[title: no tears left to cry - ariana grande]
[~5k]

Day Zero

17:41:07 PM

17 April

Seoul, South Korea

She never makes it.

She’s not exactly sure what happens. One second, she and Jongdae crane their necks as they stare at the gigantic tent, a wired, fenced off camp up ahead that seems to just loom over the outskirts of the city. The next second, there’s a small child stumbling out from beneath a stalled car. She’s crying. Jongdae blinks at the child as she stumbles towards them, crying loudly, face covered in dirt.

Sojin’s heart bursts at the sight of the little baby and when Jongdae scoops her up easily, cradling her in his chest as she hiccups and gestures wildly behind her, Sojin gets this huge knot in her stomach, something akin to dread. Or maybe this is what her super romantic, super straight friend called baby fever.

(Sojin’s super romantic, super straight friend had cooed at her about said baby fever, a problem that apparently hits twenty-something year old women when they see cute babies do cute things, sometimes in the presence of super cute dudes. Unfortunately, Sojin’s friend thought she’d relate or something, but Sojin is neither super romantic nor is she exactly super straight, but that’s a story for another date. Also, babies are only great if she’s able to return them once they start cry-screaming or pooping.)

Still, Kim Jongdae cradling a crying baby girl in his arms as he soothes her crying down with melodic humming? Sojin may possibly finally relate with the whole baby fever thing. But, only briefly, because then there’s shouting coming from the looming, fenced off tent past the sea of empty, stalled cars, all seemingly parked there as if they thought this was some mall parking lot.

Both Jongdae and Sojin spin on their heels.

The chained fence in question is covered by flipped cars, barricaded really, and buildings to the point where there’s a tiny path that allows entrance and Sojin half-wonders how long these people had to build this thing. It’s a fortress, basically, made of the rubble and ruins around them, cars stuck in a perpetual traffic jam filling the path between Jongdae, Sojin, and the baby, and the supposed military safe zone. The entrance is covered by metal. There are men in military gear shouting out to them. Nobody’s in the cars in front of the fortress, as if they’ve all been evacuated. Maybe, they have. Apparently Sojin not only loses track of time while writing essays, but she also loses track of every damn thing that’s been happening all around her. It looks like the government has had time to build this thing. It looks almost like the government has this road, maybe even the city, on some sort of lockdown. Or a quarantine.

Her heart knocks against her chest when someone shouts through the speakers, “Stand on the cars, arms and legs spread, and turn slowly. One at a time.”

Sojin exchanges a look with Jongdae before she silently agrees that the kid will go first. The baby is still crying, but she’s pliant, shaking as Sojin gently holds out her arms and Jongdae holds her up, like some sort of ed up reenactment of The Lion King.

“Hey, Simba.” Sojin mumbles, brushing the girl’s tears away. “It’s okay, you’re okay.”

Jongdae snorts at her, even as the military officer shouts, Clear. Next. “Simba?”

Sojin nods, “Simba.”

She pushes Jongdae up onto the car’s hood, yelping a little when the metal of the hood creaks, collapsing a bit, making him lose his balance. She clutches the little kid to her and the girl clings to her for dear life, still shaking. She hears her whimper, Monsters, monsters are coming.

Sojin ignores that.

She probably shouldn’t have.

They clear Jongdae and Sojin goes up next, handing the baby off to Jongdae. She raises her arms over her head, legs spread, and feels entirely too exposed as she spins. She had seen the red laser on Jongdae as he had done the same thing and she wonders if they’re poised to shoot. She’s watched enough zombie movies to know how the hell that goes.

The bullhorn screeches, growing staticky for a second, before a voice crackles through it, shouts, “Clear! The three of you may now proceed.”

And they do. They do, and the little girl starts crying, whimpering.

They weave between the cars, all sandwiched together, making it really ing difficult to sidle through without something getting caught in a bumper or her losing her balance every ten seconds.

Jongdae’s ahead of her and she looks up, meeting little Simba’s eyes and they’re wide, full of fear. She’s stopped crying and she’s just staring at Sojin. Sojin blinks, even as Simba starts to whimper, “Unnie, they’re coming.”

