Eunji's POV

The sky was a bright blue, clouds rolling by without a care- without knowing the guilt and sadness that were slowly gnawing in the pit of my heart, making my stomach clench in uneasiness.

My friends are gone, and I am alone. Those words never failed to push me further into the cliff of desperation, and staring at the hollowness, I was sure I was going to lose it sooner or later. It's just a matter of time.

A loud yell of order from our group leader pulled me back from the reverie, and I quickly grabbed the small backpack lying on my feet and hoisted it onto my shoulder. I walked toward the vehicles lined up behind a pair of huge metal gates, looking around in the base camp for one last time.

The word alone was subjective, at least to me. I was not really alone in a sense of surviving this apocalyptic world by myself. My friends and I came to America a couple years ago to escape the calamity that had affected our hometowns, and the entire country specifically. We had hopes, and as I know every one of us knew that death were cornering us, we were still fighting for what's worth: our lives. We did not put any further thought on it, though, we have fought for us, sometimes putting our lives in danger in order to save someone else's. We did it without much thought, because we were a group.

And suddenly everyone was gone, Luhan died before my eyes, and Kai sacrificed his life for me. The sound of gunshots still rang in my head late at nights, and like always, a part of me died too.

The leader have started sorting the group into the two main vehicles: big school buses with metal bars covering up the side windows and front windshields, armed with rifles and guns. The 4WD parked at the very front was not lacking in any safety too, and I know where I was supposed to be.

"You're travelling with me, Eunji," Dean, the leader said. His blue eyes glinting in mischief as he stared down at me. "Nu'uh, ain't no escaping me this time, love." The small Australian twang was so distinctive that I perked up when I heard him talk.

Dang, there goes my plan.

I gave a dramatic sigh and turned to meet his baby blues, "Come on, I want to sit with Ari and the others." I pointed to the nearest bus, the one I planned to quietly hop on, but of course, it failed.

He shook his head. "No can do, you're sitting next to me while I drive. Also, it's packed in there." He shouted more orders telling them to step it up before pulling me with him.

We got ready in our own respective seats, while waiting for Nick and Jonah to come back. Moments later, we saw two figures running toward the car and got inside, slamming the door shut just as the gates opened to the wide empty street before the campsite.

"Here goes nothing." Dean muttered beside me.

We're finally leaving.

I stared up ahead as we drove down the streets, familiar buildings passed by as the wrenching guilt arose. I saw an entry to a subway station and I choked back on a sob. The gunshots rang in my ears as tears welled up in my closed eyes.

"Hey, you okay?" I felt a warm palm on my shoulder and I let my head drop, trying to pack it all in, like I always did. But the thing was, it's getting harder to cover it all up.

The walls were breaking, and one day it will burst, and the feelings that I tried so hard to contain will spill until the last drop, bare and exposed for the world to see.

"Yeah," I said, slightly disappointed when there was a crack in my voice. If Dean noticed it, he did not ask about it, and I was thankful for that.

I was thankful for everything that he and the group have ever done for me. It was not easy to save a bitten body, but it was harder to save a living person who lost the will to live.

They found me when I was walking on the street after he died, exposed and not caring. In my mind was unravelling scenes of life and death. The deafening sound of shots and his promise rang in my ears as drop after drop of crystals trailed down my dirty cheeks. I knew I have passed out after the final shot when the reality was too painful to be true, and I did not know how long I was out, but I was surprisingly still alive. I guessed the walkers didn't bother to eat me while I was not conscious, because I was still breathing, and he wasn't. God how I wished the walkers came and kill me.

But for some sick reason, I was still alive.

Alone. Living has never been a pure torture until then.

Dean and Nick found me when they were out on a patrol. They had guns pointed to me as they interrogated me where did I come from; which camp sent me. They grew impatient over time, but Dean decided to bring me back to their camp until I decided to talk.

But I didn't, not for another few weeks. I explained myself on the fifth week, when my physical body were fully recuperated. What they didn't know that my soul had already gone the minute Kai pulled the trigger.

