G-Dragon woke up, his thoughts instantly on Dara. He had dreamed of her. It had begun as somewhat of a ual dream. They were back in that shower room at the YG building. He was and teasing her to open the curtain, just as he had that day, which seemed so long ago now, but in his dream, Dara opened the curtain, revealing her body to him. The towels that G-Dragon was holding fell from his hands as his gaze slowly drifted from her eyes to those kissable lips and that bare neck and then down… down…

But then the dream changed. They weren’t standing in the shower room anymore. He didn’t know where they were. All he could see was a horde of decomposing zombies standing behind Dara, leering at her with their cruel, blood-red eyes, their mouths open and full of razor sharp teeth. G-Dragon tried to reach her but he was stuck, he couldn’t move. He held out his hand, trying to force his arm out as far as he could, but she was just out of reach, their fingertips just barely brushing each other’s. And then just like that, he woke up.

He sat up now, shivering from the cool morning. It must have drizzled overnight because the ground was wet and his clothes felt damp in spots. He looked behind him to see T.O.P. still sleeping. T.O.P.’s arm was bent so that his forearm covered his eyes, his mouth partially open as he quietly snored. Beside him, Thunder and Lee Joon lay close, and just beyond them, Daesung and Minzy lay even closer, with Daesung’s body wrapped around hers from behind as they slept on their sides.

G-Dragon stood now and looked up at the many highways crisscrossing above them. Ahead, over the river, he could see the faded blue skyline of the southern half of Seoul. That is where they needed to be.

He kneeled down next to T.O.P. and tried shaking him awake.

T.O.P., still asleep and with eyes closed, smiled and his side, trying to put his arm around G-Dragon.

“Yah!” G-Dragon yelled. “I’m not your girlfriend!”

T.O.P.’s expression changed. “Bommie?” he mumbled, opening his eyes. But all he saw was G-Dragon’s face staring back at him. “What time is it?” he asked.

“How am I supposed to know that?” G-Dragon said. “I don’t even know what day it is.”

T.O.P. rubbed the sleep from his eyes and sat up with a yawn. But then he remembered where they were and was now jolted from his sleepy state. He stood up quickly and looked around to make sure that everyone was still there, unharmed.

“Everything’s okay,” G-Dragon said. “But we need to get going.”

After waking the others, the group crossed the cold stream, their bodies shivering and their stomachs empty. G-Dragon told them that they needed to be on the other side of the stream and stay low in that marshy grass for as long as they could, avoiding the highways until they found the one that connected to Seongsan Bridge.

When they had finally crossed that stream, they followed the path on the other side, crossed underneath the passing highways, and ended up at a public swimming pool park on some small concrete stretch of land alongside the Han River.

The bridge was in full view before them. They could literally walk up from the swimming pool park and touch the concrete abutments supporting that red steel bridge, but just as they were trying to follow the course of the bridge with their eyes to see where it met land and figure out how they could access it, they all noticed, nearly at the same time, a red staircase that led from that park all the way up to the pedestrian passage lane of that bridge.

Everyone was smiling, so happy to avoid backtracking to the highways and finding the onramp to the bridge now that they located the pedestrian passage. They couldn’t believe their luck. But G-Dragon told them not to get too excited. Until now, they had been off the streets and out of view, relatively safe. But the journey over the bridge would be dangerous, not only because they would be out there in the open, but also because if they had trouble on the bridge, they either had to fight through it or turn back. There were no side roads, no alternatives, not unless they wanted to jump, which would surely mean their deaths.

They all understood what was at risk, but also knew that they had little choice in the matter. They waited now for G-Dragon to make the first move.

“Okay, well then let’s go,” he said.

They climbed that red staircase now, slowing their pace somewhat as they neared the top.

“I’ll go first,” Thunder said, getting his bow ready as he made his way past the others. He climbed up just enough so that he could be at eye-level with the bridge. It was filled with cars and so he couldn’t see far, but through the gaps between those cars, he could see the shambling steps of passing zombies. Not many, but enough to make trouble for their group. He looked back down at the others on the staircase. “There’s a few of them,” he whispered. “But if we stay in the pedestrian lane, they might not even see us.”

They all climbed up to the top now, starting off slowly as they walked single file down that narrow pedestrian lane along the edge of the bridge, but when they drew the attention of a few nearby zombies in the car lanes, they began running.

