Dawn of Humanity
* * *
The scream tore through the air.
**“Kiaaaaaaaaak—!”**
**“Krrraaaar! Krrraaaaaar!”**
Rehwan fired his handgun at the horde of zombies foaming at the mouth as they charged.
**Bang! Bang!**
The moment the muzzle flashes dropped two of them, Yumi came sprinting toward the car in a panic.
Right as a leaping zombie behind her lunged for the back of her neck, a gunshot cracked from somewhere and blew its head apart.
“!?”
“Drive! Go, now!”
At Yumi’s shout, Rehwan slammed the door shut and pounded on it twice. Sangbok, behind the wheel, floored the accelerator.
**WEEEEEOOOOO— WEEEEEOOOOO—**
The siren screamed inside the vehicle. Rehwan immediately yelled, “That’s enough! Kill the siren!”
“Got it!”
They were among the few survivors still alive in Sosa-beol City.
Until the outbreak, they had been respected public servants—police officers from the local precinct, men and women who ran toward danger to protect the country.
But after the zombie outbreak, everything changed. Their unit of forty had been whittled down to just four in a single brutal ambush.
“Goddamn it… how long do we have to keep living like this?”
Lee Jae-hwan, the sergeant who had become their de facto leader, ran a hand through his sweat-soaked hair and let out a bitter sigh.
The only light came from the police van’s headlights. Their food consisted of whatever canned goods they could scavenge from convenience stores and water scooped from the river in empty bottles.
All four of them looked filthy and ragged, yet the word “police” on their uniforms still held meaning as they continued their endless fight against the undead.
“I almost died back there.”
At Yumi’s trembling words, Rehwan gently took her hand. Even covered in sweat, she leaned into his embrace.
***
“They’re gone.”
“That sound just now… it was definitely…”
“A siren. No doubt about it.”
Kim Jun lowered his rifle after dropping the last pursuing zombie with a single clean headshot. Once the situation had settled, he set the weapon down.
**Hiss.**
He pulled out a cigarette, lit it, and took a deep drag.
Eun Ji sat quietly beside him while the others were still asleep and spoke in a soft voice.
“Looks like there were more survivors besides the monks we met last time.”
“When the sun comes up, we’ll go look for them.”
“Are you sure you’ll be okay?”
“Hmm…”
An unknown number of survivors.
A vehicle equipped with a siren.
If they also had personal firearms—judging by the earlier fireworks-like gunfire—then they were likely one of three groups.
Military, police, or firefighters.
They could become valuable allies… or they could end up chasing Kim Jun and his group straight into disaster.
For him, it was time to make a choice.
Were these third survivors the looters from the hospital, or the merciful monks from Deokwon Mountain?
There was only one way to find out.
“What time is it?”
“Five ten.”
“Whew… sun won’t be up until around seven.”
Kim Jun checked the time and began preparing to move out himself.
**Creak.**
The door to the rooftop room opened. Gaya stepped out, rubbing her messy curly hair, still half-asleep.
“Yaaawn… what the hell is going on—hiiik?!”
She froze at the sight of a fully armed Kim Jun and Eun Ji standing beside him. Her body stiffened with instinctive fear.
“What’s happening?”
“Unnie, it looks like more survivors showed up.”
“…Really?”
After hearing about the monks who had brought them so many vegetables, the mention of new survivors made Gaya’s eyes sparkle with excitement.
Kim Jun took another drag from his cigarette and spoke to the two women.
“Listen carefully. I’m going to track those survivors and find them.”
“Won’t that be dangerous?”
Both Eun Ji and Gaya voiced their concern, but Kim Jun’s mind was already made up.
“Are we just going to keep living like this until the year ends? We need to meet other survivors. If we gather enough people, we might even be able to drive the zombies out.”
“But what if… what if they’re bad people?”
“Then we crush them!”
“…”
When Gaya asked the same worried question Eun Ji had, Kim Jun answered coolly.
“That’s why I’m going alone this time. There’s zero chance any of you will get hurt.”
“Hmm…”
“Gaya, Eun Ji—once the others wake up, tell them what’s going on. I’m taking a walkie-talkie and leaving right away.”
After giving them their instructions, Kim Jun returned to the master bedroom on the second floor and prepared with meticulous care.
He had no bulletproof vest, but he strapped on every protector he could to survive a direct hit, layered a stab-proof vest over that, and finished with a motorcycle helmet.
At the very least, this setup would let him endure anything short of a machine-gun burst. On his belt he carried a hand axe, an air pistol, and—out of caution—the now-empty revolver.
Just as the fully armed Kim Jun, with two guns slung over his shoulders, was about to leave, he noticed Eun Ji moving busily in the kitchen.
“What are you doing? Breakfast already?”
“The kids still need to eat, so In Ah and I will make something later. This is for you, oppa.”
“?”
Eun Ji had packed a generous lunchbox and handed it to him.
