A long ride later, they reached the basement under the bridge. It wasn't always a smooth turn. They encountered zombies every now and then and at times, they had to fight to move forward.

The air in the room was thick enough to chew on, stale and heavy with everyone’s silent eyes. Jeha was practically melting into the shadowy corner, looking like he’d been run over by a truck. A weak, flickering light from above made the bags under his eyes look like bruises.

He lifted a grimy bag onto his lap with a grunt. "I brought whatever I found lying around in that store," he mumbled, his voice rough like sandpaper.

Across from him, Mina rubbed her arms, trying to fight off a chill. She eyed the bag with rage. "Hah... but what's the actual point of all this? We can't even use them here." she asked, her wrist giving a dismissive flick.

Jeha let his head thump back against the cold cemented wall. A tired, dry sound that was almost a laugh escaped him. "If not for their actual use, one can at least toss them at those zombies or whatever they are."

A tiny smirk tugged at Mina’s lips. "You didn't run into any on your way back?" There was a hint of a tease in her voice.

Jeha shook his head, his eyes squeezing shut for a second like even that small movement hurt. "No. Just flying trash," he said with a slight shrug.

That did it. A stifled laugh burst from Mina. "Pfft."

Jeha’s tired eyes snapped open, pretending to be annoyed. "Why is that so funny?"

"No, haha, nothing," she managed, waving a hand at him as she tried to stop laughing.

In the back, Yuri leaned into Eunhye’s space, her voice a low whisper. "Mina's being pretty chatty with him."

Eunhye just gave a tiny nod, her eyes flicking between the two of them. The little back-and-forth fizzled out after that, leaving them all in that heavy quiet again, until—

"My house."

Yon’s voice cut through the silence like a knife. He sat up straighter, all the easy slouch gone from his body.

Sae Joon Hyun, who’d been sitting with his arms locked tight across his chest, frowned. "What about your house?"

"We can go there, Hyeong," Yon said, turning to face him fully.

"Why?" The word was sharp, demanding.

"There are... helpful things there. And a laboratory." Yon’s words were careful, measured.

Sae Joon Hyun’s expression turned to stone. "A laboratory?"

"Yeah. My father was in the research field." Yon held his gaze, but there was a caution there, a wariness.

Sae Joon Hyun’s face hardened completely. "I've been meaning to ask you this, Yon."

Yon’s head tilted just a fraction. A flicker of something—unease—in his eyes. "Yes... Hyeong?"

"Can we trust you?"

The question dropped into the room, and you could feel the air get sucked right out. Yon blinked, looking genuinely thrown. "Excuse me?"

"I'm sorry to say this, guys," Sae Joon Hyun said, his voice flat and hard, not sorry at all, "but apart from Eunhye Noona, Yuri Ssaeng, and Jaeyeon, you all seem suspicious to me. It is probably because we met a short while ago. But most of all, you, Yon. You act like you knew about all of this. You pushed open a heavy metal door on your own. You slice through them, and they take ages to stand back up. You carry a twin pair of knives. You carry around bottles of acid as well. I just can't trust you."

Yon opened his mouth, but Sae Joon Hyun cut him off, his hand slicing through the air. "Oh, and don't think I didn't hear the little conversation you had with Song Yunha."

Yon’s jaw clenched. His hands curled into fists on his knees. "Oh? Is overhearing conversations a habit of yours?"

"You tell me," Sae Joon Hyun shot back. "It's not like you were talking in your own room."

Nobody breathed. The tension was a live wire sparking between them.

"You know I'm right, Yon," Sae Joon Hyun pressed, leaning forward.

Yon let out a sharp breath through his nose, his eyes dropping for a second. "You eavesdropping on me and Yunha—"

"—was a coincidence," Sae Joon Hyun interrupted, his tone leaving no room for argument.

Yon’s eyes went dark. He leaned in too. "What do you even want to know? You heard it all."

"You did all that. How should I trust you won't do it to any of us?" Sae Joon Hyun’s voice dropped, low and dangerous.

"I won't." Yon’s reply was immediate, solid.

"How are you so sure, Yon?"

"Because Eugene is here as well." The words were so quiet they were almost swallowed by the rumble of the zombies outside.

Sae Joon Hyun’s brow furrowed. "Yon? Hello?"

Yon’s shoulders slumped. He glanced over at Eugene, then back. "I won't, Hyeong. My friends are here."

Sae Joon Hyun leaned back just a hair, his eyes scanning Yon’s face. "What is that supposed to mean?"

"Nothing should happen to them."

"You would have? If they weren't here?" The accusation was clear now.

Yon met his stare dead-on. "What's the point? They are here."

