A month after World War VII…

The night air was cool against my skin as I wandered aimlessly through Seoul, alone. I used to like being alone, sitting by myself and listening the thump of the beat and the fruitful melodies. I no longer enjoy solitude, since…since being all alone became a constant thing. Since…the only person I loved in this world left me all alone.

The saying was right, you don’t know what you have until you lose it.

…And I had lost it all…

Being alone made the cool winds all the more cold, it made the piercing howls and the tortured screams seemed closer and a hell of a lot more terrifying. It made the walking seem like an eternity of scorching sun and dry gulps. It made the unwavering silence extremely hard to bear.

If only he were here, time would fly, I could sleep peacefully, I could break the looming silence and gloom that floated thick wherever I went.

 If only they didn’t kill him, life would be good.

I would be happy, again.

I sat down, exhausted and thirsty from endless walking. The sun burned down on the nuclear infested mess of a world that I called home. It was a miracle I wasn’t sunburnt. Finding water was nearly impossible and when I did find the odd puddle or two, radiation flowed through its every drop. I still drank it though and so far it hadn’t given me an extra leg. Food was also hard to come by, hunting was hard since deer and other animals weren’t exactly running across the debris. Well the murderous monsters were everywhere but I would rather starve than eat them. And to top it off, insanity was looming over every lonely moment.

“Life is a miracle, they said. Always hope for the best, they said.” I muttered the phrases of my childhood. The phrases the ahjumma’s at the orphanage always spoke. Kris made his own version that I always thought was more realistic.

“Life is complete , don’t get your hopes up.”

A smile cracked across my face. Leave it to Kris to be the pessimist. I was the optimist. That’s how it was, for all my life. Until I was left alone without the pessimist.

“Be like Minseok, they said. Well guess what? Minseok is dead. Who wants to be him now?” Something I knew all too well pricked my eyes and fell down my cheeks. I wiped them away hastily. Now, was not the time to grieve, to mourn, to think. Now, was a time to survive, to search, to move forward. I could deal with those tings later, or when I die, either option is fine with me.

It was midday and dehydration was beginning to take its toll, because how else could I have seen two survivors. A strong girl with a knife pointed at a tall, dark skinned boy, asking who he was, asking him if he was alive. Slowly witnessing the lowering of her knife and the raising her hand instead. I must’ve been hallucinating it all. Insanity was finally rooting itself in me. I am alone, alone because I couldn’t save Kris, the only person on this earth I loved from those beasts. I am truly all alone.

But when I saw the two survivors again, a few days later, saving another survivor. There was no way I was hallucinating them. I had just drunk a vile blend of nuclear waste and water, so dehydration was out of the qu