TWICE ONE SHOTS

Kept You Safe [2YEON]

It's blindingly bright outside.

But that might be because it's first time Jeongyeon's left her shelter in days. It's just dangerous now, even though the streets have been mostly empty for months.

If she cranes her neck hard enough, she can just see the tip of the church on the next street over where people flocked to the first few days after the virus struck. It's also, coincidentally, where Jeongyeon made her first kill.

It was frightening – horrifying – and even though Jeongyeon's killed plenty of others since, that's the one she has nightmares about. Nayeon had been scared, too –

Jeongyeon shakes the thought from her brain. Thinking about Nayeon makes her too sad, too withdrawn, and that'll kill her sooner than anything else.

The little drugstore Jeongyeon is in has been mostly wiped clean, but there are still a few beat up cans of ravioli that she stuffs in her bag. She only makes it a few steps out of the store when she hears it.

A loud, rattling breath and shuffling, dragging feet.

She turns very slowly – they don't react well to sudden movements, she's learned – and there it is.

She knows him. Or she used to anyway. He was her history professor in the class she was taking when the whole world ended. Dr. Lee was kind, funny, a good lecturer – Jeongyeon really doesn't want to kill him.

She carefully slides her hands down the emergency axe she stole from a hotel nearly two years ago (the night of her first kill) and grips comfortably at the worn handle.

Maybe she can get away without a fight. There may be only one infected that she can see, but avoiding the fight was always the best way to survive – it's how she's survived nearly two years (and the last few months on her own).

She takes a slow, hesitant step backwards.

Crunch.

Dr. Lee' head snaps towards her in an instant. Jeongyeon takes off, the glass under her feet scattering as she does.

Unlike every horror movie that Jeongyeon was so fond of pre-apocalypse, these zombies aren't supernaturally fast or strong. They run only as fast as the person they used to be could run. They also tended to be a little more uncoordinated – clumsy, even.

She's sprinting down an alleyway, trying to get back to the shelter she's been holing up in for weeks. Dr. Lee may not be able to catch up to her, but he's definitely staying on her tail. She probably won't be able to haul herself up the ladder before she's caught.

Impulsively (stupidly), Jeongyeon spins on her heel and grips her axe tightly. Dr. Lee doesn't slow, not that she expected him to, and Jeongyeon takes a deep, steadying breath. She's only got one good shot.

He gets within feet of her, his arms outstretched and his mouth agape, and Jeongyeon grunts as she swings her axe around, driving it directly into its brain.

Dr. Lee drops to the ground instantly, lifeless (again).

Jeongyeon's breathing hard as she yanks her axe back out, grimacing at the noises that emits. She may have been doing this for a long time, but that doesn't make it any less disgusting.

She doesn't really want to just leave the rotting corpse of one of her favorite professors lying in an alleyway just below where she sleeps, but if Jeongyeon's learned anything over the last couple of years, it's that she can't always get what she wants.

--

The apartment she crawls into is tiny. There are a few flashlights in one corner (some dead, some not) along with a couple of candles. There's water bottles scattered around, and Jeongyeon frowns when she notes that almost all of them are empty. She'll have to go out tomorrow to get some more.