ONE.

—

In which Won Woo failed to decide which one was more appalling than the other:

humans turning into monsters or humans showing their true colors.

—

That day, mankind was doomed to extinction.

Three consecutive explosions were heard from somewhere not far off the distance, followed by long streaks of white and grey smoke spiraling into the sky. Glass windows and doors were crashed through. Looting broke out. Absolute chaos echoed throughout the whole city. Family, friendship, marriage, affection—whatever it was that bonded human beings together at that time was torn apart by a catastrophe that had never been recorded in history. The immediate impact was beyond horrifying, and nobody was prepared for it. 

Suddenly, all hell broke loose. In a literal way. What was once a peaceful flower city of Cheon Yang had become a blood-curdling sight of mass death when something unknown and monstrous came out of nowhere and invaded the city. In a very short time, people turned into ferocious monsters everywhere in what seemed like infinite chains of infections. It was a complete dead end for humanity. No hope. No way out. No god even. There were just deafening honks and dreadful sounds of car alarms. Meaningless prayers. And panicking cries of those who wildly rushed around trying to save their lives from the apocalypse that happened so unexpectedly. But not a single man could escape the darkest day on earth, unfortunately, as they died and quickly lived again but now with deadly instincts to kill their own kind.

“Bon Hwa!”

The girl powerlessly dropped to her knees as she saw no more hope of trying to run away, her beautiful face losing color. She trembled so hard in a silent panic that incomprehensible words slipped out of her lips, looking down at her boyfriend who was writhing from a sprained ankle on the ground.

Now that her man could no longer advance and fight for her life, she was filled with immense fear that made her unable to hear someone else calling out her name. Again and again.

“Bon Hwa! Bon Hwa!”

Still caught in the trance of fear, she was unaware of the approaching presence that then grabbed her arm and forcefully pulled her away from her boyfriend. She screamed herself hoarse and leaped to her feet, taken totally by surprise.

Out of a pure self-protective instinct, she immediately took the baseball bat that lay next to her boyfriend and steadied herself to swing it at whatever standing in front of her. But before she ever made use of the sudden rush of power within her, she was flabbergasted, again, by the familiar face before her eyes. She froze, her hands clenched tight around the bat handle until her knuckles turned white. At first, she wasn’t sure what to believe until she finally realized that the young man walking closer to her was completely human. And fortunately, uninfected.

“D-Dong... Han oppa?” she stammered.

Horror, disbelief, and a subtle hint of relief were mixed up in her widened gaze at him.

“I’ve been looking for you, for ’s sake!” He took her wrist in his hand as soon as she lowered down the baseball bat. “It’s no longer safe to stay here. Things are only getting worse. We must leave now!”

“No... wait!” She remained in her position. Surprisingly, although her knees felt like they started to turn to jelly, Bon Hwa still had the strength to refuse him. At the same time, there were spine-chilling screams and pleas for help endlessly coming from all directions inside the college buildings, and she knew they couldn’t stay there and wait any longer. “Let’s take Won Woo oppa with us too!” she begged him, tears welling in her eyes. “Please help me carry him!”

“The only thing that will save us now is run as fast as we can to get our out of this place, but can he do it?” Dong Han pointed his finger down at Won Woo who remained quiet and pierced him back with a sharp glare despite the intense agony he felt. “He will only slow us down!”

A sudden harsh reality dawned on her and the logic of his statement was like a er punch to her guts.

“But... but Won Woo oppa...” She began to sob sadly, a flood of mixed emotions bursting through her as she looked at her now injured boyfriend. “Won Woo oppa got hurt because he saved me...”

Dong Han ran out of patience to deal with the prolonged drama and got down to pull Won Woo by the collar of his shirt. “How long are you going to keep quiet?!” he confronted the soundless guy, showing his true colors finally. “You can’t continue to run. You can’t even stand up anymore! Are you trying to drag Bon Hwa to death together with you?!”

Disgust would even be an understatement for what Won Woo felt as he glared back at the two-faced guy he had been calling ‘a good friend’ for the past three years. So, after all, it was just an act. A perfect one that deserved an award and a standing ovation, at that.

But Won Woo wasn’t completely surprised. At least, he had been reminded again and again—by someone who truly cared and worried about him being too tolerant—that he got a fake friend. And now his gut feelings, and also all the warnings about the innocent-faced backstabber, had been proven correct. Knowing the truth in advance was supposed to free him of pain, but it still damn hurt in the end.

All this time, Won Woo never took any action to openly confront Dong Han despite all the obvious hints before his very eyes because he still had some respect for the latter who once treated him so kindly when he was a clumsy, gullible, and friendless freshman. In fact, he also knew how pathetic he had become for being too much of a saint who blindly trusted anyone—for always holding on to the notion that everyone might not be good but there was always something good in everyone—while knowing that being taken advantage of was the inevitable price.

“!” 

