By Zephyria 
As if she had done something useless, the woman slammed her fist on the handlebars and roughly turned the front of the motorcycle.
“Damn it, I should have just left them to die.”
The woman glared at Eden and Ha-jin, spitting out terrifying words like a curse.
“We clearly warned you twice. You’re the ones who kicked away that chance.”
Suddenly feeling desperate, Ha-jin stood in her way.
“No! I’ll go with you, so…!”
“Woof! Woof-woof!”
At that moment, along with Pie’s fierce barking, Ha-jin’s gaze turned to the back. It was the moment the woman, sensing something was wrong, turned her head following his strangely unfocused eyes.
“Get out of the way!!”
Ha-jin pushed the woman on the motorcycle away with all his might. Thud─!! At the same time, a Zombie with both arms torn off stumbled and lunged from behind.
“Kaaaak─!”
Instead of attacking Ha-jin in front of it, the Zombie twisted its upper body and quickly climbed onto the woman’s body. The Zombie opened its torn mouth wide towards her screaming face.
“!”
Before sharp teeth could tear into her soft flesh, the Zombie’s upper body was lifted up as if pulling out a radish! Ha-jin, grabbing the Aberrant’s hair, slammed his right foot into its face. Thud! The moment the Zombie fell backward, thin pliers relentlessly stabbed down into its skull.
Thwack! Thwack!!
“Do Ha-jin!”
“Inside, hide inside!”
“Damn it! It’s already too late…!”
Screams and shouts mixed chaotically, and Pie’s excited howling made his head spin. Woof! Woof-woof! Ha-jin, panting on the Zombie’s corpse with its skull shattered, turned around.
Beyond his vision, he saw Eden stabbing the Zombie’s neck and the man threatening the attacking Aberrants with a fake gun.
Thump, thump, thump…!
Shouts, cries, and the Zombie’s howls scratched at his eardrums like a radio unable to find a frequency, and the rough beating of his heart echoed deafeningly in his ears. Hurriedly getting up, Ha-jin grabbed Pie, who was running towards him, and shouted with difficulty.
“Pie, get out first! Go! Hurry!”
Eyes shining moistly, as if studded with stars, looked at him desperately. Ha-jin, wary of the increasingly gathering Zombies, smacked Pie’s butt hard.
“Go forward! Don’t look back!”
“Woof─!”
“Hyung will follow you soon! Hurry!”
“Woof! Woof-woof!”
Pie, whimpering hesitantly, finally began to run in the direction he had come from. Ha-jin, confirming the sight of him running away powerfully with his straight legs stretched out, quickly picked up the pliers.
“Kieeeeeek!”
A Zombie with melted eyeballs waved its hands and grabbed his shoulder. Feeling a dizzying sensation, he reflexively pushed the Zombie away and stepped back, his back hitting a hard wall.
The woman, struggling to secure the motorcycle, looked back at Ha-jin with an exhausted face, realizing it was impossible, and shouted.
“Open the door! Let me in!”
Ha-jin fumbled and pulled hard on the locked wooden door’s latch. When the door wouldn’t open no matter what, he quickly went around the side of the building and smashed the handle of the iron door labeled ‘Staff Only’ with the pliers. In the meantime, the woman covered Ha-jin, pressing down on the attacking Zombies with her rifle.
Ha-jin, throwing the dangling round handle to the ground, shouted to Eden.
“Jeong Tae-geon─!! Come this way!”
As if he hadn’t heard, Eden was moving further and further away towards the opposite ride.
“Jeong Tae-geon!!”
“If you opened the door, why aren’t you coming in!”
The woman, struggling to deal with the Zombies, threw away even the fake gun she had and ran over. Then, she pushed Ha-jin, who was holding the door, with her whole body. Thud!
The two were instantly sucked into the dark darkness. No sooner had they fallen to the floor than the woman jumped up and blocked the open iron door.
“Come here and block it together! Hurry─!!”
Ha-jin felt the sensation of leather in his hand and hurriedly got up.
‘A sofa?’
Realizing that the identity of the soft surface was a leather sofa, he shouted without hesitation.
“I’ll block it with the sofa, so move when I signal!”
