Consistent Testimony
Everyone has a golden age. Mine was high school.
"I'm telling you, I was something else. Back in high school I was class president, played tennis as a hobby — even won tournaments."
"Hey, Jin! Get back to work!"
Can't a man even brag? At the foreman's bark I grabbed my materials and scrambled back to it.
"It's true, though…"
Yeah. The golden age of my life really was high school. If my life were a flower, that was the moment just before the bud bloomed — raw talent, ready to open.
Then a consistent testimony pinned a false charge on me, and that bud was ripped out by the roots.
"Can't I just win the damn lottery already."
The sigh slipped out of me the moment I got home from work.
Why don't you understand my heart? Ba-ba.
This is your golden chance to go from stranger to lover~
Look at me!
The song of Melonia — the four-member girl group currently tearing up the charts — poured out of the TV and filled my ears.
"Outstanding vocals and performance" is a tired phrase, but the important part is simpler: the songs are good. No matter how strong the dancing or the singing, a group doesn't blow up if the music is garbage. On that front, Melonia had been blessed. They kept pumping out sleek, refreshing tracks one after another. All of them tall and athletic, with songs catchy enough that even other women got hooked. Two years after debut they were already at the top of the industry; now, in year three, they were climbing toward the absolute peak.
Centered on leader Hyojin, with Ji-yu, So-mi, and Ara — every one of them packed serious individual charm. Hyojin had the most balanced body, tanned skin radiating healthy vitality. Ara's lower body was the most developed, and Ji-yu had the biggest chest — what more needs saying? So-mi counted as the slender one within the group, but in reality she had a model-straight figure that went on forever. Distinct strengths, killer physiques, a stranglehold on the current market. A genuinely excellent idol group.
From a normal person's point of view, that is.
"Hyojin, you fucking bitch. Seriously."
I spat the curse at the girls everyone else adored. The songs were fine — so what? That bitch Hyojin was the piece of trash who had destroyed my life.
Back in high school she'd been a delinquent who made a hobby of tormenting other girls. I'd love for a school-violence scandal to blow up in her face… no. Set that feeling aside. What mattered was my life, the one her consistent testimony had ruined. If she'd gone down with me, fine — but of course she was sitting at the absolute height of her popularity.
Because of her, I'd been branded a criminal. My parents had killed themselves. People treated me like garbage, and I was forced to sit through sexual-offense prevention classes for a crime I never committed. The stares of the real trash watching me from the seats. I could never, ever leave the woman who had done that to me alone.
School violence? I wasn't even a victim of that, and a man already stamped as a sex offender would only get torn apart if he tried. On top of that she had a major agency's protection — whatever I did, I'd lose.
So I decided to give her humiliation instead. My life was already wrecked. A life she had wrecked — if I paid her back in full, I'd have no regrets. I worked hard and saved money to fund the revenge plan. Someone might ask what good money does against a popular celebrity. They're missing the point. I wasn't saving up to flash cash. As I said — revenge. Not simple wealth accumulation. War funds for retribution.
To destroy a person's life, you have to stake your own. I was going to make her feel that price in her bones.
"It's a crime."
I'd already decided to commit one. They'd branded an innocent man a sexual assailant? Then I'd give them a real reason. A trash way of thinking, sure — but they'd stolen my shining future, so what the hell else was I supposed to do? I'd made up my mind a long time ago.
"God, my whole body aches."
But the money you earn wrecking your body on construction sites has a hard ceiling. Three years of labor had gotten me thirty million won. Not nothing — but nowhere near enough for what I needed.
"Ha. Are the ancestors ever going to show up in a dream and throw me a bone?"
I flopped onto the mattress with no plan and dragged in a deep breath. When was I ever getting out of this place? The plan called for an entire building, and of course real estate prices had skyrocketed. My field of vision held a battered TV, clothes strewn everywhere, and a single desk.
"When do I get to live somewhere decent? No — forget that. Revenge first."
I was wallowing in the usual self-pity, staring around this cramped semi-basement room, when something strange caught my eye.
"Why are there two doors?"
Right now, next to the door, I could see another door. Weird. Two doors in my room?
"Am I that run-down? Even when the gym master was drilling me it never got this bad."
I still kept my body trained — revenge required a solid physique. But two doors?
"This is a joke, right?"
I'd thought I was used to the construction work by now. Two doors… wait.
My eyes were showing me something even worse. The two doors weren't identical. They were completely different.
"What the hell am I looking at?"
I bolted upright and rubbed my eyes. Was one door really splitting into two? Had my eyeballs just gone to shit?
The truth was neither. There really were two doors standing proudly in the room.
Fuck, what is this? Had it always been there? Was my mind breaking? As I said — they were clearly different. The door I always used was a solid brown wooden door. The one beside it was steel.
I opened the wooden door. The familiar scene greeted me: a small living area, a drying rack leaning against the wall. The everyday view.
So what about the steel door? I carefully pushed it open and looked inside.
"Ugh! The smell."
The first thing that hit me was a nauseating stench, like something rotting. I jerked back, then peered in. A dust-choked space. A computer, stacks of newspapers, and walls plastered end to end with scrapbooked clippings.
My head throbbed at the sudden new room. A space I didn't know had been here? I'd lived in this semi-basement for over a year and never noticed? Impossible.