"Yon," Sae Joon Hyun said, his voice a mix of frustration and deep suspicion. "You'll have to stop talking in circles if you want this conversation to go anywhere."

Yon sighed, a heavy, full-body thing, and rubbed the back of his neck. "What do you want to hear?"

"The truth."

Yon was silent for a beat, then gave a single, sharp nod. "Fine then. Don't tell me you regret it later, Hyeong."

"I won't. Go ahead."

And so, Yon began to talk. The room seemed to get colder with every word.

[Approximately a year earlier - Boseong]

Yon’s father placed the small glass vial on the desk between them. It caught the light, something ominous glinting inside.

"This," his voice was steady, but there was an urgency underneath it, "this is a very effective bacteria."

The senior from the research bureau looked from the vial back to him, skepticism all over his face. "You want us to inject live bacteria into people?"

"Let's test it, at least. See if it works as predicted."

The senior sighed, drumming his fingers on the desk. "You really want to risk something like this? We're talking about human lives here."

Yon’s father’s expression was calm, resolute. "We have control over it. I have a bacteria disabler with me—if anything goes wrong, even in the slightest, we can neutralize it before it can do any harm."

The senior looked at the vial again, then gave a slow, reluctant nod. "Alright. I'll trust you on this one, Mister Lee since you have always been a great help to us. But this better be good."

"Thank you."

They started with a cat. For three days, they watched it. Its reactions got faster. Its reflexes were like nothing they’d seen. Its vision seemed sharper, its stamina endless.

The researchers exchanged glances. "It works...the test trials are a success..." one of them whispered, awe in his voice.

Yon’s father gave a slight nod. "Shall we try it on a human?"

The senior hesitated. "It's too early. We don't have enough data. What if it goes wrong?"

Yon’s father’s hand tightened on the vial. He pulled a small device from his bag. "I have the disabler. Like I said. If anything goes wrong, we neutralize it immediately. This could be the breakthrough."

The senior looked at the device, then back at the determined face of Byeong-uk Lee. "Fine. But only because it's you."

They found a man from the town. Injected him. Watched him for three days. Same thing. Reflexes quick, vision sharp, strength remarkable.

"Impressive," a researcher said. "This could change everything."

They turned the vials into tablets. They gave them to a few people in one region. For a month, it was a miracle. People were stronger, impressively clear-headed. Word spread. It was a success.

Then the reports started to change.

First, the side effects showed up in two days instead of several. Irritability. Little bursts of aggression. Then it got worse. People got violent. They stopped caring about anyone, even people they loved.

A week later, it only took a day. The violence was blind, raging. Neighbors turned on each other. Fights broke out over nothing. People started hurting themselves, biting, scratching.

It was a nightmare.

The research bureau shut it all down. Seized the stocks. Destroyed the samples. Erased the files.

Yon’s father packed up everything and left with his family. They moved to Jeonju. But Boseong was left in ruins, filled with violent, uncontrollable people. A ghost town.

When Yon finished speaking, the silence in the room was absolute.

"So," Sae Joon Hyun’s voice was the first thing to cut through it. "That tablet was your creation."

"Technically," Yon said, his eyes on the floor.

The silence that followed Yon’s confession was absolute, a heavy, suffocating blanket. It lasted all of two heartbeats.

Then, chaos erupted.

Charyeong moved like a viper, uncoiling from her seat and lunging across the room. Her hands flew to Yon’s collar, twisting the fabric in her fists as she yanked him forward, forcing him to look at her. "You!" she screamed, her voice raw and shredded with a fury so deep it seemed to crack her in two. "Because of you! We have to live our lives like this! You created those monsters!! This is all your fault!!"

Her shout was the spark that lit the powder keg.

"You created our death sentences!! You maniac!!" Ji-hoon’s voice ripped through the air from the other end of the room, high-pitched with a terror that had finally curdled into pure rage.

Charyeong kept shaking him, her curses a torrential, tear-streaked litany of grief and anger. Around them, the other students finally broke, the dam of their shock giving way to a flood of silent, horrified tears.

Eugene stumbled forward, his own eyes glistening, his face pale. He grabbed at Charyeong's wrists, his voice a strained, desperate plea. "Charyeong-ah, no. Let go of him. Please, just let go."

She whirled on him, her eyes blazing with a look of utter betrayal. "You want me to? Really? This man destroyed our world! He ruined everything—"

"I SAID LET GO!" Eugene yelled, his own composure snapping as he yanked her back with a strength born of pure panic.

Jay and Ji-hoon were there in an instant, catching her by an arm each before she could stumble, holding her back as she struggled against them, great, heaving sobs now wracking her body.

