Hyun Suk slammed his foot down on the brake as the van screeched to a stop. Jong Kook, who had been following close behind, saw the brake lights on the YG van and did the same, nearly colliding with them.

No one in the RM van could see around the YG van and so they didn’t know why Hyun Suk had suddenly stopped.

But everyone in the YG van knew. They sat in that now idling van, staring ahead at the steel perimeter fence blocking the entrance to the stadium and the two armed guards standing in front, both of whom had suddenly drawn their weapons.

“Out of the van,” the guards said sternly, the of their rifles resting on their shoulders as they aimed their sights on the van, their fingers on the triggers.

Hyun Suk looked over at G-Dragon in the passenger seat and then to the others in the back. He had never been distrustful of the military. In fact, Hyun Suk had enjoyed his military service. He had been an exceptional soldier and sniper, so much so that he was put in charge of the border garrisons. But the world was different now. It was chaos. He held up his hands, signaling to the guards in front of the van that they meant no trouble. “Ji Yong-ah, don’t move,” Hyun Suk quietly said, still staring at the guards through the windshield. “I’m going to get out. If something goes wrong, you get everyone out of here.”

G-Dragon had his hands up, too, as if in surrender, but didn’t say anything.

“Yah, you hear me, Ji Yong?” Hyun Suk said, now turning to G-Dragon. “If something happens to me, you’re in charge.”

“Yeah, yeah,” G-Dragon said.

“Good. Stay here. No one get out unless I say so.” Hyun Suk opened the driver’s side door and slowly stepped out, his hands still up.

G-Dragon and the others watched as Hyun Suk carefully approached the guards. They were all frightened. They had thought they had found rescue here. What had they found instead? Was it some sort of trap? They didn’t understand what was happening.

Those in the RM van knew even less. They now radioed the YG van, asking why they had stopped.

G-Dragon didn’t want to pick up the radio in case the guards spotted him doing so through the windshield. Instead, he told Dara to carefully reach forward into the console and tuck behind the driver’s seat to respond to the RM van. “Just make sure the guards don’t see,” G-Dragon said.

“YG to RM,” Dara said, her voice shaking.

“Yeah, what’s going on?” Ji Hyo’s voice seemed to be shaking, too.

“There are soldiers,” Dara said quietly. “They stopped us. They have guns.”

The radio went quiet for a moment. Up ahead, Dara and G-Dragon continued watching Hyun Suk and the guards. Hyun Suk seemed to be talking with them, but they still had their weapons drawn.

The radio now hissed again. “Is everything okay?” It was Jong Kook’s voice. “What’s going on up there?”

Dara didn’t answer. She didn’t know what to say. But then she and the others in the YG van saw the guards drop their guns, and Hyun Suk then waved to the van, gesturing them out. Dara held the call button on the radio again. “I think it’s okay,” she said.

G-Dragon exited the van first and pulled the side door open for the others to follow. Those in the RM van were getting out, too, and now followed the YG group to the perimeter fencing where they joined Hyun Suk and the two guards.

“This is a protected space,” one of the guards said to them. “You’ll need to follow the procedure before we can admit you.”

Everyone in the group glanced at each other and then looked back at the soldiers, nodding.

“Are we rescued?” Kwang Soo quietly asked, his voice too low for the soldiers up front to hear.

“I think so,” Gary whispered back.

One of the guards called on his radio for backup, and within a minute, a troop of soldiers came jogging out to the fence. They asked for the keys to the vans, and when Hyun Suk and Jong Kook turned them over, the soldiers searched the two vehicles and confiscated all of the weapons and what little supplies the group had with them. Afterward, the soldiers drove the vans past the gate and into the parking lot of the stadium.

As everyone watched the soldiers scavenge their vans and eventually drive them off, they realized that if something did go wrong now, they would be left with no vehicles, no weapons, nothing. Hyun Suk reassured them all that he had talked with the guards and that everything was okay, but even he felt somewhat uneasy, especially when he saw them take his katana.

“Doesn’t feel like a rescue center,” CL whispered. “Feels more like a prison.”

Only Ji Hyo had heard what CL had said, and as she and the others now followed the soldiers through the gate, she tried to keep her defenses up just in case.

