(no subject)
Defibrillation
2NE1
no pairing, Bom-centric
zombie AU, for the sept. unniefic challenge.
They were walking to this assignment. The truck had broken down halfway out of the city, and their nerves were running too high to sit and wait for somebody to pick them up. The roads were dusty as hell, so Bom lifted her boots high to prevent it from flying up into their faces.
“Squad 21, heading East. Back-up requested,” Sandara yelled into her radio. The answer came back crackled, but affirmative.
They all knew, but they said nothing. It was stupid of them, Bom thought, yet sweet all the same. She wanted to hug them all, but she figured running towards them suddenly would earn her a bullet in her skull-they might have chosen not to acknowledge the blood that soaked through the sleeve of Bom's jacket, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t on every single girl’s mind.
“We can talk about it,“ Bom said, clenching her hands around the straps of her backpack.
“There’s nothing to talk about,” Chaerin replied, in her best leader voice, but Bom noticed the way her lips quivered.
“First, let’s think back to what happened. So that it won’t happen again,” Bom continued, staying in step, “I was sniping from a building to the west, as the usual formation goes-“
“Nothing. Happened,” Chaerin snapped, her eyes trained straight ahead.
They cleaned out an entire neighborhood that day, ten long hours of staring through the sight of her rifle from an abandoned roof. She always tried to keep score but had lost track at around five-hundred and fifty headshots. It would be a good one for her tombstone: Park Bom, Her Team’s Ace Shooter, Probably Killed a Lot of Undead But Could Never Keep Count. Her whole body was burning up, as if her blood was on fire.
She heard Sandara’s “All-clear” break through the evening air, which was smoggy with gun powder. Bom skipped down the stairwell, equipment bouncing against her back, not even glancing ahead to check for any rogues waiting for her at the bottom. She was already bitten. She was invincible.
Bom remembered her trainee days. She had applied to be a member of the South Korean Reclamation Division fourty times, but always failed the psychological exam. Each time she had unfolded her results letter, heart beating hard, to see the same words written big and red: Will to Live - Weak. She hadn't understood what the big deal was about her weak will to live. Were they afraid she’d switch teams mid-battle, throw herself to the zombies, tell them valuable tactical information?
Suicide was common after The Outbreak. The world was filled with people who had nothing to live for anymore, now that everybody they used to know was a monster and the old way of life was gone. Bom didn't care for the isolationist policy or paranoia of New Seoul. Even within the giant steel walls that kept it safe, people locked themselves behind the walls of their suburbs and homes and themselves. Her parents had taken sleeping pills, her friend had shot herself in the head and Bom was done, ready to be reincarnated into an era that could decide whether or not it wanted to be alive. But she wasn't one to give up.
There was no better way to die than in the Reclaims Division. National heroes, cleansing the rotting streets of Old Seoul, bringing the land back to its people. Casualty rate of 70%.
So she kept applying. Later on they’d shown her the file they had on her-the government saved all of the applications they received-and it was so thick that she had her very own drawer. She liked that, the little label that said “Park Bom,” sitting apart from the hundreds of others that were lumped together alphabetically.
When they finally let her pass far enough to take a skill examination, she’d gotten the highest score ever for her height and weight class. She had the best aim with long-range weapons among all female trainees, although she had failed the tactical exam due to “absent mindedness”.
Chaerin had always warned Bom that that was how she’d get bit, not paying attention or getting lost or confusing her Plan A’s and Plan B’s, but it had just been a combination of stupid mistakes. Urban areas were much harder to clean, especially when the other squads they were working with handled the ground while they stuck to the rooftops. Communication between groups was difficult, in this case. Bom and Chaerin had been walking down the street after the job was done, headed towards the ammo reserves, joking about how they'd get pedicures once they returned to New Seoul.
It was impossible to decide whose fault it was. Sandara's for misinterpreting the other squad’s radio announcement as an all-clear, Minji's for leading the rogue in the wrong direction, or Chaerin's for just freezing in dumb shock when it grabbed her shoulder. Bom’s pistol was empty so she punched the zombie off Chaerin instead, but couldn’t withdraw fast enough to avoid the teeth sunken above her wrist. Minji had run up behind and shot it then, over and over. She emptied ten clips in the same corpse, screaming. But Bom had just looked down at her arm, pulled a brown tooth out of her skin, and laughed.