I looked around. The layout felt vaguely familiar, like I'd seen it somewhere before.
"Isn't this… my room?"
In that thick sense of déjà vu I tore through the newspapers and scrap materials, examined the space, and finally understood. It was identical to my room. The exact same structure? In a unit this size? A whole extra space like this?
I still couldn't process it, eyes whipping around the room, when a note on the low desk caught my attention. It was sitting under a phone, written in large letters.
To whoever finds this first.
This is a world where zombies have appeared.
"…Zombies? What kind of bullshit is this?"
I rubbed my eyes again at the absurd content. When I moved the phone aside, more writing appeared.
Read my diary next to the computer.
That was all the writing on the desk. I picked up the phone I'd shoved aside — it wouldn't turn on. Battery dead.
"Is this a hidden camera? Some YouTuber's prank?"
Funny, but that was the outer limit of my imagination. Had someone remodeled the room overnight just to mess with me? A YouTuber's stunt? No — that didn't make sense either. I lived here. How would they renovate without me knowing?
It didn't add up. Nothing about this was normal. Things that don't fit reality aren't supposed to make sense.
Anyway — fine. I'd do what the note said.
I went to the desk. A thick book like a phone directory sat there.
"Let's see…"
The moment I opened the first page, the following lines filled my vision.
Six months have passed since the outbreak. This world is overrun with zombies. I tried everything to stop it, but I couldn't do it alone. It's already too late.
"Wow… writing a novel opening? That's two years from now."
I slammed it shut. Was this really a prank? Or was I dreaming?
It was so ridiculous I opened the door of this room. Usually once you realize you're dreaming, you wake up. My head was a mess of confusion.
Whether it was a nasty joke or something else — the moment I stepped out of that deranged room, another familiar space greeted me, packed with junk.
"What the hell — backpacks, pickaxes, bats…"
Weapons of every kind, and traces of canned food everywhere. Anyone looking would think someone had been fighting for survival in here. Portable gas canisters and camping burners for lasting as long as possible, water bottles stacked in every corner. I moved to the bathroom — a huge bathtub I had never bought was filled with water, like someone was prepping for war.
"There's even a crossbow. Unbelievable."
I knew the layout of this semi-basement cold, and even the storage space held an air rifle and a crossbow. The vividness didn't feel like a dream. I pinched my cheek. The pain was real.
"Not a dream…"
The only conclusion left was that someone was screwing with me.
"Hey! What is this? Come out! Fuck! Don't pull this kind of shit! What the hell did you do to someone else's house? Did you get the landlord's permission?"
I bellowed at the top of my lungs. Thinking about it just made me angrier. It wasn't a dream, so the only option was that someone had remodeled a stranger's home without asking. I wanted no part of this joke. Had the landlady signed off? This place couldn't actually be 2025. That was so obvious I started calling for whoever was in charge.
"Cut the crap! This is seriously pissing me off! Broadcast, YouTuber, whoever you are — I already figured it out, so come out!"
No one answered…
Bang!
That was when it happened. Suddenly, the presence of a person at the entrance door.
"Is that you? What the hell have you done to someone else's house?"
Furious, I started toward the outside — then a strange feeling hit me. Remodeled my place? A semi-basement? Setting aside how impossible that was in reality, the direction I was heading was straight for the front door. Fine, say they renovated the semi-basement. Then what was that landscape outside the window?
What the hell?
So I stopped.
Beyond my reflexively frozen steps, thudding and banging sounds came in a continuous stream.
"Gauuuh… ga…"
A human voice — but unnervingly not human. I looked down at my hands. They were shaking. Whatever was out there was not human. It made no sense, but my instincts were trembling. Me — someone who'd trained in martial arts and hardened his body — shaking at some unidentified noise from outside.
My eyes found the pile of weapons.
Zombie.
The instant that word cut through my mind, my hand shot out and grabbed the crossbow.
Just press the button, right? Just the button?
The banging kept coming. With a trembling heart I took hold of the front door handle. The moment I cracked it open, a person appeared in the gap — one eyeball hanging out, jaw shattered, a face like a ghost.
"Aaaagh!"
I reeled backward in pure terror at that grotesque face — and the thing shoved through the door and fell inside.
"Hah… hah… a real zom…bie?"
And from that position it started crawling toward me like a madman.
"Waaah!"
Pathetically, all I could do was scramble backward in blind retreat. Thud. Only then did the crossbow hit the wall and I realized I was still holding a weapon.
"Huff! Huff!"
I gripped the handle and took aim — it was already at my feet. I mashed the trigger in a frenzy. The ceiling filled my vision. I toppled backward and rolled my body like a lunatic.
Zombie. Don't get bitten. That single idea drove me.
I thrashed — and then it went strangely quiet.
"Huff… hah!"
I was gasping for air when I realized the silence had returned.
I shot to my feet. A zombie lay there with a crossbow bolt buried dead-center through its skull, the tip punched clean out the back of its head.
"I… I killed it."
Hands and feet still shaking, I rushed outside. To close the door? No. To confirm. To see whether the message left in that room was true.
The moment I stepped through the front entrance, a shattered main gate came into view. Beyond it stretched a ruined city. And there, another zombie — nothing left but its upper body — was crawling across the ground.
"It was real."
The message had been true. This was a world two years in the future, after a zombie outbreak had begun.
And I was standing right in the middle of it.