Hunger

"Ugh..." With a small groan, Hyeon slowly got up off the floor. A pounding headache gracing him with its presence. He glanced around and noticed that the air had a red tint to it yet brighter than usual in a way. Flashbacks to before he blacked out attacked him and he froze. "Did I… Did I die?" he glanced at the door. "Yeon!"

Without haste, he sprinted towards the door, barely taking notice of the fact that his body was lighter and he was moving faster than he normally did. He threw the door open and ran outside the classroom. He froze.

"Fuck." At the sound more than twenty creatures clad in school uniforms snapped their heads in his direction, they sniffed the air a bit before deciding there was no food and dragged themselves along the hallway, moaning sounds escaping their dried lips. "Huh?"

Assessing his situation, Hyeon made a daring move near one of the creatures. Surprising himself, Hyeon had no fear, in fact, there wasn't a single jump of his heartbeat. The creature ignored him, even brushing against him as it passed but didn't react. "So I've become one of them… These are most likely zombies based on everything I've seen so far."

Hyeon thought to go look for his sister and as he stepped forward a pain ripped through his stomach and a moan similar to that of the zombies escaped his lips. Hyeon dragged himself to the nearest area and found himself entering a bathroom, the walls were painted a pale pink colour indicating he had entered the female bathroom, however, at this point, it didn't matter.

He dragged himself to the sinks and leaned over, splashing his face with some water. He glanced up into the mirror and saw that he looked no different from normal. The only thing that could give away that he was not human was the zombie-like flesh that covered the area of his neck where he was bitten. He had the same curly dark brown hair that fell over his forehead and eyebrows stopping over his eyes and going down to his nape, his black iris also remained the same despite the fact that he saw everything in a red tint.

It can be said that his eyesight had gotten way better than it was before he became a zombie, or could he be called a half zombie? To Hyeon, that didn't matter much, a zombie was still a zombie. It left him wondering what other benefits he got from changing races.

"I should go find my sister."

Hyeon had literally searched the whole school. Dead bodies, zombies and every corner to see if she was alive. However, there wasn't a single soul that was alive and she was not among the dead. Thus, he concluded that his sister had made it out of the school.

"Did rescuers come and save everyone?"

He tried to smile, however the muscles in his face just would not obey him. As he thought about it, he realised he had not blinked once since he woke up. The muscles of the dead were naturally stiff so this was just another proof that he was no longer alive.

Hyeon glanced down at his chest and if he was still human with saliva running through his mouth, he would have gulped. He reached his hand up to his chest and naturally, there was no heartbeat.

"I really need to hide the mark on my neck…" His situation was clear and he couldn't risk anyone developing the slightest bit of suspicion of him not being human if he wanted to return to his normal life one day.

"Outside the school should be normal, right?"

He wanted to go home as soon as possible, hoping that's where Yeon is and that his mother and father were okay.

As he got ready to run again. A familiar pain ripped through his stomach. When he first felt this pain he thought he'd felt it before but now he was just noticing that it was a more painful version of hunger. A zombie moan escaped his lips and he leaned over and gripped his stomach. 'Do I feel normal pain in greater intensity?'

He frowned as he thought about the logic. Zombies don't feel pain, at least not in all the fictions he'd seen about them. However he releases a similar moan to them when in pain. Could it be that they're always hungry and hunger means pain so they hunt humans for food non-stop. Maybe hunger is the only pain they feel.

Testing his theory, Hyeon took a look around, hoping he was on the right floor. It seemed as though luck was smiling down on him. He walked for a bit before turning and pushing a door open, stepping inside. The smell of blood mixed with aromatic ingredients filled his nose, he ignored it and sauntered towards the kitchen island.

Hyeon glanced around for a while before finally finding the object of his desire, a kitchen knife. He lifted the sleeve of his shirt and was about to slice when he noticed a similar mark to that of the one on his neck. A zombie-like skin, covering a large area. 'Come to think of it, the zombie did bite me in more than one area.' He glanced at the knife and an area of his skin. Hyeon clenched his teeth and dug the knife down.

His eyes that had squinted shut to prepare for pain gingerly opened themselves and stared with wonder, hesitantly, he roughly pulled the knife through his skin. There was surprisingly no pain. He was about to place the knife down when he felt a tickling sensation in the area he'd sliced.

Hyeon glanced down and saw his pale skin closing up and forming another patch of zombie flesh.

'So when my cuts heal, I develop zombie skin in that area. This is gonna be a problem' He was in a dilemma, if he wanted to hide these marks he'd have to use bandages or cloth to cover however there was no way that would go unnoticed and if they proceeded to remove the wrappings, he would be thrown into a hospital where they'd most likely find that he wasn't human from his lack of breath and heartbeat.

"Fuck."

Hyeon rubbed his temples, trying to think up a solution. The pain in his stomach was not helping at all. "Wait…" His hand movements came to a pause as he glanced in the palms of the hand hanging at his side where the knife was stationed and then at the stove.

If this was before he became a zombie, never in his lifetime would this thought even pass his mind.

Knowing it wouldn't hurt, Hyeon turned on the nearest stover burner and watched as the blazing fire rose. He lifted the knife and placed it over the fire and waited for it to heat up enough, when it was, he moved it over and pressed it against the recent area of zombie skin. He could see the skin burning beneath the hot blade.

He waited.

1 second… 2 seconds… 30 seconds… Nothing happened.

As he thought. It had to be an open wound for the healing effects to occur, thus he could cover the ugly skin with burn marks and then wrap it up with bandages. As this was a school, there was a nurses office where he'd be able to find the wrapping and a cafeteria to fill his stomach. This really was a convenient place to be.

He'd covered a total of ten marks, at least those that were in areas visible to his eyes; he had no way of knowing if he had missed a spot. There was one on the nape of his neck and another at the side. There were quite a few scattered over his stomach; the side, the centre and above his pelvis, there was another on his shoulder. He hadn't bothered with the ones that were on his legs as they were hard to burn and he could resolve that by always wearing jeans.

His skin and body was truly unsightly.

After he had covered all the vulnerable areas he saw, he ventured to the nurse's office which was a floor below; Actually the second floor of the school building. His unlimited stamina did not go unnoticed. He wasted no time in bandaging his arms from the shoulder balls down to the wrist and his chest area below the breasts and to the pelvis along with his neck. There was barely any skin left to view.

His next stop was the cafeteria.

Hyeon's hunger was rising to the point of being almost unbearable so when he arrived at the cafeteria, he was like a rabid dog on the loose gobbling up anything edible in his sight. For some reason, this only amplified his hunger. He doubled over in pain, moaning.

'Why?!'

His lying position on the floor gave him a view of a few unmoving bodies across the cafeteria.

They looked more appetising than the food he had consumed.

Before now, he didn't pay much attention to the dead bodies because he was always preoccupied doing something, now, they were getting his undivided attention. Unbeknownst to him, his eyes glowed a brilliant red. He found himself sprinting towards the nearest body.

There was only a second of hesitation before the hunger took control of his senses and in no time he was using his teeth to tear at different parts of the flesh. It felt like eating rare steak, hard to cut and hard to chew. He roughly devoured the girl, leaving areas exposing her skeletal system. When there was little meat left, his hunger was finally satiated.

"This is gonna be a problem."