Chapter Text
Call him a pessimist, but Han Jisung could sense the wrongness in the air the moment he woke up. He blearily opens his eyes and glares at his apartment’s ugly popcorn ceiling, lips curled in displeasure at the unpleasant tingle under his skin.
Okay, maybe he overdid it with the soju last night, but could anyone really blame him? A huff of annoyance escapes his mouth as he remembers receiving the fourth rejection for his article submission this week from the Lamp Post Journal, of all publishers.
Pretentious bastards, what kind of lame-ass name is Lamp Post Journal anyway?
Han groans as he begrudgingly wrangles his limbs out of bed to prepare for his dreaded nine-to-five. Much to his dismay, that nagging feeling of wrong grows twice as strong when he stands up.
It’s as if his body’s fight or flight system suddenly kickstarted itself and immediately dialed from zero to a hundred. His heart is racing and his palms are sweating— but from what? Han thinks frustratedly. What a shitty hangover.
There’s a buzz in the air he didn’t notice before–has the air conditioning always been that loud? A quick glance outside his– ouch, very bright– window showed that Seoul was operating as always: cars honked in predictable intervals, the line at the newly opened cafe down the street was already out the door, and the occasional couple strolled by, looking like elves from his view on the 13th floor. A little further away, the Han River glistens under the sun like always, the peaceful sight slightly soothing Han’s frayed nerves.
The unease thrumming through his blood doesn’t go away, but nothing seems amiss, so Han chalks it up to the lingering effects of his episode last night and shuffles his way to his cramped, dingy bathroom. He easily runs through his morning routine, thoughts idly wandering through plans for his next article, and before he knows it, he’s out the door with his suitcase in hand.
Despite the…less than ideal start to his day, Han’s determined to make the most of it before kicking back for the weekend.
Just one more day, Han. One more day until Saturday.
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– – – – – – – –
“Oh–ah, there we go.”
A blurry figure steps back from the camera until it focuses, revealing a well-dressed, striking young man with angular features that are contrasted by his current wide-eyed expression. He’s clad in a heavy black coat layered over a dark turtleneck shirt, with a pair of dark-blue baggy jeans and chunky platform Dr. Martens pulling the outfit together. His black hair is artfully tousled and he’s adorned with silver jewelry, a pale necklace especially standing out against his dark clothes.
The man suddenly breaks into a foxy grin.
“Hello Stays, it’s I.N. here!” He gives a small wave to the camera. “I know it’s been a while since I’ve posted any content, much less a livestream. I didn’t mean to leave you guys so suddenly–just, things have been…hectic, lately,” the influencer pauses, and his eyes dim at the words, but he quickly collects himself and barrels on.
“However! Your favorite fashionista,” he emphasizes the word with an eyebrow waggle and a small twirl, “is officially back in business. I’m planning to take it slow, though, so we’ll just chill and talk today. Feel free to send any questions in chat!”
I.N. moves closer to his phone to watch the comments flood in. People tuned in astonishingly quickly, with the viewer count already well over sixty thousand in the first few minutes of the stream.
Well, he supposes an unannounced, month-long hiatus will inevitably raise some questions. He staunchly ignores the ones asking about said topic.
“Where am I right now? Ah, I’m currently in a small park in Seoul. It’s a nice, hidden pocket of nature in this busy city,” the influencer explains, gesturing at the trees behind him. He chuckles as the chat fills with question marks. “I know, I know, big shocker. I moved in last week! Busan was getting too…” He trails off, eyes darting down for a split second before returning to the camera.
“Um, I just wanted a change of scenery, you know? Anyways, my new neighborhood is really nice! There’s this cafe that opened up just before I moved here; it’s called Lucky Cat Cafe, I think. The pastries are amazing , definitely check it out if you’re around.”
He rambles a little more about the city before another question catches his eye. “Fit check? Why, I thought you’d never ask!”
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As the stream continues past afternoon and into the evening, I.N. finds himself growing restless and frankly, a little bored of the questions.
“Alright, I think that’s enough interrogation for today! And don’t worry, I’ll take you guys on a little walk to enjoy the sunset before I end the stream,” he reassures his fans before they start panicking.
He gets up from the bench he’d sat down on earlier and takes his time stretching before he moves to pick up his phone. “The sunset seriously looks amazing from the Han River, by the way. All my Seoul Stays would know,” he giggles.
Without further ado, I.N. sets a leisurely pace toward the river, humming a soft tune as he takes in his surroundings. He enjoys this quieter side of the city, where trees towered over sidewalks instead of gray apartment buildings, and honking cars were a distant thought. The sky becomes an enchanting blend of warm tones as the sun begins to set, basking the entire city in a red glow. Strangely, it looks a little ominous today–like a fireball of doom or something.