Inside were a salad made from the refrigerator vegetables, onigiri-style rice balls from bibimbap, barley tea in a thermos, and generous portions of the remaining beef jerky and dried fish.
“I didn’t know when you’d be back, so I made extra.”
“Ah, thank you.”
Kim Jun accepted the lunchbox. Gaya quietly opened the front door for him so he wouldn’t wake the others.
“Um… be safe out there.”
“I will.”
Taking a deep breath, Kim Jun climbed into the camper van and quietly started the engine.
***
By the time the sun had fully risen, Kim Jun was already heading toward the site of last night’s chaos.
From a distance he picked off the few zombies still shambling among the piles of corpses with precise shots, then slowly approached.
Seeing the area already swept clean once during the night, he clicked his tongue.
“They took out a lot.”
This confirmed the survivors were as heavily armed as he was.
He searched the ground for traces of their departure and found crushed zombie remains mixed with bloody tire tracks.
Kim Jun followed them in silence.
This was his hometown. He now began the task of tracking where a single police van had gone two hours earlier.
The bloody tracks soon disappeared, but as he continued he found more zombies killed by gunfire along the way. He searched every corner of the streets, occasionally honking the horn.
There was no response.
After searching for quite a while, he finally muttered, “…Might as well stop by the gas station while I’m out.”
It was the same gas station and gun shop he had looted first.
When he arrived, he found the gun shop in even worse shape than before—shattered shotguns scattered across the floor and piles of incompatible shotgun shells.
“Tsk.”
This time, Kim Jun decided to take even the broken weapons and ammunition he had ignored on his first visit.
He hadn’t considered it then, but if he could repair them, great. If not, they could be used for spare parts.
After scraping up every last usable item from the seemingly depleted gun shop, he loaded various fuels from the gas station, refueled his own vehicle, and was just about to leave when—
**Bang! Bang! Bang!**
“!?”
Gunshots. And not far away.
Kim Jun quickly finished refueling and prepared to move out immediately.
Still, today’s haul—gun parts, plenty of fuel, and more—was at least a solid success.
The moment he started the engine and drove off, something insane was unfolding on the main road.
**[Urrrrrrrrgh—]**
**“Kiaaaaaaaaak—!”**
Walking zombies, running zombies—every last one of them was converging on a single point.
If they kept going in that direction, they were headed straight for the **Sosa-beol Comprehensive Stadium**.
The horde had heard the gunfire and was swarming toward fresh prey.
The zombies hadn’t noticed Kim Jun yet, hidden as he was in the alley.
He quietly stroked the shotgun in his hands.
Among the shells he had picked up earlier, he searched for ones that would work even if they damaged the barrel, then made his decision.
“The lunchbox Eun Ji packed for me… I’ll eat it after I wipe all of you bastards out!”
**Click.**
With grim resolve, Kim Jun pulled out of the gas station, turned the vehicle, and opened fire on the sprinting zombies twenty meters ahead.
**BOOM!**
There was no need for precision sniping.
Dozens—hundreds—of zombies were walking and running. He simply hosed the entire area with shotgun blasts to keep them from reaching the stadium.
**“Kraaaar!”**
**“Kieeeeeek!”**
Some of the zombies noticed the gunfire coming from his direction and began shambling toward him.
But unlike trained soldiers, zombies couldn’t maintain formation.
The slow ones blocked the path of the fast ones. They tripped over each other, tangled together, and flailed helplessly in a sticky sea of blood and gore.
Instead of retreating, Kim Jun drove closer.
He rolled down the window, pulled out a Molotov cocktail, lit it with a lighter, and hurled it with all his strength.
**Crash!**
**WHOOOOSH—**
The zombies had clumped together into one writhing mass. When the flames erupted, they thrashed wildly, but they were packed so tightly it was like a traffic jam—none of them could escape.
**Bang! Bang! BOOM!**
Kim Jun kept firing slug rounds like a madman. When he ran out of ammunition, he reversed, slowly reloaded, then switched to the air rifle and put a pellet straight through the forehead of a burning zombie that lunged at him.
**Thwack!**
It was a brilliant use of the narrow alley.
Having blocked one path with a wall of fire, Kim Jun began looking for a detour.
It would take a long detour of several dozen minutes to reach the stadium from the gas station, but that wasn’t important right now.
He was determined to meet the living survivors.
Whether he would simply kill more zombies or try to establish trade with a new shelter would depend on what he found.
But as he pushed forward, just before reaching the stadium, he ran into another massive horde coming from a different road.
“You sons of bitches!”
The zombies were so densely packed it was impossible to push through.
Kim Jun created another flaming barrier with a Molotov and slowly lured the ones that had spotted him.
“Yeah… come on! You fuckers! I’ll kill every last one of you!!!!”
To reach him they had to walk through the burning street. The ones that charged first were scorched by the flames, only to have their heads blown apart by slug rounds and lead pellets. Brains splattered everywhere.
The corpses became fuel, and the fire grew even larger.
Today alone, he would probably kill far more zombies than he had in all the days before combined.
