Chapter 12: Doomsday Believer

We returned to our seats as if we hadn’t seen anything. After checking our masks were secure, we went to the entrance bathroom and thoroughly washed our hands with soap.

Professor Kim returned around then. After washing the rice bowl, he sat down wiping his wet hands on his clothes. A faint laugh drifted over.

“As you’ve probably noticed, my wife has become a zombie. I managed to restrain her while she slept, but I’m likely infected too.”

“Ah, yes…”

Not knowing what to say, I let my words trail off vaguely. Professor Kim seemed to take that ambiguous pause as an opening to pour out his thoughts.

He spoke:

“My wife and I will die in this house. We’ll starve to death in this concrete prison.”

“If you went outside…”

I didn’t suggest joining us. Professor Kim shook his head at my hesitant words.

“They say live each day as if you’ll die tomorrow. I want to live my remaining days without shame. Wouldn’t it be shameful for someone who advocated culling to spread the virus just to survive?”

“Ah.”

Do-hyung let out a short exclamation. Glancing over, I saw eyes full of deep respect for the professor. Those eyes briefly turned to me, brows furrowing strangely.

Eyes that seemed to question if we were the same species.

“What?”

“Nothing, just…”

After a brief squabble, I turned back to Professor Kim. Though I couldn’t recruit him as a comrade, I could still learn from him.

“Professor. I also think destruction is coming. I’ve made survival plans – would you evaluate them?”

“Ah, that’s a good idea but…”

Professor Kim glanced at the clock on the living room wall. Past noon, when most people would be eating lunch. He bowed his head apologetically.

“It’s about time for my broadcast.”

A signal for us to leave. Well, we had arrived quite late due to blocked roads.

“Can’t be helped then.”

“Wait a moment. Let me give you something.”

As we stood up, Professor Kim hurried to another room. Through the open door I glimpsed what must be his broadcasting room, filled with computers, cameras, and bookshelves.

I muttered quietly:

“Should we accept? What if it has virus on it?”

Though he’d kept his distance and not even offered us water, I still felt uneasy. Like having someone with COVID cough in front of me.

“Take it. The professor wouldn’t do anything bad to us.”

Do-hyung, who’d nudged me, seemed deeply moved by Professor Kim despite just meeting him today. What happened to suspecting him of attention-seeking? We’d barely talked for 10 minutes.

Perfect. I quickly stepped back.

“Then you take it.”

“Wow. How can someone really…”

Professor Kim returned then, holding a thick stack of papers that swayed as he walked. From what I glimpsed of the papers sticking out, they looked like broadcast scripts and research documents.

“These are materials I’ve organized and scripts I prepared for broadcasting. They should be helpful, at least for a while.”

“Thank you, Professor.”

Do-hyung quickly bowed after receiving the stack. I bowed as well.

“We’ll make good use of them. If we survive, it’ll all be thanks to you, Professor.”

“Hmm…”

The expected polite response didn’t come. When I raised my head, I saw Professor Kim’s face hesitating over something.

It felt like he wanted to make a request. I planned to pretend not to notice and respond with silence, but Do-hyung spoke up:

“If you have something to say, please feel comfortable telling us!”

“It’s not really a request… Just that I feel you might survive for a while…”

Looking away awkwardly, Professor Kim took out his phone and showed us a photo. A young female college student.

“This is my daughter. If my materials help you, and if you have the means and opportunity, perhaps you could help…”

“Of course. After all the help you’ve given us.”

I nodded quickly. An empty promise. We’d already received the materials. If I forgot later or deliberately broke the promise, this was just a white lie for now.

“This guy isn’t usually like this…”

Do-hyung muttered, but no one heard. Even Professor Kim seemed to have made the request without much expectation, since he’d already given us the gift.

“It was nice meeting you today. Please get back safely.”

That ended our meeting. Professor Kim went to his room saying he needed to broadcast, and we descended the twelve flights of stairs.

Finally reaching the first floor.

“Oh dear. Oh dear.”

Police and paramedics were there. The elevator doors were wide open. Blood had pooled and flowed out, with a baseball bat and kitchen knife lying nearby. Two bodies had been placed in body bags.

“What’s happening to this world…”

The elderly security guard muttered, looking down at the bodies.

I also stopped walking briefly. Two bodies. One must be a zombie and one human, but in death their bodies looked the same. Bloodless complexions, limbs like wooden blocks, completely motionless.

The only corpses I’d seen before were my deceased parents. But I’d seen far more bodies these past few days.

‘So this is what they mean by apocalypse…’

A disaster more dangerous than expected. Shouldn’t I prepare more?

“Let’s hurry. What if we get infected?”

