Debuting by Riding the Returnee’s Bus – Chapter 179

Author: LyraDhani

My breath caught in my throat.

I couldn’t breathe properly.

The lack of oxygen made my head spin.

My vision gradually blurred.

It wouldn’t be strange if I threw up everything inside me right this second.

I felt like my body refused to listen.

In fact, it truly wasn’t listening.

My hands were trembling.

My legs felt as if they were about to cramp.

The soles of my feet burned. My ankles felt as though they were about to snap.

Even so, I couldn’t stop. Because I knew that if I stopped, I would die. I knew that if I collapsed here, I was dead.

The force driving Choi Seonghan right now was terror. Yes, it was terror. For the first time since I gained self-awareness, an extreme fear was moving me.

My jaw was chattering. If I got caught, I would die. If I stopped, I would die. I would die a miserable death. Nothing else entered my mind. No, I didn’t even have the luxury of thinking about anything else.

Family, friends, even the person beside me who had just been bitten by a zombie and collapsed, or even the person with a shattered leg who could no longer move—I didn’t have the time or the mental space to care about them.

“Aaaaahhh!”

I heard a scream. But I didn’t stop. I didn’t look back. That scream gradually faded into the distance, and another scream grew closer.

I turned down a different path. Once again, a scream faded, and once again, another approached.

Despite my body refusing to cooperate, every one of my senses had become unnaturally sharp. I could smell the blood stinging my nose. I could feel my clothes brushing against my skin. I could even feel the cold sweat trickling down my temples.

The sound of my heart and the sound of my raspy gasps echoed from within my body.

Every cell in my body seemed to awaken until even the deafening noise around me sounded strangely muffled.

“Huff… huff… haaa…”

Tears welled up in my eyes. There was no time to wonder why. No time to indulge in emotion.

Because my eyes had caught the sight of zombies pouring through a shattered window.

“Grrr!… Grrrrr!”

“F*ck! F*ck!!! Sniff… Damn it!!!”

I stopped abruptly and turned my head. I’d already lost count of how many times I’d circled through the same streets as I rounded another corner.

Zombies lunged at me from the side. Those that failed to catch me immediately threw themselves at the nearest humans instead.

One unlucky person standing near a convenience store window had their arm ripped into by a zombie.

“Aack! Aaaaahhh! Aaaaahhh! Help! Help me! Save… save me!”

“Sniff….”

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHH! ACK! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHH!”

I saw his eyes looking at Choi Seonghan. I saw the reflection of Choi Seonghan in those eyes. It was a pathetic sight. They were eyes consumed by terror—the raw image of a human who had nothing left except the instinct to survive.

Naturally, I didn’t return their gaze. Not because I wanted to avoid seeing myself reflected in their eyes, nor because those eyes bothered me. But because I knew I couldn’t afford to stop here.

I turned right. I kept running. I passed several people, and things that used to be people.

Zombies were everywhere. Several, sometimes dozens, were clinging to each person.

Some were only beginning to transform. Like the puppets right in front of my eyes.

Someone whose body had already been torn apart staggered upright, jerking at the waist as the infection took hold. I had to pass them. There was no other choice. Going back the way I’d come was suicide. Clenching my teeth and wiping away my tears, I ran past them. Suddenly, they grabbed Choi Seonghan’s arm.

“Sa… save….”

“AAAAAAHHH!”

“Help me. It hurts! It hurts… help me… save….”

“Let… let go!!!”

“Help me… urgh… blegh….”

“I said let go! F*ck! Let go!!! Let go!!!”

“BLEEEGH!”

“You bastard! Let go of my arm!!”

The zombies were getting closer. My face turned pale. I kept punching the arm of the guy holding me, then realizing this wouldn’t work, I jabbed a piece of broken glass into his arm.

“AAACK!”

Fortunately, his arm fell away, perhaps because he still had some sensation left. But the path was blocked. Thinking I had no choice but to go inside, I headed for the nearest building.

But….

People who had gotten inside ahead of me were already locking the doors.

“Please open the door! Open the door!”

“Please open the door! I beg you!!”

Terrified faces stared back at me.

“Open… the door! I said open the door! Damn it! Damn it!!! F*ck, open the door!!!”

“…….”

“They’re coming! It’s the zombies! Those zombie bastards… sniff… open the door! Open the door! I don’t want to die! I don’t want to die!!!”

“…….”

“Please open it… please… please! Please? Just open the door….”

Just when I thought everything was over, I saw one figure who couldn’t ignore Choi Seonghan hurriedly open the door. I rushed in immediately, but several zombies followed me into the building.

