Chapter Text
(jimmy, tommy, max, nat, jan, zee, boss, nunew, yim, tutor – Science & Comm Arts group)
The air underground was heavy, thick with the metallic tang of blood and gasoline. Every sound carried too far, like the world itself was holding its breath. A dripping pipe. The slow hum of the emergency lights above, stuttering in and out of rhythm. The faint echo of someone’s muffled sob that no one dared to comfort.
They had found this place by luck or maybe by desperation. The Communication Arts kids had stumbled into the Science group hours ago, and now they sat scattered across the cold concrete floor of the university’s underground parking lot, the only place that felt remotely safe after the chaos above. The doors had been barricaded with benches and what little furniture they could drag down, but even then, no one trusted the silence completely.
The outbreak had come fast. Too fast.
In the beginning, there had been screams and confusion, the kind that didn’t sound human, bodies collapsing, blood painting corridors that once smelled like cheap coffee and new textbooks. Then there had been running, so much running that legs still trembled from it now.
Now there was only breathing. The kind that trembled with disbelief.
Ning had managed to convince some of them to let her use the university speakers. Her voice, broken but steady, echoing through empty halls. If anyone’s alive, we’re underground. The outside will cut the power to Zone 0 soon. Find shelter. Please.
It had felt almost hopeful, that moment. But hope was short-lived in this kind of dark.
Pao sat away from the group, his back pressed to the cold bumper of an abandoned car, hands limp between his knees. His clothes were still damp with someone else’s blood. His eyes weren’t focused on anything, just staring at the faint orange reflection of the emergency light across the floor.
He hadn’t spoken since they’d gotten down here. Not a word.
Jean had tried once. A quiet, “You should drink something,” as he placed a cracked water bottle near his foot. Pao hadn’t looked up, hadn’t even blinked. Jean had only sighed, muttering something under his breath that no one caught before walking back to where Ning and Phu were trying to draw a map of the university layout with chalk.
Now Pao just sat, his expression blank.
And if anyone looked close enough, they’d see that his hands wouldn’t stop trembling.
Night noticed it first. He always noticed things, the details others missed. How Pao’s breathing hitched once every few seconds. How his gaze darted for a moment when someone dropped a metal pipe too loudly. How he bit the inside of his cheek, over and over, until the skin there must’ve been raw.
Night stood near the middle of the space, arms wrapped around himself. He had tried to make sense of the situation, how long had it been since this infection took over? What were the symptoms? Is there a cure?, anything to keep busy—but his mind kept drifting back to the sight of death.
The way Mook’s scream had cut short, the look in Fah’s eyes before she was pulled under.
He swallowed hard, shaking his head as if the motion could clear it away.
He glanced toward Pao again. The tall boy looked empty. Night hesitated, then slowly walked over, his sneakers scuffing against the cement.
“Hey,” he said softly, crouching down beside him. “You should try to rest. We’re safe for now.”
No reaction.
“Jean said you’ve been through a lot. Everyone has but…” He trailed off. The words sounded stupid the moment they left his mouth. Everyone has. As if comparing trauma could ease it.
Pao turned his head slightly, just enough for Night to see the way his eyes glistened. The tears were quiet, slow, tracing pale lines down cheeks smudged with dirt and blood. He wasn’t sobbing just unraveling quietly, as if every tear was a memory he couldn’t hold back anymore.
Night didn’t move closer. He just stayed there, the way one might stay beside a wounded animal, offering presence instead of touch.
For a long moment, the silence between them was louder than anything.
Finally, Pao whispered, voice rough like gravel:
“I saw them. All of them. They were right there. One second alive, the next… I couldn’t…”
He stopped. A shallow breath. “I couldn’t do anything.”
Night wanted to tell him it wasn’t his fault. That no one could have done anything. But the words felt like lies in a world where guilt was the only thing left to feel human.
So he said nothing.
Pao wiped at his eyes roughly, almost angry at himself for crying. Then he looked away, jaw tightening, signaling the end of the conversation. Night hesitated but nodded, rising to his feet.