Urged by Do-hyung’s pushing hands, I quickened my pace again. Before leaving the apartment complex, I took one last look at the tall building.

‘Noted – apartment with epidemic.’

From the looks of it, there seemed to be many infected besides just the professor and his wife. Once some time passed, and after recruiting thieves, this place would be a treasure vault. Or I’d have to learn to steal myself.

In the camper van parked on a quiet street.

We read through the materials while Professor Kim’s live broadcast played.

Everyone. I will guide you on how to survive this disaster for as long as possible.

Professor Kim’s heavy voice came from the phone. Even after his wife was infected, even after he was infected, even not knowing when he’d turn into a zombie, he spoke about ways to live on.

Glancing at the phone briefly, I saw his eyes. The resolve of someone taking action even in despair.

“…”

Sometimes in life you meet people you just can’t understand. For me, it was good people like the professor. I couldn’t empathize with why they acted that way at all. What benefit was there?

But I couldn’t look down on Professor Kim.

Because he was a teacher in my heart.

‘Professor who advocated killing a million citizens… You’ll live on in our hearts.’

Rustle-

Turning pages. Neat handwriting on manuscript paper, notes written over printed materials, ideas scrawled and underlined like random memos.

Every word written by the professor who recognized the end, likely staying up through nights, was helpful.

The fragmented, pluralistic modern society. In early apocalypse, survivors would likely divide into various groups.

Simulations of nuclear plant explosions. Seasonal wind patterns showing radiation spread paths and ranges.

Epidemic prevention clothing and behavior guidelines.

Methods for growing crops in buildings using recycled plastic bottles, and so on.

But red lines were drawn through all those notes and materials. Moving toward the back, prophecies of a gloomy doomsayer replaced information.

Everyone dies…

Insufficient water, virus mutations, contaminated water and soil, zombie birds migrating across borders and seas, viruses evolving to break through vaccines…

The logic that humanity would ultimately lose to the virus resembled the professor who would eventually turn into a zombie after infection.

But just as I remained fine even though the professor would become a zombie, there was hope. Even if the world ended, some would survive.

Just then, a growling sound suddenly rang out.

“What’s that!”

“Ah!”

We jumped in shock and grabbed our weapons while looking around, but there were no zombies near the van.

It was the phone.

Professor Kim, who had been laying out materials and lecturing, had turned into a zombie. Drooling continuously, he blinked his eyes before slowly getting up and wandering around the closed room.

“…”

“…”

Silence fell. Do-hyung seemed terrified by the sight. Looking back and forth between the professor and his doomsday writings, he hung his head.

“If the world really ends… Is there any point in living like this?”

“No. Those are just guesses. Simple doomsaying. People will survive.”

I shook my head emotionally. Believing that literally would be too stressful. I’d found hope in destruction. Hope that we could survive no matter how bad things got.

‘I believe in our Chairman. He can’t be that evil of a person. He just can’t be.’

He couldn’t be someone who truly wanted humanity’s extinction. This virus couldn’t be that horrific of a disaster. It would just end as a post-apocalyptic scenario.

If we struggled and twisted our bodies enough, we could survive.

“It’s fine even if the professor’s predictions are right. We can boil water and cook meat. There are canned and sealed foods too. With masks, gas masks, gloves, and proper clothing, we won’t get infected.”

As I spoke, I felt more convinced by my own words. Even if the worst case happened, maybe it wouldn’t be that bad?

“But-“

Do-hyung seemed about to say something meaningless. I immediately raised my hammer.

“Want me to kill you now then?”

Those without will to live were rejected as marauders. Having them around would only harm mental health.

“…No. I should live. You’re right. I can’t die.”

Seems physical therapy wasn’t needed. Seeing the hammer, Do-hyung’s senses seemed to return as he blinked.

I lowered the hammer. Then fell into thought. What I needed to prepare now. What I needed to plan for. What to review and modify from the professor’s materials.

‘Supplies are secondary.’

To possess things that weren’t originally mine required exchanging money. But when plunder enters the equation, that boundary crumbles. What’s mine is mine, and what’s yours becomes mine too.

Meaning everything in the world was potentially mine.

Drumming my fingers on my knee, I muttered softly:

“Base. People. Yes, people.”

Experts like Professor Kim were top priority. Knowledge would be the scarcest resource in a destroyed world, so experts in any field – medical, electrical, mechanical, whatever.

But would that matter? Wouldn’t any experts I found be infected?

I looked at the phone with its loud noises. Professor Kim, who had been wandering the room, was now banging on the wooden door. Swinging his fists, throwing his body, kicking.

He who had spoken of faint hope even in the apocalypse had now become part of that apocalypse.

It was a world where hope was hard to find.