Jaejoong didn’t wait to watch the flesh being from Dogak’s bones. An amount of zombies were sharing the pieces of his body, while dozens of them pushed each other around, trying to enter the small space.

Jaejoong had also left it clear: not Yunho.

Gathering all the strength he could, the boy dragged Yunho outside, screaming to the zombies to allow them to pass, and kicked the garage door until it ceded. Yunho started to wake up by the time Jaejoong found the car keys of the small old vehicle stopped there, near some devices to fix cars. Dogak was surely not worried in having his car stolen.

Yunho did not ask what was happening, his instincts had him entering the car as soon as he saw the crowd of zombies at the doorstep.

Jaejoong did the same, giving Yunho the key as soon as he closed the passenger’s door.

“What. The. Hell.” Yunho breathed out, rubbing the dizziness away from his eyes.

“Dogak drugged you in order to get you to his killing seat, so he would… well, kill you, and divide your body in pieces to eat it.” Jaejoong’s heart was racing and his breathing unstable. “He would probably do the same with me, later.”

Yunho started the engine.

“That wasn’t hart’s meat.” Yunho wasn’t asking.

“How did you know?”

“There isn’t hart anywhere near here.” Yunho’s trembling hands held the steering wheel. “Or anywhere far from here.”

Jaejoong breathed slowly in order to calm down the complains of his wrapped stomach.

Beyond the kicked door, there was a huge iron gate impeding their way out. Sighing deeply, Jaejoong left the car, running back to the place he found the car key and got himself a hammer. The adrenalin and strength back to his body made it possible for him to break the lock with a single hit. The faster the boy could, he opened the gate just enough for the car to pass.

As soon as he entered back in the car, Yunho stepped on the accelerator with enough force to have Jaejoong holding himself on his seat.

Yunho did not ask what happened to the Barber. He did not have to.

.

By the time they reached the place where they have met for the first time - what seemed weeks, and not days ago, Jaejoong’s heart was already beating at its normal speed and he wasn’t feeling hungry at all.

He wasn’t going to eat meat ever, ever again.

“Where should we go now?” Yunho asked between a yawn.

Jaejoong felt sorry for him, he was probably still fighting against the tiredness. But they did not have time to waste. Their plan was to reach the laboratory and take with them the inmates to the direction of the ship that would keep them all safe, at least for a while.

The boy pointed ahead, and while they drove not a single zombie showed up in their way. Jaejoong did not give any order, but just like Yunho had said before, it looked like Jaejoong was invisible to them. At least, invisible enough not to be a threat.

Why did those creatures even followed his demands, then? Those were the type of answers he expected to get from the doctors.

Every house, abandoned car and vegetation Jaejoong could remember, he would point out and try to reassembling his way back to the laboratory.

The time extended itself ahead and Jaejoong heart raced when they arrived to the dirt roads Jaejoong remembered to be taken to during the outside tests they used to do. It was near the breaking down, and trying to contain his own anxiety, Jaejoong asked Yunho to keep following ahead.

Almost like a palace growing from the earth, Jaejoong’s eyes were filled up with the view of the glass dome he has spent most of his life in.

Yunho did not have to ask if they had reached the right place. The splendor of the glass reflecting the pink shades of the sky made the car halt in the middle of the road.

Jaejoong’s fear to approach the entrance, that he had carried all the way here, had just disappeared as he left the car and started to walk in long steps to the direction of the automatic iron door.

Yunho asked him to wait, but Jaejoong couldn’t listen to him, the only thing entering in his ears was the sound of the x-ray machines being , the small talk from the doctors, the silence of the dark corridors, the sound of his own mattress moving under him while he slept.

Jaejoong missed his home. No, he did not miss the pain and the tiring days. He just missed how common, safe and real everything felt while he was there. When the only humans he thought existed were the doctors and not being human was just a sad reality he had to accept.

The world wasn’t half as complicated as it was today.

