Red Dot - 7

Chapter 7

Until now, people’s reactions, the words they spoke, and even the actions of the zombies were exactly as he remembered. That’s why he could stay calm. He just had to think of it as having another realistic dream.

‘It changed.’

A change of just three minutes.

It was such a short time that he could call it ‘only’ three minutes, but the future had clearly changed.

‘Why? How? Because of what?’

Junseong had planned to follow the successful route that had led him to the solution, so even this small change was enough to shake him. If it had changed because of something he did differently, that would be one thing, but he had been acting exactly the same. Yet, this kind of variable had appeared. And on the most critical first day, no less.

‘Is it my fault?’

Because of the damn realism, he hadn’t been able to move as quickly, and the time it took to enter the building had been delayed. It was only a few minutes, but could that small difference have caused this change in the future?

A different kind of fear washed over him, separate from facing zombies. The realization that even the smallest of his actions could change the future like this was so confusing it almost felt unbearable.

Knowing the future had allowed him to remain calm and rational. Even when fear crept in, he could suppress it by reminding himself it was just a game or a dream.

Knowing the future gave him that much power.

But now, if variables like this started appearing and the future began to shift, he might be forced onto a completely different path. A path he had never experienced, even in his two months of dreams. A path he could not predict at all.

Overcome by sudden, extreme anxiety, Junseong dropped his machete and curled up, wrapping his arms around himself.

‘Calm down. It’s okay.’

Like hypnotizing himself, he kept repeating those two short sentences.

About a minute passed like that.

Junseong opened his eyes, looking much calmer.

‘There are variables, but they’re not major. I can do this.’

He had survived thanks to the alarm going off late, and it was hard to believe that such a small variable would significantly impact what came next.

‘What I need to do is still the same.’

Whether there were variables or not, he still had to go save his younger sibling.

By the time he had sorted out his thoughts,

There were no more footsteps outside. He could hear distant screams, but they were coming from the lecture hall, where the blaring alarm was still ringing. That meant they weren’t close.

Junseong picked up the machete he had dropped on the floor and placed his hand on the doorknob.

Focusing on the sounds outside for a moment, he slowly opened the door.

He peeked through the small opening to check the hallway. Aside from the three-minute discrepancy, it was completely the same as his dream—empty. He carefully stuck his head out and looked toward the direction of the still-ringing alarm.

At the far end of the hallway,

Inside the large lecture hall with its door wide open, the loud alarm blared alongside the screams of countless zombies. With this much noise, it had surely drawn not only the zombies from the second floor and stairways but also some from the first and third floors.

Junseong knew that there would be no zombies until he reached the third floor. Even so, he moved cautiously and quietly. Thankfully, he managed to reach the third-floor stairs without encountering any zombies.

At that moment,

Someone peeked out from the still-ringing lecture hall. The person silently stared at the half-open door of the faculty office where Junseong had been hiding.

Junseong and the zombies weren’t the only ones who heard the alarm echoing from the second floor.

“W-what the hell?!”

Jiwoo, who had been using a plastic pole from a broken mop head to push away a zombie, was startled by the alarm and took a step back. Because of that, Soyeon, who was holding a long broom horizontally like Jiwoo to block the zombie, staggered for a moment.

“Hey…!”

Just as Soyeon was about to scold Jiwoo, the bl00d-covered teeth of the weight-pressing zombie snapped right in front of her nose.

Thud!

The sound of something bursting, like a watermelon, echoed.

As the zombie recoiled from the blow to its head, Chaeyi rushed in. She aimed the sharp end of a stick at the zombie’s eye.

Screech!

The zombie, its eye stabbed deeply, jerked its body in agony. It seemed to have hit the brain, but it wasn’t completely destroyed—it was still moving.

Without missing her chance, Chaeyi knocked the zombie to the ground and, using her body weight, drove the stick downward at its head.

If she had stabbed while it was still standing, piercing through the tough skull would have been difficult. But now that it was down, putting her full weight into the strike, the stick dug in deeply with a dull sound. The zombie, which had been flailing moments ago, soon stopped moving.

