“Kyungsoo! Kyungsoo, come back here! Kyungsooooo!”

Lana continued to yell the boy’s name long after he had disappeared around the street corner. But no matter how many times she called out to him, he didn’t return. It was no use, she finally realized, slumping down on the cold metal grating of the fire escape in defeat. He wasn’t coming back. In fact, he was probably long gone by now.

“I can’t believe you left me,” she grumbled to the teen who couldn’t hear her. Through the holes in the flooring, Lana could still see the lifeless, ravenous eyes of the zombies waiting below. She was safe for now, elevated on the fire escape where the infected couldn’t reach her, but how long would that last? She couldn’t stay on the stairs forever.

Finally, Lana remembered Kyungsoo’s last words to her before he ran away, abandoning her like a coward. Break the window. She rose to her feet, turning to face the window behind her. Through the glass, she could barely make out what looked somewhat like an apartment bathroom. If she could get inside, then maybe she could navigate the building and find another exit. Maybe she could hunt down Kyungsoo’s bus and, if he was still in 2157, give the boy a piece of her mind.

Lana had only learned a tiny bit about how to safely break glass windows. What little she knew came from the survival classes Dad forced her to take. If she had some kind of heavy object, she could slip it into her sock and swing it at the window. Unfortunately, she left everything she owned back on the bus. If only she had brought her book bag with her. There had to be some other way to smash the window, she reasoned, but all she could really think of was the Hollywood-movie method.

She didn’t have any other options. Slipping out of her coat, she wrapped it around her arm for padding. She positioned herself so her side faced the window and closed her eyes, taking in a deep breath.

“One, two, three,” she counted down before ing her elbow into the window. The glass shattered, and Lana winced. She carefully pried her arm out of the broken window, unfurling the coat to check for abrasions. Luckily, she didn’t seem to be cut at all. Using her shoe, she cleared the remaining glass out of the window frame and then hoisted herself into the apartment.

With not a second to spare dillydallying, Lana brushed past the bathroom door. She had already lost too much time on the fire escape, and she would have to hurry if she wanted to catch up with Kyungsoo. But when she tried to make her way out of the restroom, she found herself suddenly frozen in the doorframe, nearly shrieking in horror. She quickly threw a hand over to stifle the scream before it could escape .

She had just walked into a living room packed with dead bodies. Some were strewn like ragdolls across the couch; others lay limp on the stained carpet floor. Decayed flesh hung loose from the bones of the deceased. But luck seemed to be on Lana’s side for once, for none of the bodies showed any signs of life—human or otherwise.

Still, Lana wasn’t going to take any chances, and she definitely wasn’t going to stick around long enough to find out if one of the bodies might not be so dead after all. She gulped nervously, quickly scanning the room for an exit. Two doors lined the farthest wall. One, which sat open, appeared to lead into a bedroom. The other door was grander in size, presumably the apartment’s front door.

She quietly edged her way past the bodies, tiptoeing across the room until she arrived at the front door. And when she threw the door open, ready to dash out into the hallway, she unleashed a bloodcurdling scream. Standing on the other side of the doorway was a man, whose skin had rotted off and whose milky eyes had glazed over.

“Brrraaaiiinnns!” he droned, throwing his arms up to grab Lana. She slammed the door shut, wheeling around to find the supposedly dead bodies behind her suddenly stirring back to life. One’s head jerked to face her, sending her shrieking again.

The apartment, which had been her last chance for survival, was infested with the infected. There was no other way out. Lana ducked into the closest room, hastily locking the door behind her. She now found herself in a nearly empty bedroom. Only bare furniture remained after the room had been stripped of picture frames, personal belongings, even bed sheets. Eager to put as much distance between her and the undead as possible, Lana jumped into the undressed bed and curled up in a ball.

She panted, broke into tears, and sobbed into her arms. She was alone, and she was going to die. She never thought it would end this way. But before long, she would either become zombie bait or die of starvation. She suddenly regretted not apologizing to her father when she had the chance. He would be so heartbroken when she never came home again, forever unable to know what had become of her—

Lana’s ears suddenly perked up. She could hear something in the distance, a metal, guttural snarl that was rapidly growing closer, and then the sound of grinding wood. The dissonant din grew louder and louder, until suddenly something—Lana couldn’t quite tell what in the confusion and chaos—burst through the door. It flew open, and on the other side stood Kyungsoo, protected by a pair of safety goggles, wielding a bloodied chainsaw, and splattered with zombie guts.

