Chapter Text
Day 30 –
It's only a month after the apocalypse that Kim Jiwon finally faced the fact that life would never be the same again. The last thirty days had only been a vain and exhausting attempt to protect his property : the family apartment in the midst of Seoul. For entire nights, he had leaned on the locked front door, praying to remain unhurt. Alas, his prayers manifestly hadn't been heard.
The apartment had caught fire on the 29th day with the whole building and Jiwon had congratulated himself for having prepared a backpack, just in case. He had ran, almost fainting multiple times and his face had hit the floor once or twice before he finally escaped the burning building. Nevertheless, he succeeded and was now heading towards the North, in the subburbs of the city, with only his backpack. In it, there was his survival kit : three bottles of water, biscuits, a loaded gun with ammunitions that he bought to his neighbour before he ran away and his Pooh stuffie. To be honest, he would give his bag's entire content if he could keep his teddy in exchange... after all, sleeping was more important than eating, at the moment.
The first day of walking had been rough and he had decided to keep his gun on his hip, ready to grab it at any moment. At 9pm, an hysterical man had threatened him with a kitchen knife near a gas station and Jiwon luckily had been able to knock him out and run away. At 9:30am, he cursed himself for not taking the knife before leaving. At 11am, a stray dog had pounced on his leg to bite in it so hard that it made the boy scream in pain and terror. He eventually came back to his senses and shot the dog in its leg, injuring the animal enough for it to back away without willfully killing it but even if he had, he would'nt have cared : it was going to die soon anyway. At noon, while he was limping on the deserted highway, he had to stop to cry a little because of the unbearable pain in his leg. He surprisingly fell asleep until 2pm and then, he got himself back up. He was wondering about sleeping in one of the cars abandonned on the highway (after throwing at least one dead body out of the vehicle, of course) but at 3pm, a bullet had skimmed his face. A man, young but tall and well-built, his ripped shirt completely soiled, had appeared from behind a bush on the side of the road, his hunting gun still pointed towards Jiwon.
-What's in your bag?
-W-water, snacks! I can give them to you, no need to kill me man, I'm gonna give 'em to you !
The other young man had made a weird noise between a sob and a laugh, and had lowered his gun. Shit, Jiwon had thought, it's only been a month and people are already going fucking nuts. The other had agressively pulled his bag from his shoulders to go through it and find the biscuits which he devoured in a few seconds. When he had finished, he had burped loudly before bursting out laughing.
-Fuck, I was starving ! I'm Junhoe, by the way.
-Jiwon.
-Going somewhere ?
-Not really... it became too dangerous downtown, 'm just looking for a safer place to stay.
-Safer places are just good places to die of hunger and thirst in a few days, man. Bad idea.
-If you say so. Wanna walk with me for a bit ?
-'course I want to, you have food !
Junhoe had slapped him on the back in what apparently was a motivating move but Jiwon took advantage of this split second to grab the hunting gun.
-Eh, what the fuck ?!
-If we're walking together I wanna make sure you won't kill me.
-And how do I know you won't kill me ?
-I would've done it already, instead of letting you eat my damn food.
Junhoe had rolled his eyes but he still had started walking on the endless highway, his fingers stuck into his mouth to get the biscuits' last crumbs. At 8pm, the two new friends -?- had finally settled in a abandoned factory, pieces of electronics still in place on the motionless conveyors. They were now laying in a dirty corner and Jiwon could perfectly imagine the scene he hadn't been there to see happening but that was replaying again and again in his mind. The workers doing their shitty job just like any other day, the deafening alarm signal reverberating everywhere in the factory and the streets around, the screams, the cries, the collective attempt to escape, the rush to get out of the building and get to their cars as if it would be enough. The said cars were still on the road all around the factory, the dead bodies of their drivers still inside, for those which hadn't been stolen during the thirty first days of the post-apocalypse.
Radiations. No one could escape from them.
Junhoe winced in his sleep and coughed violently, blood spurting from his throat onto the soiled floor of the factory. Jiwon, once again, thought to himself that it would've been preferable to die that day, like the majority of humankind, the alarm signal ringing in his head.