Sojin blinks. Jongdae hears the girl, because he turns his head, brows furrowed as he looks at her, before he turns back to look at Sojin, brows raised this time.

Three things happen, then.

One, the military men blare horns, loud and obnoxious, like a siren that echoes all around them, and she hears a blaring, rattling, terrifying announcement through the bullhorn, screaming at them, this time, “Run! ing RUN!”

Two, Jongdae’s eyes shift over her shoulder and his gaze morphs into one of absolute horror, matching the little girl’s expression to a tee.

Three, she hears a distinct, low growl echoing behind her, long and drawn out, faraway but so utterly bone-chilling that every single nerve in her body lights up in warning, every single instinct inside of her screams for her to run.

She doesn’t even have the chance to look back. She doesn’t want to.

Jongdae suddenly starts to weave through the tiny gaps between the cars, faster than she thought he could ever run. She follows him. But they keep stumbling, they keep stumbling and she hears the most distinct sounds of glass being crushed, of metal creaking because of a heavy weight, of snarling, like a rabid animal.

Her heart slams against her ribs and she cries out in frustration and pain when her leggings get caught on the edge of a license plate, tearing her leggings, her knee slamming hard against the bumper, no doubt bruising the hell out of her. Jongdae spins, grabs her by the elbow to keep her from slipping, and she says, “Run over the cars.”

Jongdae’s eyes light up. She hears gunshots and she thinks, oh maybe the military isn’t so useless.

Jongdae yanks her up with his one free hand, nearly dislodging her shoulder from its socket, practically tossing her onto the hood of her car and thankfully she lands on her feet. Jongdae starts running, his longer strides making it easier for him to get the distance he needs. She hears the snapping of teeth, this horrid sound of groaning, and dragging from behind her, much closer this time, and she’s terrified of looking behind her. Her strides are much shorter and she’s practically jumping from car to car, running up to the roof before skidding, nearly losing her balance more than once.

Jongdae shouts from up ahead, voice raspy, “Come on, Sojin. Come on.”

And then, everything happens all at once.

There’s a loud siren echoing throughout the city, like an alarm has gone off and no one is bothering to turn it off. The sound startles her and her foot slips through the cracks. She screams. Jongdae shouts. Simba is crying loudly. There are two consecutive booms, the ground shaking so hard, she lets herself slip down, down, down, through the cracks between the sea of cars, yanking her bulky backpack off and tossing it blindly behind her, satisfied when she hears a loud growl, before going all the way under, wincing as rubble scratches at her forearms. She drags herself underneath the bigger car, a van, until she’s right at the center, her eyes squeezed shut as the ground trembles beneath her and she hears muffled shouting above her. She can’t keep her eyes closed for long, her contacts making her eyes itch. She blinks rapidly, trying to keep the dirt and dust out, and she’s huddled under a car, clutching her torso for dear life.

The growling, low and grinding, so similar to soft moans, a strange mix of animalistic and human, echoes on top of her and she holds her breath, fingers digging into the street. She’s shaking from head to toe with terror because—she sees a person walking, dragging what seems like a broken leg behind it, its pace slow and steady, almost lethargic. There are more feet that join it. She has to muffle the sounds threatening to spill from her lips when another pair of feet, directly behind her, her neck craned just to see it, shuffle forward and slam into the car, over and over and over. The dull resounding thud goes on and on, rhythmic, constant, like the sound of a clock ticking away but worse because she knows it’s—it’s whatever the hell is out there, it’s a monster, it isn’t dead nor alive.

Shuffle, thud, shuffle, thud, shuffle, thud.

It’s a continuous beat and she really thinks she’ll go insane from that sound alone.

The sirens are still blaring, up above, and Sojin feels like she’s trapped underground. Aside from the few pairs of legs, some broken, some torn, all dragging around, stuck between the cars, all she sees is an endless sea of tires and mechanical parts, the path up ahead obstructed, while the path behind her has a sort of light emitting from it.

