Iljae opened her eyes. The sun had peeked through the windows and the sky was blue. She yawned and stretched her arms, smiling for the new day ahead. She looked at the five other messy mattresses sprawled on the floor, pillows everywhere. She sighed.

“Why do I have to room with them?” she inwardly groaned. She stood up and fixed their beds, much to her frustration. Once she was done folding, she carefully tucked them to the corner of the room and walked out the door.

“Oh, Iljae! Glad you were already awake. I was about to fetch you for breakfast,” Hoshi said and ruffled her hair. And as usual, his fingers would get stuck on it. “Yah, don’t you know how to comb your hair every morning? It’s like a mop.” Iljae gave him a slap on his arm and chuckled. They walked towards room 2-A, the room that they transformed into their living room, dining room, and kitchen. It wasn’t a very huge space, but it was enough for the fourteen of them, including Iljae.

Hoshi and Iljae sat on the table and ate Woozi’s ramen. It was enough for all of them, considering that they were fourteen and thirteen of them were boys. Their food barely lasts for a week and it didn’t help that most of them were bottomless pits. But lucky for them, they managed to control themselves.

“So, what’s new today?” Dino asked. He lazily sat on the couch with Jun and Junghan. “It’s pretty sunny outside. Do you think we can have an access to the rooftop? I’ve been dying to know about it these past few days already and I can’t help but to wonder what could be in there.”

Seungcheol looked at him. “It’s not forbidden to go there, Dino. But I doubt you’ll find anything interesting in there.”

Dino sighed. “Yeah, I guess. It’s just that…” he paused and looked at the window where the sky was so clear. “It’s so boring. Why can’t we venture out? It’s just in the rooftop.”

“Dino,” Jisoo softly warned. Dino sighed and sat back. Some things were best not discussed.

“We’ve been stuck here for a week and there’s barely nothing for us to do,” Iljae suddenly said, catching the attention of everyone. She looked at them and grinned. “I don’t think exploring would do us so much harm. We can’t remain stagnant like this-“

“Iljae, we are in a middle of a huge crisis right now,” Seungcheol said, cutting her off. His voice was more than serious. “There are zombies around this building and we can’t risk ourselves being infected. Iljae, we’re not in a playground.”

Everybody fell silent.

That was right.

After a huge sudden outbreak of zombies started, only the thirteen of them managed to seek refuge to the school. They had nothing with them. Just their bags filled with school things. They managed to hide themselves in the building through much adversity. Fortunately for them, the zombies couldn’t break through their stacked chairs and tables, giving them a space to breath. They made Class 2-A they're headquarters, and soon making it into something they could call home. They borrowed some appliances in the Home Economics lab and the Information and Media Room that can help them survive as f the meantime.

Iljae gave him a look. A light tension was in the air. “Yes, but we can’t stay like this forever. Our supplies won’t last long. Do we have to always worry about them? We made barricades. We managed to live through it. But that’s the only thing that we’re doing, Seungcheol. We are just living, but we aren’t alive. We worry about what will happen to the future, but can’t we make the present the best that it can be? If we let the anxiety of this outbreak get to us, we’ll end up being zombies as well.”

“Iljae, we have to be careful,” Seungcheol interjected. “We can’t just risk our lives just because of fun-“

“So you choose to lock us off and let us rot in here?” Iljae asked. “We can patrol the barricades, Seungcheol. And they are perfectly fine. It’s another morning, we should do what we can do to keep ourselves sane. We are in a school. And besides, we have each other. A zombie or two may come but we can fight a small amount of them. Why do you have to be so scared of everything? We have to distract ourselves with this fear. It can make you crazy, you know?”

Seungcheol fell silent. He wasn't into debating but Iljae definitely has a point. “What do you want to do, Iljae? Why do you want to breakout so much?”

“No, not really breaking out or something,” she shrugged. She grabbed her cup of milk and drank it. “More like, do what normal students would do so we won’t feel too burdened about the situation. Help will come, we hope. We’ve done what we could do to keep ourselves away from harm, right? We’ve secured our place and we should do something that can keep our hearts light. We should try to make the situation a little lighter, not worsen it.”

“Why don’t we go to the rooftop?” Dino suggested, his face plastered a smile. “That used to be the place of the botanical club, so there may be some crops there.”

“Resource,” Junghan said. He adjusted his jacket and breathed. “Well, I guess there may be some good air up in the rooftop. Plus, I doubt zombies could go there without passing this floor.”

