Minho

Seven months had passed since the world collapsed under the weight of a disease that spread like wildfire, reducing humanity to prey in a matter of hours. There was nothing human left in them – only teeth, rot, and a mindless need to tear into anything that moved.

Minho had been a police officer once. Back when order still existed, when sirens meant help was coming rather than the opposite. The outbreak hadn’t caught him off guard – survival was an instinct he’d honed long before the world ended. When dawn broke, he moved with purpose, gathering what little the new world still deemed valuable.

The streets were never quiet anymore, not truly. Even in the absence of screams, there was always the scrape of decayed limbs against pavement, the wet, guttural sounds of things that no longer needed breath. That was why the noise ahead made him pause – not just the groans of the dead, but the sharp, panicked rustle of someone still very much alive.

A horde shuffled in the distance, their movements sluggish but relentless. And then, from the mouth of a narrow alley, a figure stumbled forward – a guy, disoriented, his breath coming in shallow gasps. One misstep, one startled sound, and the dead would turn their hollow eyes his way.

Minho didn’t think. He lunged, closing the distance in seconds, his body slamming into the guy’s with enough force to knock the air from his lungs. They hit the debris-strewn ground hard, Minho’s hand clamping over the guy’s mouth, stifling a startled cry. He could feel the frantic, ragged heat of the stranger's breath against his palm.

— Shut it. Don't move, the words were a harsh, barely audible hiss directly against the guy’s ear.

Beneath him, the stranger stiffened, his pulse hammering against Minho’s palm. The walking corpses lumbered past, their stench thick in the air, their moans fading into the distance.

Only then did Minho loosen his grip, just enough to let the guy breathe.