Waking Up to the Apocalypse
An unfamiliar ceiling.
'Wait... this isn't my room. Ah, right. I'm at Woongtae's place. Dammit.'
Reaching out of habit to the bedside table, Saebyeok picked up his phone. There was a message from Woongtae.
"Pfft, crazy bastard."
Saebyeok chuckled as he looked at his phone. But not even a second later, a throbbing pain hit him, as if someone were pounding his skull with a hammer.
"Ugh..."
Nausea and a burning thirst washed over him simultaneously. Dragging his body, which felt as heavy as a block of lead, Saebyeok forced himself out of bed.
"Ah... fuck."
The curse slipped out naturally. Shuffling like a zombie toward the refrigerator, he yanked the door open.
"Water, water..."
He spotted the clear bottle of mineral water they had been drinking from yesterday. He grabbed the two-liter bottle, which was about a third full, and chugged it down without any intention of leaving a drop.
The water tasted as sweet as honey. It was his own fault for drinking like there was no tomorrow with his high school buddy, all in a desperate bid to forget the emotional shock he had received just a few days ago.
"Fucking bitch..."
Was it because the alcohol had completely dehydrated his body? He couldn't even squeeze out a tear. He wondered about it, but honestly, it didn't matter anymore.
Thud.
Collapsing back onto the bed, Saebyeok closed his eyes, cursing himself for waking up so early.
#
A strange sensation crept over him—the distinct, unsettling feeling of having slept through all your alarms and completely wasted the day.
Hoping it wasn't true, he snapped his eyes open. Outside the window, darkness was drawing shut like a curtain, pushing away the red glow of the setting sun.
"Holy shit! How long was I... Ah... wait, I'm on vacation, right?"
Miraculously, his headache was gone. But that brief relief was quickly swallowed by a wave of guilt, the crushing realization that he had thrown an entire day down the drain.
Using the massive breakwater of "being on vacation" to push the guilt aside, Saebyeok cracked his neck and checked his phone.
"...What the?!"
Multiple individuals exhibiting unexplained abnormal behavior have been reported simultaneously across the country. Citizens are advised to return indoors immediately and refrain from going outside.
An unidentified mutant virus accompanied by extreme violence is rapidly spreading nationwide. Infected individuals transmit the virus by biting others.
CRITICAL DISASTER ALERT: As of this hour, the highest level of martial law is declared across the entire territory of the Republic of Korea.
Saebyeok rubbed his eyes and stared at the screen again.
"What the fuck is this?"
He bolted upright. With a trembling hand, he dialed Woongtae's number.
Click. Ring... Ring...
Click. Hearing the call connect, Saebyeok let out a breath of relief, but the sheer absurdity of the situation made him shout into the receiver.
"Hey! What the fuck is going on? What is all this?!"
"*Cough*, hey, you piece of shit... why are you only picking up now... *cough, cough*."
"Dude! What is it? What the fuck is going on out there? And your voice? What's wrong with you?!"
"*Cough, cough*. Hey... don't come outside... we're fucked... *crunch, crunch, growl, slurp, crunch, crunch*."
"...Hey! Kim Woongtae! Hey!!! You son of a bitch!! Answer me!!"
No voice came from the other end of the line anymore. Only the sound of bones being crushed and chewed, wet footsteps, and a low, metallic growl like a wild beast echoed through the speaker.
Saebyeok felt his world spin. He couldn't process any of the information flooding his brain. He had clearly just heard Woongtae's voice, but now his friend was gone. And he had told him not to come outside...
Thud.
His legs gave out, and he collapsed to the floor. With trembling fingers, he scrambled to dial his parents.
He prayed, desperately begging whatever deity was listening that his mother and father were safe...
But neither of them picked up.
'What is this? What is this fucked-up situation? Ah... it must be a dream. Right... there's no way this is real. Jihye, that fucking bitch, cheating on me was so shocking that I'm just having a stress-induced nightmare... Let's sleep... When I wake up, everything will be back to normal.'
Saebyeok chose the easiest path: denial. He pulled the blanket over his head and closed his eyes.
Screech— Crash!!
Honk! Honk! Honk! Honk! Honk!
The sudden sound of a car crash, followed by the relentless blaring of ownerless car horns, dragged Saebyeok right back to the reality he so desperately wanted to avoid.
"...Fuck."
Saebyeok cautiously poked his head out of the small window of the studio apartment to check the street below.
"Hey!! Fuck!! Run!!"
"Oppa!! You said we could escape!! What is this?!"
"Argh!! Fuck, stay back!!! Aaaaaaargh!!!"
"No!! Kyaaaaah!!"
A man and a woman had tried to break through the already congested road in their car. Having failed, they were now being torn apart, serving as a fresh meal for the swarming zombies.