Jaejoong stopped some meter behind the entrance of the dome, looking at Yunho’s back while the man hesitantly followed ahead.

There also wasn’t Yunho.

And it was so sad.

As the boy tried to reach Yunho, he saw the other was carrying a pistol in his left hand

” Where did you find it?” Jaejoong asked.

“In the glove… compartment.” Yunho stopped in the middle of the sentence to hold his breath.

Jaejoong followed the other’s gaze, and his own words got stuck on his throat.

The iron door had a cut in the middle, probably done by a huge blade. The digital scanning beside it was left untouched.

“Is it… normal?”

“Not really.” Jaejoong answered, already crossing the door before his hesitance would freeze him.

The entrance that used to be illuminated by the radiance of dozens of computer lights was dark and silent. Jaejoong turned to his right, with Yunho behind him, where he knew he would find the main room of tests.

The fluorescent lights were still on, but what caught Jaejoong’s attention was the amount of blood on the ground.

“They still have a source of energy?” Yunho asked, still not noticing what Jaejoong was looking attentively staring at.

Sensing an approach, Yunho unblocked his pistol but before he could shot, Jaejoong raised a hand in a stop sign.

Coming from the other corridor, a line of zombies walked to their direction. They all wore white cotton clothes, the same Jaejoong had worn for years. As if receiving the same command from Jaejoong, they stopped.

“Oh .” Yunho hissed “Please, don’t tell me we have arrived too late.”

Jaejoong covered his mouth before a sob would escape from it.

Some of their faces were still recognizable. Even of that 11 years old that used to wake Jaejoong up in the middle of the night because of his nightmares.

“I’m so sorry” Jaejoong whispered, walking among his long gone brothers “I am so sorry.”

His tears didn’t hold into his eyes, they were falling one after another, while he passed by them and reached a new group of zombies wondering around the next corridor.

His brothers were all gone.

“Be careful.” Yunho’s hand reached Jaejoong’s, to stead the boy when he stumbled in a body in transformation on the ground.

Jaejoong stopped, crouching down on the ground to caress the convulsing creature. No, the convulsing girl. Jaejoong remembered her too.

“Do you want me to…?” Yunho asked in a low tone.

“No.” Jaejoong shook his head. “We are not killing those who are not a threat to us.” Jaejoong got back on his feet. “nor the children.”

Jaejoong could see the disagreement on Yunho’s eyes, yet the man nodded.

The ex inmate directed Yunho to the second floor, the examination floor.

“Do you think there will be an Evoluted here?” Jaejoong whispered, slowly realizing the degree of the situation.

Yunho tensed up at the question, but shrugged in response.

Jaejoong wanted to keep going up the stairs until he reached the last floor, the bedrooms. But a light, in the end of the corridor rinsed his curiosity. It could be just other empty room, but it wasn’t any other room.

It was Mr. H’s office, the most hateful of the doctors.The doctor who wanted to try the most lethal test on him.

Infuriated just with the thought, Jaejoong started to run to that directions, ignoring Yunho’s questions, and obligating himself not to stop and stare at every zombie they passed by.

The office’s door was closed, but it was still possible to look inside it from the square glass window. Jaejoong’s eyes widened in surprise to find Mr. H crouched under his desk.

“Hey!” Jaejoong shout, punching his fists on the glass.

The doctor spilled a terrified scream from his mouth before he took enough courage to look up.

Jaejoong never imagined seeing the composed, self centered and quiet man in that state. He was completely bathed in blood, his white clothes dirty and ripped.

“2601!” The man blurted out, falling on his knee before he managed to raise himself up and walk to the direction of the glass. “Jaejoong! You are back!”

“What happened?” Jaejoong’s tone was loud enough to be heard from the other side “what happened to everyone?”

“Mr. S… he…” Mr. H shook his head in complete shock. “We thought 0921…. We thought that kid was just angry when she bit Mr. S…”

“The infection.” Yunho accused, his gun resting on his waistband.