Won Woo cursed himself inwardly. The deceit and betrayal of this so-called loyal friend of his made his blood boil, but what maddened him the most was the fact that he had foolishly wasted his time and energy to trust the wrong person.

“Come on, Bon Hwa!”

Dong Han finally released his grip on Won Woo’s collar and harshly pushed him down again. He turned to the petrified girl and grabbed her wrist, showing more irrefutable strength that made her wince with sudden pain and realization.

“It’s only I who can save you now. Stop wasting your time shilly-shallying here!”

Bon Hwa was shivering with terror, tears streaming down her blanched face. Won Woo heard her stifled sobs and immediately they became like burning needles that pierced through him. His anger rapidly subsided and he knew that, despite all the venom in each of Dong Han’s words before, he was right. He was the only one who could save Bon Hwa now.

Won Woo didn’t give it a second thought when he realized he had to let her go with Dong Han, but before he could ever say a word to console her, she shakily took a step back and gave him a look that set fires to his already broken world.

“Sorry, Won Woo oppa.”

That word—sorry—was eerily devoid of warmth and tender emotions.

And a sense of dreadful apprehension soon completely chilled Won Woo’s blood.

Bon Hwa wiped her tears with the blood-stained sleeve of her cardigan, and when she set her gaze back on Won Woo again, there was a regretless look in her red-rimmed eyes that made everything suddenly, radically, change one hundred and eighty degrees—something that Won Woo never expected to see from the only person he had fully trusted his heart to. It was so alien to him that he couldn’t believe what he saw. But the cold look in her eyes became even more palpable, and he suddenly felt as if he had lost all connections to her. It was as if she had peeled off her outer mask, becoming a completely different person that Won Woo failed to recognize although he basically stared at the same face.

“I think we gotta stop here.”

Won Woo suddenly felt like the pounding heart in his chest was frozen into ice. Time stopped ticking, the world stopped spinning, and for a moment he couldn’t hear or feel anything. His vision began to blur with hot tears, but he kept looking at her in utter disbelief, bewilderment, and sadness, wordlessly asking through his eyes what he had done wrong. If their story was written in the book, then it was closed with an unexpected bad ending that left the readers hanging. In fact, Won Woo had got so used to being betrayed. To being given promises that weren’t kept. But who knew that someone who restored his faith in humanity would end up tweaking and turning the beautiful story into a tragic one?

Bon Hwa was literally standing a few steps away from him, but he was shocked to see that they were now two worlds apart. Suddenly, she seemed unreachable. All the mutual understanding and passionate attachment they once shared were gone as if those wonderful feelings never existed in the first place. He was always certain that she was his other half—someone so lovely and tender-hearted who wouldn’t lie to him. Or perhaps, had he been fooling himself all this time, thinking that he was loved back sincerely? How ing naive had he actually been?

“Good luck.” was the last thing Bon Hwa unapologetically said to him.

Looking up at the bright blue sky, Won Woo accepted his doomed fate and made peace with his aggrieved inner demon. In the end, kindness won within him, and when he shifted his eyes back to her, a genuine forgiving smile split his lips.

“Please... be safe.”

There was “I love you” flashing through Won Woo’s mind, but the affectionate words were left unspoken, stuck deep in his throat as if they would never leave his mouth again. Or perhaps his heart was just too broken that all languages of love began to lose their meanings on him.

What was once a gentle smile on Won Woo’s lips faded into abject sorrow as soon as Bon Hwa turned around and ran away with Dong Han, leaving him behind to die alone.

Whatever it was that frightened Won Woo before was there no more. He unconsciously raised his hand in the air, like a desperate fool trying to reach out to something that would never return to him. And when he finally came back to his senses, realizing the pointless thing he did, his hand balled into a tight fist and fell back onto the ground. His whole body went numb, completely unable to move until he heard a squelchy growl growing louder and creeping closer to him by the second.

A living dead student, now in a bloodied and tattered uniform of Cheon Yang College of Arts, was rushing toward him, dragging its broken and twisted right leg behind it. Mostly the skin on its face and neck was mangled and torn which was likely due to ferocious bites, shreds of its decaying flesh hung loosely. Its eyes were veiny blood-red and devoid of all white, glaring open with menacing yellowish glints that seemed to signify how deadly infectious it was.

Those horrifying blood-red eyes were now affixed on Won Woo who had no more reason to live. And it clacked his blackened and powerful teeth open and shut, snarling and lunging toward him.

Won Woo knew by instinct that he would never be fast enough to dodge the dead. He took a deep breath and readied himself to embrace his demise, but every muscle in his body tensed. It didn’t seem like an easy process, but the pain might only last for a while. At first, he thought he would be fine with the gruesome end of his life. But he was wrong. Suddenly, his entire body trembled hard as sheer waves of fear of unknown origin engulfed him. He squeezed his eyes shut when the zombie finally grabbed him and yanked his soul out of his body, a single tear rolling down his cheek as he remembered that person who had left him alone.

“Please… don’t leave me…”