The house they had picked to stay the night in was surprisingly intact. There was a television in the living room that seemed to be in one piece, although obviously no cable reached these parts anymore. Bom wondered if the news would do a story on her death, one of those documentaries with the sad picture montages and friend testimonies. In the flickering lamp’s light, Bom kept her gun in her lap. It was her turn to stay watch, but Sandara had also stayed up. She needed a babysitter now, since at any moment she could turn into the very thing she was supposed to watch for.
“Don’t take it too hard,” Bom said. “You’ll get a replacement member within the month.” Camping out like this used to remind her of a slumber party. The four of them sunk deep into their sleeping bags, talking about how their lives had been before. Chaerin had been styling hair part-time and skipping high school to visit her college boyfriend, whose tires she slashed when she found out he was cheating. Now the only thing she slashed smelled like death and hobbled down the streets of every town and city in old Korea. Sandara had been a radio newscaster, reading commuters the traffic conditions every hour, on the hour. Now she kept track of the hordes, knew the streets well enough to navigate around danger zones. Minji had been training for her next ballet recital, standing on the tip of her toes and reaching, reaching. Now she only wore boots and used her flexibility to whip ahead, clearing paths for them. Bom had been waiting for the day she became famous, or died trying. She had been turned away from every role she tried out for, told they were looking for somebody with more acting experience. She'd made the short list for a modeling job, only to be informed they were looking for somebody younger.
Now she would get at least a headline in the daily paper. She had fans; most of the all-women squads were very popular with the public. She hoped the picture they included in her obituary was pretty, maybe one from the Vogue “Reclaiming Our Nation” photoshoot she had done last month, instead of the awkward one on her ID card.
“We’ll never be able to replace you, basket case.” Sandara said with a smile, drawing her legs up into her chest and wiping her tears on her knee.
“You were like my sister,” Minji mumbled from the inside of her sleeping bag, pulling it over her eyes.
“You were the best fucking shot out of all of us,” Chaerin said, sliding out and sitting down next to her. She hugged her close, Chaerin’s blonde hair tickling her nose, and for a fleeting second Bom admitted to herself how badly this sucked. She wanted to bolt. Even though her skin was losing color and she was already starting to smell like one of them, the will to live charging through her veins would have made the psych examiner proud. And maybe, she thought, this was what the zombies were. Just corpses defibrillated by the high-voltage desire to keep walking.
The light was too low for Bom to see the pistol in Chaerin’s hand as she lifted it to the back of Bom’s head, but she heard the safety switch off with a click.
2NE1
no pairing, Bom-centric
zombie AU, for the sept. unniefic challenge.
They were walking to this assignment. The truck had broken down halfway out of the city, and their nerves were running too high to sit and wait for somebody to pick them up. The roads were dusty as hell, so Bom lifted her boots high to prevent it from flying up into their faces.
“Squad 21, heading East. Back-up requested,” Sandara yelled into her radio. The answer came back crackled, but affirmative.
They all knew, but they said nothing. It was stupid of them, Bom thought, yet sweet all the same. She wanted to hug them all, but she figured running towards them suddenly would earn her a bullet in her skull-they might have chosen not to acknowledge the blood that soaked through the sleeve of Bom's jacket, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t on every single girl’s mind.
“We can talk about it,“ Bom said, clenching her hands around the straps of her backpack.
“There’s nothing to talk about,” Chaerin replied, in her best leader voice, but Bom noticed the way her lips quivered.
“First, let’s think back to what happened. So that it won’t happen again,” Bom continued, staying in step, “I was sniping from a building to the west, as the usual formation goes-“
“Nothing. Happened,” Chaerin snapped, her eyes trained straight ahead.
They cleaned out an entire neighborhood that day, ten long hours of staring through the sight of her rifle from an abandoned roof. She always tried to keep score but had lost track at around five-hundred and fifty headshots. It would be a good one for her tombstone: Park Bom, Her Team’s Ace Shooter, Probably Killed a Lot of Undead But Could Never Keep Count. Her whole body was burning up, as if her blood was on fire.
She heard Sandara’s “All-clear” break through the evening air, which was smoggy with gun powder. Bom skipped down the stairwell, equipment bouncing against her back, not even glancing ahead to check for any rogues waiting for her at the bottom. She was already bitten. She was invincible.
Bom remembered her trainee days. She had applied to be a member of the South Korean Reclamation Division fourty times, but always failed the psychological exam. Each time she had unfolded her results letter, heart beating hard, to see the same words written big and red: Will to Live - Weak. She hadn't understood what the big deal was about her weak will to live. Were they afraid she’d switch teams mid-battle, throw herself to the zombies, tell them valuable tactical information?
