Episode 39
A human? A survivor?
The shock of discovering a survivor in this place was momentary — I was immediately overwhelmed by the endless stream of zombies pouring out. I grabbed Do-yoon’s arm and pulled him along. If it were just one or two zombies, we might have been able to fight them, but with zombies continuously emerging, and with more possibly still coming from the emergency stairs, as the multiple footsteps told me, we had no choice but to flee.
“Let’s get out of here. This isn’t looking good.”
I had already exhausted my strength dealing with the main zombie, and on top of that, Do-yoon had also used his ability quite a bit and seemed drained from holding the main zombie in place. I was afraid that if he used his abilities any further, we might end up in a similar situation as before. Our best bet was to avoid the zombies as much as possible. However…
“P-please help me! Do something about those… Help me!”
The survivor spotted us and started running this way, dragging a horde of zombies behind.
Damn it! Go away! Don’t come this way! We were standing on the side leading to the east wing to check on the main zombie, so there was no other way to escape.
“Shit… Do-yoon, let’s just run!”
We had no choice but to run down the east wing hallway, with the thought that we might end up caught between zombies from both the front and back and get killed. What should I do? If we kept going forward, we might encounter the main zombie. But zombies were surging like a wave from behind… No, where in hell did that survivor even come from?! And with so many zombies in tow!
“Noona, if we keep going like this, we might run into the zombie that flew this way earlier.”
“I know that, but we don’t have a choice. Can you kill all the zombies behind us? You already overused your ability to hold that guy down earlier. If we push ourselves any further, we might end up dying without being able to do anything.”
“…”
Seeing that he couldn’t say anything, it seemed he had indeed used a lot of strength to create the four shadow tigers. As I thought about how we might die here, my vision began to darken. But then, suddenly, a familiar sound came from ahead. Drrrr. It sounded like something was rolling, and I thought, ‘No way.’
“You, do you hear that sound now?”
“That sound, could it be…?”
Our eyes met in the air, and I realized he was thinking the same thing as me. Without delay, I immediately threw myself against the wall. We each stuck to the walls on either side, and the survivor following us from behind let out a bewildered sound.
“What, what? Why the wall…?”
“If you don’t want to die, stick to the wall over there!”
“W-What? What does that mean…”
The survivor, bewildered as to why he had to stick to the wall, belatedly pressed himself against it because he did want to live. And soon, the sound that had been coming from afar grew louder, gradually revealing its form in front of us.
Wow, that main zombie really had a personality, huh? Can’t just take a beating and live, can it? It was giving it back in kind.
“What the heck is that!”
The survivor, seeing the moving bed flying towards us at high speed, let out a scream in a voice that was almost a screech. The moving bed continued to approach at a rapid pace regardless of his scream. Eventually, the bed that passed by me knocked down the zombies that had been swarming from behind like bowling pins, pushing them aside.
“Wow.”
I couldn’t help but marvel at the sight. Seeing that only a few zombies were left standing, showing that it’d sweeped them all thoroughly, I was finally able to take a breather from all the running.
“Where on earth did that thing come from?”
The survivor, with his hands trembling, pointed in the direction the bed had gone and asked me.
“Well, it came from up ahead, so it must have come from there.”
“That’s not what I meant. Who could have…?”
“Who else but the zombies?”
“What?!”
“Moreover, you’re alive in a place like this, huh? Dragging that around with you.”
“That.. I was passing by this area when I was spotted by zombies and attacked. Fortunately, I saw a hospital and managed to escape inside. But I’d never imagined the situation inside the hospital would be like this.”
“Ah… So you’re not a survivor from here but from outside. That means you’re not a doctor or someone from the medical field.”
“What? I’m just a regular office worker.”
Oh, that was a disappointment. I had a bit of hope because I’d thought he was a survivor of the medical field. Anyway, it’d been several days since the zombie outbreak started, so why was he wandering outside alone?
“Wait. You were attacked?”
I quickly distanced myself from the survivor.
“I wasn’t bitten! I tripped and fell while running away, that’s how I got hurt!”
I couldn’t trust the words of someone I just met. Preparing for any possible situation, I cautiously moved towards Do-yoon.
“I’m really not… Ack!”
The survivor, who had been trying to prove his innocence with his entire body, suddenly crumpled to the ground and screamed. When I looked more closely at him, I noticed a syringe stuck in the survivor’s leg. The area around the syringe quickly turned green and gradually spread to the surrounding skin.
“Do-yoon, look ahead! It’s him!”
I gripped the bat with both hands, watching the direction from which the syringe had flown. Do-yoon also created a shadow tiger, ready for a fight.
“My leg… My leg!”
The survivor’s screams momentarily drew my attention, but I quickly tensed up as the main zombie revealed itself. It approached us with a hunched posture, then suddenly leaped and disappeared from sight, only to reappear in front of the survivor.