The bridge was clogged with cars, likely from all the people who had tried to escape that first morning of the outbreak, but there were no people in those cars now. Some of the doors hung open, which served as obstacles to those zombies on the main part of the bridge shambling alongside them. And in no time, G-Dragon and the others were able to outrun them, the pedestrian path clear ahead of them for as far as they could see. It reminded G-Dragon of the sidewalk he had told Hyun Suk to veer onto when they were in the vans on the way to the stadium. In both instances, there had been that side route open and clear for them – the sidewalk back then, the pedestrian walkway now. He wondered why they were so lucky when so many others were not. And then he wondered when their luck would run out.

After walking for a while without seeing any zombies, they began to get more comfortable. Daesung and Minzy were holding hands, looking out over the water and talking about how beautiful it was from that vantage point.

The wind was strong but the skies were clear, and all walked onward without worry.

But then it appeared that their luck did, in fact, run out. It started with just a few zombies seen on the bridge ahead, coming from the opposite direction and making their way toward them. But from out behind the cars, more zombies began to emerge. And then more, and more, until all the car lanes were b with the undead.

Everyone stopped. They were about halfway across the bridge by then and none of them wanted to go back. Daesung suggested that they hide underneath the cars and wait it out, but they had already been spotted by the zombies, all of whom were now crossing lanes to get to that pedestrian path.

Thunder took out his bow but he only had five stick arrows left. The others had their sharpened sticks, but weren’t confident that those weapons would hold up against such a large group of zombies.

“What should we do?” Daesung asked.

G-Dragon eyed the horde, which was getting closer every minute, and then just screamed, “Run!”

They all ran as fast as they could down that pedestrian path, hoping to sweep right past the horde. There was a small guardrail protecting the path from the car lanes, but they knew that it wouldn’t protect them from the zombies.

And they were right.

The zombies were reaching over from the car lanes trying to get at the live bodies running past on the other side of the rail. G-Dragon and the others managed to dodge the first dozen or so zombies that tried to claw at them, but the zombies up ahead had seen them coming and were already crawling atop each other to get over the guardrail. The first four runners managed to make it past that pile of zombies in their way, but the last two runners, Thunder and Lee Joon, were caught. The zombies that had fallen to the ground had latched onto their legs, pulling them down. Lee Joon felt one of them bite his ankle and he now stomped on their heads, trying to get free. Thunder, meanwhile, was trying to arm his bow, but the zombies were crawling up his legs and pulling at his shirt, and he ended up dropping the bow as he tried to shake them off. More zombies kept staggering toward them until the boys were surrounded on three sides. The only free side was the steel rail behind them that lined the bridge, protecting them from falling in the water.

The two boys looked at each other now, both completely understanding each other through that one gaze without having to actually say the words: they would rather jump than be eaten.

And so that’s what they did. They jumped, taking with them the few zombies that they couldn’t shake off, those monsters still clutching onto the legs of those last two MBLAQ members as they plummeted down to the cold water below.

Daesung and Minzy heard the splash below and stopped running. They hadn’t looked back since they had begun running but they looked back now, seeing the zombies that had overflowed onto the pedestrian path. Their eyes darted back and forth, looking for Lee Joon and Thunder, and when they realized that they were gone, they choked back their tears and turned to continue running, trying now to catch up to G-Dragon and T.O.P.

Jong Kook and Ji Hyo had spent the night in the convenience store in Pyounghwa Park. The baby had cried all throughout the night and Jong Kook and Ji Hyo had taken turns to feed him. It was like they were a young married couple, already used to a routine of waking and feeding the baby every few hours.

But because of those interruptions during the night, neither of them slept well and ended up waking much later than they had originally planned. It was already late morning by the time Jong Kook opened his eyes. He looked over at Ji Hyo lying on the floor beside him, with baby Dream still in the sling and nestled close to her chest. Jong Kook watched them both sleep for a while, feeling, for the first time in a long time, a sense of peace.

He leaned down to kiss Ji Hyo softly on the lips, trying to rouse her from sleep. “Wake up, sweetheart,” he quietly said. He loved her mong expression in the morning, how she always woke up with that look of confusion on her face. “Come on,” he said, holding out his hand to help her up.

While Ji Hyo rubbed the sleep from her eyes, Jong Kook rummaged through the grocery coolers, looking for a canned Americano or some other iced coffee for Ji Hyo. The refrigeration had long been turned off – there was no electricity at all in the store – and so he knew that whatever he found wouldn’t be cold, but he hoped that it would still be good.