He pulled the long leather sofa with all his might, veins bulging in his forearms. Perhaps because he had suddenly exerted so much force, the muscles in his arms and the joints in his fingers pulled painfully as if they would break. Ha-jin pushed the furniture, which was much heavier than he had expected, with all his strength.
“Get out of the way!!”
At the signal, the woman, who had been struggling to block the door, threw herself to the side.
The sofa rushed towards the iron door as it was. Crash─! The head of the Zombie, which had come halfway inside, was crushed between the door and the wall.
“Keeeek…!”
With a final scream, the writhing of the blue body stopped.
“Huk… huk….”
“Haa, ha…!”
Only then did the two catch their breath roughly and collapse to the floor. It felt as if they could vividly feel the trajectory of the bright red blood passing through their blood vessels. Hot steam was boiling from the top of their heads.
For a while, the two couldn’t easily come to their senses. Outside, the fierce howling of the Zombies continued. Whoosh… whoosh! Rough breaths filled the empty, dark space.
The woman, wiping the sweat from her face, slowly raised her body from the prone position.
“Any bites?”
Instead of answering, Ha-jin shook his head and got up from his seat, following her. The two belatedly looked around the dim warehouse. Next to where the leather sofa was placed, there was a yellow mini-refrigerator and a chest of drawers. It seemed to be a warehouse used as a staff rest area.
Confirming that there were no dangerous elements, he turned his gaze to the small stairs next to the door. He looked beyond the stairs where faint light was leaking out and picked up the pliers he had thrown on the sofa.
There was no hesitation. Ha-jin began to climb the stairs without hesitation. The surprised woman followed him, whispering softly.
“Are you crazy? What if there’s something upstairs?”
“I can see light coming in from above, so there must be a window.”
“So what? Are you going to jump out the window?”
“The other two couldn’t get in. I have to check!”
He replied as calmly as possible, but he couldn’t hide the voice that was shaking relentlessly.
“That’s true, but…!”
Ha-jin ignored the woman who was closely following behind him and continued to climb up.
The woman, who had been holding her breath anxiously, finally pulled Ha-jin’s sleeve strongly. Squeak…! At that moment, the wooden stairs creaked loudly, screaming. The two stopped at the same time as if they had made a promise.
Ha-jin, slowly raising his head, confirmed the window hanging much higher than his field of vision. He swallowed hard, turning to the woman.
“I’ll crouch down, so step on my back and climb up.”
“Y-you want me to check?”
“Hurry.”
The woman chewed her lips anxiously. When Ha-jin finally put his arms and knees on the floor and crouched down, she messed up her damp bob carelessly.
“Ugh, I don’t know! I’m just going to check the situation outside and go straight down, okay?”
“Okay.”
“Ha… I have a fear of heights, this is driving me crazy.”
The building the two had entered happened to be an indoor amusement facility with a mini Gyro Drop installed. Because the location of the attached window was easily over 2m, the woman had to tremble with fear for a while.
She closed her eyes tightly and opened them, carefully placing her feet on Ha-jin’s back, who was crouching motionless. She barely stretched out her trembling legs and placed her fingers on the window frame. The woman’s brow furrowed at the swirling dust.
Overcoming her fear and looking down, she saw Zombies wandering the streets beyond the hazy window.
“What do you see?”
“Hold on.”
The woman swallowed the cough that was trying to come out because of the dust tickling the tip of her nose and quickly rolled her eyes. Her round eyes carefully scanned every corner of the street, but all she could see were Aberrants dripping with blood and the corpses of Zombies lying on the ground.
“…I can’t see… the two of them?”
“What did you say?”
Could they have been bitten? She opened her eyes wide and carefully examined the faces of the Zombies, but there were no Zombies resembling the two anywhere. The woman’s narrowly folded eyes suddenly widened.
“Wait a minute, the motorcycle is gone too.”
At the softly whispered words, Ha-jin’s back, which was crouching, heaved greatly. There were no people, and there was no motorcycle. Then there was only one hypothesis. That the two had pulled the bike and escaped this place safely.
A small sigh of relief flowed from between her lips, which had been parched with worry. Her stiff body relaxed in an instant, and the strength in her hands and feet standing on the ground was released.
“I’ll let you down now.”
Ha-jin was about to lower his posture for the woman who was shaking her legs when he suddenly stopped breathing. Beyond his prone vision, black, dead ankles were running down the stairs.