Day by day.
The day has finally come when I must tear away the dates from the calendar that I thought would never be ripped apart.
“─Hehe. Last night was fun, Unnie Hwamin! Your embrace… was so warm.”
“”……….””
“I know what you all are thinking, but it’s not that! I swear it’s not, you guys!! Jeong-eun, don’t look at me like that! Hey, Yeon-i! The phone isn’t working, right? Who are you gonna call!?”
Food, water, and a place to sleep.
Even the essentials for life as a person were lacking, or at least had some flaws, but still…
“Why are you on the same team as me!!! You guys are joking, right? Joking!?”
“Hehehe… Jeong-eun, I told you. You can never escape from me….!”
“Uwaaaaa─!!”
─Thud.
Still, we were clinging to life stubbornly in that insufficient environment.
My friend, once overwhelmed with fear, regained some composure to look around.
The junior who had lost their sense of responsibility was now determined to rise anew.
And.
“…..Hahaha!”
“Don’t laugh! I’m being serious!!”
I wasn’t going crazy, nor was I giving up on life.
I could now smile brightly from the bottom of my heart.
This little child younger than me was trying so hard to live, shouldn’t I, as an Unnie, at least set an example?
Honestly, we were too lacking to be called adults, but still, we held pride we couldn’t give up.
As a person, I shouldn’t show any disgrace in front of the kids.
“──Hehe! We’re on the same team again today, Unnie Yeon-i!”
“….Let’s. Let’s win together today, Hia. If we finish quickly it’ll be boring, so let’s take it easy?”
“….Hey? Are you challenging me right now?”
Like that.
Even if the world we lived in was slowly falling apart, and even if the hope we believed in was nothing more than a candle flickering in the wind.
From our place in this unreasonable world, we were managing to do our best.
We could reaffirm our will to endure until the end without giving up on life.
But while the environment might influence a person’s heart, a person’s heart couldn’t change the environment.
Even if we looked at the world from a new perspective, the law that life must come with a price remained unchanged.
Yeah.
Because of that, ultimately.
─Snap.
“…..Everything has fallen apart.”
It was only natural that day would come.
58 days after the zombie outbreak.
In other words, it was the fortieth day since we started living together in this house.
The canned food was almost gone.
─Tick, tick.
“……Damn.”
Words that I couldn’t say in front of Hia slipped out of my mouth.
Staring at the empty cupboard, I found myself nervously biting my thumbnail.
It was a habit that had stopped when I entered high school, but in such an urgent and critical situation, I had no luxury to think about it.
Well, at this point, no one would scold me for biting my nails anyway.
“What can we do, Hwamin? This was bound to happen. I’m actually surprised the canned food lasted longer than I thought.”
“….That’s true.”
Technically, Jeong-eun wasn’t wrong.
We initially thought a month’s worth of food would be a lot, but now, after nearly 40 days, there were just a handful left.
One or two days left. If we rationed, could we stretch it to four?
Surprisingly, the canned food had done its job for nearly ten extra days.
Since all we did at home was occasionally check if there were any breaches in the walls and whether zombies sneaked into our yard…
Sure, a fight might have happened one or two times, but we mostly didn’t move so we weren’t too hungry. Plus, the situations probably led to a natural loss of appetite.
Yeah, we had held on well.
But—
“We need to go out, Jeong-eun.”
“…..Right.”
Eventually, the moment of choice came to us who had been idle.
Could we really call it a choice to decide whether to keep living or quietly accept death here?
If it were our old selves, we might have just suggested to hold out until we were exhausted—
“─Well, then we have to go out.”
“…..I knew you’d say that. Must be nice living in such comfort.”
“Huh?”
But we were different now.
58 days.
It had been nearly two months since this disaster began.
During that time, we hadn’t seen a single rescue helicopter, let alone one engulfed in flames crashing down.
Is this world really obliterated except for us?
Or are there people barricading somewhere else, surrounded by barbed wire?
We had no way of knowing.
We couldn’t see a single thing.
“──Alright, everyone! Gather around! I have an important announcement starting now~!”
“Yo~ Yeon-i. Bring Hia down slowly. Watch the stairs.”
“─Yes. Let’s go. Hia.”
Still, amidst this mundane routine, one thing was certain.
We needed to leave this house.
To survive, we had to open the door and take a step outside.
─Tap.
“First, we need to gather supplies. Do you understand, senior?”
“What, for now?”
“….It’s not just ‘for now,’ senior.”
The meeting began with Yeon-i, who was drawing diagrams on the central blackboard, sitting alongside me, Hia, and Jeong-eun.
On the green board, there was a detailed map of the surrounding area and the route we would take to the grocery store.
“…I’ll continue.”
“Yes, Yeon-i teacher!”
“…Hwamin-senpai, if you keep that up, I’ll get mad at you?”
If viewed from a distance, her detailed drawings could be mistaken for photographs.
They were Yeon-i’s creations, purely drawn from memory without any help from a map or anything.
“Considering the characteristics of those guys being sensitive to smell and sound, driving a car will inevitably generate noise and odors, which is just asking for trouble. Plus, with the many obstacles like parked cars, it’s not a place for total newbies like us who’ve never driven a car.”
“At least it’s fortunate that the grocery store is close enough to walk to…”
“Yes. It’s a five-minute walk, so that’s good.”
Over the past two months, we hadn’t done nothing.
We had thoroughly observed the area, checking out the stores, and studied how the zombies reacted and acted around our house.
While it was unavoidable to see only the zombies, even if we didn’t want to.
However, the downside was that.
“Those guys are surprisingly clever… or should I say, not?”
“They seemed to have a specific purpose to their actions. Unfortunately, we have no way of knowing more right now.”
Those creatures weren’t mindless in the way zombies usually depicted in movies.
They knew to push sliding doors open and even saw them pressing elevator buttons to move between floors.
The slowly closing elevator doors, and me observing from a distance.
I still couldn’t forget the gaze of a zombie staring at me through a tiny gap.
Also, I’m not sure if it was a sign of intelligence, but they tended to target weaker-looking individuals rather than groups of people gathered with weapons.
At this point, it’s safe to say they possess some form of intelligence.
The only saving grace was that their physical abilities were low.
Even I or Yeon-i could manage to fight them off with some effort.
Sure, they surrounded us with sheer numbers, but the reason they couldn’t get over the fence and into our house was likely due to their lack of strength.
If they had just a bit more power, they might have been able to jump over.
Of course, there were a few of them who managed to get over the fence by trampling on their fellow zombies.
Still, there remained many unanswered questions.
Why did all the zombies choose to chase just one of two people running away when they looked exactly the same?
Was it possible that “preferences” existed even among zombies? This was way too tough of a question for us, who weren’t researchers.
Yeah.
Let’s not think about the trivial and complicated stuff.
There’s only one thing we need to focus on.
“─Then, senpai. This is where it all ends.”
“…..Alright.”
Every moment, we would do our best.
Even if we were unable to meet our family right now.
Not just for ourselves, but for the friends we lost, who we’ll never meet again.
And.
“Tomorrow, we raid the grocery store. Over and out.”
“”……..””
Above all, it was simply to survive.
Just that.