The man’s eyebrows furrow at the thought. He becomes more alert, noticing the eerie silence around him, broken only by his own voice. I.N.’s humming dies down, and he stops walking as a chill runs through his body.
Everything looks normal–people are milling around, and a few stores are starting to close down for the night–yet everything feels too still, too quiet; as if sound itself didn’t dare vibrate the particles in the air in fear of disturbing a world that’s teetering on the edge of something new.
He’s startled out of the surreal feeling by a robotic voice coming from his phone, which he’d momentarily forgotten about in the haze of his thoughts. “ Foxi.n.y has donated $5. Don’t stop walking I.N., we’ll miss the view!”
I.N. pushes his worries away, quickly sporting a dimpled smile for his viewers. The least he can do after disappearing on them is end his first stream back on a good note. “Ah, you’re right! Thanks for the dono!”
He starts walking again, chattering mindlessly to fill the silence. Soon enough, the Han River comes into view, just as the sun is beginning to sink below the horizon. I.N. adjusts his camera to face the sunset before plopping himself on a bench, shivering a little at its coldness. He talks to his chat until the sun sets completely and streetlights flicker to life, appreciative of the temporary distraction from his unease.
Eventually, though, the live has to come to an end. Right as I.N. pushes himself off the bench, a small commotion across the street behind him catches his attention. He turns and attempts to squint past the darkness, but all he can discern are a few writhing bodies latched onto one another just outside the range of a nearby streetlight. The scuffle is chillingly silent, save for the rustle of clothes.
“Stays, do you see this?” He murmurs, voice low to avoid drawing attention. I.N. fumbles with his phone, cursing as he nearly drops it, before pointing the camera at the disturbance. He doesn’t want to get involved, but something about the fight is so horribly unnatural that he can’t tear his eyes away even if he wants to. His skin tingles with goosebumps, that gut-wrenching feeling from earlier returning at full force.
The streamer chances a look around him, noting with immense displeasure that no one else was around besides him, the odd tangle of people, and a lone figure a small distance away from the struggle. The person is shrouded in darkness, which is slightly offputting, but I.N. figures they were caught off guard and observing the fight like him. Still, he shuffles away from the streetlight he’s currently under until he’s also covered in darkness, wary of being seen under these circumstances.
Abruptly, the mass of bodies goes still. I.N. subconsciously holds his breath, glancing at his stream to gauge his viewers’ reactions, but the normally active chat is motionless. He does a double-take when he notices that the viewer count has dropped to three. A beat passes, then it drops to two.
What in the world? I.N. thinks incredulously.
Another second, and it drops to one. The hairs on the back of his neck rise, a chill freezing him in place. A comment appears right before the count hits zero.
I.N., RUN
– – – – – – – –
What the hell? Is Chan’s first thought as he takes in the sight before him. He’d just emerged from his temporary room in the basement of a nightclub—not his first choice of housing, but a place to stay nonetheless—and was greeted with an empty room littered with abandoned drinks and skimpy clothing.
Colorful lights sweep over the floor, highlighting reddish-purple stains on the ground while typical nightclub music blasts through speakers near a lonely DJ stand. Between every thump of the bass, Chan can hear blood-curdling screams outside that turn his hands clammy.
Apprehension tightens Chan’s throat. Is there a killer on the loose or something?
He’d been about to visit his younger siblings, black cap pulled low over his face while the rest of his body was covered in a black hoodie and cargo pants. Clearly, that’s out of the question until he can figure out what’s going on. Chan cautiously makes his way to the front entrance of the club, his pulse making its presence known in his ears as adrenaline floods his veins.
At a first glance out the windows, he can only see the neon signs of other clubs wedged into the narrow street. After a few seconds, his eyes adjusted to the darkness, and two shadowed figures on the sidewalk became apparent.
They’re looking straight at him.
Fuck . Just then, something moves on the ground behind them. One of the figure’s heads turns at an unnatural angle to face the movement, pausing for a moment as if to think, before plunging their hand toward the shadow on the ground and lifting a third figure by the neck. Chan can barely blink before it rips the arm off the person in their grasp and begins…gnawing on it.
What the fuck? What the fuck. What the actual fuck. That can’t be a human.
Chan trips on nothing as he scrambles backward. Pain lances up his arms as his wrists take the brunt of his weight, but he’s too shocked to pay much attention to it. The other figure’s head follows him, but it doesn’t try to come closer. Chan feels like he might throw up.
Survival overtakes his thoughts, forcing his body off the ground. There’s an emergency exit in the back—the club owner had been kind enough to give him a brief tour when he got here. Chan doesn’t even remember his name, and he guiltily wonders where he is now.
