10.50am     Middle of Seoul

"We've woken up the monsters." 

The moment Jae said that, it was like a cue for them to run; lest the monsters tear their hearts out. Eunji immediately led the way back to where everyone was. 

"Let's go!" Namjoo shouted as she slammed the steel door shut and pushed a metal cabinet against the door to hopefully slow down the infected dogs. Jae helped her while Naeun and Eunji ran back to the entrance area. 

"Everyone, we have to go!" Naeun shouted. "There are infected dogs back there!"

"That's right!" Jae and Namjoo arrived behind them, panting. 

"There's what?" Yuri asked as Eunji hurridly went to pick up her backpack and weapons.

"Animals get infected too?" A man asked disbelivingly.

"You heard us!" Namjoo said, exasperated.

How dare he doubt us! Eunji thought, furious. Trust was, no doubt, something they all needed to survive this together. Hell, why would they even lie about things like this?

Eunji met eyes with Chorong, who set in a tight purse. Her eyes burned with an intensity that seemed to say I understand. "Well, whether you believe it or not, we're leaving." She then immediately picked up her backpack, and others starting doing the same.

"Alright, team, let's move out!" Xiao announced. At the same moment a crash came from inside the building, which could only mean one thing. The dogs are out.

The first one pounced out and leapt straight for Xiao who was standing in the middle of the room, causing him to fall to the ground. 

"Go! We'll split into two teams! Hawk, you'll lead the other team!" He shouted while struggling. More of those monsters arrived, their barks so loud and deafening that Kyla covered her ears with her hands. Eunji picked up Kyla to run. Her first instinct was to get Kyla away from danger, even if it meant following Hawk and his cronies. It was pure chaos then, she just focused on following Hawk closely. A while later, they made it to a parking lot beside a preschool where there were some stage 1 infected, but Hawk and his followers quickly took care of that, shooting with a precision that suggested that they had experience before.

Eunji looked around and was relieved to see Hayoung, Naeun and Jae as well as another guy who looked around their age and relatively harmless. "I'm Eunji," she smiled and extended her hand towards him. 

"Seungjae," the boy accepted Eunji's hand and shook it firmly. He had brown hair, a casual outfit consisted of a hoodie and jeans, and was wielding a wooden bat with spikes. "I hope to survive this together."

"Me too," Hayoung commented while taking small sips of water. "Wasn’t it weird that the dogs were infected too? So even animals can be infected."

"But did the infected bite them and spread the virus?" Naeun asked.

"We can’t know for sure," Jae added while retying his shoelaces. Eunji could see that Hawk’s men were trying to jumpstart a range rover.

"Watch out!" Naeun cried, pointing behind.

Eunji turned around only to see some stage 2 infected in the distance. She held her gun firmly, ready to aim, but was baffled when she saw that Hawk and his men made no movement.

"What the-?"

Hawk cracked a knot in his back and smiled lazily. "Let’s quit playing games, shall we?" He drawled.

"Yeah, you know what we want, don’t you?" One of the men put in, pointing his gun at her backpack.

Jae’s expression hardened. "The Cure."

"That’s right. Give us the Cure, or we’ll feed you to them." Hawk said, gesturing to the incoming pack of stage 2 infected.

"We should give it to them," Seungjae said, the tremble in his voice giving away his nervousness. 

Eunji exchanged looks with Naeun and Hayoung. They reached a silent conclusion and tossed the cases containing The Cure onto the ground. Eunji, however still kept one secretly in the plastic bag containing her food. 

"We got it!" One of Hawk’s followers shouted. The car was started up. 

"Pick these up and let’s haul ." Hawk ordered, and got into the passenger seat of the Range Rover.

"Wait, don’t we get to come with you?" Eunji narrowed her eyebrows.

"That wasn’t part of the deal, was it?" 

.

"Get behind me, Kyla!" Eunji yelled, and began shooting at the creatures approaching them. Maybe because of her panic, her aim was kinda off. One of the creatures leapt onto the hood of a nearby car and snarled at them, it’s spit flying everywhere. Eunji shuddered involuntarily, and continued to fire at the creature, causing it fall off the car. "Aargh!" Seungjae let out a yell as he finished it off by hitting it’s skull. By then, Hawk and his men took off hastily, leaving skid marks on the road.

Beside Eunji, Hayoung was shooting repeatedly at one of the infected that appeared to be larger than the others, while Jae tried his best to fight off another with his machete.

"We have to run!" Naeun shouted as more of the infected charged towards them. 

Just as Eunji finished wounding another stage 2, she saw another one coming at her from the corner of her eye. She slammed her gun towards it with all her strength and then aimed at it’s head, wincing as blood and brain splattered out. 

"I’m out of ammo!" Hayoung announced. 

"Let’s get out of here!" Jae shouted. Seungjae led the way and they entered the preschool, barricading the door from the infected outside. The hallway was dark only the green exit sign being the source of light. Hayoung peered into the window of what was presumably a classroom. Her eyes widened. "There’s more of them in there," she whispered. Kyla whimpered and held her rabbit toy closer to her. It dawned on Eunji that they were in serious . They were locked in a preschool with god knows how many infected children and more infected trying to get in. 

"Don’t worry, we’re gonna find a way out of here." Eunji assured everyone. One way or another.

10.50am     Middle of Seoul

The moment Xiao said to split up, Yookyung made up her mind to stay and fight. She never really did like to run away from her problems. "Be careful!" She shouted as she drove her blade down onto the dog attacking Xiao. "Thank you," Xiao said gratefully as he flung the lifeless animal off of him and got up to help the others fight. A scream came from behind her and Yookyung rushed to help take down the infected dog, but it was too late as the man already had a bite mark on his upper arm, which he was now pressing down on, pain etched into his face. "!" He shouted. Yookyung got out a roll of bandages and wrapped it as tightly as she could around his wound. "It’s okay, we have the Cure and you won’t turn so soon, we just need to get you to the broadcast station where you can rest."

Someone ran to her side. "What’s happening?" Bomi asked, holding her electric gun.

"He got bitten," Yookyung explained. "We have to give him the Cure, but the recovery process takes about 3-4 days and he needs to rest somewhere."

"I see," Bomi replied as one of the dogs pounced towards her. She ducked neatly underneath it and turned around to shoot at it, a blast of powerful electricity coming out and hitting the creature in the body. Yookyung finished it off with her katana, a clean slice separating it’s head from it’s body. The blood spilled out continuously like a gory scene out of a slasher movie. Yookyung stared at it for a moment, wondering how many infected she has killed-and will continue to kill. 

"Alright, let’s leave," Xiao’s gruff voice sounded. Chorong and Namjoo were also in the room, thankfully uninjured. "We have to give him the Cure," Yookyung said, looking at the man lying against the couch. His face was deathly pale and he was breathing heavily. Yookyung administered the Cure by injecting it into a vein in his forearm. He winced as she did so, and Yookyung understood why as she had gone through the same thing before. It was so painful she couldn’t think of anything else but the pain. It consumed her. "You’ll get through this, Taejoon." Xiao said, and helped the tall man up, supporting him. "Even if it’s painful, we have to get to the broadcast station."

The group silently made their way out of the clinic and onto the pavement, the bright sunlight shining in their faces. Yookyung took it as a sign that things were going to be okay, but she worried about Hayoung and the others who followed Hawk. She worried about Yuto back in ELITE. She worried for herself. And that worry must have been reflected on her face because Chorong asked her if she was okay, to which she smiled in reply. 

"You’re our key to getting out of this mess, you know." Chorong said silently.

"I know."