CHAPTER SIX
( Cracks In The Glass )

SPEAKER FEEDBACK IS what draws the zombies away for a blissful minute, hoards of broken carcasses rampaging their way toward the corners of the buildings, clawing at the fist-sized speakers embedded into the bloodstained ceilings.

Eun-byul stops her fiddling and looks out into the peaceful hallways. For a second, there is only static silence.

( She holds her breath, and prays it lasts an eternity ).

The crackly voice comes in a wave of nostalgic nodes and shaky tremors. Eun-byul's eyes widen a fraction of an inch, and she has the inexplicable desire to run towards the noise.

"Students and teachers of Hyosan High School." Heads turn towards the familiar soothing voice, a current jumble of high-strung nerves.

"I'm Park Sun-hwa, the English teacher. Something strange is happening throughout the school. Some students are attacking others indiscriminately."

Her voice cracks and breaks. Many of her students do, too.

"Please flee and find a safe place to hide. And if any student or faculty hears this and is able to, please call the police and the fire department. Students, hide somewhere safe until help arrives."

Eun-byul falters. She admonishes her teacher's blind faith, but the beginning bloodshed of the apocalypse leaves no room for trust, especially to those who have never given her a reason to trust them.

"If you can get out of the school," Mrs. Park continues, her voice rising urgently. "please get out. I'll say it again. Some students are. . ."

Her voice fails her.

( Soon, she too will fail them all ).

Heavy breathing fills the corridors. Mrs. Park thinks long and hard about what she is going to say, and Eun-byul listens tentatively.

"Everyone . . . you're okay, right?" She asks. There is no one on her end that can tell her of the safety of her students.

"You're not hurt? I don't know what's going on here or how this whole thing happened, but still, find a safe place to hide." She sniffs back her tears. "I'm sorry I can't do more to help."

Many of the students begin to cry along with her, their tears wiping tracks against their dirty skin. None dare to wipe them away with their hands, too bloodstained to think of bringing near their face.

Eun-byul leans her head back down against the desk, back aching and legs sore. She wants to rest, but there is only sleep for the dead.

Soon after the heartfelt message gets cut short, and everyone wipes the tears from their eyes, they are back to doing nothing.

Torturously, Eun-byul begins counting her own goosebumps, elevated skin that crawls and molds beneath her layer of dermis.

One, two, three thousand, seven thousand. . . they never stop.

The others occupy small corners, where they huddle amongst each other and stick in groups of two or more, to feel less afraid of the impending death that lingers behind the classroom doors. Eun-byul envies their pack mentality, for she has long stood in solidarity, without anyone to console her in times of need.

( It is always her turning away from that warmth, now ).

She pretends that she doesn't see the stray tears that slip past her classmate's eyes, down their dirty cheeks, and onto the hardwood floors. Maybe if she ignores it, they'll stop. They don't, and still she listens.

Eventually, their moment of weakness begins to ebb away, and many regain their hardened exterior. A zombie apocalypse leaves no room for mistakes, and neither do the children of Hyosan High.

Onjo stands the furthest away from anyone, her fingers clenched tightly against the jut of the windowsill, presumably cleansing her mind from worries over Suhyeok's safety. I-sak will soon arrive to complete her other half, as the two have always done. Eun-byul shifts her eyes elsewhere.

Surprisingly, Lee Nayeon sits on the other side of the vertical desk, her head pressed against her arms. Soft mumbling stems from her vile lips, and Eun-byul has the distinct impression that she may be praying.

( Devils shouldn't pray, Eun-byul scoffs. God won't listen to your prayers anyway ).

The classroom is full of scared children and loud breathing. Eun-byul can't think. She wants to decompress, to become a puddle of liquid against the floor and never return to solidity. The toll of watching lives being ripped out of people's hands is heavier than she could've ever imagined.

( Where is her rage when she needs it? )

Finally, as though the slow creep of silence overwhelmed the entirety of the class, the gaps begin to fill with murmured conversations. Bodies shuffle around and get situated against the cold floor. Eun-byul stays put. She now realizes that she does not want to care about anyone else now that they run the risk of being killed. She has no intention of getting to know a dead person.

Just as she begins to doze off, too exhausted to fend off sleep now that her face presses against the cool metal of the desk, she is startled awake by a sudden shove.

"I-sak was bitten!" Nayeon hollers, pointing to the dark-haired girl, whose nose holds drying blood on the corners.

Annoyed, Eun-byul shoves the redhead's hands off of her. Of course Nayeon only finds use in someone she hates when it is life or death.

"I said I wasn't!" I-sak cries, but her eyes are wide, and she runs to get a good look at herself in a nearby mirror.

Her irises begin to clot, thick rims of red surrounding the onyx hues. Blood drips dangerously slow from her nose onto her mouth and dribbles under her chin.

Gyeong-su takes a tentative step forward, his shaky fingers brushing against the girl's uniform.

"Hey, are you okay?" The stutter in his voice is unmistakable.

