Author's note:
1) Sorry for the multiple delays, dear readers! I have been extremely busy. Thank you for waiting!

2) PLEASE READ THE FIRST INSTALMENT BEFORE READING THIS SECOND ONE!

Otherwise, please enjoy!

Taeyeon snapped awake, with her head throbbing in pain.

She lifted her hand and held her throbbing temple but instantly cringed when that only fuelled her tenderness further to excruciation. She could feel the swelling; a huge tender hump behind her ear. Every thought that she made echoed with shooting pain between her brain lobes. She shoved her blankets and bedsheets aside. The windows were completely boarded up, with only a stray amount of light allowed to enter. The room was stuffy and hot, despite the ceiling fan spinning above. She tried standing up on her own two feet, before almost collapsing from dizziness. The entire room spun around her existence, like she was on a merry-go-round set to a bleeding overdrive, spinning straight to vertigo hell.

She took her first step, and tumbled into a table.

She must have cracked the small wooden table in half, because the sound it made was just like that. She crashed on to the floor with sharp pains radiating from her elbows. She panted with disorientation. Her head felt light and her vision lost focus. Fear rose from her chest and began to drown her consciousness. She couldn’t even crawl.

Her bedroom door busted open, with the light shaft shining in with such intensity that it was just blur. A silhouette appeared, holding the door knob and presumably, staring at her. It approached her cautiously, holding something long in its right hand, but she couldn’t quite make it out. Each step it took towards Taeyeon made a small and quiet creak from the wooden flooring. It finally stopped within a meter from where she lay sprawling, before bending down. Taeyeon lifted her head and stared into the face of the shadow.

“Who are you…?”

The silhouette kept silent, staring at Taeyeon without lifting a finger. It did that for nearly a minute before reaching out its right hand, cautiously. It flicked the switch on the wall just beside. The lights flickered for a moment, before illumination manifested in its entirety. The entire bedroom lit up in a light reminiscent of an overcast tone. Taeyeon shut her eyes for a moment, shutting away the sting of the sudden bump in brightness. After a moment, she slowly opened them again and looked at the woman kneeling just in front of her.

“Who are you?” Taeyeon repeated, blinking away the tears that came from the stinging in her eye.

“You- you don’t know me?” she replied, with an expression best described as a monochrome of colours.

“I…” she held on to her throbbing head, “I don’t…”

The other woman was silent for a moment, before reaching out and helping Taeyeon back to the bed.

“Come on, the floor is dirty and hard. Let’s get you back up.”

She was pretty strong. She grabbed Taeyeon at her armpits from behind and with whatever strength the latter had to offer, Taeyeon was back on her feet and quickly sat back on her soft bed before she crashed again. The woman grabbed a chair beside the broken table and placed it just in front of Taeyeon.

“Sorry about the table.”

“Don’t worry about it. How are you feeling?”

“I… I don’t know. What happened to me?”

“What do you remember?”

“I… not much,” Taeyeon sighed, “Ow, my head hurts like hell.”

“Do you know your name?”

“Yes, yes. My name is Kim Taeyeon. I’m thirty-six years old. Apart from that…” she rubbed her face to wake herself up and looked at the other woman in exasperation, “Look, I’m sorry. I don’t remember you at all.”

“It must be the concussion…” she looked at Taeyeon, “I’m Irene. I believe we’ve known each other for quite some time.”

 “Look, I’m sorry. It really doesn’t ring a bell to me.”

“I see... You should probably rest up.”

“No,” she rejected Irene’s offer, “I’ve rested enough.”

“Alright, how about this?” Irene leaned forward, “Go get yourself freshened up. You were knocked out for a couple of days. You’re probably all sticky from the heat wave happening outside.”

“Heat wave?”

“Oh…” she narrowed her eyes at Taeyeon, “Not even the Conflagration, huh?”

“Conflagration?”

“No matter, it’ll be easier to show you what’s happening outside. Go get yourself a cold bath and wait for me here. I’ll come get you in half an hour.”