They all nodded and prepared themselves. Everyone was pretty excited since it has been a week since they’ve had a relaxed feeling. During the first day, they had to lock themselves in the music room to prevent zombies from breaking in. The next day, they had to take over the third floor and make it their territory. It was a good thing that there were only a few zombies who climbed up to that floor, making it easy for Mingyu and Seungcheol to kill the zombies easily. After that, they gathered chairs, tables, desks and a few barbed wires that they found in the janitors’ closet to make a barricade. They made it stable enough that it won’t fall even if zombies try to push it. The next, they made the class 2-A their shelter. Class 2-A was Iljae’s room and it was the best choice as of the moment. There weren’t a lot of zombies who dripped blood in their room, making it easy to clean.

And the next, they were trying hard to keep themselves sane. It took days to calm themselves down and manage themselves as a group since they weren’t even close friends. For days, they just stayed in the room, with Seungcheol and Mingyu occasionally leaving to check the barricades. Other than that, there was nothing more.

As they were walking, Iljae saw Seungcheol walking behind with a troubled expression, seemingly wary about every corner that they took. She slowed down and walked beside him.

“Seungcheol, why are you so worried? Let’s have fun, okay? This may be our last moments and we’re just wasting it from waiting for help,” she said and smiled. Seungcheol looked at her and broke into a huge grin. Her smile was viral, and Seungcheol found it nice to have someone cheer him up.

“You know what? You’re right. Let’s have some fun for the meantime,” he said and walked with them.

Mingyu came racing behind them. “I’ve checked the barricades and there weren’t any zombies in sight. It’s still sturdy as it should be,” he informed them. “Wonwoo went to check the other barricades.”

“Good,” Iljae said. “Let’s head to the top.”

As soon as they reached the rooftop, they all marveled at the sight. The sky was greatly blue and the city was a good sight to see. For a moment, they forgot all of their worries. The city still looked normal, it was still city-like compared to what they have seen in other apocalyptic movies. There were some smokes rising in the air, but other than that, it still looked like the city is still normal. No outbreak, no zombies. No chaos that brought them in desperation. Iljae wished that the city was really back to normal. Maybe it was wishful thinking, but she could only get so much hope in their situation.

In the middle of the rooftop is a small roof garden with tomatoes and onions growing.

“Wow, we could use these for food supplies,” Woozi said and held the cherry tomatoes in his hand. He turned to them and grinned. “I like this place. It’s like a breather for when we are too suffocated downstairs.”

“Yeah, but look down, guys,” Junghan said as he stood at the railing. Everyone gathered near the railing where Junghan was and looked.

“Are they…”

“They are.”

There were zombies – students and teachers – roaming the school grounds. They were walking slowly, but they were definitely creepy. Their faces were torn off with their hollow eyes and their gray skin. Their mouths hung on their faces, constantly hanging, ready to gobble on whatever living thing they find. With zombies walking all around, it looked like they were in a dystopian country being the only survivors. Iljae sighed.

“How did this even began? Is it…airborne?” she asked. “I hope that this is only in Seoul.”

“I doubt that,” Vernon said and frowned. “As much as I hate it, this could be nationwide already. Just hope that this isn’t worldwide. That’s the worst scenario I could think of.”

The thought shuddered them all. If it was just in Korea, getting help would be easy. Other countries would be able to send some troops to patrol the area and search for survivors. Hopefully, them. But if it was worldwide, all hope was lost. Or so, as they put it.

“I don’t even know if any of my relatives are still alive. If my sister is still…a human,” Vernon breathed. He shook his head. “I don’t want to think about it.”

Everyone’s eyes were drilled down, trying to comprehend what’s already been established. There was still that shock that coursed through them whenever they would see a zombie. Of course, who wouldn’t be? Nothing was already normal and nothing seems to be what it should be. It was a sudden outbreak. No time to pack, no time to evacuate, no time to understand.

“One moment, we were just treading our own paths. The next, we’re stuck here with the zombies around,” The8 said, his head hung.

“None of us were even that close to each other,” Seungkwan said. “We probably made some hellos to each other, but nothing deeper than that. For one week, we’ve struggled to be with each other and be happy, huh? Chemistry.”

Iljae chuckled. At first, it was pretty awkward. But with zombies walking behind you, awkwardness didn't matter anymore. Survival is what's important and that is what they struggled to have. 

“You know what?" Iljae said. "My skin is burning here. Let’s go down and think of organizing ourselves. We can make a combat team, scout team, and research team, yeah? It’s about time that we do that.”

“YES!”

“GENIUS KID!”

“Shut up.”

Everyone made their way towards the door and chattered. It was as if there weren’t any problems as of the moment. Iljae stayed behind and looked at the city. A wistful stare, an empty smile. Then, she looked at the boys as they happily walked down the stairs, pushing and laughing. Her empty smile vanished, replaced by a contented smile.

“Good luck to us.”