She’s watched movies. She could be dragged out at any moment. Her heart won’t stop pounding and her fingers are shaking as she curls into a tighter ball, listening to the dull, rhythmic thuds with tears springing to her eyes, her contacts blurring, moving. She needs to wait this out. She doesn’t know how long, or anything really, but she needs to wait.

~.~.~.~.~

Day Zero

23:03:38 PM

17 April

Seoul, South Korea

Maybe, she should call it luck when the feet gathered around the car she’s under start moving away, to the right, drawn away by something, or maybe someone. She’s never felt this level of stress, of tension, in her limbs since she took college entrance exams, and, obviously, this is way, way, way worse. Her joints are stiff and the tiny pieces of rubble all around her have dug into her skin for so long, she’s sure they’ll be permanently lodged there until the day she dies. Which may be very, very soon.

She doesn’t know what happened to Jongdae or Simba or the military. She can’t see any sort of light at the end of the crawl space tunnel beneath the cars up ahead, where the base should be. The zombies are all shuffling to her right, but that one zombie keeps knocking against the truck, shuffle, thud, shuffle, thud, shuffle, thud, and she thinks she’s going to die from a headache first.

(She also prays, for the first time in a long time, that these zombies are the stupid kinds and not the fast, intelligent kinds she’s seen in some movies. She refuses to deal with fast, intelligent zombies. She’d rather just off herself or rot beneath this car. Hopefully, God forgives her for neglecting praying for years upon years. Certainly, zombie invasions get some sort of heavenly free pass or something, though she hasn’t been to church in years and she isn’t really sure how that works. Then again, why the hell would God even allow this to happen? Though that’s an existential can of worms she does not have the mental willpower nor time to open right now.)

Despite her shaking limbs, stiff joints, and rapid heartbeat, she takes a deep, deep breath and tells herself that she can do this, that she’s had to take care of herself since she was a kid and what’s a ing zombie apocalypse going to do to her, anyway? How can this be any worse than dealing with loan sharks as a pre-teen? Surely, zombies can’t be worse than the first roommate she had before Seulgi.

She’s still shaking, still forcing herself to keep the adrenaline rush going, as she slowly, but steadily begins to use her forearms to drag herself towards the left. She tries to remain as quiet as possible as she army crawls her as far away from that stupid zombie that won’t stop knocking into the truck, sweat pouring down her face despite her being only halfway there.

She crawls and crawls and she could ing cry when she finally makes it to the metaphorical light at the end of the tunnel, the darkness of the night settling over her, the streetlamps above flickering.

She drags herself out, trying to remain as quiet as possible, breathing heavily as she spins, staring at where that fenced off safe haven had been, and her heart drops to the pit of her stomach. There’s a giant mass of rubble covering the gates from earlier, the buildings the entrance is lodged behind collapsed within themselves. When she looks up, the helicopters are gone, though the sirens are still going off, echoing through the night eerily. She hears screams, occasionally, in the distance, and suddenly that feeling she had gotten earlier, of being closed off, of a quarantine, feels much realer now. The wall of rubble feels real. She can’t see the zombie that’s still lodged near the truck she was under, but she can hear it, snarling as it shuffled forward and smacks against the side of the truck. She can’t see it, though.

She wants to keep it that way.

She turns away and she has no ing idea what she’s supposed to do.

When she blinks, her vision blurs a little, her eyes feeling tight, dry, in her contacts, her eyes feeling heavy, and she thinks, I need to take these things off.

She spins, squinting as she searches for a convenience store or pharmacy.

She has no idea where she’s supposed to go or how she’s supposed to get there, but her brain seems to focus on her contacts right then. Maybe, she’s just exhausted, or maybe this is a product of hysteria, of reality, stress, and tension hitting her all at once, reminding her that holy this is real. She doesn’t have her glasses. Her contacts are already beginning to dry out. She needs eyedrops or more contacts or reading glasses or something that’s close to her ridiculously high prescription (that her own eye doctor would always have to order a trial pair of contacts of when she’d go for eye exams because they don’t have it in stock) or else she’s—she’s going to have to take them out, leaving her practically blind.

