voice is projected more clearly.

“There’s a stream up front,” she says, and Yebin takes off sprinting.

They run and run and run, until finally, the image of a small puddle of water enlarges into a large stream, where water flows endlessly. Yebin would’ve screamed if she could. She bends down, prepares to take a sip, but she stops when she spots a girl at the other end of the stream.

“Hey,” she croaks as she stands up, nudging Eunwoo with her elbow, “That’s Minkyung.”

When she receives no response from Eunwoo, she turns her head to find her friend staring back at her in horror.

“Who’s Minkyung?”

Yebin forces a laugh, but when Eunwoo’s expression doesn’t change, panic rushes through her veins. “Don’t play dumb, Eunwoo, I talk about her all day at school!”

A look of realization flashes on Eunwoo’s face now, and she gasps and starts to nod slowly. “Ah… Minkyung, the dead girl?”

“What?”

Yebin looks back across the stream, and now she sees a horrifying image of a decayed human, and she looks away before her eyes can take in the entire picture. Her heart hammers against her chest and she feels herself on the verge of throwing up. Sinking to her knees, she tries to gather a handful of water, but when the blinks, the stream is now gone and she looks down to sand seeping out slowly from the middle of her two palms. She scrambles to her feet, and not only has Minkyung disappeared, Eunwoo is nowhere to be seen, and all she sees is a vast plain full of nothingness. Yebin would’ve screamed if she could.

//

Yebin wakes up to a throbbing pain at the left side of her head, and sees a bruise on her knuckles (she must’ve slammed her fists against the wall while dreaming). There’s a dull ache at the area around her waist as she sits up, straightening her back against one of the four white walls in the room. Only then does she realize that her cheeks are damp and the back of her shirt is soaked.

This is prison, she thinks, and as if on cue, someone from outside slides in a metal tray from the small opening at the bottom of the locked door, and she hesitantly eyes the pile of rice and greens sitting on top of the metal tray. Subconsciously, her eyes travel to the four corners of the room, where she sees four small cameras staring back at her, as if she’s currently being held guilty at the Panopticon and is constantly being watched.

Fear washes over her body all over again, the paralyzing hurt spreading through her body like icy, liquid metal. She can almost feel every beat of her heart pounding against the hard wall she has her back against, and in the quiet, empty room, the only sound she hears is the sound of her own pulse throbbing in her ears. Yebin looks down to her fingers trembling against her leg, and each second seems to last an eternity as she remains hopelessly still on the cold, hard floor.

Doing the only thing she can do, Yebin scrambles to her feet, and notices the way her legs tremble and twitch. Her fists are clenched as she takes a deep breath, and slowly, her brain picks up her feet in an unbalanced gait, carelessly dropping them to the ground with each excruciating step.

She manages to get to the small table and chair in the middle of the room while cradling the food tray in her hands, and she places them on the table before they fall off from her trembling hands. The chair is uncomfortable when her rear lands on it, but she really shouldn’t complain. Yebin figures that the food is probably cold by now, but the temperature in the room only seem to increase with each second that ticks by. She clears , and swallows.

“Sungyeon?” Her voice cracks against her will, sounding hoarse and strangled. “Can you hear me?”

The only sound she gets in response is the sound of her own harsh breathing.

“Kyla? Yewon?”

Again, she gets nothing back. It’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay, she repeats to herself in her head, and scarfs down her food like a famished peasant in the king’s kitchen (although technically, reality isn’t that far off).

When she’s on her last spoon of rice, the doorknob turns and the door clicks open, for the first time ever since she’s being thrown into the room. Yebin drops her spoon, hears it clank against the metal tray, and she swallows the food in without chewing. A man steps in, and he looks clean, his uniform is neat and there’s no form of dirt or dust anywhere on his body. He has his hair combed up too, and the gel allows the strands to stick together nicely. He clears his throat, and offers a small smile, warm and inviting.

“Kang Yebin, it’s time to go.”

//~//

A/N: Hellu readers I’m sorry for lying about updating more often lol now that my first year in college is about to commence, I might actually be a little busy but I hope to complete this story by this year (a reasonable goal)! I’ll really miss this process of writing and reading your comments, and now that I’m actually drafting the ending, I am already starting to feel slightly nostalgic :’) Much thanks to those who’ve been sticking with this (lacking) story from the start and hopefully I’ll see you guys at the end too!! :)

P.S. I included a poll for the fun of it heh