Infected

Chapter 7

Read at your own risk

"Today's the day," Seungmin said absentmindedly, watching the sunrise over the horizon. "Anyone wanna go check?"

Jeongin and Minho had gone hunting for food in the forest, leaving Seungmin, Jisung, and Hyunjin alone with the three others.

"Do we have to?" Hyunjin asked softly. He was afraid of what he would see when he opened the door. He prayed that everything would be fine when the time came where they did check.

"Seungmin, do you remember if the people on the radio said if there was a specific time that people who were infected transform?" Jisung asked nervously, hoping there was still time.

"No. Well, they did say that if a person doesn't transform between midnight and noon then they're not infected," Seungmin answered, not prying his eyes away from the window.

"We should go check now then," Hyunjin muttered. "Just in case."

A yell from the guest room made the decision for them. They ran down the hall, frantically fumbling with the lock on the door before finally being able to push it open.

"Chan, stop it!" Felix cried. Each word sounded like he was struggling to form them, forgetting what they were supposed to sound like.

Chan had pinned Felix against the wall, leaving him no way out. Changbin's corpse lay in the middle of the room, limbs tossed carelessly to the side, cleaned to the bone. His body was so mutilated that they could no longer recognize him. He didn't even look human anymore.

Felix's eyes drifted over Chan's shoulder, spotting the three of them that were standing frozen in the doorway, believing that his saviors had arrived.

"Help me!" Felix pleaded. He was also showing signs of being infected. His skin was turning a sickly gray, and his eyes were glazed and bloodshot. He wouldn't be the Felix they knew for much longer.

"Why are you just standing there? Help-"
In one singular motion, Chan bit into Felix's throat, tearing it open. Blood and unrecognizable parts from his throat dripped onto the floor, his dead eyes staring blankly ahead, betrayal frozen on his face.

Hyunjin quickly pulled Jisung and Seungmin out of the room and locked the door behind them. Unfortunately, the locked door did nothing to muffle the sickening ripping noise as Chan tore Felix's head from his torso.

Seungmin's normally calm exterior shattered as tears began to slowly slip down his face. This was the first time in a while that he had exposed the fragile side of him, which he almost always kept hidden. Jisung had run off to grab the gun from his room, leaving Hyunjin to deal with the younger.

"I'm sorry, Seungmin," Hyunjin said, blinking back tears of his own. "Felix was going to transform soon. It was for the best. And...and Chan...Chan hyung isn't there anymore. The infection took over him."

"He has to be in there somewhere! Right? Right?!" He cried, tears falling faster.

"He's not there," Hyunjin sighed. "You heard the radio. Chan hyung died once the infection took over. There's no cure and we won't be able to get him back."

As much as it pained him to say this, there was no point in sugarcoating it. In the span of just a few minutes, their group of eight had dwindled down to five.

"Then...what about Changbin hyung?" Seungmin asked softly.

"He was dead long before Chan hyung...you know," Hyunjin answered, wishing the barrage of questions would soon come to an end.

Jisung returned, a fully loaded gun in hand. He rested his free hand on the door knob, looking from Hyunjin to Seungmin.

"I know this is hard, but now is not the time to lose our composure," Jisung said as gently as possible. "We need to kill Chan before he causes more trouble."

He hesitated to unlock and open the door, afraid to face the terrors that lay just on the other side once again. None of them wanted to see the mutilated corpses that had stained the wooden floor crimson with blood. They especially didn't want to see what Chan had done to Felix.

Jisung took a deep breath, pushing the door open and immediately lifting up the gun, prepared to shoot. Hyunjin's eyes migrated to Felix's corpse, his head torn cleanly off the rest of his body. Unlike Changbin, the rest of his body remained intact. He fought back a wave of nausea and scanned the room for any signs of Chan.

The gray, moth-eaten curtains fluttered in the breeze, the window below open just enough for someone to climb through. They could see Jeongin and Minho exiting the outskirts of the forest.

Chan had spotted them and escaped.