Inside the stadium – not in the open field arena but inside the dimly lit hallways of the interior – the group was forced to go through a series of checkpoints. This was the procedure. And it began with a medical staff examining each survivor from head to toe to check for bites or any other signs of infection.

Ji Hyo and the 2ne1 girls were separated from the guys and directed to a room down the hall. They followed the nurse to the room she pointed out, took off their clothes, and wore the privacy gowns supplied to them.

The nurse, a slender young woman with a soft brown complexion and deep set eyes, introduced herself as Anne. Dara instantly recognized the woman’s accent and asked, in Tagalog, if she was Filipino.

“Opo, I am,” Anne said, and then shyly admitted that she is Dara’s fan.

Dara continued talking with her in Tagalog, telling her that she could be comfortable with her and to speak informally. When Anne smiled, Dara felt that perhaps, with this connection established between her and the nurse, she would be able to get some answers. “Is this place really safe? Everyone seems weird,” Dara said. “They took all our stuff and now they’re just ordering us around.”

Anne nodded. “Everyone is just scared,” she said. “And you didn’t come with the evacuation teams like everyone else. You showed up here on your own.”

“There was an evacuation?” Ji Hyo asked, interrupting.

Anne nodded again. “When this all started, there was a notice on the television and radio stations. The government seemed to know what was happening before anyone else did. They were prepared and had the military send evacuation vans all throughout the city. That’s how most people came here that first day.”

“We didn’t know,” CL said now. “We saw a tank come by yesterday and Leeteuk told us–”

“Leeteuk?” Anne asked. “You saw him? Is he okay?”

Ji Hyo and the other girls looked at each other. They didn’t know what to say about the tank they had seen covered in zombies. It most likely was Leeteuk’s tank, but they couldn’t say for sure.

Anne glanced around at the girls and absorbed their silence. Sitting down on the stool near the medical table now, she sighed. “Poor Heechul-ah. He will not take this well.”

“Heechul’s here?” Dara asked.

“He’s here,” Anne said, smiling now. “I don’t know what I would do if I lost him.”

The girls looked curiously at her.

Anne, feeling the need to explain, said, “He’s my fiancé. He hired me as his private nurse a long time ago and we fell in love. But we never told anyone. We kept it a secret all these years. But now, with everything that’s happening, I guess keeping that secret doesn’t matter anymore.”

“Who else is here?” Dara asked.

“You can check the survivor records later,” Anne said. “But first, I need to make sure that none of you were bitten.”

After the girls were examined and given medical clearance, they were given a change of clothes and then reunited with the guys, all of whom were also cleared and were wearing the same clean t-shirts and loose pants as the girls.

Everyone was then shuffled off to the counselor. Anne had told the girls that the counselor, Rae, was also Filipino and was very nice. As they walked to the makeshift counseling room now, Dara relayed this information to G-Dragon and the rest of the guys.

“I don’t need to see a counselor,” Hyun Suk said. Looking around at the soldiers lingering in that dark hallway, he whispered, “I need to find my katana.”

G-Dragon shrugged. “Everything seems secure here.”

“I’d feel safer with my katana,” Hyun Suk said.

“The nurse said that there are survivor records,” Bom quietly said. “We can see who else is here. Our families maybe.”

Hyun Suk nodded, forgetting about his weapon now as he thought of his family.

Everyone else thought of their families, too. Those with family members in Seoul were anxious to see if they were here. Those with family members elsewhere in the country and abroad wondered if this same devastation had spread to those areas. Jong Kook wondered about Haha and Suk Jin’s families, hoping that he could keep the promises he had made to his fallen friends.

All were anxious to see the records, and when they reached the counseling room and greeted Rae, that was the first thing they asked about.

“Please understand that not everyone you love may be here,” Rae said. “And that will likely be upsetting. But I am here if you want to talk. I’m sure this has been quite a trying ordeal for all of you.” She looked down for a moment. “It’s been hard for everyone.” Looking back up at the group now, she said, “I came to Korea only a week ago. For vacation. I just wanted to get away from work for a while. And then all this happened.”

“How’d you end up as a counselor here?” Jae Suk asked.

