Sea of Despair

We finally stepped into Buk-gu.

Five months. The end of the city-spanning journey that had begun with a single choice of mine was now right before our eyes.

Starting from the Nam-gu where I had lived, cutting through a downtown choked with corpses, surviving dozens—hundreds—of brushes with death, we had at last reached the promised land.

I gazed up into the empty air, overwhelmed. The translucent system window, invisible to anyone but me, floated clearly in my vision and pointed straight ahead.

1.8 km. Compared to the dozens of kilometers we had trudged over the past five months, it was practically next door. In peacetime it would have been a leisurely half-hour walk. I could not hide my excitement as I turned to Yeong-ju beside me and whispered in a trembling voice.

"Yeong-ju… we're here. We're really here. This goddamn ordeal is finally over."

But Seo Yeong-ju standing next to me gave no answer. She was staring, utterly dazed, past the end of the trash-strewn old alley we had just left, across the suddenly wide-open eight-lane road.

"Yeong-ju?"

I followed her gaze, and the heart that had been swelling with hope only moments before went ice-cold in an instant.

What stretched before us was not the hopeful destination I had dreamed of for five long months. It was a sea of despair that swallowed everything whole.

Buk-gu was Daegu's classic bedroom community—a dense residential district.

"My god…"

Filling every inch of the view were dozens of massive apartment complexes lined up without end. High-rises easily twenty stories and more rose gloomily toward the gray sky like the tombstones of giants. And between those complexes, packing the broad roads, parks, and parking lots, were them.

Not one or two. Hundreds—no, thousands? So many that counting itself felt meaningless, they filled the roads like a black river, moving slowly, endlessly.

Before the outbreak, each of those complexes alone would have housed hundreds of families.

The thought that every last one of them had become like this made me dizzy. More zombies than we had faced in the entire five months combined now occupied the space right in front of our eyes.

"…1.8 km?"

Yeong-ju murmured through dry lips. There was none of her usual sharp anger, none of the sarcasm she reserved for me.

"How the hell are we supposed to break through that?"

She was right. Forcing our way through that river of zombies for 1.8 km was pure insanity.

A frontal assault would be suicide. Climbing from building to building was impossible too. The distances between apartment towers were far too great, and no connecting structures were ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠visible anywhere.

"What do we do… we're so damn close!"

I could not hold back and slammed my fist into the old wall beside me. Pain shot through my hand as if the bones had cracked, yet it was nothing compared to the despair tearing my heart apart.

For five months I had run on this single hope—the belief that it would give Yeong-ju and me a perfect sanctuary. And now, with the destination right under our noses, to face this despair… the words Cosmic Colony Shelter floating in the system window felt like they were mocking me.

"We move for now… we have to get out of here. Before they spot us."

Yeong-ju grabbed my shoulder and pulled. Even in this hopeless situation she was fighting to stay cold and clear-headed; that alone let me tear my eyes away, backpedal, and slip once more into the alley.

From that day on, our progress stopped. With the Buk-gu District Office Sports Ground practically in reach, we could go no farther and were forced to set up a temporary base in an old commercial building on the outer edge of the apartment ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠complexes. We settled into an open-ended wait—until we found a way through the zombie river, or until their numbers miraculously thinned.

The place we claimed was an abandoned math academy on the third floor of a four-story commercial building. Fortunately the building itself held almost none of them.

A couple of zombies in the second-floor PC bang who looked to have turned while still wearing headsets and lost in their games, plus one student-looking corpse that had quietly died while studying inside a fourth-floor reading-room cubicle—once we cleared those, the building was clean. The academy was divided into countless classrooms, making space easy to use, and the iron desks and chairs littering the hallway became excellent barricade material.

And ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠beyond the windows the cursed apartment complexes filled the view like one vast, damning painting.

Our days simplified. By day we took turns standing at the window, watching the zombies' movements; by night we scoured the other shops inside the building for anything useful.

The first-floor convenience store had been stripped bare long ago by someone else, yet under a toppled display rack we still managed to dig out a few near-expiry packs of ramen and a couple of dusty water bottles. In the small second-floor bookstore we found books for kindling and, completely useless now, reference volumes with titles like The Miracle of D-100 to the CSAT.

Time passed. One day, two days, a week… the zombies in the apartment complexes showed no sign of thinning. If anything their numbers seemed to grow as wanderers from the surroundings joined the throng.

Every day I stood at the window, staring toward the sports ground that felt close enough to touch, glaring at the system window—yet that mere 1.8 km ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠felt like the edge of the world, an uncrossable river.

"Stop staring already. Your eyes are going to fall out."

Yeong-ju's blunt voice came from behind me. She was pouring cold water into a cup of ramen that had already begun to mold, forcing it to rehydrate. Our dinner.