Irene pointed to the towel, the washroom and the cupboard. With that, she gave Taeyeon a pat on the shoulder and left her alone. Her headache was slowly subsiding but the memories were not returning. She had so many questions in her mind; so much that it felt like they were choking here. There was no point in contemplating and sitting here; that much she knew. She did, however, felt extremely sticky and filthy from all the sweat and humidity. Even her bedsheet was soaked, now that she realised it.

Taeyeon got up, steadily and slowly this time. She walked to the cupboard, which was placed just next to the boarded up window. The closer she stepped towards the window, the more heat she felt against her skin. She touched the wooden boards in curiosity, and nearly burnt her fingertips off.

“!” she cursed and on her fingers, stinging in pain, “What the hell!?”

She just stared unbelievably, waiting for the pain to go away. Her fingertips were red. She opened the cupboard and gave the wardrobe a quick glance. Judging from the heat, she just quickly grabbed a singlet and jean shorts, along with her bath towel and walked into the washroom.

It was as gorgeous as it was titanic, nothing short of a studio’s bathroom. The floor, the walls and the surface of the sink area were made of marble, which surprisingly, aged pretty damn well. She closed the door and hung her clothing at the hook. The shower place was segregated by glass. It reflected with a blueish hue from the square LED lighting panel pre-fixed in the ceiling. As per the bedroom, it gave off a tone of natural lighting, which would be perfect if she wanted to put on some make-up and see how it would look. Unfortunately, the ages of beauty had long passed. It was survival now.

She stepped into the glass cubicle and the shower. It was simply a long metallic tubing that went up eight feet tall before making a J-turn downwards where the shower head was attached. She turned the knob on and cold water rained down upon her. The feeling was pure and utter elation. There was nothing like cold water to wash off the stickiness and itch of the heat. Even the shampoo and bath foam smelled like lavender. This was some out-of-the-world luxury. For minutes of pure bliss, she indulged herself with the foam and running water. Her mind emptied, and her soul attained temporary peace. The more she washed however, the more she realised that the anomalies on her skins weren’t dirt or stains.

They were wounds.

They stung when soap came into contact and hurt upon touching. It wasn’t just one or two. They were everywhere. Her legs were riddled with cuts and bruises. There was a massive gash on her right forearm, which was stitched up. It still looked fresh. She glanced at the mirror and looked at her back, where multiple contusions were clearly seen down her spine and across her scapulars.

“What the hell…?” she murmured into her reflection, with cold water still running down her cheeks, “What the hell are all these injuries…?”

Taeyeon’s whole body hurt now that she fully realised the extent of her injuries. Perhaps, the psychological ignorance played a part in analgesia because now, the pain had magnified. Her shower was cut short from the stings that the water brought to her opened flesh. She shut the water off and grabbed the towel, drying herself as she stepped out of the cubicle. She walked towards the sink as she wrapped the towel around her hair and squeezed the water out. She looked at herself in the mirror. Her right cheek was swollen and bruised. There was a cut on the bridge of her nose, and of course, a huge swelling at her right temple. Somebody must have had smacked her good at the side of her head.

She lost herself in her own reflection.

“What happened to me…?”

A loud knock on the door shook her back to awareness.

“Taeyeon! Are you ready?”

***

“This is a hotel, isn’t it?”

“Good eye, Taeyeon. It indeed is one,” Irene stated as they traversed the carpeted hall of a lavishly decorated hallway, with hand carved room doors of lignum vitae wood on each side, “It used to be top-line accommodation for the ridiculously rich. Six-stars, if you’d like. The cheapest suite here costs a thousand dollars a night. Now, it’s an abandoned dusty place for shelter, open to all kinds of socioeconomic status, dead or alive.”

“The electricity and water supply still work.”

“This hotel is solar-powered, one of the first of its kind,” Irene summoned the elevator and put her hands in her pockets, looking at Taeyeon, “Impressed?”

