Gary opened his eyes and saw clouds. For a moment, he wondered if he was dead. But then he felt that pit bull his face and looked over to see Caesar lying beside him. He now remembered where he was and what had happened.

He was lying on the roof of the bus.

Last night, after Siwon turned and began attacking the EXO boys, their cries drawing the attention of the zombies that surrounded the bus outside, Gary and Donghae had stared at each other, thinking that it was surely the end for them. But then Gary saw the hatch above them and climbed up on a nearby seat to pry it open. Donghae held out his hands for Gary to step on so that he could crawl up, and once up on that roof, he was prepared to then pull Donghae up, thinking that they could both just stay flat up there and wait until the horde passed. But when he reached down, he saw that Donghae had the pit bull in his hands and was trying to pass Caesar up to Gary, thinking of that dog before himself. Just after he got that dog to safety, the zombies pried open the bus doors and began staggering over each other to climb aboard, eventually sending Donghae running down the aisle away from them… straight to the back of the bus where the Siwon zombie was waiting.

Gary had rolled over on the roof away from the hatch, lying on his back and squeezing his eyes closed as he listened to the screaming from below. He had waited like that for hours before the horde eventually moved on. Sometime later, he fell asleep.

He sat up now, thinking about his narrow escape. All he could wonder was why. Why him? Some part of him didn’t even want to live anymore, not in this world where there was so much brutality, so many meaningless deaths. Was life any more meaningful? Was it worth living? He didn’t know what to think anymore.

He slowly looked over the side of the bus now, seeing no zombies on the street, and then gripped tightly to the top of that bus as he swung his legs over and lowered himself down. He fell to the ground, scraping his knee a bit, and then saw the dog peering his head out to look down at him from that roof.

“,” Gary said, having forgotten about the dog. He tried calling Caesar now, telling him to jump, that he would catch him. But the dog didn’t move. Gary thought about leaving him. That dog was the reason Donghae was dead, he thought.

But then he felt bad about thinking such things and walked over to the bus doors, which were still partially open from when the zombies had gotten through. He stepped up on the handrail, balancing himself as he reached up the side of the bus to the roof. “Come on, boy,” Gary said. When the dog pattered over, Gary grabbed it quickly and then jumped back down, setting Caesar down on the street as he took hold of the leash.

He looked down Woldeukeom-ro to the intersection ahead and began walking, holding out the leash as Caesar ran in front. He turned right on Nongsusansijang-ro and followed that as it merged with the highway that led to the Seongsan Bridge. He walked and walked, almost in a haze, not really caring about the zombies he passed or even the few that turned to follow him. He was lost in his own thoughts, in some strange careless apathy.

Why go on? he wondered. As he thought about this, the chorus of his song, “Remembrance,” came to mind, and he sang it aloud now. “Repetitions of ups and downs. Repetitions of joy and sadness. Repetitions of love and separation. My life turns and turns.” His voice rang out hollow on that apocalyptic highway, full of deserted cars and the occasional walking corpse. He didn’t have any weapons. He didn’t even care. He had no fight left in him.

“My life turns and turns.” He continued on, almost like a zombie now himself, just lost in the poetry of his mind, slowly breaking underneath the weight of utter hopelessness.

As CL’s group followed that same path G-Dragon’s group had taken, they began seeing signs that gave them hope. First, they saw a zombie lying across the path with a stick arrow through its head. Dara instantly thought of Thunder. And then later, when they came across the very spot where G-Dragon’s group had spent the night, they saw footprints in the mud that led to the stream.

“They must’ve crossed here,” Dara had said.

CL thought those footprints could have easily been left by zombies, but she didn’t want Dara to lose hope, and so she led the group across the stream where they then came upon the public swimming pool park, ultimately seeing that red staircase that led up to the top of Seongsan Bridge. They climbed up the staircase and made their way to the bridge, all surprised to see it completely devoid of zombies. They didn’t know, of course, that G-Dragon’s group had led those zombies off the bridge right to the marina where CL’s group was now heading. They also didn’t know that just down the bridge behind them, Gary was walking alone, as unaware of their presence as they were of his.