Jean watched from a distance, leaning against a wall, eyes half-lidded but aware. He didn’t interrupt. He knew that look on Pao’s face, the thousand-yard stare. It was the same one Pao had back at the orphanage when they lost the others. Back when they’d learned what survival really cost.
He exhaled slowly, pushing the memory away.
After a while, Night found himself pacing. The stillness was unbearable. His hands itched to do something, anything to distract from the low hum of fear that wouldn’t fade. So he decided to look around.
There were still rows of cars, dusty and forgotten, a few with trunks half open from panic earlier. Maybe something useful was left behind. A flashlight. A blanket.
He moved quietly, his steps echoing softly against the concrete. The further he went, the dimmer the light grew until he was surrounded by the faint blue glow of a flickering emergency lamp. The air smelled of oil and damp metal.
He was halfway down the row when he froze.
There was movement ahead, a shadow bending over a car. The faint sound of something tapping against glass.
His breath caught in his throat.
He took a small step back, heart hammering. The shadow moved again, and then came the sound—crack. Not loud, but sharp. The unmistakable sound of glass fracturing.
Night’s brain screamed zombie.
He felt cold all over, pulse quickening as his eyes darted for something… a weapon, a stick, anything. His fingers brushed against a metal pipe lying near the floor, and he picked it up, grip trembling.
He took one cautious step forward. Then another.
The shadow loomed taller now, its arm raised high before slamming down again. Crack.
Night’s breath hitched. He steadied the pipe, swallowing hard, and moved fast, ready to strike.
But when the figure turned, the dim light fell across his face and it wasn’t a zombie.
It was Thorn.
Thorn was muttering curses under his breath, knuckles pressed to the glass of a car window already webbed with cracks. His expression was tight, fury barely contained. He didn’t even notice Night until the smaller boy was right there, pipe half-raised.
“Whoa—!” Thorn snapped in a hushed tone, startled, his hand instinctively going to Night’s wrist.
Their eyes met Night’s wide and startled, Thorn’s sharp, dark with exhaustion and something else beneath.
For a second, neither moved.
Then Thorn realized how close they were Night’s hand trembling against his arm, breath quick and uneven. The contact was fleeting, just skin on skin, but it felt oddly electric in the still air.
“What the hell are you doing?” Thorn hissed, voice low but rough. “You almost hit me.”
Night blinked, the realization catching up to him. He lowered the pipe immediately, his face flushing.
“I—I thought you were one of them,” he stammered, stepping back quickly.
Thorn let out a dry laugh, one that didn’t sound like amusement at all. “Do I look like one of them?”
Night’s eyes flickered over him disheveled hair, dry blood on his arm, the rawness around his knuckles.
“Not… exactly. But it’s dark.”
Thorn sighed, leaning against the car. “Guess I can’t blame you for that.”
Night’s gaze dropped to Thorn’s hand. “You’re trying to break the window?”
“Yeah,” Thorn muttered. “There’s a pack of cigarettes in there. Figured I’d help myself.”
Night frowned. “You shouldn’t waste energy on that.”
“Don’t tell me what I should or shouldn’t do, science boy,” Thorn said, not harshly but with that tired edge people get when holding too much inside.
Night hesitated, clutching the pipe to his chest. “It’s just… you’ll hurt your hand.”
Thorn smirked faintly, eyes glancing down at his scraped knuckles. “Too late for that.”
There was a pause. Night shifted awkwardly, unsure if he should leave or stay. The air between them felt strangely charged, the kind that existed between two people who didn’t know each other but suddenly shared too much silence.
“Why cigarettes?” Night finally asked. “They won’t help you survive.”
Thorn chuckled quietly, no humor in it. “They help me not lose it while suck in some dumb horror movie.”
Night studied him. Up close, Thorn looked different than the loud, confident guy people whispered about around university. His face was drawn tight, eyes rimmed red not from tears, but from holding them back.
“Your brother doesn’t seem worried,” Night said softly. “Thi.”
At that, Thorn’s jaw clenched. “He shouldn’t. He doesn’t need to see me like this.”
“Like what?”
“Like I don’t have it under control.”
