Legacy
In the cold air of dawn, after staring for a long while at Apartment Building 108 — the place that would decide our fate — we finished checking our gear and returned to the mechanical room hideout.
The atmosphere had clearly changed. Perhaps because the Jin-jus had laid out their entire plan, the awkward current of mutual suspicion and probing was gone.
"Hey — Yang Jin-ju, right?"
Yeong-ju broke the silence first. Sitting on the floor, retying the laces of her newly acquired combat boots, she asked Yang Jin-ju with feigned casualness.
"I've got a question."
"What is it?"
Nam Jin-ju replied with a slight wariness.
"You two… weren't you just ordinary college students? You said you were in college, right?"
"That's right. Why?"
"It's just… a little strange. Even if you got lucky early on in the outbreak, could ordinary college students prepare all this and come up with a plan like this?"
"Combat boots, sure. But those rifles, the harpoon guns, the ropes… those aren't things regular people can handle. Honestly speaking… are you two hiding something?"
Yeong-ju's question was sharp, and it was a doubt I'd been carrying myself the whole time.
Yang Jin-ju and Nam Jin-ju were clearly seasoned survivors, but their knowledge and equipment far exceeded what you'd expect from ordinary college girls in their early twenties. At times they almost seemed like people who'd received professional training.
"Well…"
At Yeong-ju's blunt question, Nam Jin-ju's face stiffened for a moment. Yang Jin-ju closed her mouth and stared at a spot on the floor. Her eyes wavered with complicated emotion.
Right then, a forgotten fragment of memory flashed through my mind like lightning. Before we'd met the Jin-jus — when we'd searched the commercial building next door — the pharmacy!
"Wait a second…"
I muttered without thinking, and everyone's eyes turned to me.
"What is it?"
Yeong-ju asked, and I spoke as I pieced the memory together.
"That pharmacy… the one where we first found your traces. I thought it was strange even then. A ruined pharmacy is usually either overrun by zombies or stripped bare by other survivors — a complete mess."
"But that place… it was too clean."
"Like an expert had gone through and taken only what they needed! Only the shelves with specific medications were empty. At the time I just thought it was odd, but…"
I looked at Yang Jin-ju and Nam Jin-ju. As I spoke, I could see both their faces hardening.
"That…"
After a long silence, Yang Jin-ju finally spoke in a low voice. Her tone was hoarse and quiet.
"We didn't take those."
She shook her head.
"This equipment, these plans… there was someone else who helped us. We prepared all of it with that person. And those medicines… we were desperately searching for them for him."
"Someone else?"
I asked back. The fact that there had been another person in this hideout besides them was a shock.
Yang Jin-ju nodded, and as if dredging up an old story, she slowly, with difficulty, began to speak.
"We called him Uncle Park. We never really knew his full name or age. He was just… the person who saved us, taught us, and protected us."
Her story began on the very day this world first started turning into hell.
"That day was the last day of our school festival. After drinking and partying all night, Jin-ju and I had passed out on the club room sofa."
"When we woke to the sound of explosions and screams, the world had already been turned upside down."
"Outside the window… it was pure hell. People tearing into each other, screaming, flames rising. We were so terrified we just locked the club room door and hid for days. All we had to eat were a few bags of snacks."
"After starving for days, when we finally couldn't hold out any longer and risked going outside, we ran into those things for the first time and fled for our lives."
"Then we heard a broadcast that soldiers from the 50th Division were rescuing survivors, so we headed that way. But right before our eyes, we watched the defensive line they'd built collapse. Soldiers and trucks sinking into the zombies — the ones the broadcasts talked about — amid screams."
"After that we had nowhere to go, and we fled again, wandering between buildings. Eventually we ducked into an alley where a military truck had overturned, hoping to hide under it and ride out the crisis. But the old tarp covering the truck bed rustled slightly."
"We nearly screamed in fright, but from under the tarp came a sharp Shh! — a signal to be quiet — and a rough, wrinkled hand shot out."
"That hand pulled us under the tarp. Inside, someone else was already hiding. He was wearing a military uniform, but the rank insignia and name tags had all been torn off."
"That man with the face full of wrinkles was the Uncle Park I mentioned."
"Stay quiet. Don't even breathe. Those things have abnormally developed hearing."
"Uncle's voice was low and rough, but somehow it had a power that put us at ease. We stuck close to him and hid in the cargo bed for a full day, listening to the sounds of the creatures around us."
"When hunger and terror left us half-conscious, Uncle pulled a hardened piece of hardtack from his pocket and put it in our mouths. I still think that hardtack is the reason we're alive today — it was that good."
"When dawn came and the surroundings grew quiet, we climbed out of the truck. Uncle suggested we stick together. He said he was a soldier who'd been stationed with the 50th Division, and that he needed to head north to get the situation under control and find his family. Whether it was true or not, he said he'd torn off his rank and name tags to avoid being conscripted again."