"I'm thinking of a way. How to break through there."

"There is no way, I keep telling you. Not unless you suddenly turn into Superman.

Just accept it, Seo Yeong-chan. We can't go any farther from here. That Shelter you won't shut up about is nothing but pie in the sky."

"No. There has to be a way. There has to."

I spoke firmly, yet there was no strength in my voice. The foundation of my hope was growing thinner by the hour.

Stuck inside this crumbling commercial building, once the stockpiled food ran out we would eventually have to throw ourselves into that sea of zombies—or give up and quietly head some other direction.

Then one day the very last ramen crumbs began to run dry, and the pressure finally forced us into a dangerous scouting run.

The larger commercial building that stood back-to-back with ours. A completely unexplored zone we had never set foot in.

"I'll go in first. You cover me from behind."

Yeong-ju adjusted her grip on the dagger as she spoke. I nodded, crowbar in hand. We slipped carefully inside through a broken window. A musty reek of dust and mold stabbed at our noses. The hallway was dark; every shop on either side had its shutters locked tight.

"Quiet, huh? Lucky, maybe?"

Yeong-ju whispered. No groans that would have told us they were near. Back to back, we moved slowly down the corridor.

Then—

"Huh?"

Yeong-ju stopped. She pointed to a pharmacy tucked into a corner of the hallway. The reinforced glass door had been smashed. Through the gap, clear signs remained of someone who had hurriedly grabbed what they needed and fled. Several empty shelves, empty cold-medicine boxes, and vitamin bottles lay scattered across the floor.

"…Someone beat us to it. Damn."

When I spoke with open disappointment, Yeong-ju shook her head.

"No. It's weird. Too…"

"Too what?"

"Different from every other place we've seen.

Usually if zombies tore through or other survivors looted in a panic, it'd be way messier and filthier. Bloodstains, or everything just gone?

But that place… it looks like they carefully picked only what they needed and left."

She was right. Most of the pharmacy shelves still stood intact; the floor held not a single bloodstain.

Only the spots where certain medicines had sat were completely empty.

Tensing at the strangeness, we scanned the surroundings even more carefully—and found another trace.

The tightly closed shutter of a karaoke room. Something glinted in the narrow gap beneath it. Yeong-ju approached cautiously and pulled it free.

"…A shell casing?"

Resting on her palm was a small yellow cartridge case. In this hell of a world, survivors who possessed firearms were vanishingly rare unless they were soldiers or police.

Yet this casing looked subtly different from the ones they used.

And decisively, it was smaller than the casings I had seen constantly in the military. Almost no dust clung to it—meaning it had been fired not long ago.

"Seo Yeong-chan."

Yeong-ju's voice dropped low.

Her eyes were the sharpest I had seen in a long time.

Extreme wariness.

In this world, other people were potential allies only second; first and foremost they were the most dangerous enemies, threats to our food and our safety. Especially if they handled guns.

We hurried back to our own hideout—the math academy. The entire way I could not shake the crawling sensation that someone was watching us from behind. The moment we arrived we stacked more desks and cabinets across the stairs leading down to the first floor, reinforcing the barricade until it was solid.

"What do you think?"

I asked while catching my breath after hauling a cabinet. Yeong-ju walked to the window and scanned the outside.

"I don't know. But it's not a good sign. Could be survivors hiding around here like us… or just looters.

Either way, they're a threat to us."

"Still… it means there are living people. That we're not alone."

"Don't be naive. You already know people are more dangerous than that baseless hope you keep pinning on the 'Shelter.'"

She faced reality with cold clarity. I had no rebuttal. Everything we had witnessed of human nature over five months only proved her right.

That night we could not sleep.

I stood at the window, alternating my gaze between the sea of zombies and the sports ground beyond it. And now a third presence—an unknown survivor—had to be factored in. Perhaps someone who considered everything in this area their personal territory. Perhaps we had already trespassed.

I called up the system window.

Every time I saw those letters my chest tightened. I possessed the power to make them real, yet the obstacles in front of me left me completely helpless. And now those obstacles were no longer only zombies. Another pair of eyes that might be watching us from the dark.

Right then—

"Yeong-chan, look at that."

Yeong-ju called me urgently. She was pointing at the rooftop of the commercial building we had just explored next door. That place should have been swallowed in pitch blackness, yet something glittered faintly—like someone had flicked on a tiny flashlight and immediately switched it off. Or like the tip of a cigarette flaring for a second before vanishing.

I held my breath. As if we had rehearsed it, Yeong-ju and I both dropped low and hid beneath the window. My heart hammered wildly.

Had that unknown survivor already discovered us?

Had they watched us explore the commercial building—and followed us all the way back to our hideout?