“H-h-holy,” Lana stammered, stunned beyond belief.

The boy lowered the chainsaw, quickly closing the distance between the two to pull her off the bed. “Come on,” he instructed, “the path is clear. We gotta get out of here.”

Lana nodded and followed him into the living room, stumbling along in shock. The zombies within now lay in pieces on the floor, this time truly immobile. Kyungsoo must have taken them all out by himself. He quickly led Lana out of the apartment, down the hall, and eventually out onto an empty street. The teens hastened into a run, dashing for the nearby lane the bus was parked on.

Finally, the decrepit vehicle was in sight, and the two darted aboard. Kyungsoo didn’t waste a second before sending the bus hurdling out of 2157—into when and where Lana didn’t know or care anymore. She collapsed into the diner booth, wheezing breathlessly as the bus landed somewhen new.

Even after the dust settled, Lana’s heart kept pounding faster than the speed of light. “You came back for me,” she panted over and over again. “I can’t believe you came back for me.”

“Of course I did,” Kyungsoo tutted, smirking. He pulled off his safety goggles and tossed them onto the ground carelessly. “I swear, Lana, give me a little credit. I wasn’t just going to leave you there. Like I said, I don’t kill people.”

“But you actually came back for me,” she repeated as if trying to convince herself. “You came back for me, even though I was awful to you, even though I said you were inhuman. You’re not inhuman at all, Kyungsoo. You’re amazing.”

She shut up then, only to throw her arms around his neck, pulling him into a hug. She squeezed him with ridiculous enthusiasm, so tight that the shocked boy couldn’t even raise an arm to embrace her in return. Kyungsoo was still covered in zombie blood, guts, and innards, but Lana didn’t care. Her body was fired up, surging with energy, and she needed a release. She pulled away, hesitating only a short moment to quickly glance into his surprised eyes. And then, she sealed the distance between the two, her lips crashing violently into his. The lip-lock was messy and rough, but she liked it. She didn’t know what had come over her, but suddenly all she wanted was to feel her body tangled up in his, and she didn’t plan on stopping with just a kiss.

Author's Note
Hiii! I’m so nervous today. ;~; As a lot of you already know, this fic was promoted yesterday, which means there’s a ton of new subscribers! And thank you guys so much for subscribing! We have over 1000 subscribers now, which is just so freaking amazing, I can’t even describe! I feel really proud because this is a D.O fic, and generally speaking his fics aren’t popular at all. It just makes me really happy. ;~; So thank you guys! But anyway, the point is, the new audience is so huge that posting this chapter is wigging me out, lmao. I was in a little bit of a slump when I wrote this chapter a week or two ago, so I don’t consider it my best...

Anyway, I would like to thank the three people who helped me get promoted. Although I really want to properly credit you, I don’t want to name you outright just in case people think it’s okay to beg you for karma or something, lmao. (Plus, I haven’t the slightest idea who one of you is… ;_; But thank you all the same!) What you did was so awesome and selfless and makes me cry tears of joyyy. <333

With that said, even though I took advantage of it, I hate this new system. It’s so flawed and doesn’t even work in theory. It’s already glaringly obvious that it’s only going to further the inequity between the unknown authors and the few popular authors who can afford to burn karma advertising their fics. This is especially true now that the karma system has been changed so that the only effective way to get karma is to already have a high subscriber count. The only people who will be able to promote are those who really don’t need promotion (like me, I suppose...) I don’t know. Maybe I just wish more authors had a fair chance at getting their fics promoted, but I guess that’s a pipe dream, because it doesn’t seem like a remotely fair system will ever come to fruition. Aaand my author’s note probably isn’t the best place to get into the ~politics of AFF~ so I’ll stop here. lmao

I’d like to extend an advance warning that the next chapter (or two) will be rated M. There is no in this fic though, so don’t worry about that. There’s just a little “adult” talk or something... vaguely like that...