Soyeon, too scared to even scream, stared at Chaeyi, who was still pressing the stick into the motionless zombie’s head instead of looking at the corpse.

Chaeyi gave Soyeon and Jiwoo a cold warning.

“Stay sharp. One mistake and we’re all dead.”

“Uh…”

As Chaeyi struggled to pull the rod out of the corpse’s head with both hands, Soyeon took off her glasses and asked. She had been bothered by the alarm sound that had been ringing for a while.

“What’s that sound?”

“I don’t know. But thanks to it, all the zombies in front of the instructor’s office left.”

Except for this one zombie, which had already started rushing at them when the sound began.

The three of them, now covered in zombie bl00d, were startled by the sudden alarm but had the same thought—it was a chance.

As Chaeyi grunted, struggling to pull the rod out of the zombie’s skull, Jiwoo grabbed the other end and pulled with her. Normally, he would have just suggested leaving it behind, but for some reason, Jiwoo helped Chaeyi.

“Let’s hurry. We don’t know when the music will stop. If it stops, they’ll chase us here again.”

Jiwoo couldn’t ignore Chaeyi’s rod. Who knew when another zombie might appear? A blunt mop or broomstick was useless compared to this weapon. And, of course, Kang Chaeyi, who handled zombies calmly, was just as valuable.

Thanks to Jiwoo’s urgent expression and his effort to match Chaeyi’s strength, the rod came out in one go. He even looked slightly proud as he held his mop stick tightly and stood close behind Chaeyi. Soyeon wiped the bl00d off her glasses with her sleeve and adjusted her grip on the long broom in her hand, ready to swing it at any moment.

The three of them walked down the now-empty hallway without letting their guard down.

Huuuuh… Krrrghh…

With tense faces, they moved quickly toward the instructor’s office, but all three suddenly stopped at the same time.

A groaning, agonizing sound came from beyond the classroom door they had just passed.

Chaeyi swallowed hard and stared at the door. So much bl00d was smeared on it that it was impossible to tell whether the original color had been ivory or red. There was no one visible beyond the door.

It was Jiwoo, trembling in fear, who pointed his finger toward the bottom of the door.

“T-That…!”

Chaeyi and Soyeon followed Jiwoo’s gaze and immediately held their breath in shock.

A zombie, only an upper body with its waist violently torn apart, was crawling out, using its two arms to drag itself forward. Below its severed torso, a portion of its spine, with bits of intestine still attached, stuck out about a hand’s length and dragged behind it. The floor was smeared with thick bl00d and flesh, making its path easy to trace.

The half-bodied zombie had heard the alarm but couldn’t move quickly.

By now, the three had figured out a few things about the zombies they had encountered.

Zombies clearly reacted sensitively to sound, but once a human entered their short, bl00d-filmed vision, they attacked without hesitation. At that point, no matter how loud a noise was, their priority became attacking what they saw.

As proof of this, the crawling zombie from the classroom let out a much fiercer scream the moment it saw them.

“Kiaaaaagh!”

“Aaaahhh!”

Jiwoo screamed along with it and took off running toward the instructor’s office. His panicked footsteps and screams echoed through the hallway, mixing with the zombie’s shriek.

Chaeyi tried to smash the zombie’s head with the rod, but it kept shaking its head wildly as it crawled forward, making her miss and hit the floor instead.

The zombie had strong arms, enough to drag itself around the classroom. It didn’t care that its ear was torn by the sharp end of the rod. Instead, it stretched out its hand and grabbed Chaeyi’s ankle with a violent grip.

“Chaeyi!”

Soyeon, panicking, started frantically smashing the zombie’s head with her broomstick, but it wasn’t very effective.

Chaeyi saw the zombie opening its mouth wide, about to bite her ankle. She quickly raised her free leg and kicked its head as hard as she could, like kicking a soccer ball. A cracking sound came from somewhere in its neck, but the zombie still moved aggressively.

Tap, crack—tatatatak!

The horrifying sound of its teeth clashing together, as if about to shatter, sent a chill down Chaeyi’s spine.