JULY 15, 2023

                                                   IS THIS THE END OF THE WORLD?

Zombies are everywhere. How or why it happened? The answer is still unknown. We’ve been asking the scientists for a possible reason but even them doesn’t know the answer.

It’s been a riot. People were panicking and started to leave the city just to be safe from the undead’s attack.

Houses are empty, convenience stores, schools, offices, malls and hospital begin to closed down. The city become one of the ghost town.

Even our government telling people that our cities not safe anymore. They’re helping us to escape the city by sending helicopters, and transfer the people to somewhere much safer place.

They giveaway food supplies too, and necessities kits.

Plus the NBI volunteered to protect us from the zombies attack, reason to hear gun shots all over the places.

But we know protections from the government or NBI’s are not enough. To survive this zombie apocalypse we also need to have a surviving instinct. How? Here’s a little tip from-

The petite, brunette girl stop reading and folded the old news paper. It dated July 2023 and it’s now December. Five months now since Editing Press companies stop making newspapers. Not just the press companies actually but everything that makes the world go round. The half of the world become lifeless. Time stopped and no single humanity can be traced from the half of the globe or if there really is, then it’s just a few and can be counted with fingers, and Jung Soojung is one of them.

She survived or let’s just say, she’s still surviving because it’s been five months now that zombies started ruling the world but here she is still breathing, and still a human.

You can call it a miracle that she’s still alive but for Soojung, it’s only being real. She encountered a hundred zombies since the apocalypse and survived from all of them. You asked how she survived? By using her common sense.

You see, zombies are ing sooo slow because they’re already dead. The bones inside their bodies are weak and break so easily that’s why even when they’re walking towards you, you can still have time to think what to do. You can either run away from them (which is useless ‘cause they can still smell you and find you where ever you are), or just kill them. Use a weapon that pointed and shiny ‘cause you have to attack them straight to the heart (that’s their weakest point). Or if you’re braver enough, you can break their neck, but mind you, it’s going to be slimy, bloody and dirty.

For Soojung, she never runaway. She beaten all of them because she’s a brave girl. Running away is never an option for her. “Face the problem, or be a for life” is her life motto.

If she sees you crying when there’s a zombie approaching, Soojung will only laugh at you. She’ll have her last shot of beer before breaking the bottle to the zombie’s head. And striking it after straight to the heart. Both of you will watch the zombie suffer and lost balance. You’ll then stop whimpering and Soojung will look at you with a smirk on her face.

That’s what she is.

I bet you were wondering how she become so brave like that.

Of course, there is a reason. Everything has a reason though.

Soojung grew up with a normal life as a child. Playing games with her siblings. Sleeping between her parents on the sleeping mat. Going to public school and having cute little friends. She’s that adorable kid that always carry her Barbie and comb it’s hair while talking to the doll.

They’re only a poor family but they love each other very dearly.

She was only 8 years old when their father decided to work overseas to have a larger income for their future. All of them were sad as he bid them goodbye.

For the next 3 years, everything went well. The money keep coming while their mother was taking care of them.

Until the factory that their father was working into told them that he died from heart attack. Soojung can remember so well her mother’s reaction after receiving that overseas call. Her face become colorless, she tremble as her tears falls down on her face.

Soojung felt what her mother was feeling. A sudden great sadness wrapped her heart. All of the lovely memories she had with her father flashed back before her eyes. Now he’s gone, she can’t create another great memories with him anymore. She cry and cry in her mother’s arms until she can’t cry no more.

Her other siblings was still in school, she can’t tell them the bad news. How to tell those poor kids, that they can’t see their father anymore because he is now gone dead.

After the funeral, no one dares to talk. Their world stops. Their lives stops. They don’t know how to start all over again.

Specially when their mother doesn’t have work. Their mother become lifeless. She is so weak when she’s the one who need to be strong for them but there she is, inside the room, crying and crying again.

Soojung’s other siblings cried with their mother but she swore to herself that she won’t cry anymore. She remembered, her father always told her not to cry when she felt like crying because it will only make her head ache. Instead he said to her, “You know what to do when you’re sad?”

“What?”

“Eat chocolate and it will make you smile.”

“Really, dad?”

“Yes, come on.” Her father will smile at her and held her little hand. “I’ll buy you a chocolate.”

After a few weeks, their mother become a little bit better and decided to apply for work because  she needs too and they need money.

But you know how it’s hard to apply for jobs when you’re not a college graduate. So her mother only accepted as a waitress. Their older sibling stops going to school and work too (as a janitor).

So it’s only Soojung and her middle sibling that goes to school.

But her mother’s and older sib’s salary combined is not enough for their daily lives. So her mother gets a rich old boyfriend thinking it’s the best way to save them from their poor life.

Yes, he gave them bunch of money and their mother’s no need to work her bones anymore but Soojung and her siblings are not fond of their mom’s old rich boyfriend.

He looks maniac and so full of himself just because he has a lot of money and a nice car.

Soojung fought with her mother telling her to break up with him but her mother’s reason is they need money and he’s the only chance they have to escape from the poor life.

She has a lot of pride and doesn’t want to use the old rich man’s money for her school so Soojung decided to work for herself. She got an illegal job as a guard to farm and they paid her bunch of money. Thank god, the police never caught them.

And because Soojung was working in a farm, she learns how to smoke. And she gets addicted to it. The owner of the farm, Onew befriended her and they always get drunk together. She drunk to forget all the problem she have.

Without she knowing, Soojung become an addict. She dropout from school and started living with Onew since a romance started to build between them.

Soojung left her mother and siblings with that old rich man. Her family already living as rich people in the town. And her mother get addicted to her new life and doesn’t care about what the neighbors think about them because she can now get whatever she wants. Her mother let her live alone just like that. And it made Soojung to be a rebellious young lady even more.

Deep inside her she’s so lonely but thank god, Onew was there for her. Whenever he’s by her side, she believe that everything will be alright.

But then she found out later on, Onew was a married man and he already has a child. His wife decided to show up one day and tell Soojung face to face that she’s a , so Soojung slap the woman’s face real hard and said, “I’m not a ! I don’t even have any idea that YOUR husband is a married man. He IS the here, and not me. So off! I don’t need that anymore. He’s all yours! I’m too good for him.” And she walked out.

Not knowing where to go, she’s cried and keep walking wherever her feet sent her to. People from the street started to look at her weirdly, thinking she’s crazy.

Until dawn, Soojung was tired from crying. She thought, she look so ugly now and her eyes were so puffy. She just keep walking, absent-mindedly. Then like a destiny, she stopped walking, and she fixed her gaze in front of her. There lies ahead, about an inches away was an ice cream parlor.

“Eat chocolate and it will make you smile.”

Automatically, Soojung reach for her jean’s pocket. She smiled when she pulled out a bunch of paper money that can buy many ice creams. She went inside the ice cream parlor and bought herself an ice cream, of course, her favorite; a chocolate flavor.

Then after that day, she tried to fix her life, all alone by herself. Far away from her family and Onew. She gets a decent job, live in a small and cheap apartment. And Soojung decided to pursue her dreams and finished college.

While going to school and working at the same time, some boys (and even girls) admired her beauty and courted her but Soojung told them to off because she’s not interested.

She’s happy being alone. There’s no way she will let strangers in to her life then just to ruin them again. She’s now fully recovered from the past and doesn’t have any plans to let that happen again.

*****