“He was infected?” Jaejoong asked to the doctor, and in answer the man only nodded.

“No.” Yunho tilted his head to point at the doctor “he is infected. He is bitten on his neck.”

“When has it happened?” Jaejoong asked, not understanding anything.

“Yes-yesterday. After we couldn’t control Mr. S’s transformation, he bit another girl and she transformed into… oh God, into a monster with two heads!”

"The Evoluted.” Yunho sighed, “You were right, Jaejoong.”

“Where is she?” Jaejoong turned around, fear rising from his chest.

“She break through the door” The doctor looked slightly relieved “I don’t know what happened… she… she… shredded Miss A.”

“It is because the tests you potentially applied in their bodies.” Yunho hissed, looking truly angry “the virus behaves differently in determinate bodies.”

“W-who is…” Mr. H. started, curious about the man following Jaejoong.

“Why haven’t you transformed?” the boy interrupted Mr. H. for a more important question.

The doctor, with a trembling hand, raised a syringe. “I found… I found it. The cure.”

“No way…” Yunho whispered, in denial yet marveled.

“Why…why are they not… they are not attacking you!” surprised, the doctor pretended to touch Jaejoong’s face through the glass.

“They ignore me.” Jaejoong stated, still in shock with the thought that Mr. H. had, indeed, found a cure. “They simply treat me like I am…”

“One of them.” The doctor completed Jaejoong’s sentence. “You are one of them.”

Yunho looked silently at Jaejoong.

“I am not.” Jaejoong laughed, nervously “I am not a zombie.”

“Because you are the ultimate… the ultimate creation.”

The boy exchanged a confused look with Yunho.

“You were our first trial.” Mr H. explained. “You were that… that dying little boy and we had that laboratory modified virus able to… able to exterminate cancerous cells. It worked so well with you! It just not cured you but it made you stronger.”

“No.” Jaejoong replied, as if he had been asked to opine. “It is not possible.”

“You were able to regenerate fast from any kind of injury, the virus enabled…. Enabled a melanin deficiency yet you were able to experience periods in the sun!” The doctor laughed in a hysterical way. “You were our ultimate creation.”

“Then you tried it in someone else, I bet.” Yunho accused again, his thoughts working much faster than Jaejoong’s.

“Of course!” Mr H. screamed. “We were trying not only to find the cancer cure, but to create a new race of humans but… but it went terribly wrong.” The doctor’s eyes filled up with tears. “Our next experiment didn’t react the same way. The virus multiplied even faster, more, more faster than the cancerous cells, and it started to transmodify the host… we did not know what to do. Your mother than… Your mother, Jaejoong, suggested us to discard the body before the government discovered the side effects. They had already recognized our work because of you, we couldn’t… couldn’t waste it all!”

“You threw the body at the ocean.” Yunho whispered, only Jaejoong heard it. “You put the blame on North Korea.”

“Your body promoted the ways to keep you and the virus alive, co-existing. You are human and you are not at the same time.” Mr. H stared at Jaejoong as if he was a God. “Your human consciousness allow the other hosts to connect with you through the virus.”

“That’s insane” Jaejoong had to hold onto Yunho not to fall. “That is unimaginable.”

“You are unimaginable!”

Jaejoong, was in fact, one of them. That’s why they never intercepted his way while he walked through the night, that’s why he could control those creature’s movements. Even back at the shelter, the zombies probably did not want to find and kill him but… free him. The zombies were attracted by Jaejoong’s call and prayers for help because he was a host for the VIP virus who had a conscience.

“I need the cure.” Jaejoong hit the glass with a weak hand, when all that realizations fell on him all at once “give me this, this !”

“You can’t!” The doctor denied with his head like a maniac “it will kill the virus in your body. The virus blocked the evolution of your cancer, this injection will only weaken and kill you.”

“You don’t know!” Yunho screamed with extreme hate. “The cancerous cells can never be developed again!”

