The world is dark and gloomy. It’s been like this for a period of time that no one really knows, since most of them are dead. Most of the buildings are either collapsed entirely, or incredibly dilapidated. The roads, or what’s left of them, are cracked and covered in debris and bodies. Lots of dead bodies, littering pretty much everywhere, some are headless, limbless, or just completely disembodied.

Through this disastrous state, walks a lone person. A male probably around the age of twenty, give or take some years. He doesn’t know how long he’s been walking around the streets in search for…anything. A sign of human life besides him, or even just…an animal. He’s lost his friends, his family…everyone he’s ever cared about.

Much like the world, he is empty, and completely destroyed. It’s been so long since he’s been like that, he sometimes has to repeat his name to himself to remember who he is. It’s stupid, but…with how much everything has changed, he feels like he’s just an empty shell.

Jung Taekwoon; twenty-four years old. He hopes that one day, he’ll meet someone new and get to tell them that. He doesn’t care who; just someone, so he can be sure he’s not the only one alive on this broken world.

He steps over another brutally mutilated, half-disembodied corpse, shivering in disgust at the pool of half-dried blood and other bodily fluids surrounding the body. How had such a thing even happened? Even now, Taekwoon doesn’t know. One second, everything was fine; the next, utter chaos was happening and screams could be heard from all around him.

He remembers crying out when he found all of his friends, lying on the ground, crushed and almost unrecognizable, dead. He remembers painfully realizing he was unable to find the one person he wanted to live with forever; gone missing, and possibly also dead under piles of debris. He remembers crying again because of that. He remembers everything.

He stops, suddenly weighted with the memories that brutally haunt him still. He relives it all again and he collapses to the ground, holding his head tightly as if it would help the painful memories go away. Death is all around him again. He’s still not sure how, but he was just standing through it all, completely untouched. Yet everyone else…dead. He’s going crazy; that has to be what’s going on right now.

Everything stops again. Taekwoon is left sobbing, hugging his knees tightly. He just wishes this is all a dream. But it’s not. Everyone is dead except him. There’s no way someone can dream up something this disastrous.

Normally, Taekwoon isn’t like this. He used to be straightforward and stoic with almost no emotions, save for once or twice on a good day. That was before. Now all he seems to be able to do is cry. It’s depressing, really.

Suddenly, he hears something. Movement! Taekwoon can swear he hears someone kicking debris and possibly mutilated corpses around. He really hopes he’s not just imagining things. He risks looking up as he wipes his eyes with his dirtied hands.

Indeed, there’s something; someone. A figure is walking towards Taekwoon. A familiar figure. Taekwoon stares at the approaching figure in complete and utter shock. More tears threaten him. His mouth forms a small ‘o’; his eyes are wide and stinging with salty water. He doesn’t believe it.

“K-Kim…Won…Shik…?”

Word Count: 567