The military was transporting the survivors to a military base through a tunnel. However, the tunnel was barricaded with furniture and debris, so the survivors had to move it.
Kang Ji-a was among the survivors. She walked slowly, her head hanging low with her hands in the pockets of her blue hoodie. Military vehicles carrying survivors entered the tunnel after the survivors were checked.
A man in a suit walking next to a lady in what seemed like a wedding dress started to have a nosebleed and covered his nose using his hands. He was caught by one of the soldiers and dragged behind a vehicle to be inspected.
"Wait. He's not... He's just sick!" The woman in the wedding dress yelled at the soldiers, trying to reach out to the man.
Another man next to the woman yelled back, trying to reason with the soldiers, saying he had leukemia, but the soldiers took him and shot him in the head, thinking he was a monster.
He was not.
The people were shocked at the actions of the soldiers, but they continued walking, only sparing sympathy glances at the woman. Kang Ji-a didn't bother to look their way. The pain in her back was becoming unbearable as she walked.
The same man got angry and yelled at the soldier for killing that other man, but the soldiers beat him to death as the woman fell to the floor crying. As the soldier was beating the man with his helmet, he stopped looking at the older lady, who was crying.
"It's me, mom! This is wrong. You can't... " She cried, looking at his son.
Ji-a continued walking until she heard screaming from afar. She lifted her head, squinting, to see what lay ahead of her. She stopped in her tracks, and her breathing became shallow the moment she heard gunshots.
A monster crawling on all fours raced forward, knocking people over as the soldiers were shooting it. Everything went into chaos.
People were screaming, pushing, and getting shot at.
But she just stood there, taking small steps forward. At some point, she wished she was the one who got shot. She was never suicidal, but at that point, she had nothing and no one to live for anymore.
A bomb went off, and everyone was on the floor.
Someone dragged Ji-a onto the floor as they saw that she had been standing still for so long by one of the soldiers.
"Are you okay?" The soldier asked, noticing that she was in pain but got no response as the girl removed his hand from her back. She stood up, looking at where the soldiers were pointing their guns, looking for the monster.
"It's dangerous. Don't go!" The soldier said to the girl when she started moving forward to where the monster was, but again, she ignored him, looking straight ahead of her.
The monster screeched on top of the vehicle, and everyone scattered running away. The monster lept off the car and runs through the panicking people. Ji-a kept on walking even though she was getting pushed and knocked by people.
The soldiers took a flamethrower and tried to set the monster on fire, but the people were getting lit on fire instead as the monster was dodging the flames.
Ji-a felt a tingle on her back as she subconsciously reached her hand behind her shoulder, feeling the two marks on her back start to heat up.
She got hit by someone's elbow as the people were running and fell to the ground. She had no energy to stand up, so she crawled her way near an old car. She felt a stinging pain on her back, and she wanted to scream but clamped her hand on her mouth, wanting all the pain and suffering to be gone.
In the distance, the soldier who offered help to the girl was busy getting the survivors in the vehicles when he noticed the same girl in the blue hoodie crawling behind a car, seemingly in pain.
He wanted to help her, but she was way too far away and wouldn't make it through the crowd without getting killed, so he drove off after getting yelled at multiple times by the other sergeant.
He felt guilty that he couldn't save her.
_____
After everyone left and the rest died, more soldiers came to the tunnel in search of the monster. Ji-a heard the engine of their vehicles in the tunnel, followed by multiple footsteps.
She couldn't move in her spot anymore, and her body temperature had increased. You could have sworn she caught a cold.
"Check it up and down. Call in if you find anything." Sergeant Kim said as they landed in the tunnel.
As the soldiers were inspecting the tunnel, they noticed that almost all of the bodies had gunshot wounds and had not been torn apart, but they knew that the monster could not have been the shooter.
Seok-chan, one of the soldiers, noticed that the device was beeping, meaning there was a monster in the pile of debris ahead.