“I know!” Mr H. answered, sure of his words “We studied his body since he was eight years old. His organs were already affected by the metastasis. His body is a piece of art, the virus keeps on killing the cells that develops the cancer, yet it doesn’t kill him.”

Jaejoong’s brain was now silent. No thoughts made any sense so the boy simply shut them.

“How did you even find… a cure?”

“From your DNA.” The doctor smiled, triumphant.

Jaejoong had always wanted to know what he truly was. A simple shell to be taken out and injected things? His blond hair and sensitive skin weren't’t the only thing that separated him from the standard. Without quite noticing, he wanted to convince himself he was special for an unknown reason. Maybe because he deserved it? Maybe because he suffered so much to the point of receiving a divine blessing? But the truth was that the wicked human mind had transformed him in a half zombie.

The good he wanted to offer to the people he knew didn’t make any sense anymore.

Every person he ever cared about was now dead. And even if he offered his life to protect Yunho’s forever, one single mistake of his human essence could get him infected and there would be nothing he could do.

After all, Jaejoong was the first, the beginning of the evil that desolated the life as was once known.

Yet, he was the only one who could put an end to it.

“How many… how many of these can you make?” Jaejoong pointed to the syringe in the doctor’s hand.

“How many you allow me to.” Mr. H’s eyes glistered. “Help me, Jaejoong. Help me to apply this into every one that has been infected in here and together we can start a mass production of this vaccine.”

Jaejoong wanted to kill him. Jaejoong wanted to break that glass and inject that syringe into that man’s eyes. Jaejoong hadn’t forgotten that probably that was the vaccine he was going to try on him all those days ago, and would probably kill him before he could get to know the real world. Before he could have any chance to stumble on Yunho outside that dome.

“Leave this room.” Jaejoong’s hand slipped to Yunho’s waist. “Let’s do this.”

“Jaejoong…” Yunho started, hesitantly.

But as soon as the man unlocked the door, Jaejoong grabbed the pistol on Yunho’s waistband and aimed at the doctor amidst the tears in his eyes.

The boy shot once, twice. Thrice.

Mr. H’s body fell on the ground, the hand closed tight around the syringe, a smile still lingering on his face.

Jaejoong dropped the gun on the ground, and knelt on the ground to take the vaccine from the dead man’s hand.

“What are you doing?” Yunho asked in complete confusion.

“Saving the world.” Jaejoong answered, between his tears. The boy rose up and showed he syringe to Yunho. “I started by killing its greatest evil.”

“A doctor?” Yunho’s eyes filled up with tears, probably remembering of his own doctor friend.

“My creator.” Jaejoong corrected, and tried to smile. “We need to find Mr. S now. He is the only one I trust. We are using this vaccine on him and counting on him to produce many more.”

Uncertain, Yunho just nodded.

“From now on, we are redeeming ourselves for every life we took.” Jaejoong ran to Yunho and hugged him. “I will redeem myself for being alive.”

“Baby,” Yunho hugged him back. “You are not to blame. We, all of us, are. There is just too much about life and dead that no one knows, and yet, we search for something that can be… good or simply… evil. It is bound to happen.”

Finally, Jaejoong understood he had received a blessing, and it was Yunho. He was the proof of the existence of good in the world, and yet it didn’t mean he was what people considered to be good. No one, in the end, was completely good. It made Jaejoong have faith that the next people they gave the cure, would work hard to take this cure to ever being they crossed from now on.

Yunho was the faith he needed not to end everything right there and avoid a future where people would commit the same mistakes. Because that was what history was there to prove: catastrophes were repeated all the time.

But everyone deserved to feel alive again, just like Jaejoong wanted when he decided to escape the laboratory. Everyone deserved to love like, just he learned from Yunho.

Jaejoong was needed to control the remaining zombies, and he would do his best to travel along every land to take the cure to everyone.

Everyone deserves a new chance, just like he had once got.

Yunho deserves a new chance. So does Jaejoong.

Their love deserves it too. So does the whole word.

end.