A Changed Friend (1)
I blinked in a daze at the sight of Zeta's crimson eyes and immediately tried to scramble to my feet. Or at least, I would have.
If only my head hadn't started spinning like a top.
Thud.
My half-raised body collapsed right back into the chair. Zeta shot up in alarm at the sight. She practically flew over and caught me.
“Hyunwoo!”
“Shh…”
I weakly lifted a single finger to my lips, signaling that we had to stay quiet. Zeta ignored it completely, too focused on checking my condition.
The moment her cool hand touched my forehead, a pleasant chill washed over me. When it pulled away, I felt a strange pang of disappointment.
“Why is your body like this…! You’re burning up! What on earth happened?!”
“I said we have to be quiet… There are monsters outside…”
Seeing Zeta—who looked surprisingly fine, even perfectly healthy—filled me with relief. At the same time, I knew I had to tell her everything I’d seen and heard.
Given what was happening out there and the way the dead were turning into monsters, I wanted to spare her as much confusion as possible.
“Monsters…? …That’s right. The door opened…”
Zeta’s calm reaction was completely different from what I’d expected.
“Hyunwoo, I know you’re really confused right now. You must have a ton of questions. But first, let’s take care of your emergency treatment.”
She was the one trying to reassure me, desperately saying the very things I should have been saying. My head, which had just started to calm down, was suddenly flooded with confusion again.
“Zeta, you—”
The moment I tried to speak, completely lost on what was even happening,
[KIIIIIIIIIAAAAA!]
A monstrous shriek, now much closer, echoed from beyond the door.
Zeta glared in the direction of the sound. It was an expression I had never seen on her face during all our time together—cold, unfamiliar, and utterly foreign.
“Filthy abominations daring to crawl into this world. Hyunwoo, you don’t need to worry about them. So give me your arm. This is the most urgent matter right now.”
The way she had been glaring at the door like it was her mortal enemy vanished the instant she looked at me. In its place was the gentle, docile Zeta I knew. She carefully placed her hand on my right arm, which was wrapped so tightly in shredded clothing that it looked like one solid mass.
Pressing down firmly on the blood-soaked fabric, she asked,
“Does it hurt when I press like this?”
“…No.”
Her expression was so grave that I couldn’t bring myself to ask any more questions. I couldn’t even feel the pressure of her hand on my arm.
“What about this?”
“Still doesn’t hurt.”
Even after she peeled away a layer of the makeshift bandage, my answer remained the same. When my face showed no change at all, Zeta’s expression grew even more serious. After carefully unwrapping every last strip of cloth, it became graver still.
“I’m going to pull the rebar out of your arm. If we wait any longer, even I won’t be able to do anything about it.”
“…You’re pulling it out right now?”
I stared at the thin metal rod piercing straight through my right forearm and the area around it. The hardened muscles and the blackened skin made it clear just how bad the injury was. It was easy to imagine what would happen if the rebar stayed in.
But now that the moment had actually arrived, I hesitated. I had no idea how she planned to remove it, let alone how she would treat the wound afterward.
Whether she sensed my anxiety or not, Zeta bit down hard on the tip of her index finger, drawing blood. Bright, vivid crimson droplets welled up at the end of her finger.
Those drops of blood fell, one by one, onto the wound on my forearm.
“…!”
My eyes flew wide open almost instantly. I didn’t understand why she had dripped her own blood onto me, but the moment it touched the wound, an excruciating wave of pain surged through me.
The agony was so intense it brought tears to my eyes. It must have been the pain of forcibly restarting blood flow that had been cut off. The blood was reviving my dying muscles and skin, but the backlash was beyond anything I could describe.
“We have to drain the contaminated blood first. Only then will the muscle stiffness loosen. The pain you’re feeling right now is your nerves coming back to life. So just bear with it a little longer.”
Just as Zeta said, vitality was rapidly returning to my right arm. Even though my condition was improving, the pain I felt was an entirely different story.
It felt like thousands of needles stabbing every single nerve. Not poking—stabbing. Deep and vicious.
I wanted to pass out immediately, but the pain refused to let me. My clothes were soaked through with sweat, clinging to my skin in the most unpleasant way.