And he was risking everything to save the people still alive.
**Bang!**
He had no idea how many hours had passed.
Thick black smoke filled the air. No matter how many he killed, the horde seemed endless, yet their numbers had finally begun to thin.
Even so, Kim Jun was exhausted.
“Huff… huff…”
His trigger finger felt like it was about to fall off. His scope eye was blurry.
The stench of burning flesh and rotting blood seeped through his mask, making him want to vomit, but he fought it back by smoking cigarettes and running the air conditioner.
He had been fighting this one-man war against the zombies for hours.
He hadn’t killed them all, but he had carved out a path. Kim Jun decided it was time for a short break.
There were no more running zombies nearby, and the slow ones would take at least an hour to reach him.
Only then did he open the thermos Eun Ji had packed and gulp down the still-warm barley tea.
“Should’ve asked for cold water…”
He had been running on an empty stomach for hours, but in this situation he didn’t even feel hunger.
After a brief rest, it was time to fight again.
**Vrrrrroooom—**
Kim Jun slammed the accelerator. He charged down the road of blood, brains, and corpses like a rhinoceros, crushing everything in his path and smashing aside any zombies that blocked him.
The distant gunfire he had heard earlier was growing weaker. He pressed the gas pedal even harder and finally arrived at the **Sosa-beol Comprehensive Stadium**.
This was the promised land where he had formed bonds with eight top stars and provided them with a generator for electricity.
The place was already a battlefield. Countless zombies lay dead on the ground.
“…”
At a glance, there were over fifty corpses. In the distance, black smoke still rose.
“!”
Kim Jun immediately drove toward the smoke.
There he found a police van with **[POLICE]** written on the side.
He scanned the area, then got out.
Loading his shotgun, he approached slowly.
“Urrrrgh… grrr…”
“!?”
Hearing the groan, Kim Jun called out.
“Is someone inside!?”
“!”
**Thud. Thud.**
A blood-covered hand weakly pounded on the shattered rear window of the wrecked van.
“Hold on! I’ll get you out right away!”
“No… don’t come closer!”
The voice from inside told Kim Jun it was already too late.
If he had arrived even an hour—thirty minutes—earlier, he might have saved them.
The skid marks soaked in blood and the zombie body parts scattered in front of the crashed vehicle told the whole story.
They had been fighting with handguns while fleeing a horde, swerved to avoid zombies blocking the road ahead, and slammed into the wall.
The two in front were likely killed on impact. The person inside didn’t look like they would last long either.
“Sinreung Precinct… Lee Jae-hwan… Sergeant. Are you… a survivor?”
“Sinreung Precinct… damn, you really came all the way from the other side of the city.”
Kim Jun lowered his head, heart heavy.
“There’s not much left in the car… The only thing I can give you is…”
**Clatter.**
A trembling, blood-soaked hand pushed two small boxes of .38 caliber revolver rounds through the slightly open rear door.
“The revolver… take it after I’m dead.”
**Click.**
The sound of a gun being loaded came from inside. It sounded like he was about to commit suicide.
“Wait! There has to be another way—stop!”
“It’s fine. I’ve… already been bitten.”
“!?”
“Since my girlfriend bit me… I guess we’ll fight again in the afterlife. Heh!”
The police officer who had introduced himself as Lee Jae-hwan spoke one last time through the car door.
“The Sinreung area… is hell too. But… if you ever need more weapons… the underground cabinet at the precinct… password is 1… 5… 4… 9… There are tasers and… remaining handguns…”
Even in his final moments, Sergeant Lee Jae-hwan was thinking of Kim Jun.
The moment Kim Jun took the blood-stained revolver rounds, the inside of the van suddenly shook violently.
**“Kyaaaaaaaah—!”**
“Hurry… go…”
**BANG!**
Before he could finish speaking, a gunshot rang out inside the police van. Blood splattered across the window.
The bright red blood slowly trickled down and began dripping onto the ground through the slightly open rear door.
“…”
Jae-hwan had shown consideration for a fellow survivor until the very end, then taken his own life.
Kim Jun quietly took the two boxes and pulled out the M-10 revolver he had brought with him.
It had been empty until now. At last, he had ammunition.
After loading the revolver, Kim Jun returned to the camper van, retrieved a can of kerosene he had taken from the gas station, and brought it back.
Inside the vehicle, an infected female officer was shrieking and clawing at the seats. Kim Jun’s throat tightened.
“I’m sorry. I should have come sooner…”
He poured the kerosene over the vehicle. Before lighting it, he bowed his head one last time and tossed the lighter.
**WHOOOOSH—**
As he drove away toward home, a loud explosion finally echoed across Sosa-beol long after he had left. The zombies in the area turned toward the burning police car.
Today’s gains were the fuel from the gas station, broken shotguns for parts, shells packed with lead pellets, and revolver ammunition.
And the final consideration of a police officer who had kept fighting zombies out of a sense of duty even after the world had ended.
* * *