I-sak ignores him, her focus on her best friend. She takes slow, measured steps, and Onjo meets her halfway. They take each other's hands, fingers covered in blood, one human, one hardly-there.

The taller's voice rings shakily through the silent classroom, a choked sob escaping her bloody lips. "No, right? I'm not, right?"

Onjo's eyes flicker to the ground. She stares at the girl who has known her through dozens of lifetimes, and she tries to hold back the tears, but they sting against her eyelids and they rip apart her cheeks in their haste to be let down. Onjo will never know another friend like I-sak, and now she must kill her in order to stay alive.

They share one last embrace; Many turn away.

"I'm not." I-sak insists, her lips curling up to reveal blood-soaked teeth. "I'm not one of them."

Onjo can't bring herself to say anything.

Nayeon's screams fill the empty silence, agitating the bloody hands that bang against the classroom windows.

"What are you doing!" She stammers, her voice raised. "Get her out of there right now!"

"Shut the hell up!" Eun-byul hisses, her eyes narrowing at the loud teen. "You're attracting more zombies."

"Shit. They're gonna climb over." Daesu runs over to the stacks of desks, holding them steady as carnage-seeking claws protrude from the broken spaces.

Eun-byul does her best to help, using her remaining strength to push back the zombies, but all the commotion continues to attract what they don't want to see, and soon, it becomes an endless battle between man and monster.

When she turns back to see what all the noise is, she finds both Cheong-san and Onjo draped halfway across the window.

"Shit, shit, shit!" The teen panics, caught in a dilemma between the monster dangling outside the window and the ones clawing their way in. She hands over the torch to Daesu and the others, and runs over to help Cheong-san pry Onjo off of Isak.

( It should be the other way, but grief worms its way into the heart even before death has stricken ).

"Let go!" Cheong-san yells at Onjo as she grapples onto I-sak like a lifeline, ignoring the snapping jaws of the girl she once knew.

Eun-byul pulls Onjo away from the window by the waist, and together, the three of them watch I-sak tumble onto the floor. Her bones snap awkwardly, before her expression returns to its feral nature and she is whisked away by the scent of blood outside.

The shortest of the three stares at the window for a long second. Her eyes grow puffy as she contemplates the fondness of her now fading memories with her best friend; They play out almost in a sequence, as though the universe wants to remind Onjo of who her friend had once been.

Eun-byul stares down at the girl. Her heart twists in its empty socket, but she doesn't reach out to comfort her, even when Cheong-san, whose brusque nature is second to none, offers his condolences with a touch to Onjo's shaking shoulder.

Eun-byul is not made for comfort; She has long worn away, like plastic melting away on hot concrete, jagged and twisted and wrong.

Onjo seeks warmth. Her first instinct is to cling to Eun-byul. She has lost everything; A girl with the dreams of a hero is beginning to lose faith in what she so desperately clings to.

Trembling fingers wrinkle Eun-byul's already messy uniform, and tears wet her shirt. Her own hands reach out to cage the small body between her arms. Onjo is frail, and she shrinks to someone Eun-byul doesn't want to remember.

She closes her eyes. The image won't go away. Her grip tightens. Eun-byul lets out a shaky breath and doesn't say a word.

"Come block this!" Someone yells from the crowd. Footsteps squeak against the wooden floor as Cheong-san rushes to help.

Eun-byul wants Onjo to pull away — She cannot stand her brittle fingers and broken heart, her tears and the sniffles and the godforsaken look on her face.

Her hold grows tighter, and Eun-byul relents herself to her fate.

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‎ ‎‎♱ AUTHOR'S NOTE !

hi guys guess who's back

i had some free time so enjoy this very short (and very badly written) chapter !!

weirdly i added onjo interactions idk why but it starting to develop somewhat of a friendship between her and byul and i don't hate it...!

very basic writing bc i wasn't feeling very inspirational or creative today :( so it's not rlly giving what i want it to give but hopefully i'll get back to my regular writing soon !!

this is my last week of school for s1 thankfully and i will have a lot more time during break to update stories so hopefully more updates for all my fics coming soon !! fingers crossed

next chapter there will be much more interactions now that the storyline is finally moving on from them being stuck in that classroom for like an hour yay

next chapter will be continuing the last part of ep 2 and going into ep 3 when they start leaving the class and go find suhyeok in pretty sure !! also hopefully next update will be a bit longer bc this update is barely brushing 2k words ...

lmk what characters u want byul to interact w and ill see what i can do !! (no srsly pls lmk im running out of ideas bc in the old ver byul switches personalities like every chapter so i might need to rewrite some stuff to avoid plot holes 😭)

other than that pls lmk if there are any mistakes in the spelling or anything so i can fix it !

also don't b afraid to vote or comment, i will probably (very likely) reply!!!! and if you don't understand something, plsplspls lmk!! i want yall to fully understand what's going on

happy reads!

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─── ANNIE