"I'm still alive..." Jiho murmured, catching his reflection in Misaki's bathroom mirror. His hunger and headache gnawed at him, intensifying with each passing moment.
"...But..." He stepped closer to the mirror, narrowing his gaze.
"I look a little paler, and... my pupils... they're completely red." He muttered, pulling his eyelid down to examine his eyes more closely.
"Must be part of the infection, right? I'm really dying now... Shit, it feels like it..." he wondered aloud, stepping back from the mirror.
[DEPENDS ON YOUR DEFINITION OF DYING, BOYO.]
A message suddenly popped up in front of his face, startling him.
[Besides, I told you, you're already a zombie! IF YOU STOPPED IGNORING ME, YOU'D UNDERSTAND THAT!!!]
'Great. I'm about to die,' Jiho thought, resigning himself as the headache throbbed harder, making him squeeze his eyes shut.
[DEPENDS ON WHAT YOU'LL DO—]
Jiho snapped his head away from the message. "I'm even hallucinating now... Alright, death, any moment now, let's get this over with."
[BOYO, I SWEAR TO GOD, IF YOU DON'T LISTEN—] The message flashed again, more insistent.
"No, YOU LISTEN!" Jiho exploded, clutching his head in frustration. "I've had a really bad day, you hear me?!"
His voice boomed through the small bathroom. "First, I find out my friend cucked me behind my back—yeah, even though me and Eunhee weren't a thing, it feels like it. Then I get bitten by a zombie, and now there's a freakin' apocalypse and my mom is probably dead!"
[...]
[Woah... your life really sucks.] The message reappeared, almost sympathetically.
'And now I'm hallucinating. Fantastic,' Jiho thought, waving the prompt away. 'There's no way I'm buying this manhwa-like nonsense. Come on, brain, get serious. This isn't That Time I Got Bitten By A Zombie and Became God With An Overpowered System and Got ALL The Bitches. This is clearly just my mind trying to comfort me before the end...'
[I mean, REALLY sucks.]
"... Yeah, has to be that," Jiho started, losing his balance as he made his way out of the bathroom, leaning against every wall along the path.
[Has to be what?]
"... I'm all alone. Misaki's not here, either," he murmured, stepping out of the bathroom.
[You'll just keep ignoring me, huh?]
'... So where is she?' Jiho thought, averting his gaze from the bold message, pretending it wasn't there as he scanned the room, the window shutters tightly shut.
[FINE. BE THAT WAY. I won't give you tips on how to make use of your zombification then, HMPH! EVEN IF YOU BEG WHEN YOU'RE AT DOOR'S DOORSTEP, I WON'T HELP YOU!]
'Death's doorstep...' Jiho corrected in resignation, shaking his head as he turned away from the insistent message.
[You just looked at me, didn't you!? You just corrected me inside your head, DIDN'T YOU!?]
Ignoring it again, he mused, 'If I'm gonna die anyway, I at least wanna ask her out. She was cute... and she kinda looks like Eunhee. Does she even like younger guys?' He scanned the house for clues—maybe a phone, an address book, or a diary—something to give him a hint as to where she might have gone.
After making a brief inspection of the house, he wandered back to the living room. His eyes landed on a small yellow note, sticking out from beneath the couch.
'Was this on the table earlier...? Must've dropped it when I tripped,' he thought as he bent down to pick it up.
The note read: [JIHO. If you read this, then you fainted. If you're still not a zombie, good. I went to check on our neighbors. Be back in a few minutes. Don't become a zombie until I return. Don't be a zombie even after I return, if you read this. Please. You probably are though.] The handwriting seemed strained, likely due to her unfamiliarity with the language.
'When did she go outside?' Jiho wondered, noticing moonlight filtering through the cracks of the closed shutters.
'Did she write this a few minutes ago? Or... A few hours ago? It was pretty early when we got here and when I fainted....' His gaze then wandered to the door.
'For some reason, I feel like waiting here to find out isn't the right option.' He tucked the note in his pants and walked towards the door.
'...' He placed his palm on the doorknob, hesitant.
"Be bold," He murmured to himself. "You're gonna die anyway. No one will remember you. So just..."
And as he breathed, an unfamiliar surge of irritation struck him.
"Just fucking go." He resolved, pressing the door handle and leaving the apartment.
'Ah right... That ringing noise that woke me up sounded like a phone... But I didn't see my phone in there.. Well, whatever. Must've been my imagination. Who could've called me?'
