genre: dark romance, zombie apocalypse
cw: death, violence, slight mentions of g0re, abandonment, grief
“Y/N! HURRY UP!” Kai snapped, impatience sharp in his voice
I huffed, juggling both bags in my arms. “I’m sorry!”
“Jesus…” Nari laughed, rolling her eyes. “She’s so useless. Jay, why did you even let her tag along?”
Jay’s jaw tightened. “I felt bad, okay? She had no one. And yeah, she helped me before... but now? I’m starting to regret it.”
“She’s nothing but a pretty face.” Kai sneers “What use is that during a zombie apocalypse, huh? You know, some of us,” He starts gesturing to Nari and himself “Don’t want to die?!”
“Your eyes look like they’re about to bulge out of your head!” Jay rolls his eyes “You need to chill out!”
“What are you guys talking about?” I say with a smile dropping the bags letting out a small sigh “Those are heavy!” I laugh
“Oh nothing!” Nari responds, sarcasm dripping from her voice
Jay stepped closer, lowering his voice. “Look, Y/N, it’s not just about strength out here. It’s about survival. You gotta keep up, you’re slowing us down.”
I swallowed hard, feeling their eyes on me like I was some dead weight. “I’m trying,” I whispered.
Kai crossed his arms, smirking. “Trying isn’t good enough anymore.”
Nari rolled her eyes again, flicking a piece of dirt off her sleeve. “Maybe if you didn’t stop every five minutes, we wouldn’t have to wait.”
I bit my lip, the sting of their words sinking deep. But I wasn’t ready to give up.
“Sorry.” I say “I’ll be faster from now on.”
“Good.” Jay smiles sympathetically
He looks around, the suburb filled with abandoned houses.
“Think we could stop here?”
“If we board everything up, we could crash here for a few weeks. We have enough food to last a month,” Kai adds
Jay nodded, eyes scanning the quiet street. “Yeah, it’s risky, but we need a break. No point running ourselves into the ground.”
Nari shrugged, folding her arms. “Just don’t let this place turn into a trap. You know how these quiet spots get.”
I swallowed nervously, looking at the cracked windows and faded paint on the houses. It wasn’t home. But maybe it could be safe.
Kai was already moving, pulling boards and nails from his pack. “Let’s get to work. We need all hands on deck if we want to last.”
I forced myself to push the doubt aside and stepped forward. “I’ll help.”
Jay glanced at me. “Good,” he said simply. “We’ll need it.”
I step forward to our new ‘home’, reading the plaque next to the door.
“The Song Family…” I whisper to myself, cautiously turning the door handle and stepping inside
“Hope there’s not a Stalker in there!” Nari shouts laughing
“I hope there is.” Kai mumbles
I brush off the nasty comment, coughing as the thick dust and mould invade my lungs. This place reeked of forgotten memories.
I take a cautious step inside, the floorboards creaking beneath my feet.
Jay followed closely behind, his eyes scanning every corner. “We’ll clear it out and make it safe,” he said firmly.
Kai dropped the bags by the door and pulled out a crowbar. “I’ll check the windows and reinforce the doors.”
Nari stares at me with her arms folded “You said you would help Y/N? What are you gonna do?”
“I’ll check upstairs for now, see if I can find any supplies,” I nod bravely heading to the second floor
“I’ll check upstairs!” Nari mimics rolling her eyes “And make sure you stay there, deadweight.” She mumbles
“Bitch.” I say under my breath. Nari and her attitude was starting to get under my skin. I shake off the negativity slowly opening the first door.
I pushed the door open, the hinges groaning like a warning. Inside, the room was barely recognisable, a ghost of the life that once filled it. Broken windows were boarded up haphazardly, cracked glass shards still clinging to the frames. Layers of thick dust covered every surface, while patches of mould crawled along the peeling wallpaper like dark stains of forgotten memories.
Posters that once brought colour and energy were torn and faded, a skateboard lay cracked and covered in dirt, a pair of scuffed sneakers rotting beside it. The desk was strewn with tattered notebooks, their pages so damp and smeared, you could barely make out the words.
A battered bed sagged under an old, worn blanket, stained with age and neglect. The silence was heavy, broken only by the faint drip of water somewhere deep in the house.
I spotted some scattered photographs on the desk and picked one up gently, brushing off the dust.
The first showed two boys, both tall and grinning like idiots. You could tell they were the kind of friends who didn’t need to speak to be understood. They had their arms slung around each other’s shoulders. One was laughing and pointing to the person behind the camera, while the other gripped a skateboard, leaning into his friend like he was the anchor that kept him grounded.