Huh? It went over there instead of coming at us?
“Aaah! Mon, monster… Urgh!”
The main zombie thrust its face close to the survivor, who fell backward and tried to scream, but the zombie’s hand muffled the sound. The main zombie grabbed the survivor’s chin and carefully examined him, then suddenly seized his neck and began dragging him back the way they had come.
“What the… Wait, why is it suddenly doing that?”
Contrary to our expectations that it would be furious and try to kill us, the zombie did something inexplicable.
“Let go! Where are you taking me? Help! Don’t just stand there, someone help me!”
The survivor, being dragged along by the creature, frantically tried to break free, kicking and struggling like a madman.
I wasn’t sure what was truly going on, but I thought the first course of action was to save him somehow. However, I hesitated a bit when I saw the survivor’s leg, which had been injected with a syringe and was turning green. The syringe thrown by the main zombie contained an unknown, strange liquid. The moment it hit, the liquid was immediately injected into the body, and as time passed and it spread throughout the body, he would also turn into a zombie. So, you could say that his life was over the moment he was struck with that syringe.
Still, the survivor hadn’t yet had the liquid spread throughout their body, so if we cut off his leg before it spread further, he could survive. I couldn’t just stand by and watch someone die in front of me. We could use this gap to attack the main zombie, so I quickly signaled Do-yoon. He seemed to understand my intention and moved his shadow. Just as we were about to ambush the zombie from behind with the shadow tiger, it threw the survivor to the front and turned to face us.
“Kieek!”
He let out a scream as if telling us not to interfere. Then, a door opened in front of us. I was so distracted by other things that I didn’t realize we’d already come in front of the operating room. Soon, the door to the operating room opened, and several zombies came out, pulling a mobile bed with a person at the center. Strangely, they were all dressed in surgical gowns, with masks and headbands, making them look like living people—doctors and nurses about to perform surgery.
…Why were the zombies doing that? Even if they were doctors and nurses in their past lives, it was unsettling to see zombies that hurt people pretending to be like that.
‘And what’s that?’
I instinctively pressed my body against the wall as I looked at the mobile bed, but then…
“What? Wait! What are you doing!”
They approached the struggling survivor and abruptly lifted him onto the bed, then used the straps on the bed to secure him so he couldn’t move.
“Shouldn’t we stop that?”
As I hesitated and took a step forward, a syringe flew and landed right in front of my feet. A clear warning not to move.
The creature’s action of throwing the syringe on the ground despite having the opportunity to attack me directly left me confused.
‘This has never happened in the game before…? What the hell is this? What’s going on?’
Before I knew it, the survivor had disappeared beyond the operating room and was no longer in sight. Soon, a sign that read “Surgery in Progress” lit up.
“No! Don’t! Aaah—!”
“…”
“Stop… Aaah—”
I couldn’t bear to listen to it with a clear mind. The terrible screams echoing from inside were akin to those from a torture chamber. ‘Surgery in Progress’… The screams began the moment the sign lit up. If that was the case…
“Ugh!”
A terrifying thought suddenly popped into my head.
“Don’t listen, noona. We’d better get away from here.”
He pulled my arm, urging us to distance ourselves from the operating room. I also didn’t want to stay here any longer, so I decided to follow his advice. However, the creature didn’t seem willing to let us go easily. Until now, it had been more focused on taking the survivor away than attacking us, but once he went into the operating room, it turned its deadly intent on us as if it were ready to pounce at any moment.
“You go first, noona. I’ll deal with it.”
“What the hell are you saying?”
“We can’t both turn our backs on that thing. Go to the emergency stairs first. I’ll follow.”
“But how will you get away?”
“I can somehow escape if it’s just one of them. So hurry!”
He said so and pushed me back. Then, as if not willing to let me go, the main zombie moved, but it was blocked by the shadow tiger.
“Grrr!”
“Aaah— Ugh—”
The desperate screams coming from beyond the operating room and the creature’s presence weighing on my body made my head spin and my vision blur. …I couldn’t take it anymore.
“I’m sorry.”
In the end, I left him behind and ran towards the emergency stairs. I wanted to get out of here immediately, breathe in fresh air, and forget everything I had seen here. However, the way back was not easy. Some wandering zombies blocked my path once they spotted me. With trembling hands, I gripped the bat and swung it wildly. I didn’t have the luxury to aim for their heads. I somehow managed to shake them off and finally arrived at the emergency stairs. Before I could even open the door, however, it opened by itself, which made me let out a stupid noise and step back. Thinking it might be a zombie, I raised the bat I had lowered.
Huh?
“Ga-eun?”
“Ms. Ji-ah…”
Why was Seo Ga-eun here?
This shit is terrifying
This is scary… if it was a movie, I could never watch it. Thanks for the update!