Night didn’t respond. He understood that kind of silence the kind built from guilt and fear, stitched together with the need to look strong.
The hum of the emergency light above them flickered once, bathing the space in a heartbeat of darkness. When the light came back, Thorn’s expression had changed. Softer. Almost broken.
“Hey nerd. Do you think…” he began, voice low. “We’re gonna make it out of here?”
Night looked down at his shoes, the pipe hanging loosely in his hand. “I don’t know.”
Honesty, simple and raw.
Thorn nodded slowly, as if that was the only answer he could believe.
For a long time, they stood there in the dim light, two strangers, both too awake for comfort, both pretending they weren’t afraid.
Night was the first to move, stepping closer again, reaching toward the shattered window. “If you really want those cigarettes,” he murmured, “you should hit near the corner. It’ll break faster.”
Thorn looked at him, surprised by the calm in his tone. Then, for the first time that night, he almost smiled. “You’ve done this before?”
Night shrugged. “Physics.”
And with that, they broke the rest of the glass together, the sound sharp and satisfying in the stillness. Not loud enough to alert anyone.
Thorn lit the cigarette with a flick of his lighter, the ember glowing faintly between his fingers. He offered one to Night, who shook his head but smiled faintly, eyes reflecting the flickering light.
For a brief, impossible moment, it almost felt like the world hadn’t ended.
But above them, in the silence, the faint echo of something moving. Dragging. reminded them it had.
And dawn was still hours away.
(keng, namping and james – Cheer group)
The cafeteria had been alive only moments before, forks clattering, laughter rising and falling, the hum of the air conditioner fighting the Thai heat. It was supposed to be just another argument. Just another afternoon that would end in slammed doors and the bitter silence that always followed Phat and Chi.
But now that memory existed like something from another lifetime, blurred and unreachable.
“Chi, please,” Phat had said, hands braced against the table, voice pitched low enough not to draw attention, though his tone trembled with the edge of desperation.
“You’re asking for everything,” Chi had snapped back, eyes burning not angry, not yet, but tired. “You don’t get to walk back after what you did.”
Phat swallowed, running a hand through his hair. “It was one mistake.”
Chi laughed, short and bitter as he looked at his friends as if to ask if they’d heard the audacity of his ex boyfriend too. “One mistake that had a name.” His gaze flicked past Phat for only a second, landing on Nokia, sitting a few tables away, pretending to scroll through his phone, pretending not to listen.
That single glance said everything.
Phat’s throat went dry. He wanted to reach out, to make Chi look at him again, to say something that would undo the past. But there wasn’t time.
Someone screamed.
The sound came from the kitchen. High, sharp, and wrong. Then came the crash of metal trays. The splatter.
Everyone turned.
A girl stumbled out from behind the counter, her shirt soaked crimson, eyes wide, trembling as she fell to her knees. For one breathless second, no one moved.
Then she lunged.
The chaos erupted like a fuse had been lit.
Chi didn’t even have time to think before Phat grabbed his wrist. Tables flipped, trays clattered to the floor. People were shouting, running, tripping over each other. Someone’s bag spilled, books scattering like confetti.
“Let me go!” Chi shouted, jerking his arm, but Phat held on tighter, forcing him toward the door.
Behind them, Nokia was already moving, his voice cutting through the panic. “Move, now!”
Chi saw faces he knew friends turning, collapsing, blood spilling over plastic chairs. One of them reached out, eyes clouded white, before being pulled under by a dozen more.
“Wait—my friends!” Chi tried to pull away, but Phat’s grip was iron.
“Chi!” Phat’s voice cracked. “They’re gone!”
“No—”
“Look at me!”
But he didn’t look. Couldn’t. The screams followed them down the hall as they ran, a wall of noise that felt like it would swallow them whole. He just felt Phat’s grip get tighter almost lifting up and carrying his body away.
When they burst into the restroom, Nokia slammed the door shut and dropped the latch. The smell of bleach and rust filled their lungs. Their chests heaved. Phat pressed his back against the door, Chi stumbled against a sink, and Nokia dragged a mop bucket and a wooden broom handle across the handle, wedging it in tight.