Then Mina’s voice, shrill and hysterical, cut through the noise. "You... our lives, my family, my friends, my dreams... everything got overrun by zombies... you... the zombies that you created!!!" In a blind rage, she scrambled for the nearest thing—the heavy induction cooktop Jeha had brought—and with a cry of effort, hurled it straight at Yon’s head.

It was a shot that should have connected. It would have brained anyone else. But Yon’s hand just snapped up, impossibly fast, and caught it mid-air with a sharp, metallic clap against his palm. He didn't even flinch.

Sae Joon Hyun stared, his own anger momentarily frozen by the sheer impossibility of it. "You... how are you... I mean... maybe it's possible but..."

Yon lowered the induction plate, his face still a terrifying, unreadable blank slate. "I took a pill too."

Sae Joon Hyun let out a long, slow breath, the horrifying pieces crashing into place. "You're a zombie yourself? But not completely I guess...maybe that's an advantage to us, but you are also a ticking time bomb."

Yon finally glanced up, his gaze empty. "Ticking time bomb is a stretch, don't you think?"

"You can turn into those things at any time. I don't think it's a stretch," Sae Joon Hyun leaned forward, his eyes, narrow slits of cold fury. "If anything happens, I'm tying you up myself."

"Tying him up?! TYING HIM UP??" Minji shrieked, her voice echoing off the metal walls. "THIS IS NOT THE TIME TO THINK ABOUT STRATEGIES, JOON! WE SHOULD TOSS HIM TO THE ZOMBIES! WHY ARE WE SUFFERING FOR HIS AND HIS FATHER'S MISTAKES?!"

Their raised voices attracted the nightmare outside. A low, guttural moan sounded, followed by a heavy THUMP against the base’s door. Then another. They were too lost in their own emotional hurricane to even register it.

Eugene moved then, placing himself squarely as a shield beside Yon, who had gone back to staring at the floor, saying nothing, absorbing it all. "It was a mistake!" Eugene cried out, his voice pleading, trying to reach them through the rage. "He didn't mean for any of this to happen!! Please! You have to understand—"

"He didn't mean to do it?" Young’s voice, usually so quiet and contained, rose to a deafening, broken roar. "Why would you try to do something so insane? What? They wanted to turn us all into superheroes? Well, did they ask if we wanted to be one at all?? I don't want super strength! I don't want super speed! I just wanted to have a happy family with Minji! I just want my normal life back!!!"

From the corner, Minyoung, who had never raised her voice above a whisper, who had endured it all in silence, finally broke. Again. But this time, it was worse. She let out a single, piercing, wordless scream of pure, unadulterated anguish that sliced through the chaos and silenced everyone for a single, shocking heartbeat.

In-Ha, her face a pale, set mask of a cold, terrifying anger, slowly and carefully handed the sleeping Kaneisyeon to a stunned Jeha. She trudged through the crowd, her movements deliberate, deadly calm. Yon looked up as she approached, and was immediately met with a sharp, stinging slap across his face. The sound echoed like a gunshot in the tense space.

She didn't say a word. She just slapped him again, harder, the impact jerking his head to the side, her entire body trembling with a fury so intense it was silent.

"My daughter," she finally seethed, her voice low, shaking, and venomous, "is in this hellhole. She will never know her father. Because of your family's stupid, reckless ambition. You destroyed the world she was born into. You destroyed us all. You are not human."

That was the final trigger.

Jeha snapped. The calm, collected stranger vanished, replaced by a vortex of pure, violent rage. He all but thrust the baby back into In-Ha's arms and launched himself at Yon with a guttural, animalistic roar. "I'LL KILL YOU! I'LL FUCKING KILL YOU!"

His fist flew. Eugene threw himself in the way, taking a glancing, brutal blow to the shoulder that made him cry out. "Stop it! Jeha, STOP! You really want to kill him? Are you insane?"

"LET HIM!" Jaeyeon roared, finally surging to his feet, his own quiet fury boiling over. He didn't know who to grab, Jeha or Yon, his hands balled into fists at his sides. "After what he's done? LET HIM!"

Yuri was crying openly, hitting Yon’s shoulder with her small, ineffectual fists, each blow punctuated with a sob. "How could you? How could you do this to us? My brother... my parents... how could you?"

"EVERYONE, STOP! JUST STOP IT!" Yunha screamed, trying to wedge herself between the swirling mass of bodies, her voice desperate. "You're going to get us all killed! Listen to them outside! STOP!"

Eunhye stood back, her arms crossed so tightly it looked like she was holding her own ribs together, her face a thundercloud of silent, supernova anger. Sae Joon Hyun watched it all unfold, his jaw clenched so tight a muscle ticked violently, his quiet anger a colder, more dangerous force than all the screaming.