Chapter One.

You’ll be surprised to see how Seoul has changed in the last five years. It was the 27th December 2017, when zombies attacked in crowd for the first time. There were the first signs of something strange, but nobody minded it: the rising crime rate wasn’t new and some sporadic attack by some fierce individual didn’t really surprise the citizens.

Then, on the night of the 27th, Gangnam was besiege and in few minutes the city has become full of dead bodies. Bodies that pick themselves up again and began hunting. It was a real slaughter and the few survivors holed up in their houses, hoping that it was just a dream.

But the dream didn’t come to an end; it became reality and we all were forced to be witnesses of the almost total extinction of the human race. The rest of the world? It was too busy to manage the same problem to help us.

The goverment? One of the first to become a zombie was our president. On air, in front of the trembling nation. I remember that I was on the couch with an only three years old Min Ji sleeping on my side. Mom and Dad were gone to the mall for some grocery shopping, in prospect of the hard times.

The president was giving his speech when his former secretary attacked his shoulder and teared off a shred of his flesh. We heard an agonizing scream, then the president falled out of his seat and for some moment the only visible thing were his feet shaking at the right side of the mahogany desk.

Then, while the secretary was dragging herself through the study with crooked shoulders and neck bended in an absurd angle, the pillar of our nation rose again only to throw himself at the cameraman. The line went black and South Corea fell in panic.

Mam and Dad came home a few minutes later, with shopping bag full of supplies and two baseball bat in another bag. Dad had a bite on his left arm.

But I don’t wanna talk about Dad. I wanna tell you about Seoul, reduced in ruins in just a month. My beautiful Seoul, totally destroyed. Min Ji’s school, the coffee shop in which I used to work, Namsan Tower, the temples. Everything smashed to pieces by the same people that until the day before used to visit that same places with their families, lovers, friends. Which they killed, devoured. Transformed.

What about me? Well, I had to take care of Min Ji. And in some way or another I had to be sure that she would survive. So I forgot to be Choi Eun Seol and became The Slayer. I stole a scythe from a destroyed hardware store and trained with the sand bags that the army put on the Han River shore, before it was attacked by another mass of zombies: an absolute useless pracaution.

Schools were closed, hospitals taken and everything fell into a total mess in a few days.

I killed Mom and Dad at the end of the second day. I really don’t know how Dad managed to hide his transformation, but at the right moment in which he threw himself at Mom, I got hit by the awarness that if I didn’t kill them, they would have kill us.

Later, I told Min Ji that Mom and Dad were not the Mom and Dad that we used to know and love, but I don’t think she understood that. She cried her lungs out for three days and three nights, before accepting that they would have never come back.

I kept only Mom’s pearl necklace and their wedding rings, to remember of everything I’ve lost: killing the people I love most made me understand that I’ve got nothing to long for. I’ll never be in the same situation again, I won’t allow it. If this apocalypse taught me something, is that love is a weakness.

Min Ji is still sleeping soundly, when I open my eyes. She’s curl up against my side and is clinging the hem of my tshirt as if it is her Linus’ cover. Maybe she’s afraid that I’ll leave her alone, ‘cause if I wake up during the night – even if only for a glass of water – she wakes up too. I found this thing highly unfair; Min Ji deserves an happy childhood, she should play with her friends and crave that horrible pink shoes with lights that every spoiled child has. But our shoes are torn and the only school she can attend to are Madame Park’s lesson, on the third floor.

Madame Park is a former high school teacher, one of those rare people who still believe in education’s values and in scholastic institution. Her students were almost wiped out and the school in which she used to teach destroyed, but all this didn’t stop her from doing her job: she arranged a flat on the third floor, with strengthen windows and door and welcomes all the young people who desire to keep studying.

There are children, but even some teenagers, even if they’re the minority. I take Min Ji to Madame Park every morning; the world is fallin’ to pieces, but it doesn’t mean that my little sis has to become illiterate. And to be honest, I really can’t take her with me, while I’m hunting: she has seen so much, despite her young years. I can’t either leave her at the shelter, even though it’s one of the most secure place. I personally arrange it to be so, but I can’t trust people.

They’re desperate and desperation is dangerous. I’m not so hasty to leave my sis life to someone who could go nuts in the blink of an eye.

While Min Ji is sleeping, I use that time to prepare myself: today is Wednesday, and it means that I have to retrieve some medicine from the old hospital. I go there once a week to hoard the most medicine I can; now that the sanitary system is out of order, there’s no one who can take