Death was not unfamiliar to him, but witnessing wanton destruction was. 

There was nothing from Nature that happened without reason - rain to feed, sunlight to grow, death to survive, storms to produce calm. But here, there was destruction of a kind that made no sense, death that produced nothing but foul memories and dissension. Black blood grew more and more crimson, the scent stronger and stronger as the sound of gunfire encroached. 

He halted, listening for violence headed his way, and part of the wall erupted and shot out at him. He reeled back, right arm reflexively raising to shield him from the shrapnel of the mortar shell. 

Confusion spread through him and he ducked away, running past the hole in the wall, with its distant promise of freedom, deeper into the complex. He picked up speed, almost slamming into another wall as he rounded a corner and came to a kind of warehouse area, scientists lying prone and bleeding on the concrete. One looked up to him, eyes pleading for mercy even as his throat bubbled fresh hell. He kept the man's eye until he finally died. 

Slowly, he peered around the corner once more and ducked back as bullets greeted him. He could hear the hasty orders from across the warehouse - "Shoot anything that moves!" - and decided that seeking any kind of assistance from any human was a waste of time and would only likely get him caught in the same situation he had just started to run from. Instead, he crouched down, letting his war lines seek up onto his skin, coming to encase him like painted flares of black ink, and flickered his vision, watching the vibrations of gunfire echo through the halls. He could see where the soldiers' voices were coming from. His vision flickered again and he saw them crouched behind a wooden crate full of towels. Their skeletons were blue-white, while their guns were blinding to look at. There was a gap and he knew they weren't listening. Channelling his will into his legs, he broke cover and dashed across the opening, right arm raised just incase they fired on him. 

Even once he was away from them, eyes clicking back to black and into the colour spectrum, he didn't stop running, pressing himself down whichever hallway sounded the least like the brutal ring of metal piercing flesh. 

"Where's Daesung?" Seunghyun asked. 

"Went home. Felt ill." Seungri replied, moving past them without meeting any of their gazes. 

"You don't look so good either." Yongbae commented, coming over to feel his forehead. The maknae flinched away from him, backing up and dodging more touching. 

"I'm fine, but I'm leaving as soon as we're done here."

Jiyong was staring at him, but nodded. Seungri felet bad for settling more worry on his leader's shoulders. He didn't mean to, but what else was there? Daesung wasn't human - he was one of the demons, had been all this time! How does one deal witht hat kind of a breach of trust and walk away from it, come out unphased? And the way Daesung was speaking made it sound like he would never see them again, like he was expecting to leave and never come back. How he thought he would get away with that, Seungri didn't know, because everyone in Bigbang was known worldwide; even should he get a place to himself, there was nowhere he would be able to hide. 

So, when the lights came on and the cameras started rolling, Seungri plastered on his best smile and slid into his entertainer guise.

It was dark when he left, shrugging off concern from the other Bigbang members and Seunghyun's soft "I can't reach Daesung." He walked to his car and just drove home, unwilling and unable to focus on anything but making it to his front door, entering and collapsing on his couch. He wanted to watch the light of the city reflect on his ceiling as he considered now what he would do with his knowledge of Daesung. 

Could he even be called Daesung? He wasn't human, admitted to having been trapped over seventy years in his facility. What was his name? Did he have one before he came to human society, integrated into this mess? What did he truly look like, without whatever human guise he had taken to him? What did he look like past all the fear and the horror? Who was he past it all, was he vicious like the textbooks and documentaries had claimed? 

What did it mean to call him a demon?

Seungri didn't know. He didn't understand how it had been him to get trapped in this mess. Why not Jiyong or Yongbae, people who could make sense of this and hold it together, know what to do and say? Even Seunghyun, who loved Daesung perhaps more than a brother should?

But then again, it kept coming down to one question and one alone - what was Daesung to him? What was his life worth, and how much did he value the time that they'd spent together? Daesung would have no reason to hide his true personality, let alone send Seungri away and try to shoulder the burden of getting hunted away from people who would likely be killed as accomplices should they be caught together. If he had any ill intention, he would not have this care, would not seek to put up this barrier. 

Seungri felt like he was missing something, but didn't know what it was.