How the hell is she supposed to escape this place and these monsters practically blind?

(If it wasn’t for econ, she would have been at home during this, glasses right next to her. Seriously, econ.)

~.~.~.~.~

She’s rummaging through a convenience store, stuffing a backpack she found with water bottles, some canned foods, some travel sized contact solution that she found, baby wipes to her clean her hands, and a handful of contact-friendly eye drops, though she has no idea how long it’ll work if she won’t be able to actually take out her contacts, since zombies don’t necessarily run on a nine-to-five schedule and she’s terrified of sleeping anyway.

She’s rummaging, and her eyes keep filling with tears that she angrily brushes away. The adrenaline rush is disappearing and the exhaustion seeps into her bones, creeps up her limbs, and, suddenly, she is hyperaware of how alone she is, how truly terrified she is, despite not once seeing any of these creatures.

She has no ing idea where she’s supposed to go. The imminent threat of having to go through this situation blind looms over her and her brain anxiously clings to that, as if that thought is somehow less scary than death by getting her limbs torn apart by undead dead people. Maybe, it is less scary, but it’s definitely more anxiety inducing, and she wonders why the hell her brain is out to get her now, of all times.

Isn’t she miserable enough?

Clearly, not.

~.~.~.~.~

Day One

07:32:09 AM

18 April

Seoul, South Korea

The planes drop bombs.

She watches, with utter horror, from the little window behind the convenience store counter where she’s been sleeping, metal bat curled under her arm. She watches as they drop bombs—not nuclear bombs, which surprises the conspiracist anti-fascist government side of her that her protest-organizing friend, Kris Wu, had instilled in her in freshman year—and as they light up the sky in a beautiful array of oranges, reds, and yellows, the whole entire world around her, she half wonders if they’ll just burn the whole entire city down and take the loss. But, she sees the fighter planes gather at the edges of the city, where the bridges and roads leading out of the city are and she thinks, oh, no.

They're sealing off the city with bombs. Maybe, they feel bad about killing anyone left in the city. Governments don’t usually feel bad about stuff like that.

She turns on the television in the convenience store and the subtitles read, Preventive Measures.

Another reads, Quarantine.

Stop the spread.

She turns off the television.

They’re sealing off the city with bombs and she isn’t sure when they’ll decide to cut their losses.

She’s paid enough attention to that economics class to know that they will, soon.

Seriously, econ.

~.~.~.~.~

Day Three

10:00:00 AM

20 April

Seoul, South Korea

“No.” She blinks at the dark screen. “No, no, no.”

She glances up, at the lights, now gone completely dark, at the slightly dimmed convenience store.

She turns, pressing her face up against the window, and the other stores, some of which have always had their lights on, maybe because people have left in haste, forgetting to turn off their lights, are all the same. The lights are gone. She turns back to the television, flipping the switch, on and off, on and off, but there’s nothing there. Nothing.

The frustration comes back, overcoming the terror and deep, horrifying numbness that has also been encompassing her all this time. Two days, it’s been two days, and she hasn’t been able to find a phone in any of the wreckage. Thankfully, she hasn’t found a zombie yet, either, but she thinks maybe they’re attracted to sound or something, like in the movies, and they’ve all started migrating towards the bomb blasts. Maybe that’s the point of the bombs, not sealing them in but luring them away.

She doesn’t know, she doesn’t ing know, but this is just too much.

They’ve cut off the electricity.

~.~.~.~.~

Day Four

00:11:58 AM

21 April

Seoul, South Korea

She learns that when there are no more rules and the world has quite literally gone to , people can become awful horrible beings.

Her convenience store is prime real estate. She hears crunching glass around midnight, at least that’s what the battery powered clock she keeps behind the counter where she sleeps says, and she’s instantly sitting up.

There is no growling, no snarling this time, and she slowly, slowly, peeks out from over the counter, her eyes adjusting quickly to the pitch dark. She picks up a flashlight and takes a deep, deep breath before she flicks it on.