Midway through the bridge, Seungri saw something up ahead on the pedestrian path they were following – what appeared to be a bow. Dara ran up and picked it up, along with the few stick arrows that were scattered along the path.

“It’s Thunder’s,” Dara said. “I’m sure of it.”

“Why would he have left his bow, CL-roo?” Bom asked.

They all looked at each other now. Dara held that bow close to her chest and began crying.

They traveled the length of the bridge, their feet sore from all the walking and their hearts heavy with thoughts of the boys being dead. As they neared the end of the bridge, they eventually came upon an off ramp that sloped down and merged with the major street lining that other side of the river. They followed that street as discreetly as they could, staying off the main lanes and traveling instead along the brush at its side until they once again caught sight of the water at their left and were able to get off the road entirely and stick to the shoreline.

It was a much longer journey than they had anticipated. They thought the marina would be right there on the other side of the river. They had forgotten that it was, in fact, past that second bridge, Yanghwa. And so they continued traveling through the brush along the rocky shoreline until they passed underneath the Yanghwa Bridge, still unaware that Gary was following them.

While CL’s group was careful about staying off the road, Gary was right there in the middle of it, just walking that dog and thinking about the meaning of life, still in somewhat of a fog. Because of the many cars blocking his view on the bridge, and later, because CL’s group stuck to the shoreline off to the left of the road, he hadn’t caught sight of them, not until he noticed the marina building up ahead near the water and, in search of a shortcut, then looked off the road to where the others were walking.

CL, Dara, Bom, and Seungri saw the marina just then, too, but they had a better view of the dock than Gary had and now stopped dead in their tracks at the sight of the zombies. At that moment, they heard dirt and rocks scatter down the hill beside them and got scared, thinking that it was more zombies. When they instead saw Gary and the dog making their way down from that road, they all felt their eyes sting with tears. But before the two groups could meet, they all suddenly heard something else – a low rumble, like that of a motorcycle.

Jae Suk and his family had spent the night in the back of a flatbed truck and had walked all morning until they found that motorcycle laying on its side in the street an hour ago, the keys still in the ignition. Jae Suk’s wife was sitting on the back, their three-year-old boy seated between them. It had taken them longer than it should have to get to the marina, largely because they had to stay at a slow speed to make their way around the cars haphazardly blocking the lanes, but now that they were almost there, they picked up the pace somewhat, passing right by the embankment where Gary just skidded down and joined CL’s group. Jae Suk drove happily through the streets, believing that once he found the off ramp for the marina, he would be able to lead his family directly to safety.

CL, Gary and the others all saw Jae Suk riding past and heading straight for the marina, and they now ran as fast as they could in that direction, yelling for him to stop. They could see what he could not and all felt so powerless to stop what they then saw happen.

The zombies lining that dock had heard the motorcycle and had turned in the direction of the sound, now walking away from the docks and up the cove just as Jae Suk was approaching from the other direction, having just entered the cove from the ramp. Jae Suk didn’t have much experience with motorcycles and so when he came around the corner, face-to-face with the horde, he overcorrected his turn and drastically swerved, which sent the bike skidding on its side, scraping against the ground. He got up quickly and hurried to get his wife and son from the ground, picking up his little boy and grabbing Kyung Eun’s hand as they now ran away, their arms and legs red with road rash from the fall.

The zombies were within arm’s reach of Jae Suk and his family.

CL impulsively decided to fire at the horde, hoping to draw them away from Jae Suk. It worked to some extent. Almost half of the zombies now turned their attention to the shoreline where CL, Gary, and the others were standing. But the other half continued following Jae Suk, who now pulled out the gun Se7en gave him and began shooting behind him, just firing randomly into the crowd of zombies.

G-Dragon and the others on the boat had heard the shots and all turned to see their friends on land running for their lives.

“Go!” T.O.P. yelled, pushing G-Dragon down into the captain’s seat. “Hurry! We need to get to them.”

G-Dragon was still learning how to operate the boat and accidentally pushed the throttle lever the wrong way, sending the boat careening backwards and nearly crushing the canoe still tied to the back. But then he got a handle on things and pushed the throttle forward to head for the dock. The only reason they had left the marina in the first place was because the zombies had followed them and they needed to pull away quickly so that they weren’t swarmed. But now that the zombies had left the dock, G-Dragon pushed that throttle hard, sending that cabin cruiser full speed ahead.