He then stepped into the dark hallway...
... completely unaware of the dent left in the metallic handle that he made as he pressed it.
It was dark. The lights in the hallway had been turned off, leaving only the dim glow from Misaki's apartment spilling out into the corridor. No chatter, no movement. Silence, save for the faint hum of the building. But the floor... the floor was littered with bodies—too many to count.
No, Jiho couldn't tell which were zombies and which were the residents.
'Shit... What happened here? Where is everyone?' he thought, as he cautiously stepped forward, trying his hardest not to stumble onto a corpse. His vision grew shaky, blurred by the increasing intensity of his headache and gnawing hunger. He faintly recalled walking through this same hallway earlier, following Misaki after they stepped out of the elevator. There had been families, mostly older people. It wasn't the kind of building where young people gathered.
As he skipped through the gorefest, a gnawing thought lodged itself in his mind: 'What was a beauty like her doing in a place like this...?'
...And whether her body was hidden somewhere in the heap of the dead.
'Should... Should I check...?' His gaze swept across the hallway, bodies strewn everywhere, too many to count. There had clearly been some kind of struggle.
'There are plenty... but not too many. At the very least, I'll make sure she's not among them,' he thought, swallowing his discomfort.
'It's not like I have time. No, I am in a hurry. I need to know if she's okay before I... before I become a zombie,' he thought, his eyes darting down to the bandage wrapped around his wound.
Suddenly, a sharp, excruciating pain pierced through his head.
"Argh... MY HEAD...!!!" Jiho screamed, dropping to his knees as the agony spiked. His body tensed as the pain coursed through him, his hunger intensifying along with it.
[MINDLESS ZOMBIFICATION IN PROGRESS! IGNORING YOUR NEEDS HAS TRIGGERED A ZOMBIFICATION PROCESS. ONCE COMPLETE, YOUR SENSE OF SELF WILL BE STRIPPED AWAY, AND YOU WILL BECOME A MINDLESS ZOMBIE LIKE EVERYONE ELSE!! MAY GOD HAVE MERCY ON YOUR SOUL, BECAUSE YOU WON'T DISCOVER HOW TO STOP IT. YOU WERE RUDE, SO I WON'T BOTHER TELLING YOU!]
The message flashed before his eyes, cold and mocking.
'Is... is this it!? Am I becoming a zombie!?'
[ZOMBIFICATION: 16%]
As Jiho knelt in pain, a body stirred from the pile of corpses about ten meters behind him.
[ZOMBIFICATION: 36%]
"Ahh...!" His body jerked, snapping around to see a figure standing near the entrance to Misaki's room, just out of sight from where he'd been moments ago.
[ZOMBIFICATION: 68%]
"Who...!?" Jiho gasped, his headache intensifying, blood starting to seep from his eyes. Every vein in his body felt like it was being pulled apart, stretched to the point of tearing.
"Grrrgh...!!" He grunted, gritting his teeth as the pain worsened.
"W-... Who's there!?" he shouted, his legs rooted to the spot.
A piercing shriek rang out from the figure, who suddenly charged forward with terrifying speed, sprinting toward Jiho.
[ZOMBIFICATION: 88%]
As the figure passed through the light spilling from Misaki's room, Jiho got his first clear look...
That decaying face, blood splattered all over its body, torn gymnastics clothes, lips ripped apart, and those hollow, soulless eyes.
"Z-... Zombie!" Jiho whispered as he staggered back. 'And... He... HE CAN RUN!?'
He remembered how the other zombies he'd encountered had merely shuffled toward him. This one was a bullet, barreling straight at him.
[ZOMBIFICATION: 95%]
'Wait,' Jiho thought, freezing in place. 'I'm already infected... I'm... already dead... So why... why should I run?'
The zombie closed in, now inches away. Time seemed to slow to a crawl.
'I'm going to die anyway...'
[96%]
'I'll never get to Daniel or Eunhee... or probably to Misaki again...'
'Everyone I know is dead!' He clenched his fists, muscles tightening as blood vessels erupted beneath his skin. His vision blurred with red as he choked on his own blood.
[98%]
'So...'
Jiho gritted his teeth, pulling his bleeding shoulder back, skin peeling away as he moved.
"You're not Daniel..." he muttered to the oncoming zombie, every muscle in his body tense, trembling.