The first wave hit minutes later.
The banging started sharp, furious, and constant. Hands clawing against metal. Moans echoing through the vents. Nokia’s phone light flickered against the tiled walls as they crouched in the dark, waiting for the sound to fade.
It had been hours. The noise hadn’t stopped completely, but it was softer now—distant, like the dead were losing interest.
The air was suffocating. The floor was sticky with spilled soap and rainwater seeping in through a crack in the ceiling. The emergency lights had burned out an hour ago, leaving them in a gloom lit only by Nokia’s screen.
He sat by the door, trying the network again and again, thumb trembling each time the “No signal” notification blinked back. He’d stopped explaining who he was texting after the first twenty attempts.
Phat had tried to talk. Tried to plan. Tried to say anything that would make it less unbearable. But Chi hadn’t said a word since they locked the door.
He sat by the corner stall, knees drawn to his chest, his face buried in his arms. His body shook silently every few minutes, a tremor he couldn’t stop.
Phat watched him from across the room.
Nokia caught the look once, sighed, and turned his eyes away.
Outside, thunder rolled. The rain began to fall harder, washing away the sounds of the undead, turning the world into a muffled, wet blur.
Finally, Phat couldn’t take it anymore.
He pushed himself up, ignoring Nokia’s faint shake of the head, and crossed the slippery tiles. Each step creaked. He lowered himself beside Chi, his back pressed against the cold wall, close enough to feel the warmth of Chi’s shaking shoulders.
Chi didn’t move. Didn’t even glance at him.
Phat hesitated, the words heavy on his tongue. He leaned in, close enough that his breath brushed against Chi’s ear, and gently placed a hand over his mouth.
“Hey,” he whispered, barely a breath of sound. “I know you hate me. I couldn’t leave you there.”
Chi’s body went still.
For a moment, they stayed like that Phat’s hand trembling against his skin, his eyes wide with everything he couldn’t say. The smell of rain, of sweat, of fear filled the small space between them.
Chi’s breathing hitched, tears threatening again. He didn’t turn to look at him, but his voice came out cracked, quiet, full of fury and grief.
“You should’ve.”
Phat froze.
“You should’ve let me die with them.”
The words sliced through him, sharper than any sound outside.
“I couldn’t,” Phat said, his voice shaking despite how quiet he kept it. “Chi, I couldn’t.”
Chi wiped at his face roughly, refusing to let him see. “You don’t get to decide who lives for me. Do not touch me again.”
He stopped himself, pressing his forehead to his knees.
Nokia looked up from where he sat near the door, jaw tightening. He’d been pretending not to listen, but if he wanted to survice those two needed to shut up soon.
The rain outside turned heavier. Lightning flashed faintly through the narrow window slit above the mirrors, illuminating their faces for a heartbeat.
The storm drowned out the groans from beyond the door.
For the first time since the outbreak, it was almost quiet.
Nokia’s phone vibrated. The faintest tremor in the silence.
He grabbed it immediately, covering the screen with his palm to hide the light. His eyes widened. Signal bars, weak, but there.
He didn’t speak. Just opened one of Chi’s notebooks he had taken it from the bag earlier to scribble useless notes or doodle to relief stress.
Now he wrote quickly, the pen scratching loud in the silence.
We need to get to the gym.
He tore the page out and slid it across the floor toward them.
Phat reached for it first, eyes narrowing in the dim light. “The gym?” he mouthed, barely moving his lips.
Nokia nodded, his expression deadly serious.
Phat’s gaze shifted to Chi still pale, still trembling, eyes unfocused. He didn’t know if Chi had it in him to move again. Didn’t know if he deserved to ask him to.
He hesitated, the words dying in his throat.
Outside, thunder crashed again, closer this time. The walls vibrated faintly.
Chi finally looked up. His eyes were red, unfocused, but something in them flickered resignation or courage, Phat couldn’t tell.
He stared at the paper for a long second, then at Phat.
“Then what are we waiting for?” he whispered.
The words were hoarse but steady.