Suicide was common after The Outbreak. The world was filled with people who had nothing to live for anymore, now that everybody they used to know was a monster and the old way of life was gone. Bom didn't care for the isolationist policy or paranoia of New Seoul. Even within the giant steel walls that kept it safe, people locked themselves behind the walls of their suburbs and homes and themselves. Her parents had taken sleeping pills, her friend had shot herself in the head and Bom was done, ready to be reincarnated into an era that could decide whether or not it wanted to be alive. But she wasn't one to give up.
There was no better way to die than in the Reclaims Division. National heroes, cleansing the rotting streets of Old Seoul, bringing the land back to its people. Casualty rate of 70%.
So she kept applying. Later on they’d shown her the file they had on her-the government saved all of the applications they received-and it was so thick that she had her very own drawer. She liked that, the little label that said “Park Bom,” sitting apart from the hundreds of others that were lumped together alphabetically.
When they finally let her pass far enough to take a skill examination, she’d gotten the highest score ever for her height and weight class. She had the best aim with long-range weapons among all female trainees, although she had failed the tactical exam due to “absent mindedness”.
Chaerin had always warned Bom that that was how she’d get bit, not paying attention or getting lost or confusing her Plan A’s and Plan B’s, but it had just been a combination of stupid mistakes. Urban areas were much harder to clean, especially when the other squads they were working with handled the ground while they stuck to the rooftops. Communication between groups was difficult, in this case. Bom and Chaerin had been walking down the street after the job was done, headed towards the ammo reserves, joking about how they'd get pedicures once they returned to New Seoul.
It was impossible to decide whose fault it was. Sandara's for misinterpreting the other squad’s radio announcement as an all-clear, Minji's for leading the rogue in the wrong direction, or Chaerin's for just freezing in dumb shock when it grabbed her shoulder. Bom’s pistol was empty so she punched the zombie off Chaerin instead, but couldn’t withdraw fast enough to avoid the teeth sunken above her wrist. Minji had run up behind and shot it then, over and over. She emptied ten clips in the same corpse, screaming. But Bom had just looked down at her arm, pulled a brown tooth out of her skin, and laughed.
The house they had picked to stay the night in was surprisingly intact. There was a television in the living room that seemed to be in one piece, although obviously no cable reached these parts anymore. Bom wondered if the news would do a story on her death, one of those documentaries with the sad picture montages and friend testimonies. In the flickering lamp’s light, Bom kept her gun in her lap. It was her turn to stay watch, but Sandara had also stayed up. She needed a babysitter now, since at any moment she could turn into the very thing she was supposed to watch for.
“Don’t take it too hard,” Bom said. “You’ll get a replacement member within the month.” Camping out like this used to remind her of a slumber party. The four of them sunk deep into their sleeping bags, talking about how their lives had been before. Chaerin had been styling hair part-time and skipping high school to visit her college boyfriend, whose tires she slashed when she found out he was cheating. Now the only thing she slashed smelled like death and hobbled down the streets of every town and city in old Korea. Sandara had been a radio newscaster, reading commuters the traffic conditions every hour, on the hour. Now she kept track of the hordes, knew the streets well enough to navigate around danger zones. Minji had been training for her next ballet recital, standing on the tip of her toes and reaching, reaching. Now she only wore boots and used her flexibility to whip ahead, clearing paths for them. Bom had been waiting for the day she became famous, or died trying. She had been turned away from every role she tried out for, told they were looking for somebody with more acting experience. She'd made the short list for a modeling job, only to be informed they were looking for somebody younger.
Now she would get at least a headline in the daily paper. She had fans; most of the all-women squads were very popular with the public. She hoped the picture they included in her obituary was pretty, maybe one from the Vogue “Reclaiming Our Nation” photoshoot she had done last month, instead of the awkward one on her ID card.
“We’ll never be able to replace you, basket case.” Sandara said with a smile, drawing her legs up into her chest and wiping her tears on her knee.
“You were like my sister,” Minji mumbled from the inside of her sleeping bag, pulling it over her eyes.
“You were the best fucking shot out of all of us,” Chaerin said, sliding out and sitting down next to her. She hugged her close, Chaerin’s blonde hair tickling her nose, and for a fleeting second Bom admitted to herself how badly this sucked. She wanted to bolt. Even though her skin was losing color and she was already starting to smell like one of them, the will to live charging through her veins would have made the psych examiner proud. And maybe, she thought, this was what the zombies were. Just corpses defibrillated by the high-voltage desire to keep walking.
The light was too low for Bom to see the pistol in Chaerin’s hand as she lifted it to the back of Bom’s head, but she heard the safety switch off with a click.