“Three, two, one… say… San smells like shit!” Jongho laughs holding the camera
Yunho bursts out laughing, pointing to San who skids to a hault on his skateboard, glaring at Jongho.
“What did you say?” San yelled, his voice cracking
“JONGHO!” Mingi laughed rolling his eyes, leaning into Yunho “Don’t be so mean!”
I look down, my heart clenching at the broken, moulded skateboard on the floor.
This had to be his room, I thought, tracing a finger gently over his face in the photo. He was handsome, undeniably, but there was something more. Something warm in his smile, something steady in the way he stood. He looked like someone who made people feel safe. Someone good. Someone who mattered.
I moved to the next photo, a soft laugh escaping me. It was the same boy with his mother squishing his cheeks between her hands. He looked thoroughly annoyed, while she gazed at him with unfiltered love.
“Mom!” Mingi groaned as his father snapped the picture. “I’m not a baby! You can’t just squish my cheeks whenever you feel like it!”
“You’ll always be my baby,” she smiled, planting a kiss on his cheek. “My beautiful boy.”
“MOMMY!” he whined, red-faced.
From the side, his older brother rolled his eyes. “You definitely act like a baby.”
The final photo showed a group of eight boys crammed together, the boy who owned this room stood front and centre, cake smeared across his face, a crooked Burger King crown perched on his head. His laughter was caught mid-breath. Pure joy frozen in time.
“I can’t believe you guys!” Mingi grinned, wiping frosting from his cheek as globs of icing dripped down his hoodie. “That was my birthday cake!”
“Don’t worry,” Seonghwa chuckled, clapping a hand on his shoulder. “Wooyoung made you another one…that you can actually eat!”
“I hope you like it… Actually, no. You will like it,” Wooyoung huffed, arms crossed. “I spent forever on that thing!”
“I love anything you make, Woo,” Mingi laughed, throwing his arms around him in a playful hug. His eyes were bright, radiating a warmth and peace that only came from moments like this. “I love you guys.”
I wipe a tear from my eye, my thumb brushing over the warped edge of the ruined photograph. The boys in the image still smiled, unaware that the world they lived in had long since crumbled.
I jump, startled by Jay’s voice behind me.
“No,” I answer too quickly, blinking hard. “The dust... it’s messing with my eyes.”
He doesn’t call me out on the lie. Instead, he steps closer, eyes scanning the photo in my hand.
“Did you know him?” Jay asks, quieter now. There’s no judgment in his voice—just something gentler, like curiosity tinted with regret.
I shake my head. “No. I just... these photos. They made me feel something. Like I could hear their laughter, feel how alive they were.”
Jay studies me for a moment, then looks around the ruined bedroom. “This was someone’s life,” he murmurs. “Feels wrong, stepping through it like ghosts.”
I glance down at the photograph again, then place it gently back on the desk.
“Do you think he made it?” I ask quietly.
Jay doesn’t answer right away. He looks at the broken window, the mould creeping up the walls, the shattered skateboard.
“I don’t know,” he finally says. “But if he didn’t... he wasn’t alone. That much is clear.”
The silence hangs in the air.
“Come on,” Jay says, nodding toward the stairs. “We should grab what we can and head back before they start wondering where we are.”
I take one last look at the room, and then I follow him out, the weight of that unseen past pressing gently against my chest.
We reach the bottom of the stairs and are immediately greeted by Kai’s obnoxious voice.
“Were you two making out up there or something?” He sneers
“No, dumbass,” Jay snaps, brushing past him. “We were looking for supplies.”
“Didn’t find anything, unfortunately,” I add, voice quiet.
“Useless,” Nari spits, not even trying to hide the venom in her tone. “Well, Kai and I did most of the work, obviously. So now we relax, I guess.”
“Who’s keeping watch then?” Jay asks, crossing his arms.
“Y/N. Since she did fuck all just now,” Kai says, shoving a worn handgun into my hands. The metal feels like it weighs a thousand pounds.
“I was looking for supplies,” I argue, gripping the weapon tightly.
Kai rolls his eyes. “Yeah? And found what, exactly?”
Nari cackles. “We’ll be lucky if she doesn’t shoot herself by accident.”
“Kai, you’re with me,” she adds, already making her way toward the door. “Jay, you babysit. You’re good at that.”
Jay’s jaw tightens. “Who put you in charge? I took you in, remember?”
“Blah, blah, blah. I don’t give a fuck,” Nari sings, strutting out the door with Kai at her heel.
“Assholes,” Jay mutters under his breath, checking the chamber of his handgun. “I’m gonna sweep the nearby houses. Might be something left.”
“No.” His voice cuts through mine, firm and final. He steps closer, placing both hands on my shoulders.