The zombies had split off into somewhat of a V shape in their attempts to chase both groups. When Gary saw the boat coming toward the dock and saw Jae Suk’s family being chased further inland, he decided to dash in front of the horde that was following Jae Suk and shoot off his gun so that the zombies followed him instead.

CL’s group, meanwhile, had also seen the boat coming and now jumped into the river to evade the zombies and swim to safety. Some of the zombies had stumbled into the water after them, but as the water grew deeper, those zombies soon disappeared below the surface.

Jae Suk saw the zombies behind him start veering toward Gary, who was actually calling those creatures over to him now. Jae Suk stopped, put down his boy, and watched as Gary walked backward away from the horde while still beckoning them closer. “Gary-ah! No!” Jae Suk yelled.

Gary continued walking backwards, shooting at the zombies in front of him. At that moment, Caesar came running up and Gary started yelling at the dog. He knew that he was on a suicide mission and he didn’t want that dog to get killed with him. As he stood there, still walking backwards from the zombies, he tried yelling at the dog to get away, even kicking at the ground near the dog’s legs, but Caesar wouldn’t leave his side.

With the zombies no longer following his family, Jae Suk turned his attention to the water, where he could see the boat just a short distance from the shoreline, having stopped short of the dock to help aboard those whom had jumped into the water.

“Come on,” Kyung Eun said, pointing to the boat.

But Jae Suk didn’t want to leave Gary behind. He couldn’t. He lifted his gun and was about to shoot and chase after Gary, but when he pulled the trigger, it just clicked empty. He was out of bullets.

“Please, yeobo,” Kyung Eun cried, picking up their son now. “We have to go.” Jae Suk looked at his wife and child’s scared faces and then nodded, his throat swelling as he swallowed the pain he felt.

Having pulled Seungri and the girls from the water, G-Dragon now steered the boat toward the dock just as Jae Suk’s family began running there.

Gary stopped firing at the zombies now upon him, hoping that he still had one bullet to use on himself. He closed his eyes and stared into the blackness, thinking about all the people he had loved, all the people he had helped, all the people with whom he had laughed and cried and drank and sang, and he realized then that life did have meaning, and that it was worth fighting for.

He opened his eyes now, seeing the necrotic flesh hanging off the arms of the zombies reaching toward him. He began inching backwards and then turned and ran, the dog still at his side running now, too.

The zombies behind him were blocking his access to the dock. And the other zombies that had chased Seungri, CL, Dara, and Bom into the river were still at the shoreline. With no access to the boat, Gary had no choice but to run up toward the street.

As he climbed that embankment now, he turned to take one last look back at the boat, expecting to see his friends motoring away, but instead, he saw Jong Kook and Ji Hyo jump off that boat with their trekking poles, and CL following them with her gun, and Dara arming herself with her brother’s bow, and Jae Suk running toward the motorcycle where he had left the shovel. They were going to save him. 

“Run that way!” Jong Kook yelled out to Gary, pointing over to the tall marina building inside the cove. “Run around it!”

Gary understood and now dashed left down the road, hoping to lose those zombies as he circled around the marina building back to the dock.

The others had planned to fight whatever zombies they could, but CL realized that her gun was wet and wouldn’t fire, and Dara was having trouble arming the bow. Jong Kook yelled for the 2ne1 girls to get back to the boat, but when he saw that it was only him, Ji Hyo, and Jae Suk standing against the fifty or so zombies chasing Gary, he knew they wouldn’t be able to fight either. And so they all ran back to the boat now, too, just praying that Gary would be able to lose the zombies as he ran around the marina building back to the dock.

“Get that boat in gear!” Jong Kook yelled to G-Dragon, as he and the others jumped aboard.

G-Dragon nodded, released the neutral lock, and kept his hand on the throttle lever as all watched the side of the marina building, waiting for Gary to emerge.

They saw the dog first, and everyone breathed in deeply, and then, when they saw Gary, they all collectively released that breath. Gary now leapt into that boat with the others, his cry of happiness to have survived overwhelmed by the revving of the engine as the boat sped away from the dock.