He doesn’t take his eyes off the scene in front of him until he turns a corner and the front door is out of his line of sight. Immediately, a bang comes from that direction, loud enough to be heard over the club music.
Chan breaks into a cold sweat. He looks back at the entrance and—holy shit. One of the figures is pressed completely against the glass door, and now that its face is illuminated by the club lights, Chan is sure. These are not humans.
Half of its lower jaw is gone, leaving its tongue lolling out the new space. The creature’s eyes are nearly bulging out of its head, and its irises are milky white. Its pupils are the only sharp pinpricks of color amongst its scleras. There are large splatters of blood painting the remains of its face, tinted a purple hue from the club lights.
Chan decides he hates the color purple as he hightails it out the back door, immediately slamming it shut and gripping the brick wall beside it. The cold air that assaults his face outside carries a tinge of iron in it. With the loud music muffled behind him, Chan can finally absorb the chaos that has descended outside. Click!
Or not. The overhead light, along with the rest of the light sources along the block, promptly flickered off. He can hear partygoers screaming around him, sees glimpses of them through the narrow alleyway opening. He can gather that they’re getting chased by those figures—zombies? his brain hysterically supplies—from the sparse moonlight that managed to break through the Seoul smog. Somewhere nearby, police sirens harmonize with the city sirens.
Shit. He should’ve grabbed a knife from the bar or something. Chan drops into a crouch by the dumpster, weighing his options.
His first priority is getting to his brother and sister, but they live even closer to the heart of Seoul than he does, bordering on the northern side of the Han River in Yongsan District. Anyone with common sense would know that traveling deeper into the city is a terrible idea.
Chan grips his hair, curses his situation, and stops himself from kicking the dumpster, which is the last thing he should be doing, really.
He’s already moving before he can think too hard. His siblings are the only people worth living for anyway—he’s got nothing to lose.
– – – – – – – –
The words “Jeongin” and “athletic” have never been remotely associated with each other, yet he feels like an Olympic gold medalist for balancing in his 2-inch Docs while running for his life. What’s even more commendable is that he’s sprinting through the dense buildings of Seoul in complete darkness, because of course the power in this half of the city had to go out.
To pull it all together, the uncanny silence from before has been swiftly replaced by a growing cacophony of screams coming from the inner city, along with ear-piercing sirens.
Now, here’s Jeongin’s current predicament: He had approximately two seconds after reading the last bone-chilling comment to haul ass because around a dozen very unnatural - looking beings stumbled out of a street a few blocks down from where he was. And by unnatural he meant torn flesh and weird, milky eyes, which looked especially inhuman under the pale streetlights that fizzed out seconds later.
The streamer may be unathletic, but he sure isn’t an idiot who lives under a rock, so he booked it in the opposite direction. He’s been on the run for a couple minutes now, sweating, panting, and desperately trying to navigate back to his apartment block with only the moonlight and last-ditch prayers. Jeongin had attempted to use his phone flashlight at first, but he quickly scrapped that idea when he realized it could draw unwanted attention.
In hindsight, maybe the extra vision would’ve been worth the risk. As Jeongin made a sharp left turn, he instantly crashed into a person (?), knocking both of them to the ground in an ungraceful heap.
His apology caught in his throat when he was hit with a rancid smell moments later, and he quickly scrambled off the body below him with a hand over his nose. Jeongin is not sticking around to find out why— no thank you —but as he turns to keep running, he hears a weak “wait!”
He hesitates for a beat before facing the person, who’s missing a leg and struggling to stand up straight. It looks like a young male, maybe around Jeongin’s age. Jeongin’s stomach sinks when the man looks up and he’s met with a pair of white, glossy eyes pierced with matching pinpricks of black.
“Please…I-I need help, man. H-hospital. It hurts,” his voice cracks, a pained whimper forcing it an octave higher. He stumbles forward, something akin to a newborn deer, and extends a shaking hand toward Jeongin. “Please,” he repeats, choking on a sob.
Every instinct is screaming at Jeongin to run, but his heart aches for the man. He doesn’t seem as mindless as the other…infected. Jeongin internally cringes at the term.
“Look,” he sighs, “my car is at my apartment, which is around here somewhere. I’ll take—hey, what are you—shit!” Jeongin barely moves out of the way in time as the man suddenly lunges at him. The momentum carries him through the window of the car behind Jeongin, glass shattering everywhere on impact.
Oh fuck no . Jeongin turns and runs, but he only gains a few steps before tripping and tumbling to the ground again. Death by Docs , he thinks wryly before a burning pain rips through Jeongin’s left leg, forcing a scream from his throat. When he looks back, there’s a sizable glass shard sticking out of his calf and a pale hand wrapped around his ankle, with a bloodied set of teeth glinting in the moonlight beside it.