Saebyeok forced his trembling body up and slid down against the wall. Using the still-functioning Wi-Fi, he opened TubeTube.
The platform was flooded with unbelievable videos. They were being uploaded in real-time.
Zombies. No other word could describe it.
In one video, a person suddenly vomited blood, convulsed, and collapsed. When they stood back up, they began to savagely bite and tear into the people around them.
The second video was even more bizarre. Someone had filmed a massive tree growing out of a nuclear power plant. Bizarre plants and grotesque vines were twisting and tangling together, forming a colossal structure.
But out of all the footage, it was the third video that plunged Saebyeok into absolute despair.
It showed a scene he desperately wanted to believe was fake. It was a military base. The audio was filled with heavy, panicked breathing, gunshots echoing from all directions, and soldiers screaming curses as they fought for their lives.
Next to a soldier who lay dead with his head ripped off stood a creature. It was an impossible monster, easily two to three meters tall, with green skin. It was as muscular as a gorilla, and it wielded a massive axe that looked like something straight out of a fantasy movie.
One of the bitten soldiers rose like a zombie and rushed forward. The video offered no explanation, leaving viewers to assume that the soldier had also turned.
The camera shook violently, making it hard to see clearly, but anyone who had served in the military would recognize the weapons being fired. Against those green monsters, standard rounds, grenades, and machine guns did absolutely nothing.
In the comments, people were throwing around theories, claiming they were definitely Orcs, but none of that mattered. Whatever they were, they looked damn near impossible to kill.
In another video, plants seemed to move with a mind of their own, wrapping around armored vehicles and fighter jets, completely disabling them.
At first, Saebyeok thought it was some high-quality AI-generated footage. But the people dying in the background were far too realistic. It looked like the D-Day landing scene from that old movie he had watched as a kid.
There were corpses with exposed bones and shredded flesh. One person in a state of shock stood dazed, staring blankly while holding their own severed arm. Another video showed someone desperately trying to hold their spilling intestines inside their body, completely lost on what to do.
Normally, these videos would have been censored the moment they were uploaded to TubeTube. It was a mystery why they were being allowed to stay up, but then again, who cared about censorship in a situation like this?
He tried to ask an AI assistant about the current situation, but the service was completely unresponsive.
After spending what felt like hours searching the internet for answers, Saebyeok was pulled back to reality by a sharp pain in his stomach.
Rumble.
A fierce hunger dragged him out of the tiny screen of his phone.
Only then did Saebyeok realize he hadn't eaten a single thing all day.
"Ha... hungry even in a situation like this..."
He felt a wave of self-loathing. His friend was dead, his parents weren't answering, and the world had clearly gone to hell. It was just like those novels he used to read, or the games he used to play.
Saebyeok began to rummage through his friend's refrigerator. Inside, he found the leftover chicken and pizza from yesterday.
Even in his drunken madness, Woongtae had neatly wrapped them in plastic wrap before putting them away.
"Crazy bastard..."
Only now did the neatness of his friend's studio apartment truly register.
"Sob..."
Crunch. Chew.
Saebyeok wept bitterly as he stuffed the cold chicken into his mouth. Once he finished, he collapsed onto the floor.
Only after letting his emotions pour out, filling his stomach with food and washing it down with a drink, did he feel a sense of calm settle over him.
"Sigh... fuck, what do I do?"
Unlike Woongtae, Saebyeok wasn't big or athletic. He had no interest in working out, nor was he any good at it. He had absolutely no survival skills for a disaster like this.
He began to regret cursing the world to end just yesterday.
As he stared blankly at the ceiling, an unrealistic event unfolded right before his eyes.
A glowing window materialized in the air.
It looked remarkably like the status windows he had seen in countless video games. It was translucent, and his hand passed right through it when he tried to touch it.
As he examined the window, text began to scroll across it.
"Ah!!! What the fuck is this?!" Saebyeok shrieked, jumping back.
"What the fuck is this bastard talking about?"
The text poked right at his sore spot, making Saebyeok snap. He wasn't particularly afraid of the window itself.
"...What is this..."
"Sigh..."
"..."
Flash!
The translucent, irritatingly provocative window vanished. Almost immediately, shouts of "Status Window!" began to echo from the surrounding buildings.
"Status Window!! Ohhh shit!!"
"Ha... God has not abandoned us."
"Bwahaha! The time has finally come..."
"Hehehe..."
"Finally, my era has begun!!"
But Saebyeok couldn't bring himself to laugh. He was utterly bewildered by what was happening, terrified of what that mysterious entity had done to his mind, and why he was seeing these things.
To be precise, he wanted to deny it all. He had absolutely no confidence that he could survive in a world like this.
While the confident shouts of the people outside began to draw the attention of the zombies roaming the streets, Saebyeok could only sit there, paralyzed by fear.