The School of the Apocalypse
The world had fallen into a school apocalypse. A world where poverty and deprivation tightened their grip around people's throats. Factories had stopped, supply chains had snapped, a world where the moment you stopped moving, you died. And so even after the world we knew had perished, people adapted to their environment and clung stubbornly to life. Each of them changed, searching for their own way to survive. The teacher who had visited us before was no different.
I stared at the man with my eyes wide in disbelief. I doubted my own ears.
“...A school? You're saying they're building a school?”
Apparently that teacher had gathered other surviving teachers and cram school instructors and announced plans to rebuild a school. And on quite a large scale, at that.
“The scale is huge. They're collecting tuition from parents, accepting donations, and even requesting cooperation from the military and police.”
The man flipped through his notebook as he continued his explanation. Even in a world like this, parents' fervor for education hadn't died out, and the response had been overwhelmingly positive. Kind-hearted people were donating little by little as well. The more I listened, the more it sounded less like a simple school and more like the birth of an entire faction. A school operated on the basis of received food and resources. The military was sticking its spoon in too, providing barbed wire and soldiers in exchange for compensation, and the police were doing something similar.
The military seems to be securing combat data and adjusting their strategy. But a school, of all things?
I narrowed my eyes. I didn't like it. Modern society had already mostly collapsed. It had regressed to the past where even minors were put to work if they could labor. The loss of workforce was one thing, but tuition and donations were losses in many ways.
“Did we donate to them by any chance?”
“Nothing like that. We divided resources fairly anyway. We don't have any resources to donate as a group. But...”
The man turned his head to look out the window. At the people scattered throughout Villa Street.
“The kids' parents and even some of the elders have been donating a little. They're children, after all. It's a school.”
I slapped my forehead. Wasting precious food like that. Were people living that comfortably? Had we stockpiled too many resources too early? Was dividing them fairly a mistake? The teacher and the school suddenly felt repulsive. A black hole that sucked in other people's resources while doing low-value work. A bigger con artist than Sa Gihyeok.
Of course children symbolized hope, the future, and protection, but this wasn't a world where we could afford to care about such things. This had to be stopped.
“Remote lectures would be difficult. Where are they using for the school?”
“They're inviting people tomorrow for something like a promotional explanation. Let's go see it with our own eyes.”
It seemed they were running the event like a corporate presentation or investment pitch. I sat quietly, stroking the handle of my hammer as I fell into thought.
The newly opened school building was located in a residential area rather than a commercial district. Schools in zombie territory were empty but difficult to commute to, while schools in human territory were somewhat better. The man, the children and parents from Villa Street, and I arrived much earlier than the presentation time to look around the school, but quite a few people had already gathered.
There were middle and high school students who had dug out their old school uniforms, elementary school kids dressed however they pleased, and surprisingly many of their parents. The atmosphere filled with curiosity and hope felt uncomfortable.
An unpleasant sight unfolded from the main gate. Barbed wire installed along the walls. Barricades at the entrance, guarded by two soldiers. One of the Villa Street children's mothers stroked the kids' heads.
“Come on, say hello to the soldier uncles.”
“Hello, mister!”
The children bowed politely.
“I'm not a mister...”
“Hello!”
The soldiers smiled at the children. They shook the small hands offered to them. They say wounds from people are healed by people. The soldiers, whose minds had been unstable, seemed to be recovering their sanity by engaging with people through proper justification and legitimate actions. It also seemed like an operation to improve public perception.
This is problematic.
Some kind of information warfare was underway, and the military was launching a counterattack. Friendly soldiers, soldiers who guaranteed safety, soldiers who protected children. They really weren't to be underestimated. Minimizing consumption, winning over local sentiment, acquiring food, mental recovery. To change strategy so quickly.
“...I'll look around separately.”
“Alright. I need to check on the teachers.”
After parting ways with the man, I headed toward the playground. There were cram school buses and police on the playground, and the police were saying something to the parents.
“You're worried about sending your children to school, aren't you? There's no need to worry. We'll operate school buses with police escorts, and if we run out of fuel or roads are blocked, the police will take them all the way home.”
They patted their pistols reassuringly. The sight of the city's powerful factions joining hands over one thing: school and children. It made my stomach turn. It felt just like the world before the collapse. A world where public authority functioned properly. Safe daily life.
This isn't right. This is supposed to be an apocalypse. We should be acting like gangs, moving like warlords.
Kill people! Loot resources! Kidnap children and demand ransom! Use them as child laborers! Wasn't that the true apocalyptic vibe?
I felt suffocated by the unfamiliar atmosphere of this place. Like being forced to wear clothes that didn't fit. I swung my hammer through the air for no reason before crossing the playground toward the auditorium. It was where the presentation would be held, and also where the school had stacked various supplies.
Murmurs could be heard.
“They've prepared properly.”
“At this level, the tuition doesn't feel like a waste, right?”
Books stacked against the auditorium walls. Parents flipped through them casually as they chatted. I mixed in among them and examined the books.
Not new books.
They seemed to have collected textbooks left in schools. Scribbles and names remained. They might be the names of students already dead and gone, making them feel like relics. There were also clean workbooks, probably taken from bookstores or cram schools. Besides that, musical instruments and art supplies that had absolutely no use in the apocalypse.