Phat nodded, his throat tight. Nokia exhaled sharply, relief flashing through his expression before he tucked the notebook away and turned to the door.
They moved slowly, gathering what little they had Chi’s bag, a broken broom handle, Nokia’s phone.
The rain outside grew louder, drowning everything else out.
When Nokia pulled the latch free, the door creaked open, and the smell of wet earth and rot rushed in.
The hallway was dark, water pooling across the floor. Bodies twitched faintly in the distance, but most were still.
Nokia looked back at them, his eyes sharp, calculating.
Phat’s hand brushed Chi’s, tentative but firm. This time, Chi didn’t pull away.
They stepped out together into the storm.
The rain disguised their footsteps, washing away the blood as they ran.
(net, mark, boun, park – PE group)
By the time the downpour began, the four of them had already stopped flinching at the smell of rot.
Ek led the way, his tracksuit darkened by the rain, knife gripped tight enough that his knuckles had gone bone-white. Korn followed right behind him, gun raised, eyes scanning the shadows like he’d done this before. Gus trailed them, muttering curses under his breath every few seconds, his soaked shirt clinging to his skin, muscles tense. Earth was last, clutching his phone, using it more as a lifeline than a tool.
They’d been moving through the campus outskirts for what felt like hours. The storage unit behind the PE building had been their first stop a stroke of luck that one of the guards hadn’t made it inside before turning. They’d stripped it clean: flashlights, a half-empty box of bullets, a few iron bars, a machete. No food. No medicine. Just weapons and guilt.
Ek had been the first to snap them into order.
“No one breaks cover, we have to have each other’s back,” he’d said earlier, voice calm, almost cold. “You see one of them coming, don’t scream. You don’t even breathe until I tell you.”
And somehow, they’d all listened. Because he was right panic was a luxury none of them could afford.
Now the rain was their ally. The sound of it smothered their footsteps, the scent of water masking their sweat and blood. But it also blurred everything, turned the night into a shifting mess of motion and shadow. Stopping every few meters to avoid hoards of walkers.
Earth’s phone lighted up again making Gus look at him. Nothing went through he’d tried calling, texting, even opening the stupid campus Wi-Fi that obviously didn’t work anymore. But still, he kept checking even after all of them had realized communication had been cut by the outside so trying was absurd now.
Korn noticed. He always did.
“Don’t be stupid,” he snapped, snatching the phone out of his hand. “You’ll lead them straight to us. They could be getting followed.”
“I’m not calling anyone,” Earth hissed back, voice shaking. “I’m trying to find a radio signal.”
“Put it away,” Korn ordered. “You’re not thinking straight.”
Earth lunged and took it back, glare sharp and wet with more than rain.
Ek turned, stepping between them. “Enough. Both of you. We’re not dying here because of some stupid argument.”
Gus, crouched low with his bat, let out a small, bitter laugh. “We’re not dying here says the guy walking us into the middle of the open road.”
“Trust me,” Ek said. “It’s better than the halls. Too narrow.”
The four of them crept through the soaked field, each movement timed to the rhythm of the thunder. They were close to the gym, barely a few hundred meters away. The building loomed like a blackened silhouette against the storm, its metal shutters drawn, lights long gone. It looked deserted. It looked safe.
Until Earth’s phone dinged.
Just a text. A stupid little message. One that might’ve meant salvation in another world.
Nokia
For half a second, Earth froze. His breath hitched; his heart leaped. Nokia was alive.
But the sound sharp, echoing cut through the rain like a blade.
From somewhere behind the bleachers, they heard it: the wet shuffle of feet. Then another. Then dozens.
Ek didn’t need to say a word.
“Shit,” Gus muttered. “Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me—”
“Are you shitting me, Earth?!” he yelled, too loud, panic kicking in as the first figure lunged through the rain.
The air filled with chaos. Ek struck the first one clean through the skull. Korn swung the machete down on another, its bones cracking like kindling. Earth stumbled back, the glow of the screen painted his face like a target in the dark.
“Move!” Ek barked, grabbing him by the collar and dragging him toward the gym. “Don’t stop!”