The soldiers got into position and heard a baby cooing in the debris and had their rifles aimed at the area.
All of a sudden, there was an explosion in the roof of the tunnel, and the monster fell whimpering. The soldier had been granted permission to shoot, and when the creature fell, gunshots and explosions rang through the tunnel.
There were more soldiers in the area Ji-a was in, but since she was hidden behind a car, no one could see her. She kept on hearing a baby cooing and humming, and the soldiers went closer to the area with debris.
More gunshots were fired as the monster raced to the area that had just been bombed, knocking some of the soldiers out of its way, trying to reach its baby that had a metal rod in its chest.
"Yah!" Sergeant Kim yells at the monster, holding the metal rod in the baby's chest as it cries.
"Back off or it dies!" He yells again, the monster slows down, panting hearing its baby crying.
"Hey, Seok-chan, grab it." Sergeant Kim moves away from the baby monster and moves toward the mother and torches it.
The monster screeches, trying to reach out to its baby, but it dies.
Sergeant Tak commands Sergeant Kim to stop and walk toward the baby monster, telling Seok-chan to move away from it. He holds the metal rod and rips it out of the baby, and sets it on the ground. He then pulls out his gun and starts firing at the baby but purposefully misses every shot as it gets away.
Sergeant Kim questions Sergeant Tak about letting the monster go even though he knows their directive of 'Shoot and kill all monsters on sight' and that that is the primary objective of the Crow Platoon.
Sergeant Tak replies by saying that they are there to put down the ones that attacked them, and that was and always will be their objective.
Seok-chan, who was holding the device that alerts them of a monster, speaks up after the device started beeping in the direction of a car.
"Sergeant Kim." He walks up to him, showing him the screen.
"There's another one. Get into formation!" He instructs the other soldiers, and they all point their rifles to the car and slowly start moving towards it.
"Sir. It stopped." Seok-chan shows Sergeant Kim the screen again, and it was as if the monster knew and vanished.
"Jin-ho, Seo-jin, you're with me." Sergeant Kim says. He and Seo-jin are at the back of the car, and Jin-ho is on the front side of the car. The rest of the soldiers are alert with their rifles ready to shoot.
Jin-ho was the first to see what was on the other side of the car and quickly confirmed it was a human.
Kang Ji-a took deep breaths as she tried to forget the pain she was feeling. Her dark brown hair stuck on her forehead due to the sweat.
"She's burning up, sir. It seems to be a high fever." Jin-ho informed Sergeant Kim after placing his hand over her forehead.
"Jin-ho, take her to the vehicle." Sergeant Tak instructed, and the long-haired male nodded, supporting her as she limped with her arm over his shoulders.
He set her in the back seat and searched for painkillers in a small first-aid kit and gave it to her. He told her it would take a while to get to camp since they were currently on a rescue mission and told her to rest and that they would drop her off at the base.
She swallowed the painkillers without water and thanked him.
Sergeant Tak looked over at the girl, feeling pity for her current state.
"Are you sure this is safe, Sergeant Tak?" Sergeant Kim questioned quietly. "We do not even have enough space back at camp, and we sure don't have the medical supplies to treat her."
"Survivors should be saved Young-ho, and she is the only one alive after what happened here. You, of all people, shouldn't question saving a human in need of medial treatment." Sergeant Tak glanced at Young-ho before getting in the vehicle.
Kang Ji-a fell asleep for the whole ride. The Second Platoon had been attacked by monsters while trying to rescue people, and only a few of them made it.
Seok-chan glanced at the girl, feeling somewhat connected to her. She looked very familiar, but his thoughts were interrupted when Sergent Kim told him to help the survivors of the Second Platoon.
Meanwhile, in the car, won Ji-a took deep breaths while balling her hands into fists. She felt like there was something inside her back moving.
"This is not happening. It's not happening, no." She mumbled under her breath.
She heard a high-pitched ringing in her ears right before she passed out.