"...But I can pretend like you are!" he growled, the words laced with venom.
With a roar, Jiho threw his punch, his entire life flashing before his eyes.
[99%]
=========================
"I'm going out with Daniel..."#%
"you'RE NOT A MaN"#%#$
"Thank yo#%#%u for trusting me, Jiho."6#$%#%# "Now everything belongs t#%##o me..."%#$
"...Mommy will always believe in you, Jiho."
"..!!" Jiho saw his mom's visage before his eyes.
"So try your best, okay? Don't stay out too late..." Her voice was soft, familiar, kneeling down as she always did, patting his cheek with a gentle smile.
"Otherwise, mommy will be sad..."
==========================
"...Mom...!" Jiho murmured.
[100%! YOU FEEL YOUR CONSCIOUSNESS SLIP AWAY! YOU ARE NOW A ZOMB—]
But just then, Jiho's fist connected with the zombie's face. His eyes were shut tight, expecting his punch to barely slow the creature down, expecting the zombie to tear into his neck at any moment.
He didn't realize, in that instant...
...that the zombie's jaw had dislocated. Its bones shattered from the impact, and its entire jawline snapped clean off.
The zombie was launched several meters backward, flung away by the sheer force of Jiho's punch.
[O_O]
"Haah... Haah..." Jiho huffed, chest rising and falling, his eyes still shut—waiting for the zombie to lunge at him.
'What...? Where's the zombie...?' He slowly opened his eyes, confused, seeing the zombie tumbling backward... several meters away.
"What...?"
'No way... I... I did that?'
His gaze dropped to his arms just as the realization washed over him. What he had felt since waking up wasn't hunger for human flesh, nor was the headache purely from the infection.
A headache that, strangely, now felt lighter. His bones and muscles... felt more alive than ever.
[CONDITION MET!!! LETTING OUT YOUR INNER FURY IN A DEVASTATING BLOW HAS SEALED YOUR FATE! YOU ARE NOW A ZOMBIE SLAYER!] A message appeared before him, clear as day.
"So what should you do?" Misaki's voice echoed from the corner of his eye.
"So what should I do...!!?" Jiho repeated, his voice rising as his eyes locked on the zombie, which was slowly staggering to its feet again, starting another clumsy run toward him.
That's when Jiho realized what was really stirring within him: scarlet rage, desperate to surge through every fiber of his being.
[BACKGROUND MUSIC: DOPE - DIE, MOTHERFUCKER, DIE]
He clenched his teeth, every muscle in his body tightening with raw fury.
In a way, it was hunger—hunger to see flesh and blood pour out of that wretched zombie as a direct result of his own actions.
Just like he would have done to Daniel... if he'd had the chance.
[BECAUSE YOU'VE MET YOUR CONDITION AT 100%, YOU HAVE UNLOCKED...] A new message flashed.
But Jiho was too far gone—way too angry to care what it said.
"SO WHAT SHOULD I DO...!!!!"
"DAAAAAAAAANIEEEELLLLLLLLLLL!!!!!" Jiho screamed, sending a powerful left hook into the zombie's decaying jaw. His fist connected with brutal force, sending the creature flying sideways, crashing through an apartment door. The wooden frame splintered, and the zombie's body smashed against the floor, its head twisted at an unnatural angle. But it wasn't enough for Jiho.
Rage boiled within him—fueled by Daniel's betrayal, Eunhee's confession, and the weight of years of trust that had led to his downfall. The primal urge to destroy surged through him, leaving no room for hesitation.
He lunged forward, grabbing the zombie by the throat and slamming its head into the ground. Over and over again, he screamed, "Fucker! Fucker! FUCKER!!! I TRUSTED YOU!!!" until the skull caved in, blood and brain matter splattering across the floor.
"Good... Haaah... Just one isn't enough!" Jiho spat, his breath coming in ragged gasps. He needed more.
As if on cue, more zombies began to stir in the hallway, drawn to the noise. Jiho's red eyes gleamed as he turned to see them shuffling toward him, slowly entering the stranger's apartment.
With a guttural roar, he charged at the nearest zombie, slamming its head against the wall, leaving a crimson smear as it slumped to the ground. Another zombie lunged at his neck, but Jiho was faster—grabbing a broken chair leg from the pile of bodies, probably used by someone during the chaos. He drove the leg through the creature's chest, yanked it out, and swung it in one fluid motion, crushing the skull of another zombie. The metal bent from the impact, rendering it useless.