Jeongin screams again, flipping himself over and kicking the person’s—creature’s?— face with his other leg, who groans in pain. To Jeongin’s horror, he grabs his injured leg with both hands and sobs, “I-I can’t stop! I’m sorry! Please, please help me, my body w-won’t listen !” His last words sound like they were ripped from his chest, a mix of agony and desperation.
Jeongin doesn’t get a chance to reply because someone rounds the corner and promptly smashes the infected man’s head into the ground.
– – – – – – – –
The boy in front of Chan is shaking noticeably and his eyes are wide as saucers, darting between Chan’s bloody bat and the dead body wrapped around his leg. Chan’s heart twinges at how similar he looks to his younger brother.
His mouth opens and closes soundlessly, and Chan really, really wishes he could comfort him right now, but the growing mob from the clubs will be here any moment. They need to find shelter sooner rather than later, especially because Chan’s energy reserves are shot from running for the past ten minutes.
He nudges the body off the boy’s leg and offers him a hand. “Hey, I’m Chan. We need to move, there’ll be a big group of these guys in a hot minute,” he says.
“J-Jeongin. Thank you,” the boy—Jeongin—stammers. However, when he reaches for Chan’s hand, he flinches and grips his left leg. “Uh…”
Chan stiffens, alarm running through his body. “Did it bite you?”
“No!” Jeongin blurts. “No, um, he—it stabbed me. With glass.” He turns his leg over, wincing at the movement.
“Shit. Here, get on my back,” Chan says before he can take it back. He crouches in front of the boy, supporting him until his stifled groans eased into shaky breaths.
He’s a liability. Every second you waste is a second your siblings are in danger, a voice in Chan’s head whispers. He instantly banishes the thought, guilt crawling up his throat for even considering leaving someone behind.
Chan looks over his shoulder and squints to gauge Jeongin’s status in the dark. “Ready to go, kid?”
“Kid?” He scoffs, sounding bemused.
To Chan’s relief, Jeongin doesn’t sound like he’s in too much pain, so he begins walking and checking the doors of each building.
“I mean, you don’t look a day over twenty-one,” Chan teases.
“Hah. Whatever you say, old man.”
“Hey!”
There’s a short pause in the conversation, filled with distant sirens and screams, before Jeongin speaks up again, his voice laced with excitement. “Chan-ssi, I recognize the street in front of us! Just turn left, my apartment is at the end of the block. I can get my car and drive us out of the city!”
Chan doesn’t have the heart to tell Jeongin he can’t go with him, or that the city will most likely be blocked off by then, so he settles for a simple, “got it,” and quickens his pace. An unsettling thought suddenly occurs to Chan. “Jeongin, do you know why it’s so empty in this area? I haven’t seen a single car or person in the past five minutes.”
Jeongin’s arms tighten around his shoulders, seemingly disturbed by the observation as well. “That’s what I’ve been thinking. There was this weird bubble of silence here, even before sunset and these infected people started appearing.”
Chan shivers, tightening his grip around the bat. “I can’t believe this is happening right now,” he mutters. Behind him, a hum of affirmation follows.
As soon as he turns into Jeongin’s street, the eerie peace shatters. There are multiple figures milling about aimlessly, but when the one closest to the duo notices them, it lets out a piercing screech.
Every. Single. Head. Snaps toward them. Dozens of pinpricked eyes meet theirs.
“Oh my god, oh my god , RUN !” Jeongin whisper-screams, thumping his good leg against Chan’s body.
Chan does a one-eighty pivot and takes off, which sets off countless thundering footsteps behind them.
This is horrible. They absolutely jinxed themselves.
“We absolutely jinxed ourselves,” Chan pants.
Jeongin just lets out a panicked noise and shouts, “They’re getting closer! Why is that one so fast!?” A groan. “Oh fuck me, do you think they can smell blood? Like the movies?”
Chan grits his teeth, willing his already tired legs to move faster. “Not helping,” he strains.
A flicker of yellow light and shadowed movement ahead catches Chan’s attention. There . A hand is waving at them from a slightly ajar door, back-lit by light inside the building. Next to it, in a small, square window, he sees a pair of eyes squinting at them beside a hand pulling back the blinds.
“Is that Lucky Cat Cafe?” He hears the boy behind him ask incredulously.
Chan knows trusting other people in world-ending events is the last thing he should do (not that he hasn’t already grown a little fond of Jeongin, to which he’d never admit), but he’s too tired to care. It’s not like they have another choice anyway. Jeongin’s terrified shout about the closing distance between them and the creatures behind them is a delightful reminder of that.
He beelines for the light, pushing his body to its limits and reaching for the hand that’s now outstretched in an invitation rather than waving. As soon as he’s close enough, it grabs his hand, yanks them both inside, and swiftly locks the door in one, fluid motion.