“Do you think we should have followed Jessica?”

She sighed, looking out at the window where some of the trees had smoke coming out of them.

“I don’t know, David. Does it really make a difference?”

“Maybe… Maybe it’s better over there.”

“That’s wishful thinking, David. Just look at the sky; it is melting. It’s the same all over the world. There’s no running from this.”

He stepped closer to the windows and shared his glance with his sister.

“Jesus… the trees are already catching on fire. It’s like there’s a giant magnifying glass in the sky, focusing the sun rays everywhere at once.”

“It’s a beautiful tragedy,” Taeyeon murmured, “Our work here is done. Our destruction is complete. Mankind has finally obliterated the one place in the universe where they can exist. We’ve sealed our own extinction.”

“We never did learn, did we?”

“Mankind? No,” she shook her head, “It took two atomic bombs to make us realise the value of peace. Now, it took the end of the world to make us realise the value of life.”

She straightened her blouse and tied up her hair.

“The final moments are approaching. Take it in, brother, as we won’t be seeing this anymore,” Taeyeon took a deep exasperated breath, “How does one raise a child in this environment…?”

“By not giving up,” he put his hand on shoulder, “Everything ends if you do.”

Taeyeon sighed and rubbed her nose, still drowning in doubts and contemplation.

“How do you do that, David? How could you?”

“We may not be able to change the world, Taeyeon, or the fact that now our lifespans are probably longer than the world’s, but we can change our perspectives,” David packed up the last of his books from the rack and stacked it in his bag full of books, “We can choose to live out the remnants of our lives in peace or in anguish.”

“Wow,” she scoffed, “Do you seriously believe that?”

“What are you getting at, Taeyeon? Why are you busting my balls here?”

“The child is a mistake.”

“Joshua is a gift, Taeyeon. Don’t you dare go insinuate some bull here. All of life is a gift.”

“How can you say that?” she looked at him, with an expression filled with anguish and disappointment, “We’re approaching the end of humanity. The world is lost. The world could explode at any second.”

“We don’t know that.”

“We could die at any second.”

“That hasn’t changed even before The Enigma. Crime was through the roof even before the walkers came.”

“It did change, David, you just refused to see it. Our chances of dying every day has more than quadrupled…” she shook her head, “And you brought a kid into this hell.”

“Okay, Taeyeon, enough! That is my kid. He’s part of us now. You’re just gonna have to accept that.”

She clicked her tongue and rolled her eyes, looking out of the window, taking in the final view. There was no point going on about this argument. Best to just take in all the fresh air she could now than waste it on talk that would just fall on deaf ears.

“His birthday is coming soon, isn’t it? Have you gotten him anything yet?”

David looked at her for a moment, with slight disbelief.

“Oh, now you care.”

“I’m just asking.”

“I only found this,” he dangled a gorilla keychain, “I’ll try to make something else.”

“Okay. It’s almost time. I can already feel the heat. Fetch your wife and child. We need to get underground.”

“Irene!” Taeyeon yelled with her hand still holding on to her bleeding scalp, “IRENE!”

She must have fell through a good six floors down, judging from the hole in the ceiling above her. Water continued to flow down from the upper floors like a waterfall. It must have been from one of the busted pipes they had seen earlier, weakening the concrete floor which eventually caved in from moisture. She was at the bottom of the waterfall now. She cursed under her breath and shone the flashlight upwards, but the light couldn’t reach the upper floors. The light was drowned out by darkness and the stream of water crossing it.

There was a huge metal framework that looked it belonged to a display case, smashed next to her.

“What the hell…? Where did this come from?”

She stood up.

“IRENE!”

She could barely hear herself with all the water splashing and sloshing about. Her floor was flooded, with the water rising all the way up to her thighs.

Was she imagining it, or was the water level rising?

The flood was dirty and murky with muddy sedimentations. It carried all sorts of rubbish and trash down the stream, straight to where Taeyeon stood. Now she had to worry about not contracting cholera from this filthy flood. She was probably swimming in faeces, but she left it to the benefit of the doubt. There was a big gash straight across her forehead and it continued to bleed downwards into her eyes, stinging them shut and turning her vision red. She contemplated whether to rinse her eyes with the muddy water but decided against it. At least her blood wouldn’t give her bacterial conjunctivitis. She ripped off one of her sleeves and wringed it dry before wrapping it around her forehead like a Japanese hachimaki.

She shivered in chill and fear.

She glanced around with her flashlight, trying to get a sense of where the hell she fell to. Everything was shrouded in a blanket of darkness, which seemed thicker than ever. Moving around was tedious when she was knees-deep in filthy water. Her eyes could barely open. Once she had blinked the sting away, she realised that she was in one of the basement parking lots, judging from the pillars nearby that bore their respective positioning codes. ‘Okay,’ she thought. It was a start. Now, she needed the get the hell out from here and find Irene, but which direction should she go? She couldn’t see past ten metres ahead.

She didn’t like this feeling, not one bit. She kept feeling like she was being watched. She just couldn’t shake that feeling off.

Now, she was just hoping that she was being paranoid. She checked her oxygen tank, only to find it dented at the top with the nozzle completely bent out of shape. It was empty now, with all the gas leaked out.

“Oh, .”

She was trying to calm her nerves before she went into hyperventilation. She was already feeling slight dizziness from the hypoxia, but it was tolerable. She ditched the mask and the tank, relieving off some of her weight. She patted her pants only find even more dire news.

