세상의 끝: End of the World

Choi's Fall

"What the hell is that?"
A man peered through binoculars to look at the streets of Gimpo City below. He belonged to an independent team that had set up base in the upper floor of a former hotel. As he watched, the face beneath the binoculars went pale with fright.

"Shit!" He fell backward with a heavy thud, followed by the clatter of the chair. Moments later, a fireball exploded over the window. Shards of glass rained over the man as he crawled backward, terrified. "Shit, shit, shit!"
Below, on the street, a mutated zombie stared up at the broken window. Wisps of fire curled around its mouth, and its eerie white eyes scanned the building in front of it. In a display of intelligence and strength never before seen in ordinary zombies, the mutant creature jumped up onto the wall of the hotel. Its claws sank deep into the concrete as it climbed up, chunks of debris falling with its movement.
Not long after, miserable screams sounded from the top floor of this hotel. Upon the silencing of the last voice, a stillness formed. Then, that stillness was broken by the twitching of the bodies as the infected rose, their DNA transformed and rewritten by the evolutionary virus.

New mutated zombies emerged with every attack, and soon, they quickly overran Gimpo City.
At the city outskirts, however, the Survivor Guard base stood strong.

Lee Minho and Han Jisung had known about the wave of mutated zombies from the beginning. Their preparations began early, and by the time spring had come, the SKZ had finished its first round of training and construction.

The SKZ members moved to their positions with efficiency. Despite the nervousness and anxiety that permeated the air, everyone was ready to defend their home to the death.
The several layers of defensive fortifications protected the survivors as they sniped down zombies from afar. The ability users with powerful combat experience defended the ground, taking down the zombies that got past the sniper teams.

The SKZ members who were unable to fight stayed in the back lines, serving as medics, distributing food and water, and carrying messages between different teams and departments.

Minho and Jisung defended the northern wall, the side of the base closest to Gimpo City. Zombies rushed in droves, like horrifying waves of maggots surging toward the base. White-hot lightning rained down, a thunderstorm concentrated in a cataclysmic zone.
The two of them stood in one of the guard towers by the wall. Lee Minho held out his hand to help channel and control his ability. Beside him, Han Jisung knelt beside his mounted sniper rifle, precisely shooting down stragglers left behind from Minho's area-wide attacks.

One of the zombies survived through the barrage. It stared up at the guard tower to the face barely exposed through the opening in the wall. Snarling in fury, it threw out its hand and shot out a razor-sharp icicle, intending to stab Jisung in the head.

But in less than a fraction of a second, thin beams of lightning crackled and shattered the icicle to pieces. Like ravenous creatures, they jumped to the zombie and dug into it, electrocuting its body to charred, burnt ash.
Han Jisung didn't even flinch. There was no chance of anything making it past Lee Minho in his current state. Whether a zombie attacked him or not, Jisung continued to efficiently reload, aim, and fire.

These zombies came from Gimpo City. So long as new zombies continued to spawn from the people in the city, the attack on the SKZ wouldn't end.
The siege was only just beginning.

For the people trapped in the city, life reached new heights of terror. Zombies were no longer slow-moving, stupid creatures-now they had become alert, intelligent, and used abilities.
The SKZ had sent out a warning about an incoming wave of mutated zombies as early as half a year ago, but many independent groups had disregarded it as propaganda to lure them into joining one of the larger factions. Now these people didn't have time to regret it.
As the advanced zombies prowled the streets, people desperately fled and hid like bugs scattering from nests.