I told them about the crazy bearded man, and the last camp my friends and I were in before we were attacked. Dean then informed me that there were only three big camp base in the city; the bearded man's, Mingyu's and his. Since Mingyu's was done with, there were only two camp base left. It was believed that Dave (the bearded man) was the one to let the zombies into Mingyu's camp, as someone saw his men creeping behind the camp and drove away in a hurry.

With one camp annihilated, they would have more space to themselves and more food supply, seeing that Dean's men even ransacked the camp after everyone died.

Such information made me think that there was no way my other friends were alive and I remembered mourning to the end of the night for them. It was the first and last time Dean had ever seen me cry.

"We're heading up south, there's another city," I heard them talking, "the number of walkers have surprisingly doubled since the last time in the current city we're in. I think they have been walking in groups."

"That means they're migrating from towns to towns...gross." Jonah mumbled, loud enough for all of us to hear.

Nick added in, "It's like they're programmed to go to where the fresh meats are."

"That's what the other camp leaders are talking about," during the apocalypse, the camp leaders have found an approach of communicating through radio signals. "That's why we're moving, we can't stay until they tripled. Those that suddenly appeared in front of our gates last time were already handful, and we can't waste our bullets on them anymore. At times like this, we also have to watch out for stupid greedy people."

I turned to Dean and watched as he clenched his jaw, his grip on the steering wheel tightened. Being a camp leader was not easy, you were burdened with other people's lives and each one were a treasure. One death could be a great loss, as everyone has their own potentials in building a civilisation. Moving camps can also be a great start or the worst choice. But staying wasn't really an option too.

"It's okay Dean, we'll be fine." I said softly and he glanced at me briefly, flashing me a smile.

The sky was showing a teeny bit of pink, as we sped down the cursive roads. After a while, my eyes widened at the new sight in front of me. "The city!" I gasped out loud, a second later I heard rustling at the back seat and then Nick's head poking between Dean and I's seat.

"Yay." Nick mumbled, his voice was heavy with the sleep which I, unintentionally shook from him. Dean laughed at his state.

"The Camp is supposed to be at the edge of the city, near to the beach. I've talked to the leader and he agreed on giving up a part of the land. We're going to fit in just nicely."

"Great." Nick mumbled again. "Wake me up when we arrived."

Just as Dean told us, the gate were wide opened when we arrived. I looked up in awe at the big buildings in front of me, the gates and guard towers were obviously new, seeing how different the metals were from the white buildings in the inside, where the massive one was surrounded by smaller white squares of similar houses.

The gates slide to close as the final bus rolled into the yard. We were the first to jump out and greet the people waiting for us at the side.

"Welcome," the middle aged man said. I took in his appearance, his rough look contrasted with his kind pair of eyes, which lingered on me when Dean introduced me to him and his camp members. He gave every one of us a warm welcoming smile as he gave us a brief introduction to the camp.

"This is one of the first camps built when the epidemic occurred, another one was across the country, at the very South. The research building," he pointed to the biggest building, "were working on a research on the skin of a corpse we obtained from China, three years prior. It was a corpse we took from a ruined prison that was secluded from the civilisation. The prison was ruined, burnt to the ground, when they arrived no one was in there, including the 70 prisoners, well 69."

He then continued, as I noticed everyone from our camp had left the vehicles and joined us, "One of the cell at the back of the building was still locked shut, and they found a breathing man under all those rubbles. No, it wasn't a man; I should know, I was once part of the research team. They called me Dr. Thompson. Now don't get me wrong, I didn't know what the Chinese research team have under their sleeves, all I knew was we're developing a serum to add longevity to human life like our so called ancestors so humanity will flourish.

Of course we needed human to test this so called experiments so we used the inmates for the very reason. Those were the people who was convicted to death, and we injected them with multiple serums for the experiments. I didn't know what happened, but me and a few more scientists were forced a day off and only a few of us stayed in the lab while the most of us were in a lockdown, the next morning when we noticed, it was too late. The building including the lab room were emptied and burnt down to ashes, we couldn't salvage anything, except for the last body in the back of the prison cell, Inmate #70. Some years later, the virus spread like a plague, about the same time in every part of the world."

