Min pictures her friends entering a giant warehouse with the promise of a safe home, the supposed “Civilian Protection Base.” Will they be prepared when the people try to murder them?

“We have to turn back, my friends are probably going there right now!” Min says.

“Who are your friends?” Asks Hyuna.

“Jung Jessica, Son Naeun, my cousin, and others too… they were all with me before the convenience store was overrun.”

“Celebrities?” Chunji says, surprised.

“We can’t even guarantee where they are right now” Hyuna interjects. “It’s not worth going near there anyhow.”

“Please, wouldn’t you have wanted someone to warn you to not go there?” Min pleads. “You’ve probably met these people before. They’re in kpop groups that performed along side you. Sehun, Kyungsoo, Kai, they’re all in Exo, and they’re all my friends.”

Kai? The name echoes in Chunji’s head. Anger clouds his head as he harks back to his pre-debut days.

Chunji remembers it too well. It was a concert before Teen Top’s debut, a sort of concert before all concerts. This “stockholder’s” concert took place in 2010, behind the red curtains, beyond the consciousness of the public. Wrinkled middle-aged men sat in the audience, silently judging and holding snooty clipboards. You see, being an idol meant that you had to please everybody with the way you looked and the way you acted. People wonder how kpop skin is so pale and flawless, and the reason was that it was their job. If you didn’t uphold a certain image, you may have doomed your entire group. And it was something that Chunji had to pay careful attention to weeks before that concert.

The stockholders’ approval determined the success of the group. The people didn’t like you? They didn’t invest. Then your music videos were low budget, you didn’t garner any fans and you gained no attention. This concert was a preliminary audition. It was Teen Top’s chance to gain funds. The acts were scattered amongst the various entertainment groups, one being a particularly large one from SM Entertainment. A year later, they were introduced as “Exo.”

Chunji was heading towards Teen Top’s dressing room when he saw Kai walking out of it. “Excuse me,” Chunji said suspiciously. “Who are you?”

“Oh sorry, I walked in the wrong room” Kai smiled glibly and ran right past him. What did he do, what did he do? Chunji thinks as he examines the room. Was he trying to sabotage us? He finds no evidence that Kai had done anything. So he put on his stage clothes, and his group walked on stage to perform.

However, as soon as he started dancing, Chunji realized just what Kai had done. As he leaned and stepped with his shoes, he felt them slip underneath him. When he kicked and moved to the intense choreography, he felt off balance and completely messed up the dance. He looked around, and saw that the other member’s shoes too lacked traction. There was a black substance on the heel of his shoe: it was slick polishing wax. Near the end of their number, Chunji slipped on the wax and fell brutally on his spinal cord.

 It was too late. To the stockholders, Teen Top looked uncoordinated and unserious. This was precisely the reason why Teen Top had a slow debut. Whereas Exo could afford the best advertising and management, and concomitantly, the best endorsement deals and salary, Teen Top lagged.

It wasn’t just that Kai had shattered everything Chunji’s worked for, it was that he did it so shamelessly, so psychopathically. Risking his life to save Kai’s was the last thing on his mind.

“Please, we need to go to the Civilian base now!” Min begs.

Sera and Hyuna look at each other in resignation. Hyuna makes a u-turn and heads toward Gangbuk once again.

<:>

The other group stops by the convenience store, whose windows are broken and blood is splattered everywhere. Jessica looks around the store frantically, looking for Min’s corpse or some other evidence of her condition. She gags as she sees Yoohan’s half eaten body on the store tiles, flies buzzing around it in the summer heat. She follows a trail of blood in the back corridor, which has white stripes in it, indicating long hair being dragged on the ground. She follows it until they reduce to blood dribble, all the way to a metal freezer.

Shutting her eyes, Jessica takes a deep breath and opens the freezer door. She sees a large pool of dried blood. To her surprise, there is no trail leading away from it. Her heart races. She is alive. She runs to the cars excitedly.

“She’s not there!” Jessica exclaims. “I think she might be alive! There’s a pool of blood but there’s no trail out.”

“She might have turned into a walker and that’s why there’s no trail” Luhan says. Junghee slaps his arm hard. “Oh… I’m sorry.” He says quietly.

They drive until dawn to Gangbuk, maintaining slow speeds in fear of running into walkers.

“There’s so many cars here” Naeun says as they cross a giant river into the Gangbuk district. “I hope they still have room for us.”

What they don’t notice, however, is the mass grave obscured by a tree line to their left.

“What’s that smell?” Kai says as he scrunches his face. Nobody answers, but the rotten stench dissipates quickly. “Wait, watch out!” Kai screams to Jessica. She swerves suddenly the car to avoid a throng of zombies in the street. The Camry careens on the grassy knoll and flips several times, churning around Kai, Jessica, Krystal and Naeun until the car and lands on the bottom.

