The Compass
The cold of the concrete floor climbed my spine as if it meant to freeze my brain solid.
We had taken turns sleeping, yet the tension had kept me awake through the night; my eyes felt gritty and my head throbbed with a dull ache. In the darkness I gripped Yeong-ju’s dagger, straining to catch every sound. From outside came the faint rustling of the two Jin-jus, and soon the darkness that filled the narrow storage room began to thin, ever so slightly.
The scrape of the metal cabinet that had blocked the door reached us from outside. I sat up on reflex, tightening my grip on the dagger. Yeong-ju, who had been sleeping beside me, reacted like a beast—her eyes snapped open at once. There was no trace of sleep in them, only sharp vigilance. As if by unspoken agreement, we silently took positions to cover each other.
With a creak the iron door opened, and Yang Jin-ju’s silhouette appeared against the faint dawn light. Her hand still hovered near the pistol at her waist.
“You’re up early…”
Her voice was hoarse, the kind that comes from a night of poor sleep.
“Come out now. It’s morning.”
Her words were neither command nor invitation—just a dry statement of fact.
We rose without a word, dragging our stiff bodies out of the narrow storage room. The machine room looked the same as yesterday, but faint light seeping through the gaps in the old ventilation shaft had begun to lift the darkness inside a little.
Nam Jin-ju was already up, sitting with her knees pulled to her chest, a vacant look on her face. Dark circles under her eyes showed she hadn’t slept well either. I felt a twinge of guilt that our presence had shattered whatever peace they had managed to find.
“…Did you sleep well?”
After the greetings, we sat on the floor. Yang Jin-ju pulled something from her backpack and held it out to us.
“Take it.”
A hard candy wrapped in crude packaging, and a piece of jerky smaller and thinner than two of my fingers put together.
So the cola and snacks they had given us last night had been special hospitality meant to test us and lower our guard? This was probably their true reality.
“This is each person’s ration for today.”
Yang Jin-ju said it, and Nam Jin-ju added quietly beside her, as if imparting an important survival tip.
“You… shouldn’t swallow it all at once. Melt the candy on the tip of your tongue for as long as possible, and the jerky… soak it with saliva and chew it very slowly—very, very slowly. That way your brain gets tricked into thinking you’re less hungry.”
Her words held the sad wisdom learned in this hellish world. It wasn’t something you would expect from the mouth of an ordinary college girl in her twenties who had once walked campus grounds.
I bowed my head silently in thanks and took it. Yeong-ju accepted her share without a word as well.
When I put the candy in my mouth, a cheap artificial fruit flavor spread with a sweetness that almost stung my tongue. It was pure sugar I hadn’t tasted in days. Yeong-ju put the jerky in her mouth and chewed it for a long time, like a cow ruminating on its feed.
After that drawn-out breakfast ended, an awkward silence filled the machine room again until Yang Jin-ju spoke first.
“So what are you going to do now?”
She looked at me as she asked.
“Do you two have somewhere to go? What’s your plan from here?”
The question sounded as if it were offering us options, but it was really an ultimatum. If we did not clearly state our destination, there would be no more goodwill.
I swallowed the last of the sweetness in my mouth and steeled my resolve. Last night they had treated me like a madman. That did not change my goal.
“My destination hasn’t changed. The Buk-gu District Office Sports Ground. I have to get there no matter what.”
The moment I finished speaking, Nam Jin-ju let out a deep sigh and clutched her head.
“Ah… please, look at reality. That Shelter you’re talking about is just… a fantasy you made up because you’re under too much stress, okay? I thought you’d be a bit better after sleeping…”
“It’s not a fantasy.”
I said it firmly. It was only visible to my eyes, but it was still reality.
“Not a fantasy? Fine, I’ll give you that a hundred times over and say it’s real. So how are you going to get through that sea of zombies? Do you have an invisibility cloak or something? Or the ability to fly?”
Nam Jin-ju’s voice grew sharper. Her sympathy had exceeded the limits of her patience, and her words were turning rough.
“We’ll… find a way. There has to be one. An underground passage, or the rooftops.”
“The underground passages have long since become their dens, and the rooftops—the distance between apartment buildings is too far to jump. We’ve confirmed that around here over the past few months. There’s no way. You have to accept it!”
As she nearly shouted, Yeong-ju beside me quietly cut her off.
“Stop it. If that’s his goal, just leave it at that. It’s not like we’re forcing you to understand our situation.”