No weapons. They didn't capture zombies with teaching materials either. This isn't apocalypse-adapted education.
I looked at it all suspiciously. It was a presentation. There must be intent behind even this composition. After thinking hard for a while to figure out that intent, I soon grasped the situation.
“A flute? Wow. When I was little, my teacher used to hit me with one.”
“Crayons... My kid used to love drawing so much.”
The parents had fallen into reminiscence. With no modern devices like computers or tablets, seeing tools from their own sentimental past seemed to bring back memories. Parents who were meeting for the first time let down their guard and shared old memories. In other words, it was an operation to create a good first impression of the school. A familiar school. A school where parents could share their childhood with their children. The parents already seemed to have lowered their defenses.
Perhaps that's why their reaction was positive even when the teachers came up to the stage. They clapped in welcome, their eyes shining with expectation and hope as they looked at the teachers.
“Many of you have come. That must mean there are that many people who want to show their children the ordinary world they once had.”
The elderly woman who stepped forward as representative spoke slowly. From the whispers around me, she seemed to be a vice principal or principal from some school. As expected, a boring and tedious speech followed. Children are the hope of the future, education helps them grow into that hope, and so on. No matter what disaster strikes, we cannot give up on children's education, and so forth. Giving children not survival and disaster, but the experience of ordinary student life...
No. Why waste time on such superficial talk.
Wouldn't it be better to summarize the key points? As educators, this was their only way to survive. Education is a product. If they couldn't sell this product, they'd starve to death, so they would do their best. I looked around, but unexpectedly, people were looking up at the old woman with moved expressions. Not just the parents, but even the police and soldiers. Their sentimentality had been twisted.
I needed to learn quickly. I quickly smoothed my frown and muttered.
“Those are good words.”
“She's sharp. She's dug well into the hopes of parents who have some leeway.”
The man next to me spoke in a chilly voice. He subtly pointed at the people around us.
“They're all from large survivor groups, people living comfortably. Those with surplus food. People desperate for survival don't have the luxury to pay tuition, so they couldn't come. Do you know what this is?”
“What is it?”
Had I missed something? When I looked at him curiously, the man said briefly.
“School ties. The school connections of a new era. They've revived them.”
School ties. I suddenly gauged the future. If the adults of this generation died and disappeared, wouldn't these children band together under the name of being from this school? Was this preparation for the future? Giving the children a label they could unite under? Moreover, unlike children focused on survival, those who attended school would have accumulated knowledge, so the gap would...
I looked at the people around me. As the man said, none of them looked starved. The aristocrats of this city. A school to continue those connections.
The man spoke coldly.
“We need to subtly exclude the children's parents. Kids have loose lips. They might leak important information without realizing it.”
“Understood.”
This wasn't simply about showing children a better world. It was a long-term investment aiming for intangible returns, human farming. I closed my eyes. I had let my guard down.
Right. People aren't fools. There's no way they'd send their kids to school just for some school experience.
Letting your guard down is a shortcut to death. I needed to sharpen my mind. Doubt everything, understand the intentions, calculate the invisible gains and losses. The old woman's voice continued to flow. Quarantine measures, plans to have police subdue students who turned into zombies with tasers, teaching how to respond to zombies and looters during physical education, classes on basic farming and repairs, and so on. My calculations ended around there.
The school's existence is a loss for me.
Just the military's improved perception was enough. The military, which still had bullets and firearms left, was an unstable factor. A school that hindered efforts to ruin the military's image was unnecessary. Above all, I disliked the possibility of the school becoming a focal point. People become stronger when they unite. What if factions merged around the relationship between the school and the children? A massive group difficult to oppose would be born.
Whether zombies or people, their numbers need to decrease.
The city's limited resources. The fewer people consuming resources, the more I could obtain. It was beneficial for them to suspect each other, divide, fight, and die. The city's resources would be consumed less by the number of dead people. It was better for small groups to bicker and fight among themselves.
I clasped my hands together and prayed.
Please, zombies. Zombies, come out. Come out and turn this place into chaos.
It would be good if a parent here—no, a student—turned into a zombie and caused an accident. Please come out. Anyone, transform. Kill by mistake. Turn on each other.
Did the prayer work?
“Now, tomorrow we'll have the entrance ceremony—”
“Krrraaagh!”
“No!”
Around the end of the presentation. A student in school uniform had turned into a zombie. With bloodshot eyes gleaming, it charged at the people around it. But unfortunately, what I wanted didn't happen. The people here had survival experience equal to mine.
“Bite! Good boy!”
Someone nearby calmly offered their forearm. It was a man wearing a leather jacket. He blocked its mouth with the tough clothing, then knocked it down and pinned the zombie with his weight.
“Move aside!”
At the same time, a policeman pushed through the crowd. With a taser and two pairs of handcuffs. The suppression was over in an instant. The policeman who had cuffed the zombie's wrists and ankles bowed to the zombie's parents.
“What would you like to do? If you wish, we can escort it home, or in a place where it can't be seen...”
“...Please send it home.”
The zombie's father turned away silently. He seemed tired, or perhaps accustomed to it, or resigned. Either way, the school's presentation had concluded.
The man and I returned with hardened faces.