Junghee wastes no time in slamming the biters with her large Jeep, crushing and incapacitating them quickly. She runs down the hill with Luhan, Jinyoung and Sehun following her. “Oh my god, oh my god, are you okay?” She screams as she dips down to see Kai hanging upside down from his seat. Junghee helps them out of the car.

“Nobody’s hurt?” Junghee asks.

“We were all wearing our seatbelts. Jessica unnie screams at us if we don’t." Krystal says light-heartedly.

“I hit my head on the window, but I’ll be fine.” Naeun says.

“What now?” Says Jessica as she stares at her toppled car. “All nine of us can’t fit in your two-seat Jeep” she says to Junghee.

Sehun hears the groaning of some distant walkers. “We don’t have much time. We should split up so we can go to the government shelter. They’ll probably have a car they can lend out.”

“There’s a building over there” Krystal points to a squarish beige office building on the street side. “We can wait there until you guys come get us.”

Junghee, Kai, and Sehun choose to go to the shelter. They give plenty of weapons and food to the others before driving off.

<:>

“We’re getting close.” Hyuna says as they cross a giant suspension bridge. “We’re staying outside of the entrance until we see them. If they don’t show up by tonight, we have to go.” Min is surprised by her tact and diplomacy. Where is the ual, mindless, soju bearing Hyuna whom she had seen on TV and music shows?

“Thank you guys so much for doing this, you don’t know how much it means to me.” Min says.

“Don’t thank us yet” Chunji says as he grinds his teeth.

<:>

In less than 20 minutes, Kai, Junghee and Sehun arrive at the place. They enter deep hidden driveway, with signs plastered everywhere that read: “GOVERNMENT FACILITY—DO NOT ENTER.” The building looks formidable and comforting. The trees crumple in respect to the facility, which is positioned in the middle of a forest. It is lofty, the size of a football field with thick walls and a rigid, austere roof. Tanks guard every corner, filling the group’s ears with a stomach-shaking bass.

<:>

“Look!” Min says. “That car that just passed by, I think that’s them.” Hyuna follows the road, but they don’t see the car. Sehun is driving their car too fast, and they are too far ahead for Min to see them.

“We can’t go too far in” Sera says fearfully. “They’ll get us.”

<:>

Sehun approaches the iron-bolted gates. Burly guards loom over them, staring at the car through thick sunglasses. One of them motions for Junghee to roll down the window.

“You got the supplies?” He says roughly.

“Y-yes” Junghee says, taken aback.

“What kind?”

“Guns, lots of food, gas.” Junghee says, her eyes hardening. She doesn’t like the way he’s talking to her, or the atmosphere of the place in general.  

“Go in, park in the left.” The man says. Sehun steps on the pedal and speeds off to the parking lot. Both sides are completely full, packed with cars. What is going on? The shelter isn’t big enough to house this many people, and the summer air is awfully quiet, not a cricket chirping in the air. There is an ominous, still sensation in the air, like the moment in the jungle before the lion strikes.

A large person with a black, full body suit walks to the car, and more soldiers follow behind him. Kai’s heart quickens as the man speeds right toward them. The man clutches the car handle and opens the door. He grabs Sehun by the collar and throws him out of the car.

“NO! STOP!” Junghee yells. The man pulls out a handgun. BOOM. The bullet pieces his head and he is dead. On the pavement, face scraping the floor, like a dog. This can’t be happening, this can’t be happening, Kai thinks as he scrambles for his life.

<:>

BOOM. They hear the sound ricocheting through the air. “No!” Min screams. “That’s them, they’re shooting them, oh my god, oh my god!”

“Get out of the car.” Hyuna commands as she grabs a rifle from her bag. She points to an ivy-laced wall that hides the government building. She hands Min a gun and climbs the hill that slopes toward the top of the wall. Crouching down, they can see the situation in the parking lot. They draw their weapons and focus the viewfinder on the scene. Min sees a man’s body on the ground, blood pooling around his head.

<:>

Junghee is fierce. She instinctively picks up a large gun from the car aisle and nails the guard who shot Sehun. They are surprised, not expecting a civilian to act so quickly. She jumps out of the car shooting them down, one by one. Kai jumps out of the car and fights until a pain rings in ear. He feels his head to find blood. His ear has been shot off.

<:>

“Oh my god” Chunji whispers.

“Did you shoot that boy?!” Sera says angrily.

“It was an accident I was aiming for the guard!” And it was true, his aim was directed at the bad people. But unconsciously, his hand slipped.

They shoot, taking out the guards one by one. All of them have been killed, and Kai and Junghee slip in their car and speed off before more guards arrive.

Sera and Min run to their car, and the two groups meet eyes. “MIN? MIN!” Junghee screams.

“GO, GO!” Min motions them. Chunji runs in the car, and the two cars run away from the scene.

Next chapter will be uploaded in June, after all the testing and school is over :)