“I was one of the first evacuees,” Rae said. “We were all asked to contribute in some way. With my social work background, and considering what had happened, they thought I could be useful as a counselor. So, here I am… doing the same work I had come here to get away from.”

Everyone sighed knowingly.

“I understand that you’re anxious to see your families. I’ll you to the check-in where you can get signed in and then view the records. But once you get settled, I’d like to speak to each of you separately and make sure that you’re handling everything okay.”

They all nodded and then followed Rae further down the hall and around the corner, where they could see the entrance to the field. Having gotten used to the darkness of the interior, that sudden outpouring of sunlight from the opening blinded them. They couldn’t see the field, only the light, but the idea that their families and friends might be out there, scattered across the green field out there in the sun, made them all want to just pick up and run through that opening to find them.

But just then, from off to the side, a soldier walked toward them, blocking the entrance and appearing like a silhouette with the sun behind him. As he walked closer to them, the group was able to see him more closely.

“Dong Wook-ah?” Hyun Suk asked, as he neared the soldier. He almost didn’t recognize Se7en with his shorn hair and military attire.

Se7en smiled and hugged his boss. “I heard you all were here,” he said.

“Dong Wookie!” The rest of the YG family now hugged him, too, thankful that he was okay and hopeful that others they cared about would be okay, too.

“1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7!” Jae Suk called out, as he now in the group hug.

Everyone scoffed and sighed. “Why do you have to be so cheesy?” Gary asked, laughing.

“Yah, it’s Se7en!” Jae Suk said. “1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7!”

“You did that same joke when he was on Running Man,” Kwang Soo said. “Don’t you have any new material?”

Se7en had been in military service for almost a year, but like the other soldiers, he was given a new role since the outbreak. The army had him in charge of checking in all new survivors at the stadium and assigning them a code that designated which of the hundreds of cots set up across the green field was theirs. Each code began with a letter – N for North, E for East, and so forth, depending on where in the field the cot is located, followed by a number sequence that orders the rows.

Se7en assigned Hyun Suk and the others to the west end. There were already thirty-seven occupied cots on that side of the stadium, and so their codes began with W38 and so on. Once everyone was assigned a cot, Se7en created stick-on tags for them that they had to wear on their shirt, which contained their real names and codes.

“Do we have to wear this?” Kwang Soo asked.

Ji Hyo remembered what CL had whispered earlier, about this place feeling like a prison. As she looked around at the others, all wearing the same plain clothes and now with these tags pasted to their shirts, she realized that they were indeed prisoners. But maybe not in the sense that CL meant. It was more like they were prisoners of war.

When everyone was tagged, Se7en allowed them to check the books to see who else was there. The names and codes were listed in order of arrival, and as they looked through it now, they began shouting out names of people they knew and cared about.

“Jae Suk-ah!” Jong Kook said, scanning the list. “Your wife and son are here!”

“And my brother!” Dara said.

G-Dragon and the others now tried to squeeze through to see the lists, too, their hopeful faces beaming.

“Ji Yong-ah,” Hyun Suk said, nudging G-Dragon from behind. “Is my family on the list?”

G-Dragon read over the names but didn’t see Hyun Suk’s wife, Eun Ju, or the names of their two young children listed. He checked the lists again, more carefully this time, but still found no mention of them. G-Dragon now turned around to face his boss and slowly shook his head.

Hyun Suk sighed and closed his eyes. “It’s okay,” he said, opening his eyes now. “You go on ahead with the others.” He pointed toward the sunlit opening to the field. “Go find your friends and families. I’ll catch up with you in a little bit.”

G-Dragon nodded, grabbed Dara’s hand, and then followed the others as they all walked toward the light and out onto the field.

When everyone was gone, Hyun Suk turned to Se7en. “I need your help,” he said.

Se7en nodded. “Whatever you need,” he said.

“Where did they take our weapons?”

Se7en sighed now. “Please, boss. You don’t need–”

“Dong Wook-ah, I love you, but don’t tell me what to do.”

“We have an armory. There’s a soldier in charge of it named Rina. But she’s not going to let you–”

“You let me worry about that,” Hyun Suk said. “Let’s go.”