"And not long after, Uncle Park's survival training began. He told us he'd served a long time as a supply sergeant with the 50th Division and was a warrant officer about to retire."
"But his hobby was traveling to every mountain in the country on weekends for bushcraft and survival camping — he was what you'd call a survival expert."
"You know what's scarier than war? Nature. If you can survive in nature, you can survive anywhere."
"That was Uncle's philosophy. Which is why he knew not just combat skills, but all sorts of miscellaneous techniques."
"Learning how to walk silently and how to handle weapons — that was when."
"Uncle and the two of us gathered up all the K-2 rifles, pistols, and ammunition we'd seen earlier and came back here. And every night in the hideout, he taught us how to disassemble and reassemble firearms."
"You don't shoot a gun with force. Seat it firmly against your shoulder, hold your breath, and don't take your eyes off the target until the moment you pull the trigger."
"Uncle's ultimate goal, just like I said, was to get out of Daegu."
"This city is finished. Too many people. Their numbers will grow exponentially."
"Where we need to go is somewhere without people — somewhere easy to defend."
"Uncle designated this building — the commercial building we're in now — as a temporary base camp. And from then on, he started preparing the plan to escape Daegu."
"Moving all the combat boots from the military surplus store, preparing the harpoon guns and ropes — all of that was Uncle's idea. Since survival was his hobby, he was extremely knowledgeable about that kind of equipment."
"A frontal assault is suicide. We go by air. We make our own path, connecting building to building."
"Every night, Uncle would go up to the rooftop, survey the surrounding terrain, spread out maps, and design the safest route."
"Making Apartment Building 108 our first bridgehead and planning to cross the apartment complex from there — all of that was Uncle Park too."
"We just followed his instructions, quietly hauling equipment and learning survival skills. As long as Uncle was with us, we truly believed we could escape this hell."
"But… Uncle had a weakness."
Yang Jin-ju's voice cut off there. She bit her lip, unable to continue. Beside her, Nam Jin-ju — eyes reddened — picked up where she left off.
"Uncle… had high blood pressure and diabetes. Chronic conditions he got in the military…."
"He always carried his medication with him, but about a month after we settled in this building, the medicine ran out."
"That was when it started. When we began frantically searching every pharmacy around. That pharmacy you saw — we'd been there more than ten times."
"Just like Uncle taught us, we memorized the list of needed medications and left as few traces as possible. But it was already too late…."
Nam Jin-ju turned her gaze toward the empty wall as if looking at someone, and continued.
"Either the expiration dates had passed, or we just couldn't find them."
"The little medicine we managed to get wasn't enough to stop Uncle's illness."
"Once the medication ran out, Uncle's body started collapsing rapidly. That man who'd always seemed so strong began complaining of dizziness and collapsing more often, and at night he'd break out in cold sweats and suffer in pain."
"His body grew weaker by the day. He became visibly gaunt, and even the hands that held his gun started trembling slightly. Then one night, Uncle called the two of us over and said, with a completely calm face:"
"I don't think I can go on."
"Uncle, don't say that! We'll find medicine soon! We'll do whatever it takes…"
"When we burst into tears, Uncle just gave a bitter smile and stroked our heads."
"No. I know my own body. It's over. But I don't want to turn into a zombie and attack you, or lie on this cold floor and die for nothing. That's not how a soldier ends!"
"That was the last we saw of Uncle. The next morning, he was gone. The sleeping bag he'd used was neatly folded, and beside it lay only his pistol and a short letter he'd left for us."
Don't look for me. Get out of here and survive.
— Uncle Park
"We don't know how many days we cried after that. Our only hope, the pillar that had been holding us up, had vanished."
"The escape plan Uncle had laid out, all the equipment he'd prepared… they no longer felt like proof of hope, but like a vast legacy of his that we didn't dare carry out."
"Honestly… we were scared. Without Uncle, just the two of us, we didn't have the courage to execute that insane plan. So we just… held on. Clinging to the vague hope that someday an opportunity would come, that someday their numbers would thin out. And then we met you."
Yang Jin-ju rubbed her eyes, then returned to her usual cool expression.
"Now you know everything, right? This is all we were hiding. The knowledge Uncle Park left us, the equipment, and this plan. We didn't have the courage to carry it out — until you showed up, with that insane destination of yours, the Shelter or whatever."
Yang Jin-ju looked at me.
"You might be the first real opportunity we've had since Uncle Park disappeared."
"Maybe that crazy talk of yours can replace the courage we lost."
Her words still labeled me a madman, but I could tell a faint expectation was mixed in now.
"Yeah.... Let's get out of here for sure."
I answered without thinking, and Yeong-ju, beside me, nodded silently.