“KYAAAAAAA!”

“F*ck, what the hell! Damn it!! Who opened the door! F*ck!!!”

“Run! Everyone run!”

“KYAAAAAAAAHH!”

“Help me!! Help me! Help me! Over here!”

“Close the door! Close it! Close the door quickly!!! What the hell are you doing! Damn it! Close the door now!!”

The building descended into complete chaos. But there was no time to get caught up in it. If you stopped, you died. I already knew that. If you stopped, you died.

I shoved aside the puppets who were screaming—I shoved and shoved and shoved—and started climbing the stairs.

“Help me! Help!!! Cough! Cough! Blegh!”

“Everyone go up! Go up!!!”

2nd floor.

If I went to the roof, I would die anyway. I kept checking the view outside, thinking that if I went all the way up, I’d just become a rat trapped in a cage.

3rd floor.

I looked for a place to jump, or a way to cross from building to building.

And then,

4th floor.

I could jump.

No, I had to.

The floor height wasn’t that high.

There was a banner I could grab.

As long as my legs didn’t break.

As long as my legs didn’t break….

“Just my legs… as long as my legs don’t break! Just my legs… please don’t break!!!”

If my legs don’t break, I can take it! I can keep running!

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHH!!!”

My body fell. I grabbed a banner hanging from somewhere and dropped straight to the ground. I didn’t feel pain.

Right.

There shouldn’t be any pain.

‘Ah.’

“…….”

‘We’re filming right now.’

It wasn’t a real situation.

I didn’t fall onto hard asphalt. I simply threw myself onto a soft blue mat.

In reality, I didn’t even fall from the 4th floor. The actual height was probably about 2.5 stories. Naturally, I let out a sigh of relief.

For a moment, my concentration broke, and I felt worried… but fortunately, it was a segment where my face wasn’t visible.

‘Thank goodness.’

I was writhing in pain, face buried in the ground. This was the time to clutch my shoulder, tremble my body, and struggle to force myself up.

I had figured my concentration might slip at least once, and luckily, it happened at the most optimal moment.

It was a one-take shoot.

If you make even one mistake, you have to start all over from the beginning. There were plenty of destroyed props as well, so setting everything back up would be a huge task.

The makeup would also have to be redone from scratch. A single mistake would cost an enormous amount of waiting time and money.

Whether here or there, making a mistake meant death all the same.

I realized once again that I must approach filming with the mindset that I might actually die.

Now, it was time to return to being Choi Seonghan. No, not Choi Seonghan—it was time to return to being Slave Joy.

I must move as if I were actually injured, as if every movement was a struggle.

It was a familiar feeling.

I’d already experienced countless times what kinds of movements were possible after different injuries.

I’d survived games of tag with my shoulder dislocated. I’d survived with one arm nearly torn halfway off.

I’d even survived while one of my legs was almost completely unusable. I was already used to this kind of performance.

“Aah… ah… AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHH!!”

Shouting, I forced my body upright. I knew the zombies reacted to sound, but I had no luxury to think about that now.

Getting my body to move came first. Moving a body frozen by terror, a body unable to move because of pain, a body exhausted beyond its limits—that was the priority.

I kept screaming.

“AAAAAAAAAH! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!! AAAAAHH!!! Sniff… waaaaah… uuuugggh… sniff… AAAAAH! AAAAAAAHHH!”

I ran while screaming.

“Sniff… waaah… sniff… AAACK! AAAAAAAAAA!!!”

Smoke rose up from everywhere. Sirens continued to wail. A car lost control, overturned, and crashed into several others before my eyes.

K-BOOM!!!

The sound of an explosion hit my ears. Large flames engulfed a building.

Several zombies and a few humans were caught in the fire, screaming. They flailed about as if dancing on burning coals. Explosions rang out from other locations; more and more buildings were engulfed in flames.

The sickening stench of blood mixed with the smell of gunpowder. My entire body was already drenched in sweat.

Fortunately, my voice began to disappear beneath all the surrounding noise. I screamed once more.

It was a voice mixed with sobbing. I screamed until my throat grew hoarse, until I could barely breathe, while dragging myself toward the place that felt the safest.

It was the place Choi Seonghan—no, most humans—would consider the safest.

“Seongah! Seongah!!!”

And then,

My younger sibling, already turned into a zombie, entered my vision.

“Grrr… grrrrr….”

Naturally,

“Grrrrr….”

I had no other choice.

“Sniff… sob….”

“Grrr….”

“Die.”

“GRRRRRRRRRR!”