WORLD WAR Y
the hour is midnight.
it’s rare—actually, improbable up until this point—for the subway to be empty at this hour. she doesn’t think much of it past the initial surprise; it’s not every day that she sprints down the steps of any station and bursts through the subway doors only to find that there is one (1) other person occupying the usually-congested premises.
she isn’t complaining. it’s nice having an entire bench to herself and the long ride she has ahead of her before sinchon station comes around is made all the more leisurely by the fact that she doesn’t have to spend twenty plus minutes arguing with some dude about manspreading in this economy. maybe she’ll spend some time at home working on some stencils before retiring for the night. it’s the middle of the week (maybe that’s why no one’s on) and she has classes tomorrow, sure, but the adrenaline rush of another piece completed in an obscure alley in noksapyeong leaves her feeling particularly giddy.
and then the subway car stutters.
yuul looks up from her cellphone screen, gaze flickering from side-to-side, inadvertently making eye contact with the girl—maybe a student—at the other end of the car. she shakes it off and returns her attention to her game of candy crush—
when the train stutters again, this time accompanied with a screeching noise and something clicking.
okay. this is fine. technology is unreliable. the world is full of faulty things.
—and then the lights go out.
okay.
the subway screeches to a halt in the middle of a dark tunnel and it’s inconvenient how her mind goes to these places automatically, but the first thought is brad pitt and then world war z and then train to busan and then gong yoo’s really too handsome to die and then zombie apocalypse and then the logistics of her, being on a train, being on a train that has stopped in a pitch dark tunnel, being on a train that has stopped in a pitch dark tunnel late at night on a wednesday evening which is probably the perfect time for a mob of zombies to strike if they ever coordinated their schedules—
she closes her eyes.
yuul takes a deep breath and thinks back to the five free yoga classes she got at the gym on top of the jokbal store she likes. something something count to ten and think about zen and shit. like dewdrops on roses and whiskers on kittens and.
“we’re sorry to any passengers, but the subway is experiencing some difficulties and we’ll be stuck here for a little while before the tracks are ready again!”
“hey—” she calls out into what might as well be the void, suddenly remembering the girl (hopefully not a zombie) in the car with her. “are you okay? are you even there? are you a ghost? god, i’m losing it.”
distantly, almost resignedly, yuul thinks that this is most certainly the place where she is going to die.
@csyerim