They ran through puddles of mud and blood, slipping and sliding as thunder roared overhead. The rain wasn’t camouflage anymore it was confusion. It was noise. The dead came fast, faster than before, crawling and sprinting, their bodies slick and unholy.
Gus shoved open a side door with his shoulder. “In, now!”
They crashed inside the gym just as Korn fired another round through the entryway, slamming the door shut and barricading it with a stack of benches. The sound of fists and skulls pounding on metal began immediately after.
Everyone was breathing hard. The only light came from a broken emergency lamp flickering near the far wall.
Ek stood still, dripping, gun pointed at the door. “Everyone okay?”
No one answered.
Gus threw his bat aside, pacing, furious. “You had one job— keep quiet! But no— Earth has to play hero and text his little boyfriend during the fucking apocalypse!”
Earth’s throat went dry. “He’s not—”
“Not what?” Gus snapped. “Not worth dying over?”
Earth’s silence was louder than thunder.
Korn turned to him, jaw tight. “Next time, you put that thing away, or I’ll break it on your head.”
Earth sat down against the wall, shaking, drenched. The machete in his hand blood dripping all over. He read Nokia’s text again, over and over, as if it would change.
“we’ll make it”
As if maybe it meant something else.
Ek’s voice softened just a little. “We’re staying here until the noise dies down. Then we move.”
The pounding on the metal door continued low, steady, and patient.
Outside, the rain swallowed the sound of screams.
Inside, the four men tried to remember how to breathe.
The underground air felt too thick to breathe.
The low hum of the backup generator echoed through the concrete space, flickering the yellow emergency light above their heads. Everyone else was trying to rest. some lying on the cold floor, others whispering conversations that didn’t matter but San couldn’t. He hadn’t blinked in minutes, maybe hours. His eyes were fixed on the stain of blood near the stairwell where they’d dragged out the last body before sealing the door.
That shade of red, it was the same.
The same as that night.
His hands began to tremble. He pressed them to his knees, but they wouldn’t stop. His chest tightened, breath coming short and sharp. The noise around him started to fade, replaced by something else the clang of metal, the scream that hadn’t stopped echoing for years, the thud of a body hitting concrete.
She wasn’t supposed to die.
She wasn’t supposed to see us.
San’s mind raced. The serum, the experiments, the promises it had all been in front him, for that shitty friend who couldn’t survive another winter without a cure, without a legacy, legacy that had chained San to keep all his secrets to avoid getting ruined.
Yet it couldn’t be right? But the thought was still there… they’d said it was harmless. That no one would get hurt. And when it went wrong, they covered it up. They made it disappear.
But what if this—what if all of this—was the aftermath?
He pressed his fist against his mouth, trying to silence the sob that threatened to escape. The fluorescent light above flickered again, and he swore for a second he could see the blood on his own hands, fresh and glistening.
“San?”
A voice cut through the haze, soft, uncertain.
He looked up and saw Nonn kneeling beside him. The younger man’s face was calm but worried, his eyes searching San’s for something to hold onto.
“Hey,” Nonn whispered. “You okay?”
San shook his head, unable to speak. His lungs were screaming for air, but nothing came out right. His throat felt like it was closing.
Nonn hesitated, then reached out and placed a hand on San’s shoulder, steady, grounding. “You’re safe. It’s okay. Just breathe, yeah? In and out.”
The world slowly came back into focus. The noise, the light, the smell of damp air. San followed his voice, his breathing syncing with Nonn’s until the tremors began to ease.
For a moment, neither of them said anything.
Then San finally spoke, his voice low and unsteady. “I’m fine. Just… couldn’t sleep.”
“You sure?” Nonn asked gently.
San forced a small nod, a shadow of a smile tugging at his lips. “Yeah. Go back to sleep, Nonn. I’ll be fine.”
Nonn hesitated but eventually nodded, giving his shoulder one last reassuring squeeze before returning to his spot.
San sat there in silence, staring at the flickering light. The panic was gone, but the guilt lingered.
Thick, alive, and merciless.
He pressed his hand to his chest and whispered, so quietly not even the dead could hear:
Maybe this is what I deserve.