She lets out a scream that’s instantly muffled by a hand over when her flashlight illuminates a face, right there, right in front of her counter. She bites the hand immediately and they groan, curse, and she grabs the pack she always keeps at the ready and the metal bat she sleeps with, swinging it immediately, especially when the grip on her hair tightens.

The person, a man judging from the voice, lets out a string of curse words and she hears another voice, even as she scrambles for the flashlight. She hears a mix of words, of expletives and you’re going to pay for this and she’s a pretty one and—and her heart pounds so, so hard in her chest, the fear that’s always there increasing tenfold because his tone, the lecherous way he speaks, especially how it sounds in the dark without being able to see his expression, speaks volumes. It terrifies her the way walking alone on campus used to, or being left alone at parties, or going grocery shopping late at night and having to walk across an empty parking lot, or taking the train and a stranger stepping off the train at the same stop as her, trailing behind her in the same direction, a little too close for comfort. For a moment, she’s also angry, because it’s been barely four days, and there are disgusting men who are already acting this way?

She jumps the counter, lets out a shriek when a hand curls around her hair, yanking her back and down so hard, the pain blooms up her lower back, making her hiss. She takes the bat she’s been clutching to her chest and swings it, makes contact with a leg, hopefully a knee, the cracking sound echoing all throughout the convenience store.

The man above her lets go of her hair and cries out in pain. The other man says, “This .”

She scrambles to her feet, slips out the door, sees the face of the man for a brief, brief moment, his eyes—horrible and angry—terrifyingly steady, lock on to her. He’s getting up and she sees a knife, even from far away, even with drying contacts that are making it harder for her to keep her eyes open these days, especially after she sleeps. She thinks maybe it’s the fear that makes her do this, or maybe it’s the fact that when the world goes to and there are no rules, people really do become awful horrible beings. Even her.

She takes the metal bat and, with all the strength in her body, she swings it into the convenience store window, the earth-shattering sound of metal hitting glass, of glass shattering to a million pieces echoing through the dark night, piercing and so, so loud. It makes her wince as she backs up, as the man she had made eye contact with’s expression twists into something murderous. She turns and she runs and runs, runs as far as she can even as she hears distant growls, the sound of the window smashing attracting some of them, like she hoped it would.

She thinks, what have I done? But she’s too filled with adrenaline and terror to care.

She decides to avoid people after that.

~.~.~.~.~

Day Five

Morning

22 April

Seoul, South Korea

Maybe, it’s because she’s starting to get too dehydrated. Maybe, it’s because she’s hungry. Maybe, it’s because she’s lonely, dejected, scared. Maybe, it’s something else.

But at some point between running yesterday and not being able to sleep at all and today, she decides to go back to her apartment in the heart of Seoul. Her contacts are dry. She’s using up the eyedrops much faster than she thought. She needs her glasses.

For some Godforsaken reason, her brain can’t seem to focus on anything except for her stupid contacts.

She decides that means she needs her glasses, so she can finally start focusing on more important things.

She raids another convenience store, finding more packaged food and water, though not as much as before, and she decides fine, fine, she needs to do it. She needs to go back to her apartment.

Personally, she’d rather not be able to see the thing eating her alive when she’s inevitably caught by a zombie, but anxiety’s a piece of and, without her phone and the internet, she has nothing else to be hyper fixated on.

She lets out a sigh and digs out a map of Seoul, too. Maybe, that old aunty that ran the café near her first apartment in her second year was right, they’ve all been relying on their phones too much. She doesn’t even know how to read a ing map.

~.~.~.~.~

She’s grumbling to herself, face buried in the map of Seoul, the lines all looking like a jumbled mess, especially when she’s standing in such a deserted city, cars parked in the street. Some of the cars have bodies in them, the bodies moving, though strapped down by seat belts, and she doesn’t investigate. They’re not shouting for help or thrashing, they’re just twitching in a way that makes her queasy, makes her positive those things are not actual people.

She’s grumbling, frowning at the map, until she hears shouts, from up ahead, and she blinks, startled, because who the hell is yelling like that?

Slowly, she folds up the map and stuffs it in her pockets, grip tightening on her metal bat as she turns the corner, hiding behind the building as she peers around it.

