Infinite Refill
Opposite to how they behaved at night, the monsters showed no interest at all.
She moved carefully between them, searching for a building that looked intact or sturdy.
One structure caught her eye.
More precisely, it was a construction site still in the middle of being built.
Peering inside, she saw no workers.
The place looked long abandoned, riddled with holes, yet Arin found that reassuring.
Construction sites always came with tall gray temporary walls.
Beyond them, deep pits dug for foundation work ringed the building, rebar jutting out like spikes.
Improvised metal walkways led to the upper floors.
Everything looked precarious and dangerous.
To her eyes, it resembled a fortress surrounded by walls and a moat.
“Oh…”
She wandered around like a child rediscovering wonder, muttering to herself.
“Bedroom here, watchtower there.”
She giggled alone.
Spotting a pile of metal pipes on the ground, she picked one up.
At first she grabbed a long one like a baseball bat and swung it.
It felt too heavy and strained her wrist, so she set it down.
She found a shorter pipe with threaded ends instead.
After a moment she nodded, satisfied.
Recalling what Injun had done, she took out a bandage from the pharmacy supplies.
She wrapped one end, then tucked the pipe into her bag so the handle stuck out.
She looked up at the sky and gauged the sun’s position.
“Still plenty of daylight left.”
With time to spare, she decided food was the priority.
She climbed down from the building.
Having secured a place to spend the night and some basic protection, her steps felt lighter.
Then she stopped.
“Ha… Seriously, what am I even doing…?”
The sight of the tooth-filled faces crowding the streets forced her to remember the reality she had been ignoring.
She cursed under her breath, scratched the back of her neck, and sighed.
She started moving again.
She needed to cover as much ground as possible before sunset and find edible food.
She ignored the monsters that repeated their scripted movements without paying her any attention.
She stopped in front of a building whose sign probably read “café.”
She pulled out the distilled water from her bag.
She had never liked Americanos because they upset her stomach, but right now she imagined she would drink one gratefully.
Then she caught her reflection in the glass and froze.
“Wow… I’m actually pretty.”
She had avoided mirrors because she still thought of herself as male and had no mental space to spare.
Now she saw her face clearly for the first time.
Short black hair, flawless skin, sharp eyes that gave her a strong impression without being unpleasant.
None of the wrinkles or gray hairs from endless overtime remained.
Admiration quickly turned into nausea and self-loathing.
She frowned and looked away.
Through the reflection she noticed something else.
One of the monsters that had been moving on autopilot was now staring straight at her.
She remembered the previous night when the rules had broken.
Her hand reached back and gripped the pipe in her bag.
‘Please go away. Please go away. Please go away.’
She prayed the monster was only interested in its own reflection.
Its throat pulsed, teeth clicking.
Cold sweat ran down her back.
The monster moved first.
[H-hello. Hello. N-nice to meet you.]
“Hrk! G-get away!”
She yanked the pipe free and swung it in warning.
The monster paid no attention.
Its arms bent the wrong way as it charged.
The distance vanished in an instant.
She had thought the pipe would protect her, yet when the moment came her body locked up.
The pipe ended up swinging her instead.
“Aah!”
She tripped, barely avoiding the monster’s bite.
The creature slammed face-first into the glass window and collapsed, face shredded by broken shards.
“Ah… Haha! You idiot!”
She forced down her fear and laughed at the twitching monster.
She reached for an outdoor table to stand up.
Sharp pain shot through her hand.
She turned and saw another monster biting down on it.
More monsters had gathered.
They swarmed her.
In broad daylight she watched, fully conscious, as they tore into her alive.
She thrashed in agony but couldn’t even scream.
“Hrk!”
Arin woke on the cold floor.
She shielded her eyes from the light leaking through the curtains and sat up.
Medicine shelves surrounded her.
She dragged her bag closer and pulled out the pipe wrapped in bandages.
She examined it, then drew the curtain aside.
“…Ha. Haha.”
The pipe hadn’t been with her when she first woke in the pharmacy.
The sun was in a different position than before.
Everything pointed to one impossible conclusion.
“Ahahahaha… Hahahahaha!!”
Laughing like a madwoman, she ran outside.
She ignored the monsters and sprinted toward the construction site she had chosen earlier.
She passed it without a second glance and stopped in front of the café.
Glass shards and bloodstains covered the ground.
She gripped the pipe with both hands and charged the nearest monster.
“You goddamn bastard!”
The pipe connected with its head.
A dull crack.
The monster’s neck snapped and it dropped.
She climbed on top and kept swinging.
The pipe turned red.
The monster’s skull cracked open.
Blood splattered across her face and clothes, but she didn’t stop.
“…Pathetic.”
She looked up.
More monsters had approached.
She smiled.
Once again she was torn apart and woke up in the pharmacy.
Her uniform was clean again.
The pipe and supplies were still in her bag.
She threw the curtain aside and ran out.
She didn’t even blink against the glare as she looked at the sky, then sprinted toward the café.
“You! That’s you, right!? Brown skirt! The second one that bit me!”
The first monster that had bitten her hand lay dead on the pavement, head destroyed.
She picked a new target and swung.
She killed another, then died again.
Each time she woke up and charged back out.
As the sun sank, she died and revived over and over.
Her movements grew steadier.
She no longer hesitated.
Eventually she even fought back while being eaten, calling out her next target in advance.
The monsters began to react differently.
[Kkiiiaaaah! It hurts…!]
“Why? Don’t you like unlimited refills?”
The monsters that had charged without fear now hesitated.
She jammed the pipe upside-down into the mouth of the one writhing beneath her.
She wiped blood from her face with her sleeve.
“Eat…! You like it, don’t you!? Eat as much as you want…! Go on, eat!!”
She kept stabbing until the monster stopped moving.
Then she took a deep breath.
She calmed her muscles and cooled her rage.
An involuntary laugh escaped her.
She looked at herself objectively.
Changing gender and becoming younger felt trivial now.
She had a body that revived no matter how many times she died.
If corpses remained she might have questioned her identity, but nothing was left behind.
Even bloodstains vanished.
The time between deaths was short.
The monsters looked confused rather than full.
Only one conclusion remained.
“Shit… Even Qin Shi Huang never got this.”
She no longer feared monsters, night, or death.
“You found a way out?”
“Yeah. I saw this weird door. Bright yellow, completely out of place with everything around it. Reminded me of those survivor stories that used to float around online.”
“What kind of stories?”
Injun, who only watched short videos online, said he didn’t know.
Gyeongmin tightened the bandage on his arm while answering.
“If something doesn’t match the world’s atmosphere, it’s probably a trigger. Ah, damn, this isn’t working. Seoa-noona, can you help?”
“I can help…”
“No thanks. The old man does it too tight.”
“Can’t even handle that, you wimp?”
“Ugh, shut up, you fossil.”
“Both of you, stop~”
Seoa approached, loosened the bandage, and rewrapped it while speaking lightly to stop the argument.
Only awkward coughs followed.
Injun glanced at her and asked,
“More importantly, are you okay?”
“Huh? Ah… Yes. I’m fine.”
On the night the rules broke, they had heard Arin’s scream behind them.
They had only known her for a few hours, yet watching her get attacked from afar felt different from the other deaths.
They couldn’t stop or look back.
They ran, clinging to a faint hope, and escaped the monsters.
In the end they confirmed Arin hadn’t made it.
“I’m fine.”
Injun and Gyeongmin had been checking on Seoa whenever they could.
Her expression still looked pained, so they stopped asking and packed their things.