All I could do was clench my mouth shut to stop myself from screaming and let out low, muffled groans between my teeth.
“…I’m sorry for hurting you, Hyunwoo. Just a little more. Please, just endure it a little longer.”
“W-wait a sec…”
Zeta grabbed the rebar, which had loosened slightly as the muscle stiffness faded, clearly preparing to yank it out. I urgently stopped her.
The rod was thinner than three fingers but thicker than two. I knew the only way to pull something that had pierced cleanly through my forearm was the stance she had taken.
I knew that, but—
“Aaaargh…!”
“…I haven’t even put any strength into my hand yet, Hyunwoo.”
Zeta flinched violently at my sudden scream. This wasn’t pain I could endure quietly; I couldn’t help but cry out. I had tried to scream in advance, but my timing was completely off.
“Ah, sorry. …Aaaargh!”
“Hyunwoo, I’m really upset. Why do you keep making me feel so weak-hearted! We can’t leave it like this. If we don’t remove it, you might lose the use of that arm…”
Zeta looked just as anxious as I felt. It made sense—she had never experienced anything like this before. Only then did I realize that the more I suffered, the more her hands trembled.
“No, seriously—aaaargh—!”
“It’s out. Stay still for a moment. I’ll stop the bleeding.”
The moment I made a genuinely pained face, she mercilessly yanked the rebar free. Of course my expression completely broke.
Apparently there was still blood left to spill. Dark red liquid began pouring from the gaping hole in my arm once more.
It was a small mercy that the rebar’s surface had been smooth. If it had been jagged, I probably would have died from the pain alone.
“Huk… Huk…”
The consciousness I had barely been clinging to shattered completely during the extraction. My vision was blurring. It looked like I was really about to pass out this time.
As my head lolled weakly forward, Zeta tore off part of the top she was wearing and wrapped it around my arm. It was the cleanest piece of clothing we had, but it was still far from sterile. There was a very real risk of bacterial infection.
But Zeta didn’t seem to care about any of that. She simply placed her hand on my arm. A strangely cool energy settled over my forearm. Every now and then, I felt a gentle warmth mixed in.
“That should stop the bleeding for now. It’s only a temporary measure, so absolutely no intense movement.”
“………”
I didn’t know how she had done it, but I wanted to thank her. Against my will, however, my body continued to slump.
“…Hyunwoo, say something. Anything. You can’t fall asleep right now. Please. Okay?”
“G-got it…”
What should I even say? In my half-conscious state, I just blurted out whatever came to mind.
That she had been heavier than I expected when I carried her. That there were so many corpses in the rubble that it had been terrifying. That I was grateful she had pushed me out of the way and saved me. The words spilled out in a jumbled, incoherent mess.
I told her about our desperate escape from the rubble together, and how I had killed a zombie right before we made it inside. I even mentioned the legless monster I had killed with my own hands, then let out a hollow laugh.
It wasn’t that anything was funny. It was a disbelieving laugh born from the sheer absurdity of the situation—an unconscious denial of reality.
“…Zeta, I might go to prison. I killed someone. …Wait, was it even a person…? I don’t know anymore… Anyway, I killed something… It was trying to kill us, so…”
“Don’t worry, Hyunwoo. You’re not going to prison. There probably aren’t even any prisons left to go to anymore. And what you killed wasn’t a person. It was a zombie. It was no longer a living human being.”
“………”
“The dead who cannot find rest and rise again as filthy abominations. Hyunwoo, you granted it peace. So you don’t need to worry about that part. You did the right thing.”
“……You seem to know a lot about this. I don’t understand any of it. Why did things turn out like this?”
“…Later. Once you’re no longer in pain, I’ll tell you. I don’t know much either, but I’ll tell you everything I do know. So Hyunwoo… you can’t abandon me.”
With anxious eyes, Zeta tended to me with utmost care. The zombies’ shrieks still echoed from beyond the door, but my body had grown so hazy that I could barely register the sound.
Even in that state, I could clearly hear Zeta’s plea not to abandon her.
At those words, I let out a weak chuckle.
“How could I ever abandon you?”
“…Me too. I will never abandon you either. All you have to do is trust me.”
I’m not sure how she interpreted my words and faint smile. Zeta stood up with a resolute expression on her face.