Her eyes widen because there’s a man—a boy, her age, give or take a few years—perched in a tree in the park, like some kind of stray cat, and there are people clawing at the tree.

It takes her a moment to realize exactly what those people are, finally seeing those zombies she’s only heard so far. They’re , voices low and obviously filled with hunger, and her heart races in her chest. It’s a terrifying sight to behold, even from so far away. Some of them have their arms hanging in strange directions, some have detached legs, some have both or worse. Their faces are scratched up, their clothing torn. Some of them look like they’ve been torn apart at, too, flesh ripped at the seams like old stuffed animals, intestines and insides hanging out, making her feel queasy, especially because despite all that, they’re still moving, still so focused on the boy perched in the tree and shouting for help, bloodshot eyes unwavering, mouths hanging open, saliva and dried blood dripping down their chins. Her grip on the side of the building is so tight as she watches him squirm, as the branch he’s sitting on breaks a little, branch slipping and making him slide forward, closer to their clawing hands.

She should go.

She’s paralyzed at the sight of them, so frightened she has no idea what to do.

This isn’t any of her ing business and the boy is only drawing more of them to him because of his shouting.

(But then she thinks, it’s been barely five days, why is she being so heartless already?)

But she has no chance. There’s at least ten of them already there and there are bound to be more headed his way the more he shouts.

She closes her eyes, guilt eating at her conscience as she decides she won’t bother. She can’t.

But then—

“Hey, you! Please, please, help me!”

She blinks, eyes flying open, and the boy is looking at her, expression desperate.

She glances around because maybe he means someone else.

The boy shouts at her, “Please!”

She stares at him, for a long, long minute, his facial features slightly familiar though she can’t figure it out from this distance.

She can’t.

“What—you have got to be ing kidding me? Don’t, please don’t go.” He screams at her, his voice loud, roaring, so so desperate, “Please.”

She’s always been stubborn, but she’s never been good at—at this, at being heartless. If she was, she’d be great at completely cutting off her parents after she became a legal adult. She wasn’t. She freezes, even as he keeps on pleading with her, then she turns, and she takes a deep, deep breath, lifting her bat, eyes dropping on one of the cars in front of her. She calls out, voice loud, “How good are you at reading maps?”

There’s a brief silence, the animalistic growls of the zombies the only sound between them. Her heart thrums against when some of them turn to blink languidly in her direction, tilting their heads, blood red eyes swiveling all over the place.

(She thanks God for blessing them with the stupid zombies.)

“What?” His voice is rough, from crying out, but his tone is all confusion.

“Maps. Can you read them?”

“Uh, yes?”

She sighs then, as a handful of zombies start lumbering towards her. She sighs very, very deeply.

(It’s not guilt that makes her get involved with this stupid boy who’s stuck in a tree like he’s some stray cat that needs rescuing, or the loneliness she wants gone, because she has a plan, she totally has a destination (her apartment), a plan (her glasses), and no reason to roam around a sealed off city aimlessly, like a zombie minus the flesh-eating. She just needs someone who can read a ing map.)

She takes a deep, deep breath as she swings her bat over her head and brings it down hard against the windshield of the car in front of her, glass cracking at the impact, the sound booming. The car alarm sounds, blaring so loudly she and the boy in the tree both flinch. Every zombie in the park’s head snaps in her direction, their mouths falling open and their moans a loud chorus, terrifyingly all-encompassing. They start to move, and she hears some rustling from behind her, zombies she hadn't noticed that are much too close, and she mutters, “.”

Her grip tightens on the metal bat in her hands before she mutters another, more high-pitched, “.”

There’s a chorus of snarls and in response. That’s when she runs.

a/n: omg I like writing shorter chapters, even though I feel like I'm slacking off when I do it. The tone of this fic is going to be more of a dark humor type of thing, even though my sense of humor is sjfnfsdljn, but I hope yall like it! also, I hope the pacing is okay, too yikes, but anyway thank you to everyone!!!!!!!! i love you guys!!!!!!!!!!

xoxo