Her guns: gone.

Her machete: gone.

All she had left were her own two fists and her flashlight.

Exasperated, Taeyeon started her journey by just getting away from the mini waterfall. She followed her gut feeling and went towards a random direction. There were no True Detective skills going on here; she followed her gut feeling. With everywhere looking the same, she had three hundred and sixty options to turn towards. The chances of her to actually head to the exit, though, were less than slim. Her ears ringed from how loud the splashes were. Once she had got a certain distance away, her ears slowly recovered from the tinnitus that discombobulated her senses. She just prayed that she would not step on to a rusty nail or cut the soles of her feet from a sharp slab of concrete. The water became even murkier the further she got from the waterfall. Years of stagnancy made it opaque with moss and fungus.

Her flashlight caught on to a red coloured, partially submerged Prius parked just ahead of her. She climbed on top of the bonnet and made her way to the roof to catch her breath and let her tinnitus subside. She checked herself for anymore wounds that she had to be wary about. Thankfully and miraculously, she didn’t break any of her bones on the way down. The water must have cushioned her fall. Only her legs were swollen and wrinkled from being submerged, completed covered in disgusting slime.

Still panting and shivering, she looked around but the result was the same. Ever wondered how it would feel like to be in a flooded basement, all alone and utterly lost in the darkness, with nothing but a flashlight? Taeyeon wondered no more. It didn’t help that the place sounded like it would collapse at any minute. The groans of the structure were even louder the further down she was. Every creak was amplified threefold by the echoes of its desolation. She could feel the echoes down here.

She couldn’t stand it anymore. Every fibre of her being was screaming at her.

She had to go.

She had to go now.

She jumped down, back into the water and walked straight ahead, praying that it was the right direction. She was beginning to curse that she had passed her night vision goggles back to Irene. It would have been of tremendous help right about now. Once the sloshes start to fade into ambiance, the floor was dead silent, apart from the splashes her feet made every step she took. That was good. That meant she was alone, and that at least provided her some solitary comfort.

This place was extensive. Taeyeon waded for at least a good ten minutes in a straight line but it never seemed to end. In fact, it felt like she was walking around in a loop because everywhere looked the same. The only directional landmarks she had were the pillar codes.

What if something was watching her, stalking her, from all the obscurity of darkness around her?

What if something was just behind her right now?

What if something was just at her neck, right goddamn now, ready to rip apart?

The water level was getting higher the more she waded through it. It was already at her pelvis as about now. Perhaps it was due to the basement being sloped downwards. She couldn’t tell. Her feet were numb, and her shoes and socks were weighing a tonne with all that water soaked up. There weren’t any other cars either, only that singular red Prius that she saw all the way back there.

She saw a green sign, dangling above her, hanging from the ceiling. The words were all smudgy and were unable to be made out. The only thing comprehensible on that signage was the arrow and it was pointing straight ahead. Where was it pointing to? Who knows. At least, it was better than nothing. That arrow must lead somewhere, right?

Taeyeon pressed on, tired, drained and all out of patience. She kept thinking of how her day was great and it just went to within seconds. Now, she was stuck here, out of weapons, out of options and out of time. She had to make her way up and she barely made progress here. In fact, she felt like she was heading deeper in, completely lost. Her fear was slowly converting into angered frustrations and that was good. All things in the dark could smell fear. Now, feast on her rage.

“You’re ting me…!” Taeyeon blurted out.

That signage led her to the lower levels of the parking spaces, which was now submerged with muddy water. This was a dead end, unless she had diving gears with her.

She turned back and hesitated.

No way was she going back to where she started. She had already wasted enough time getting here. She couldn’t go forward either. She scanned around and saw something in the distance that glimmered off the light from her flashlight; something silver and something metallic. As she approached cautious and optimistic, she saw ‘This Way to the Mall’ written in bold and plastered on the door.

“Oh, thank god. Hang on, Irene, I’m on my way.”

She turned the door handle, pushed, and it was locked.

“ man! Come on!”

She pushed and shoved it with her shoulder, but she barely made a dent. She was about to explode in infuriation. She turned the handle clockwise this time and shoved her shoulder against the metal door but that didn’t help either. She was making an awful lot of noise as her desperation to get out of the darkness slowly grew to suffocate. The entire door shook under her brute force of slams, but no. It didn’t budge an inch open.

“Come on, you ing piece of ! What the !?” she kicked and banged against the door with both fists, with biting on to the flashlight, “Are you kidding me right now!? Why are you doing this!? YOU!”

She could feel herself going insane; she was arguing with a locked door.

She heard a splash.

She stopped.

She let out a soft gasp and flicked off her flashlight, leaving her vulnerable in the totality of the dark. She squatted down and controlled her breathing. Her pupils must have been fully dilated by now but that didn’t help. That sound wasn’t from that mini waterfall where she initially plunged. No, it was from somewhere else, somewhere nearby, just a couple of pillars away.

Another splash came, followed by three more. It was coming from her right.

Something was moving in there with her.

She reached for her holster but remembered that she lost everything.

Another splash resonated and it sounds very much nearer than before. She could feel the water ripples brushing against her legs.

A soft rattling sound slowly became audible. It was then followed by a quick wheeze, and then the rattles continued. A sharp chill shocked Taeyeon spine as it paralysed her in fear. There was a soft hum amidst the rattles, almost melodic. The longer she tuned in on it, the more it sounded like a nursery