Jiho's movements were clumsy, and his strikes missed as often as they hit. Sometimes, he bruised himself with the sheer force of his swings, but the blows that landed were devastating. He grabbed a fire extinguisher from the wall, smashing it down onto a zombie's head with a satisfying crunch. Blood sprayed across his face, but he didn't flinch.
"YOU MOTHERFUCKER!!! I TRUSTED YOU!!!" he roared, drawing more of the horde.
Zombies kept coming, but Jiho didn't care. He was a whirlwind of destruction, tearing through the horde with his newfound strength. His hands, slick with blood and gore, didn't tire. He crushed skulls, snapped necks, and ripped limbs from bodies, driven by an insatiable hunger for violence.
"More...!" he growled, eyes wild as he surveyed the carnage. Bodies lay scattered around him, some twitching in their final moments, others completely still. But Jiho didn't feel victorious. He felt powerful—alive in a way he never had before.
'Is this how you feel right now, Daniel? Is this how you felt every single time you had your filthy arm around Eunhee behind my back? Nah...'
He chuckled darkly to himself.
'...I bet you can't even come close to what I can do right now. I don't even feel a headache anymore... How sick is that!?'
He stood amidst the destruction, chest heaving, fists clenched, as the last zombie fell at his feet. Silence returned to the hallway, save for the sound of blood dripping from the walls and Jiho's ragged breathing.
Lowering his gaze, he noticed his bandage—stained, torn, and nearly falling apart.
He breathed heavily, a moment of clarity washing over him.
'...It doesn't matter. This outburst of strength... nothing is free,' he realized.
'...Not even friendships. Not even love,' he thought bitterly, recalling Daniel and Eunhee once again.
'So, come on. Just turn into a fucking zombie already... It has to happen at some point. It's not like I'm immune. Even that hallucination said I'm 100% a zombie. Is this hell, or is this the afterlife?'
'I mean, I can't be alive. I can't be THAT lucky!?' he thought, forcing a somber chuckle as Eunhee's smile flashed in his mind.
Jiho sighed softly as he slouched, letting his form sink into the exhaustion weighing him down.
'...I know you, Eunhee. I really do. You have no idea how many times I wanted to just confess—because it felt right. I thought nothing would go wrong if I just told you I was in love with you. A while ago, when I saw that tired look on your face... I knew. I knew you weren't exhausted from school or some physical activity... You were tired of spending time with me,' he reasoned, collapsing to his knees, still breathing heavily, his gaze locked on the tattered bandage around his forearm.
'At that moment, I wanted to scream it... scream how much I loved you.'
Jiho raised his bandaged hand to his face.
'But...'
'I trusted Daniel more than I trusted myself, so I stayed quiet. I... I really did trust him, you know? My whole life, actually... And everything turned out fine... until it didn't.'
A bitter chuckle escaped his lips.
'Funny, isn't it? The only time I realize what I should've done... is when I'm all alone. When I have nothing and no one left to trust.'
'When I'm about to die and become a zombie, while you... you have that backstabber's arm wrapped around your neck.' He clenched his bandaged hand into a fist.
'Either way... I won't need this bandage once I turn. Might as well speed up the process,' he thought, ripping the bandage off his forearm with a sharp tug.
Jiho's breath hitched as he stared at his arm. The skin was smooth, unmarked—completely healed where the bite had been.
[BACKGROUND MUSIC: NO ROOM IN HELL - SAM B]
"No way... What the hell is this!?" His pulse quickened, confusion churning in his gut. He hadn't imagined it—he was supposed to die. He should have died.
[YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO DIE, EVEN BY OUR STANDARDS AND RULES. BUT YOU'VE GOT A SICK AMOUNT OF LUCK, BOYO. MORE LUCK THAN THOSE POOR MANNERS YOU GOT THERE.]
Jiho swallowed hard, his hand trembling over the spot where the bite once was, eyes darting between the message and his unscathed palm.
[BUT LUCK RUNS OUT. SO GET STRONGER.]
Stronger. Jiho clenched his fist, rage still simmering beneath his skin. He wasn't dead, but something inside him was. Now, whatever was left needed a purpose.
[AND MOST IMPORTANT OF ALL... STOP IGNORING MEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!]
"Well..." Jiho sighed as he looked intensely at his hand. "I guess I'm strong now, huh?"