Taeyeon, standing with Jong Kook and the five remaining ahjummas at the frontline of the fight, ran out of ammo just as one of the zombies climbed high enough atop that hill of rubble and corpses to reach for her. It had been ing its burnt arm out desperately in an attempt to grab her and finally succeeded in doing so, clutching tightly around her ankle. Taeyeon tried to pummel its head in with the barrel of her machine gun, but when that didn’t work, she threw the machine gun aside and drove her wrist knife right into its left eye, the eyeball bursting upon impact like a crushed egg.

Knowing that she wouldn’t be able to continue the fight without a gun, Taeyeon backed away from the threat and nearly stumbled over Jessica then, who was lying on the rubble next to Gary.

Jessica was oblivious to Taeyeon standing there. There was chaos all around her, but she was only focusing on Gary’s face – so peaceful in his unconscious state. She held his hand, squeezing it tightly. “I love you, Gary-ah,” she quietly said, her voice silenced by the noise of the machine gun fire around her. “I’m sorry I never told you that before.”

Over by the framework, Ji Hyo had been trying to convince Thunder and Krystal to start climbing. Krystal was protesting, not wanting to leave her sister behind.

Taeyeon rushed over. “You have to go,” she said, her hand on Krystal’s shoulder. “Don’t worry, I’ll take care of your sister.”

Krystal glanced over at Jessica lying on the rubble next to Gary and then looked back at Ji Hyo and Taeyeon, eventually nodding in agreement. “Okay,” she quietly said.

Taeyeon looked up the framework and saw that T.O.P. and Bom had made it into the window of the Samsung building, with Seungri and CL close to the top and Daesung and Minzy not far behind. She watched as Thunder and Krystal began climbing, and then urged Ji Hyo to do the same.

Jong Kook ran out of ammo then, leaving the five ahjummas to continue the fight as he ran over to the others. “Ji Hyo-yah! Why aren’t you climbing? Go, go!” He pushed Ji Hyo toward the framework and then ran over to Jessica and Gary. Taeyeon followed.

Jong Kook reached down, picked up Gary, and threw him over his shoulder again. He knew that it would take all of his strength to climb up those steel bars with only one hand and while hauling Gary’s body, but there was no other choice. The zombies were continuing to surround them and soon, there would be no more ammo left at all to hold them back.

“You need to start climbing,” Taeyeon yelled, trying to pull Jessica to her feet.

Jessica cried out from the pain of her broken leg. “I can’t!” she screamed, nearly falling over. “Do you see this bone sticking out of my leg? How am I supposed to climb like this?”

“You can do it,” Taeyeon said. “It’s going to hurt, but you need to push through the pain. We’ll go together. I’ll help you. You just need to try, okay?”

Jessica breathed in deeply and slowly nodded.

Jong Kook, with his right hand holding Gary over his shoulder, reached for the steel bars with his left hand and began climbing up. His legs were sore from bearing the weight of his fallen friend but he continued to climb despite the pain, grinding his teeth and wincing as he pulled his body ever higher. Every now and then, he’d look down and check on Taeyeon and Jessica climbing below him, the gap between him and the two girls growing with each minute that passed due to Jessica’s slow pace. With only one leg, she had to use the strength of her arms to pull herself up. Taeyeon stayed at her side, motivating her friend to persevere.

All this time, there had been this constant deafening sound of machine gun fire, but in the span of just a few seconds, that sound slowly dwindled to a mere spray of bullets and then, finally, to nothing. Jong Kook looked down and saw that the ahjummas, having expended all of their ammo, were now trying to stave off the zombies with their knives. He knew that wouldn’t survive like that and yelled down to them to give up. “Yah, forget it!” he yelled. “Climb! Hurry and climb!”

Now that there was nothing holding them back, the zombies scaled that hill of rubble, trampling over the bodies of the other zombies that had been gunned down as they staggered after the ahjummas.

Jong Kook held his breath as he watched the ahjummas below. His mind raced with regret, thinking that he should have looked after the ahjummas first, even if it meant leaving Gary behind. He knew that some in the group needed to hold off the zombies while the others climbed, but it should have been the young out there looking after their elders, not the other way around. Please, he thought, as he watched the ahjummas below gripping onto the steel bars, their legs dangling above the horde of zombies now surrounding that steel tower. Please survive this.

Taeyeon and Jessica had stopped climbing, too, and were staring down the framework at the ahjummas below, both praying, as Jong Kook was, that they would make it.

“Omma, hurry!” Taeyeon yelled, seeing the last ahjumma struggling.

The zombies below her were salivating, their mouths open and oozing infectious saliva as they let out these horrid, desperate groans at the sight of their prey so close. Their arms were extended, their sinewy hands reaching for that last ahjumma, but she kicked free of their clutches and reached up to the next bar, pulling her body higher than their reach, much to the relief of everyone watching.

Jong Kook breathed in deeply and swallowed hard as he turned his attention back to the climb now. He could see Thunder and Krystal above being pulled into the open window by those already inside. “Yah!” he yelled, crying out from his exertion with each rung he climbed. “Yah! Yah Yah!” 

When he finally made it to the top, G-Dragon and Thunder reached out, trying to grab Gary from his shoulder.

“Be careful!” Ji Hyo yelled from inside. “Don’t drop him!”

The boys struggled some but managed to pull Gary’s body through the open window. Jong Kook then climbed inside and collapsed onto the floor, completely exhausted, but he allowed himself only a minute to breathe before he returned to the window, worried about the girls still climbing.