He shook his head sadly, "I felt guilty, but we didn't know what they had planned. The few researchers including me have taken this into our responsibility to fix, but some of us died in the outbreak when we decided to open this place for refuge. Bitten people got in and killed many. But the hardest time and now we should be safe. Weekly check-up will be conducted and everyone are to partake. If we are to start a new civilisation, we have to be free from the virus outside. That's our job."

We were quiet for a moment, processing all the information given to us by Dr. Thompson. He was, at some point, a part of all this, but he was also a victim at the same time, just like us. If he was working hard to fix this, then he's going to need all the support that he could get, and by the looks of my friends, I knew they thought the same thing too.

It was nearly dark when we were assigned to our temporary rooms in the research building until we finished building our own place inside the massive base, when Dr Thompson knocked on my door and asked for my presence in his office.

"How are you feeling, Eunji?" He asked, offering me a drink that I accepted gratefully. His fatherly smile calmed me down; whereas it was hard for me to be comfortable with strangers this fast, there was something about him that made me trust him.

"I'm good. Thank you for taking us in, Dr. Thompson. We'd be fighting a harsh fight otherwise. The zombies are travelling in groups, huge. The second wave arrived in our city, and Dean said the third one would kill us."

Dr. Thompson nodded, "Dean was right. He's a brilliant leader, and I trust his every words. That's why I didn't hesitate to say yes when he asked to join this camp. But it wasn't the reason why I called you here, Eunji. Tell me, did you lost a lot of your friends?"

I put the cup of hot chocolate on his desk as I eyed him confusedly. I expect to read his expression, but he wasn't giving any, apart from the eyes that showed concern.

I nodded slowly, sadness started in the pit of my stomach and spread like a wildfire, sending numbness to my limbs. He sighed and I glanced at him as he made his way to me.

"I'm so sorry for that, my dear, but you reminded me of a boy that I met not long ago." I raised my eyebrows, and he flashed me a kind smile. "He was just like you, driven not by the will of living but sadness. His eyes, I can tell that he was a broken soul, and it would take more than months of therapy to help. To date, he was alive and well, but there are times where I found him alone, staring at the sea from the top of one of the guards' tower."

"Why are you telling me this?" I asked, my voice was barely a whisper, only loud enough for both of us to hear. I didn't want to understand, I didn't want to build my hope up just to see it fall again, trampled on the ground.

He tilted his head, and smiled at me. This time full of meaning, one that threw me to the edge. "Give yourself a chance. Everyone deserves a new meaning of life."

Just then the door to his office opened, and his face lit up. "You're here. The hunt is better today than it is yesterday, huh?"

"Yes," the ever so familiar voice said, sending tremor down my spine. My fingers turned numb. There's no way this could happen. "We used the method you told us and clean some part of the city."

Dr. Thompson nodded cheerfully and motioned to me. "I have someone I need you to meet. This is Eunji."

I slowly turned to my back, finally getting a first look at the person standing behind me. The person was wearing the same shocked expression as I did. Tears fell down without a care, and I choked back a sob. The person gaze softened as he walked to me, closing the distance and engulfing me with a hug.

"Jungkook..." My voice shook as I cried, he rubbed my back comfortingly.

"Shh, we're safe now, Eunji. I got you."

Maybe I wasn't alone after all.

Note:

Hi everyone, this is Charlotte. I apologise for the late update. It's been months since Channie and I had planned this update, but I found it hard to write in the middle of unrelenting problems in my life lol. Anyway, I would like to thank Channie and Eunji (eunjiofapink) for letting me participate in this journey. I am truly honoured to have the chance to write alongside great writers. And finally, my gratitude to every one of you for supporting us in completing this book. It was really fun <3. THANK YOU.

Hey guys, this is Channie speaking xD FINALLY! We managed to finish this book after how many years. I'm going to miss writing this book but I'm also glad its completed haha. I would like to thank eunjiofapink and Charlotte for collaborating with me in writing this book. I couldn't have finished it if it wasn't for them so I thank them sincerely from the bottom of my heart. I guess its time to say good bye now. THANK YOU AND GOOD BYE!