Everyone’s nerves were stretched taut, on the verge of snapping, at that moment.
“Fine. Let’s try it.”
When Yang Jin-ju, who had been keeping silent, spoke in a calm voice, it felt as if every sound in the machine room stopped at those words.
Nam Jin-ju, Yeong-ju, and even I myself stared at her with expressions of disbelief. Soon Nam Jin-ju cried out in shock.
“Hey, Yang Jin-ju! Have you lost it? What did you just say? Go? Go where! Are you saying we should play along with that guy’s ridiculous delusion?”
Yang Jin-ju didn’t so much as blink at her friend’s intense reaction. She continued to stare at me, as if trying to pierce deep into my eyes, and went on.
“Yeah, let’s go with him. To that Buk-gu District Office Sports Ground he’s talking about.”
I doubted my ears. Hope had come so suddenly, from a completely unexpected direction. But Yeong-ju beside me was different. In her eyes, instead of joy, there was deep suspicion and wariness.
“Why? You clearly treated him like a madman last night. So why the sudden change of heart? Don’t tell me… you actually believe what he said?”
Yeong-ju’s question sharply cut to the core of Yang Jin-ju’s intentions, and Nam Jin-ju threw the same question.
“That’s right, Jin-ju! Don’t tell me you believe that crazy talk about some Shelter or whatever? You’re not going weird on us too, are you?”
All eyes in the room fixed on Yang Jin-ju. She took a moment to steady her breath, then finally spoke.
“Do you think I believe what he says?”
She snorted.
“I don’t believe a single word of that ‘System’ or ‘Shelter’ he’s talking about. In my eyes, he still looks like he’s suffering from severe psychological trauma. But that’s not the important issue.”
She stood up and pointed to the outside view visible through a small gap in the machine room—the endless sea of zombies.
“Jin-ju, you know it too, right?
The important thing is that if we stay here, we’ll starve to death too. The food we have will run out in a few days at most. That sea of zombies shows no sign of thinning. It’s only growing. We don’t know how long this building will stay safe. We’ll either slowly wither away here, or we have to find another way out.”
She turned back to us. Her eyes were close to a desperate struggle to find an exit from a dead end.
“Our final goal was to get out of Daegu, wasn’t it? This densely populated city is already a giant graveyard. We need to go to the countryside where there are fewer zombies, or a coastal area that’s easier to defend. To do that, the fastest way is to pass through this Buk-gu and get out to the city outskirts.”
As if drawing a map in her head, she continued while staring into space.
“And that Buk-gu District Office Sports Ground he’s talking about. It’s on the path we absolutely have to take to leave Daegu. If we pass through there, we’ll get out of the city center and enter the relatively less densely populated outskirts. The number of zombies is likely to be much lower than now.”
Finally she reached the conclusion of all her words. There was even a slight tremor in her voice—proof that she herself well knew how reckless a gamble this decision was.
“I’m not believing in his purpose. I’m just trying to use the direction he’s heading.
Jin-ju, we lacked the motivation to break through that sea of zombies, didn’t we? But he has that crazy but strong motivation of the Shelter, so we can use that mad motivation as a compass and carry out our goal of escaping Daegu.
Whether we die here or die on the way, the odds are about the same… so wouldn’t it be better to try something?”
When her explanation ended, silence filled the machine room once more. Nam Jin-ju closed her mouth at her friend’s desperate logic, and Yeong-ju scanned Yang Jin-ju with eyes full of wariness.
I felt relief and, at the same time, a bit of bitterness. They still didn’t believe my words. They were just trying to use me as a tool for their own survival.
Yang Jin-ju approached me, looking straight into my eyes for a final confirmation.
“I’ll propose a deal. We’ll help you get to the Buk-gu District Office Sports Ground with all the information and weapons we have.
In exchange, you’ll have to be our shield! If, when we arrive at the Buk-gu District Office Sports Ground, if that Shelter you’re talking about doesn’t appear, then you’ll quietly leave Daegu with us. No more crazy talk. How about it—can you accept?”
In the end, even if they didn’t believe me, our destination was the same.
“Fine. I’ll accept.”
When I answered, Yang Jin-ju nodded as if satisfied. She let out a brief sigh of relief, then steeled herself and said,
“Good. Then let’s make a plan from now on. Having little food means we have little time.”
I tossed the last piece of jerky I was holding into my mouth, and the salty taste pricked my tongue. It was only one step, but it felt like we were moving forward somehow.