Pregnant During An Apocalypse [BL]

Chapter 301: Chapter 302 - Venturing out

Shinju stood quietly as the last box slid into the back of the vehicle, his tall frame hunched slightly from fatigue, but his hands still steady. The old military SUV had been refitted for off-road travel—thick tires, reinforced bumpers, spare tanks of fuel mounted on the rear. Beside it, Jinju wiped her palms on her pants and looked around the compound one last time.

She turned to him. ”You’re really coming with me?”

He gazed at her with that same small, lopsided smile. ”You think I’ll let you go out there alone?” His voice was light, but his eyes were serious.

Jinju frowned deeply, lips pressed in concern. ”But what about things here? Don’t you have responsibilities? The civilians... the guards, the command center...”

Shinju paused in the middle of securing a tarp over their food supplies. His face, usually calm and in control, flickered with weariness.

”To be honest...” He pulled the rope tight and tied it off with a slow knot. ”I’m losing control of the base.”

Jinju’s eyes widened slightly.

He continued, not quite meeting her gaze. ”The soldiers who were once loyal and obedient—they’re starting to act out. Morale’s plummeting. Some haven’t seen their families in weeks. Others lost their loved ones and still followed orders—until I gave that order...”

She knew what he meant. The order to shoot anyone showing signs of infection, no matter who they were. Wives, brothers, children—it didn’t matter. And even though it had stopped the spread in the short term, it had left deep scars.

”Killing infected family members might have been the only option,” he muttered, ”but it made them resent me. And now... I don’t know if they’ll follow me at all.”

For a moment, there was no commander standing there—just a tired, middle-aged man with a gun and a past. His lips pressed into a tight line.

”I’ve been an army commander all my life,” he admitted. ”I’ve overcome ambushes, insurgencies, riots, but this—this plague—” he chuckled without humor, ”—this is not something training prepared me for. Out there, power isn’t in your title. It’s in whether you have food, shelter... and people who still trust you.”

He took a deep breath, forcing a smile as he looked at her again. ”It’s okay. We’ll be right back. I’m pretty sure once I bring my son and father back, I can focus better on pulling this place together.”

Jinju bit her lip. She didn’t say anything. She just nodded.

They spent the next hour double-checking everything. Every dry good that could survive the road—crackers, jerky, nuts, rice, pickled vegetables, powdered milk—was sorted and stacked neatly in boxes. Small packets of soy sauce, wet wipes, extra batteries, even bandages and iodine swabs were packed in.

Nothing was forgotten.

The rest of the storage—bags upon bags of flour, sealed drums of cooking oil, sacks of beans and medical supplies—was locked in the hidden room Shinju had prepared beneath his home’s sublevel. The entrance was carefully plastered over, bricks relaid, and the wall painted to match the rest. No one would suspect a thing.

He stood back and surveyed his work. ”Even if we don’t make it back... someone decent might find it someday.”

Jinju looked up at him. ”We will make it back.”

He gave her a look—soft, not mocking—and just nodded once. He didn’t argue.

At the first break of light, the engine rumbled to life. The gates were pulled open just enough to let them through, and the vehicle rolled slowly into the gray morning mist. Behind them, City S was quiet. Too quiet. The usual guards didn’t even look up as they passed. A few civilians stood in corners, eyes sunken and shoulders sagging.

It was no longer the safe haven it had once promised to be.

But there was no time to dwell on that.

Ahead, the road to City stretched like a thin thread across an unraveling world.

In just a span of days, the world had fallen into chaos.

The nearby village outlining their base had once been a quiet countryside haven with vegetable gardens, a primary school, a tiny clinic, and old brick homes passed down through generations. Now, it was a graveyard without the graves.

As their vehicle rolled slowly through the cracked, weed-strewn road that sliced through the center of the village, the silence was suffocating. Doors were left hanging off hinges, windows shattered, and red-black smears painted the walls like grotesque murals. Scorched remains of something—someone—still smoked faintly in the husk of what might’ve been a roadside store.

Lin Jinju pressed her lips together, her breath caught halfway in her chest. She stared out of the window, eyes wide, hand unconsciously clutching the straps of the bag on her lap.

Everything here had the heavy, haunted stillness of a town that had died screaming.

Shinju gripped the steering wheel with one hand, the other resting on his handgun—finger off the trigger, but never far from it. His face was unreadable as he guided the SUV through the wreckage, gaze sweeping over every alley and crumbled home like he expected something—or someone—to jump out at any moment.

They passed a laundry line still strung up between two buildings, a child’s pink sock flapping gently in the breeze. Beneath it, the ground was dry and crusted with blood.

Jinju couldn’t look anymore. Her voice cracked, soft and trembling.

”...Was it this bad...?” she whispered. ”How did our children...?”

She couldn’t finish.

She couldn’t bear to imagine Yunfeng crawling through places like this, bleeding, hiding, watching people die. She couldn’t imagine her gentle boy becoming someone hardened enough to survive this kind of horror.

Shinju glanced sideways at her, the faintest smirk tugging at the edge of his lips, not out of mockery—but reassurance.

”Oye,” he said gruffly. ”Our kids are smart. That’s why they lasted this long.”

She looked at him, uncertain. ”But... they’re just children.”

Shinju snorted under his breath and shifted the gear slightly. ”Jinju, the world we knew ended the day the outbreak started. They might be young, but they’ve adapted quicker than we have. Yunfeng, that rascal—he’s got more guts than most of my men. And my old man’s stubborn as a rock.”

His fingers tapped the steering wheel. ”If they’re still breathing, then they’re surviving. And if they’re surviving, we’ll find them.”

The confidence in his voice steadied something in her chest. She exhaled slowly and nodded. ”You’re right.”

He gave her a quick, sideways glance. ”You bet I am.”