I blink, confused. “But I—”
“You’re a burden, Y/N.” He says it softly, like he’s trying to cushion the blow as if saying it gently will make it hurt less.
My breath catches in my throat.
“You’re sweet. But sweet doesn’t keep people alive,” he adds before turning and walking off without another word.
I stand there, gripping the gun Kai shoved at me like it’s some sort of joke. The silence creeps in again, thick and suffocating. Outside, the sun has started to dip behind the trees, and the house groans with age and wind.
Left alone, I sit near the boarded-up window, watching the shadows stretch long across the broken streets.
“We need to find a way to get rid of her.” Nari mutters peering through to boarded-up windows “She’s slowing us down big time, plus she’s just annoying as fuck!”
I clenched my jaw, seated just out of view in the corner. My fingers curled tighter around the grip of the gun. Every word scraped against my skin like sandpaper.
Kai laughed under his breath, leaning beside her. “She’s deadweight. Honestly, if something came through here and dragged her off in the night, I wouldn’t stop it.”
They were silhouettes against the orange-tinted sky outside, their figures outlined by the dimming sunset bleeding through cracked boards. I wanted to scream, to tell them I heard everything, but my chest was too tight. Instead, I sat frozen in my own silence.
Jay returned twenty minutes later, the soles of his boots scuffing against the warped floorboards. “Nothing good out there,” he muttered, wiping sweat from his brow. “Just emptiness.”
He gave me a short glance. No warmth this time. Just... tiredness.
A low groan.
Wet. Guttural. Wrong.
Nari turned first, her face tightening. “What the hell was that?”
Another groan — closer now. Followed by a heavy thud against the porch steps. The boards creaked under weight that shouldn’t be there.
Nari’s voice tore through the air. Raw. Terrified.
“GET IT OFF ME—!”
Jay moved instantly, gun raised. “Get behind me. Now.”
I jumped, stumbling a step back before pressing myself behind him, the cold metal of the gun in his hands the only thing between us and whatever was out there.
Kai’s voice. But already it sounded... wrong.
Wet. Weak. Gurgling.
I winced, eyes wide as the sounds on the other side of the door became unmistakable — tearing. Ripping. The sickening squelch of flesh being pulled apart.
“Kai…” I whispered, barely audible. My stomach churned. The scent of blood was already seeping through the cracks in the door.
Jay didn’t move. Didn’t breathe.
And outside, the screaming stopped.
Jay exhaled slowly, then took a step back.
“What?” I turned to him, panic flaring. “I’m coming with you.”
He didn’t look at me when he answered. His voice was flat. Cold.
“No. Find your own way. I’m not dying because of you.”
He turned and made a beeline for the back door, checking the clip in his gun.
“Jay—” I stepped after him, heart pounding.
He didn’t turn around. “Stay upstairs. Lock the door. If you’re lucky, maybe it’ll pass you over.”
He yanked open the back door—
—and was met with something tall. Hulking. Covered in blood.
The creature grabbed him before he could even raise his gun.
Jay shouted, struggling, but the thing drove him into the wall with bone-shattering force. His scream cut short as its hand slashed across his chest, deep and brutal, teeth sinking deep into his neck with a sickening crunch.
Jay’s body hit the ground like a ragdoll, blood already pooling.
I whimpered, dropping my gun, rushing upstairs, slamming the door shut.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck.” I sob as I hear staggered steps making their way towards the door.
A slow, dragging step against the creaking stairs.
I looked around, desperate for anything — something to wedge against the door, something to fight with, anything.
The room offered nothing but ruin: broken furniture, mould-ridden blankets, torn posters fluttering in the breeze from a cracked window. The memories that once made this a sanctuary now looked like a forgotten grave.
I yelped, backing away from the door, breath catching in my throat.
The hinges groaned. The wood creaked.
“Please don’t hurt me…” I whimpered, shrinking into the corner, my arms wrapped tightly around myself.
The Stalker stepped into the room.
He was tall with broad shoulders and long limbs that moved unnaturally, like they were no longer his to control. Dried blood caked his neck and chin. His clothes were torn, stained, clinging to his muscular frame like a second skin. And yet… he didn’t lunge. He didn’t growl.
Instead, he shuffled past, slow and unsteady. And then, to my utter confusion… he climbed into the bed.
With a low groan, he pulled the tattered blanket over his body, mould and dust rising around him like a cloud. He curled slightly toward the wall, knees drawn in, shoulders hunched. One hand gripped the edge of the blanket like a child trying to get comfortable.
I blinked, too stunned to breathe. My heart thudded so loudly it echoed in my skull.