The sight from the window was almost surreal. It was one thing to experience it when there was no time to actually process what was happening, but to see the danger from that vantage point was heart-stopping. From the ground, the framework had appeared much like a strong towering web of steel in its lean against the Samsung building, but from this height, it appeared more like what it actually was – the flimsy skeletal ruins of a collapsed building. Jong Kook could see Taeyeon and Jessica nearly at the top now, their bodies at the mercy of this steel structure and at the mercy of what was left of their strength. The ahjummas were much farther down, appearing so small in the distance, like ants clinging to a leaf. But it was the ground below that looked the most surreal. The hill of rubble couldn’t even be seen anymore. All that could be seen were the outstretched arms of burnt, decaying zombies still reaching for their prey, with more and more zombies still coming and continually expanding the circumference of that dense horde.

And then… something happened. It began small, like a brief tremor throughout the structure, just a quick rattle. But then the entirety of the structure began to shake. The pressure from the weight of the surrounding zombies against the framework loosened its connection to the foundation below, and the rubble started to shift then, with the structure beginning to slide out.

Taeyeon, clutching desperately to the wobbly framework, yelled for Jessica to hurry. “There’s no time! Come on!”

“Hurry!” Jong Kook yelled, his upper body hanging out of that window as he reached for them.

Both girls reached the top rung and Jong Kook extended a hand to each of them, grabbing Jessica by the wrist with his left hand and Taeyeon by the wrist with his right.

A piercing screech of metal was then heard as the framework scraped down the side of the Samsung building, sliding out from underneath the girls, who were each now dangling from Jong Kook’s hands. Jong Kook roared, feeling his biceps stretch as the weight of the girls nearly dragged him out of the window.

The framework continued to slowly slide down, eventually crashing against the ground in a loud smash of metal against rubble. The ahjummas who had been clinging to the bars fell from the framework right into the horde of hungry zombies, like bait fish into a pool of sharks, their bodies torn apart almost immediately. Blood squirted from their ripped flesh as their insides were pulled out, and then their bodies disappeared beneath the horde entirely, the zombies huddling over and feasting on what they had captured.

Taeyeon and Jessica couldn’t see what was happening below them, but they could hear it – the ravaging of flesh, the gurgling, the chewing. They knew what awaited them if either fell.

Everyone inside crowded behind Jong Kook’s massive, bulging body at that window, their hands covering their mouths, their eyes wide with fright. Ji Hyo dove down to Jong Kook’s legs, immediately wrapping herself around his legs in an attempt to hold him in place so that his body wasn’t pulled out of the window from the weight of the girls. T.O.P. quickly crouched down beside her, trying to help brace Jong Kook’s body.

Jong Kook was squeezing his eyes closed, trying to focus his already tired arms on pulling the girls up, but they were stretching his muscles. His arms were distended and taut and his knuckles white from gripping their wrists so tightly.

Taeyeon grabbed onto Jong Kook’s arm with both hands, her desperate eyes searching his face as the wind blew her body from side to side. She was at his mercy, her life literally in his hands.

Jessica was frozen. She was only being held by that one wrist that Jong Kook had grabbed. Her other arm was swept out, fluttering in the wind.

“Jessica-ssi, reach up… reach up with your other hand,” Jong Kook cried.

She didn’t respond. She couldn’t move or think. She hung from his grip like a lifeless doll.

“Sica, please,” Taeyeon said, looking over at her. She stared at Jessica, who was still unresponsive, and saw then how much energy had been drained from her friend, how little fight was left in her. Taeyeon looked back up at Jong Kook now, her eyes so dry from the burning wind that she couldn’t even produce tears. “Jong Kook-ssi, let me go,” she quietly said. “You can’t pull us both up. You need to let me go.”

Jong Kook had been grunting, his small eyes squeezed closed as he desperately tried to hold onto the girls, but when he heard Taeyeon’s words, he opened his eyes and stared directly at her. “No,” he said. “Don’t do that. Don’t give up.”

Jessica suddenly looked over at Taeyeon, as if awakened by her words. Despite the hell that Taeyeon had been through, there was still a light in her eyes – that flicker of fight that Jessica no longer had. She knew that, because of her broken leg, she wouldn’t survive long. If Taeyeon died for her sake, it would be a wasted death. The sacrifice would mean nothing. She glanced up at Jong Kook’s hand wrapped around her wrist and then looked back at Taeyeon. “Take care of my sister,” she quietly said, as she opened her hand.

“What are you doing?” Jong Kook asked. He was still gripping Jessica’s wrist tightly, but without her hand gripping him back, he wouldn’t be able to hold her much longer.

“Sica, no!” Taeyeon yelled. “I’ve lost everyone! I can’t lose you, too!”

Jong Kook’s grip slipped from Jessica’s wrist but he caught her small hand just in time and clenched it so tightly that he could feel the bones of her hand crack from the compression.

Krystal shoved her way to the window and peered around Jong Kook to the girls hanging from his tentative grip outside.

Jessica looked up at Krystal and her mind then flashed through the years of love she’d shared with her, all the way back to the moment when Jessica, just five-years-old, had seen her newborn sister for the first time. Jessica had recognized even at that tender age the immense beauty and purity in Krystal’s infant face, a beauty and purity she could still see even now, all these years later. “I love you so much,” Jessica cried.

“Don’t leave me,” Krystal croaked, her emotions lumped inside .

Jong Kook roared again, feeling his hold on Jessica’s hand slipping away, and then, just like that, she was gone, the last touch of her fingers a mere flick against his before she plummeted six stories down to the ground full of zombies below.