Later Never Comes | Lee Eun-Hyuk|

Symptoms

"We have to kill him."

"Kill him?"

Byeong-Il was standing outside of the quarantine room with the store owner and another man. They were discussing the fate of the possibly infected man they had tied up.

"Do you think you can do it?" Byeong-Il questioned, causing the store owner to quickly turn around and look at him.

"Me?" He said, his eyes slightly wide with fear.

"You're the leader aren't you?" He asked.

"Who said they were the leader?" Ae-Cha asked, approaching the three. Each of them corrected their posture the moment they heard her speak, all of them stammered to speak before the store owner finally spoke.

"I did, because I am. We were discussing who was going to kill the infected." He said quickly, causing Ae-Cha to chuckle.

"Well, to show your leadership, I think you should take the first kill, don't you?" She said. Ae-Cha knew he was a coward and a liar, she just wanted to see how far he'd go to keep that lie up.

"Y-Yes! Of course!" He said, looking at the others. Byeong-Il gestured for him to go inside and do it before being interrupted by the other man.

"But he's still human.."

"Come on, Seung-Wan! Have you ever seen a movie? You die if you let the one that got bit live! It's only self-defence. It's okay." He explained and nodded at his own statement.

"Don't you think so, leader?" Byeong-Il said, looking at the store owner.

"Won't he starve if we just leave him?" He asked quietly.

At this point, Ae-Cha was getting bored of the discussion and wanted to walk away, she wasn't processing what they were saying until she heard Byeong-Il.

"Seok-Hyeon, go for it." He said to the store owner, all three of them agreed and Seok-Hyeon walked away to get a knife. On his way back, he grabbed a gas mask, just in case the infection was airborne.

Ae-Cha watched as he slowly walked into the room with the gas mask on, wielding the knife in his hand. She saw as he walked closer to the man before pausing and reaching into the gas mask. His breath had fogged up the glasses so he had to wipe them to see, defeating the purpose of him wearing the mask. He continued to walk in before feeling his foot hit against something, he looked down to see the body of the man killed by the tongue monster the day before. He screamed and hid behind the concrete pillar that rested in the centre of the room.

After taking a moment to compose himself, he peered around to check if the man had woken up yet. Thankfully, for him, he was still unconscious. He picked the knife back up, stood up properly, and resumed getting closer.

"Are you seriously going to let him kill him?" Ae-Cha said, surprised that he was really going through with it. "You don't even know if he's really infected!"

"But he was bitten!" Byeong-Il argued.

"That doesn't always mean you'll get infected from that! He hasn't even shown any of the symptoms the alert warned us about!" She said, now extremely concerned about Seok-Hyeon killing him. Byeong-Il realised that she was right, but before either of them could do anything, they heard a thud coming from the room.

They peered in through the window to see Seok-Hyeon knocked out on the floor and the knife impaled on the seat, between the man's legs. He had woken up and somehow knocked him out. Ae-Cha quickly opened the door and rushed over to him.

"I'm so sorry, are you okay?" She asked, immediately moving to untie him.

"Ae-Cha! What if he is infected?" Byeong-il questioned, too afraid to step inside the room. "We'll find that out, if he starts showing symptoms. Until then, we don't quarantine anyone prematurely. Got it?" She said, fully untying the man.