“Huh?” I whispered, slowly rising from the floor, my legs trembling beneath me.
The Stalker didn’t react.
I took a cautious step forward.
He stirred, a soft twitch of his fingers against the mattress. His head turned just slightly, cheek pressed to the pillow. His lips moved soundlessly, like he was speaking in a dream.
I inched closer, heart pounding, reaching out a finger to tap.
His eyes shot open, letting out a horrendous groan.
I screamed, backing up into the corner once again, “I’m sorry! I’m sorry!”
The Stalker pushed himself up, swinging his legs off the bed and locking his gaze on me. He tilted his head, almost like a confused puppy, before wobbling forward.
I swallowed hard as he knelt before me, heavy breaths filling the silence.
“Your… room?” I whispered, voice trembling. “Your home?” I shakily made a little house shape with my hands, desperate for some connection.
Using all his strength, he nodded a yes with a grunt.
“Do you want me to leave?” I ask
I noticed a glint of silver around his neck and cautiously reached toward it.
He flinched, eyes wide with fear, backing up slightly.
“I won’t hurt you… I promise.” I extended my hand slowly, palm open.
He took it—his hand surprisingly warm, grounding, despite everything.
With care, I reached for the tag resting against his chest. It was worn and scratched, but the engraving was still visible.
"My Mingi. I will always love you. With love, Mommy."
I read it softly. “Your name is Mingi?”
He nodded once, eyes meeting mine. There was something raw in them. Wild, feral, but also painfully human. Familiar.
“Mingi,” I whispered, tasting the name.
He gave a small, broken smile. A ghost of the boy he used to be.
“N… name,” he rasped, voice hoarse. He pointed a shaky finger at me.
I hesitated, pulse racing. “Y/N.”
“Yes. Y/N,” I said, smiling gently.
But Mingi shook his head. “Princess.”
“Huh? No, not princess. It’s Y/N.”
“Princess,” he insisted again, slowly pushing to his feet with an awkward stagger.
I watched as he moved to the closet, digging through old boxes until he pulled out a battered cardboard crown. He turned to me, walked back, and placed it delicately on my head before kneeling.
“Princess,” he said again, softer this time.
I let out a shaky laugh, gently removing the crown to inspect it. “You’re funny… and sweet.” But as I turned it over in my hands, my smile faded. It was the same crown from the photograph.
My heart caught in my throat.
I scrambled across the room to the desk, grabbing the three ruined photographs. I held them out to him.
Mingi took the group photo with trembling hands. Eight boys frozen in a moment of laughter, cake smeared, joy unbroken. But his fingers tightened. His expression darkened.
With a sudden growl, he threw the photo across the room.
“Not your friends?” I asked carefully.
He said nothing, just breathed heavily, eyes wild.
I picked up the second photo. Mingi stared down at it, eyes darting toward the broken skateboard across the room.
I swear… I’ll come back for you.
The memory whispered through the air. A promise left to rot.
Mingi let out a guttural, furious sound. He bit down on the edge of the photo, ripping it in two with his teeth.
I swallowed hard, holding up the last photo.
“Is this your mom?” I asked gently.
Mingi stared down at the photo, not moving, just watching. His hand hovered above it like he didn’t dare touch it, afraid it might disappear. The fury that had twisted his features only seconds before slowly melted into something softer… something devastating.
Carefully, he took the photograph from my hand.
His thumb brushed over the image of her face. His mother, her smile wide as she pinched his cheeks, was frozen in a moment of pure love. His shoulders trembled. A faint, broken sound left his throat, something between a sigh and a whimper.
“M…Mommy…” he croaked, voice barely more than air. His knees buckled as he sat heavily on the floor, eyes glued to the image. “Mommy…”
I knelt beside him, unsure if I should speak, unsure if touching him again would scare him. But something about the way he held that picture, the way his fingers trembled, made my chest ache.
“I think she loved you very much,” I whispered, unsure why I was saying it, only knowing he needed to hear it. “She still does. Wherever she is.”
A tear slipped down his cheek, carving a clean path through the dirt and dried blood. And then another.
Not like a monster, not like a Stalker. Just a boy.
“I know…” I whispered. “I’m sorry.”
The room was quiet, just the two of us breathing in that broken space. The posters on the walls fluttered in the breeze from the shattered window. The crown sat in my lap. The photo trembled in his grip.
Then, softly, he leaned his head against my shoulder.
And despite everything—the blood, the horror, the deaths, I didn’t move away.
I let him.
Because in that moment, I didn’t see a creature.
I saw Mingi.
And he needed someone.
a/n: i hope you guys enjoy the prologue and chapter 1! please look forward to chapter 2 <33
