too quiet ⁀➷ chensung [ ✓ ]

CHAPTER ONE

when it all happened, it felt like a normal day.

jisung wakes up, eyes hardly open and his mind still dazed with tiredness. he rolls onto his back as his vision adjusts and clears, seeing the ceiling above his head. white and plain as always, a normal sight every morning jisung wakes up. a candle to his boring, repetitive life. nothing much interesting happened to him ever, and in the sense that nothing out of the typical norm has occurred. but, in a way, jisung likes that. he has a loving family, great friends, and a stable life. what more exactly could he ask for?

well, a less boring day. he did get his wish, however, just not the way he wanted it to.

he heads to his kitchen to make himself some cereal to eat. he yawns as he basically blindly gropes around in his cabinet until his hand grabs onto a cereal box and pulls it to his chest, rubbing more sleep from his eyes as he done when he first woke up. the cereal box goes onto the table and he goes back for a bowl, easily reaching up and grabbing it and places it on the table beside the cereal.

then, the usual happens — jisung pours cereal into the bowl, yawns again, gets the milk from the fridge to add just the perfect amount to it before returning the carton, and then gets a spoon and digs in.

his habit of leaving the tv remote on the dining table proves rather beneficial in his favour and he's easily able to turn the tv on from where he remained sitting, putting on the news for today, which seemed to be the automatic set channel for whenever the television first turns on. jisung's still very much half-sleep at this point, and he accidentally bumps the spoon against his cheek before he realised it missed his mouth by a bit.

at least if he falls right back asleep again, it won't cost him. jisung managed to get a well-earned off for the day and wasn't planning on doing anything major or energy consuming. now, he could relax and not worry about anything.

his still sleepy head doesn't process what he sees on the news when he cares enough to look and properly listen, continuing to slowly eat his breakfast. the news anchor looks worried, fear clear in her eyes as she starts speaking, and the things that come from her mouth sound awfully unbelievable to the young man.

"a weird outbreak of people attacking others and biting others," she starts to explain. "and those who are bitten end up the same way hours later. doctors can't explain what's going wrong."

spreading some disease through biting. how interesting, jisung thinks halfheartedly. perhaps he's still dreaming and this isn't real and his brain is just sending him through a retelling of some zombie film he might've watched.

he knows what she's describing as he goes on explaining the appearances of the dangerous biters, but it can't possibly be real. jisung closes his eyes, but her worried voice that keeps going never seems to end.

"...unable to understand a human voice and vicious, going straight for human skin," she goes on. "they are recommending contacting family and checking up on them and not leaving your house unless for a major problem, such as medical care or food. the disease has especially hit...."

jisung's eyes fly open as his house phone starts to ring. his eyes go to where it was on the wall, and his eyes widen. oh, is was all real, wasn't it? the news anchor is still reading off things as he stands up to answer it. if this isn't a dream and the news is talking about it, it can't be a hoax. he grabs the phone, hesitates for a few moments for no particular reason, then finally answers the call.

"hello?" he says into the phone, unsure.

"hello, are you alright? are you at home?" it's his loving mother. she's watched the news too, of course. she always liked to stay updated on important things for everyone's sake as she claimed.