They enjoyed their quick breakfast – coffee for Ji Hyo, beef jerky for Jong Kook – and then brushed their teeth, used the bathroom, and finally set off, walking around the zombies just outside that convenience store door that Jong Kook had killed with the scissors last night and trying hard not to look in the direction of that tree where Kwang Soo’s body was as they left that area, heading south through the park to the water.

They only ran into a handful of zombies on their journey from the convenience store to the riverbanks. The trekking poles proved to be quite effective weapons, as they were long enough to keep some distance between them and the zombies while also being sharp enough at the ends to take each zombie out with just one strike.

At the end of the park property, Jong Kook spotted a single lane wooden pedestrian bridge that crossed over the highways and led to the riverfront on the other side. They made their way across without trouble and found themselves just down the way from the public swimming pool park that G-Dragon’s group had wandered through.

Jong Kook used his hand as a visor to look east along the banks over the swimming pool park and past the Seongsan Bridge. He couldn’t see the marina on the other side of the river, not from that vantage point, and so he walked to the edge of the edge of the land, trying to get a better view. But as he did, he noticed a canoe in the water just in front of him, complete with two paddles. He called to Ji Hyo now, telling her to hurry and come over. “Pass that over here,” he said, as he reached for the bag of supplies she was carrying. He had already dropped his two bags in the canoe.

The two began rowing across the Han, passing right under the Seongsan Bridge from which, just a few hours earlier, Thunder and Lee Joon had jumped.

“I hate rowing,” Ji Hyo said. “But at least we’re not in a boat made out of plastic bags or balloons.”

Jong Kook laughed, thinking back on that Running Man episode. They had rowed across the Han twice now on the show, once on boats they made out of cardboard and plastic wrap, and then again on boats they made out of bags, balloons, cans, and other completely ridiculous supplies the production crew thought would be funny to use. But his smile faded as he then remembered the Running Man friends they had lost: Suk Jin, Haha, now Kwang Soo. He wondered what had happened to Jae Suk and Gary.

After passing underneath the Seongsan Bridge, they continued down the middle of the Han, crossing underneath one more bridge – the Yanghwa – as they searched the land on the right for the marina. Not knowing that the marina was tucked into a cove, they would have passed right by it if not for the boat they spotted on the water just a little ways out from the land’s end. It was the only boat they had seen on the water so far. Jong Kook again used his hand as a visor to try to get a better look. It appeared to be a small yacht, maybe some type of cabin cruiser. They began rowing up to it, and as they did, they noticed a girl sitting at the bow, holding onto the handrail as her legs dangled over the sides.

“Is that… Minzy?” Ji Hyo asked.

Jong Kook shook his head. “I don’t know,” he said.

They rowed closer now, seeing the girl look up in their direction. But the girl didn’t stand or say anything. She seemed to be completely unfazed by their approaching canoe.

“Minzy?” Ji Hyo called out.

Jong Kook and Ji Hyo were too low in the water to see the three boys that then exited the cabin, not until those boys walked around the starboard side and stood behind Minzy.

“Jong Kook? Ji Hyo?” G-Dragon signaled for them to row around back, where he and T.O.P. waited at the stern with rope to tie the canoe to the cruiser. There was a platform at the stern, which Jong Kook and Ji Hyo now climbed onto to board the boat.

They all embraced, somewhat calmly at first, as no one wanted to get too emotional, but they couldn’t hold back for long. Ji Hyo was the first to break down, her tears of relief mixed with breathy laughs as she felt what could only be described as salvation. “Is Minzy okay?” she asked them, once her tears settled.

G-Dragon nodded. “We had some trouble on the bridge. Came across maybe a hundred of them.” He then pointed to the marina around the curve of land forming that cove. “They followed us,” he said.

Jong Kook and Ji Hyo squinted and saw a ton of zombies all crowded alongside the wooden dock that encircled that small inlet of water.

“We lost Thunder and Lee Joon back on the bridge,” G-Dragon said. “Me and T.O.P. didn’t even know. We were all running so fast trying to get away from those things.” He looked over to the bow where Minzy was still sitting with her legs hanging over the side. Daesung was crouched beside her, rubbing her back. “Finding this boat… we should be happy, but…” He didn’t know what else to say. He breathed in deep for a moment and looked back at the zombie-filled marina, where those creatures were packed to the brim. “We’re just worried now if the others come. They’ll be walking right into that,” he said.