“This is amazing. I never expect to see electricity on such scale again.”

Irene narrowed her eyes, looking at Taeyeon as though she was trying to get a read on the latter.

“How much exactly do you remember?”

“It’s patchy, Irene. I know my name. I know how to speak. I know the Enigma happened nearly twenty years ago. I know the walkers roam the streets. I know that the world has not recovered and people were dying. More and more walkers appear every day, replacing the alive ones that died… but I can’t relate emotionally to any of my residual memories.”

“And what does that mean?”

“Anything personal to me, Irene, my loved ones or my personal attachments; any memory that evoked an emotional response… I don’t have it. I… I feel detached in my own mind.”

The elevator dinged and the door slid open. The light flickered on and the speakers began playing Beethoven. Irene gestured for Taeyeon to go in first and she followed just behind. Taeyeon glanced at the long list of numbered buttons for floors and it went all the way up to fifteen. Not a mind-blowing skyscraper to scratch the clouds, but tall enough for a fully operational building in the post-apocalypse to garner awe. Irene pressed the ground floor and closed the lift doors. A small buzz came from the motor just above their heads and the elevator jolted to movement; a vertical descent.

“I’m not psychiatrist, Taeyeon, but at least you are safe.”

“Irene, I have a lot of questions.”

“I know,” she smiled empathetically at Taeyeon, “Just give it a moment. There’s something you need to know first.”

The elevator dinged once more and they have touched down to ground floor. It was much hotter here. Taeyeon could hear the air conditioning panels blasting away at maximum speed but despite all the sounds that the fans made, they were barely effective. She could already feel her pores opening up and began to slowly sweat despite her recent cold shower.

“There are seven industrial air-conditioners blasting away here, each with three-horsepower on turbo,” Irene pointed out, “Yet they can barely keep the heat at bay. You can imagine the amount of electricity used. Thankfully, we’re generating heaps of energy as well.”

The concourse was where they stood, and it looked pretentiously grandiose; made and designed for those parts of society, filled with the hedonistic. The architecture was spherical, resembling a modern colosseum of sorts, made entirely of marble as well. Atmospheric beige lights were attached to each of the many circumferential pillars to emit a certain ambiance of luxury. At the centre of the sphere, placed a small fountain with a celeste light belighting the water to propose a sense of serenity. Beige leather couches were placed circularly to surround the fountain; a perfect scenery for the perfect ambiance for the perfect breakaway.

“I know what you’re thinking. ‘This place is ridiculous!’” Irene announced, “It was. Most parts of the hotel are abandoned. I did what I could. Don’t sit on the couches though; they are probably covered with an inch of dust and infested with mites. Wouldn’t want to get them all over your hair.”

Taeyeon was just too soaked in astonishment to listen to her. She just looked up and couldn’t believe how tall the pillars went and how far away the ceiling was. Five gigantic looking ropes held the even more gargantuan chandelier in place, hanging just above Taeyeon’s head. If the rope snapped, she would be minced.

“Taeyeon, over here, come on,” Irene summoned her, “Wouldn’t want to forget these.”

“What are they?”

“First, put these on,” she passed to her a pair of black goggles, “I like to call them sun-goggles. They protect your eyes out there or they will be blind instantaneously. Never take them out.”

“Alright, I’ll take note.”

“Now, these,” Irene held up a full-body jacket with a face mask and hoodie, “These are reflector jackets. They will reflect off all the UV rays from penetrating the fabric and your skin. They do not, however, reflect heat that efficiently. So, this should enable us to go outdoors for a while.”

“What exactly is happening outside?” Taeyeon questioned as she strapped the jacket on and wrapped up every inch of her skin.

“I’ll show you,” Irene grabbed the sunblock curtains and dragged them aside.

Behind the shade, revealed a glass revolving door that was so bright that Taeyeon had to squint despite her dark sun-goggles. It sparked and glared under the aggressive sunrays. She looked down and walked towards it. She c