Bom slowly opened her eyes, feeling someone gently nudging her. She lifted her head to try to see, and even though her eyes were burning and her vision was blurry, she could tell that it was T.O.P. His features were so pronounced, that long masculine face and those wide dark eyes, and his voice, so deep, as he whispered for her to wake up.

Suddenly abashed over what she might look like, she held her hands over her face and tried to wave him off. “Aigoo, it’s too early,” she said.

“Come on,” he said, smiling and trying to pull her hands away from her face.

She gently slapped his hands away in her attempt to keep her face covered. “Aniyo, I’m all puffy.”

“What? You’re beautiful,” he said. Suddenly embarrassed by his confession, he quickly added, “For an alien.”

She dropped her hands and laughed, sitting up now to look at him. “Why do you always tease me?”

There were so many ways he could have answered this question. Because I like you. Because I don’t know how to tell you that I like you. Because I’m awkward and weird and don’t know how else to act. But ultimately, he just smiled and held out his hand to help her to her feet, careful not to wake the other girls sleeping beside her. “Everyone’s going to be hungry when they wake up,” he whispered, as he picked her bag up off the floor and gestured her away from the girls. “I thought we could sort through the food together.”

Bom covered her yawn, still trying to wake up, and then smiled. “Can you bring that chair over here so I can sit?” she asked, pointing to the desk chair over near the window.

T.O.P. had been avoiding the window since he woke up that morning because he knew that once he looked out to the streets below and saw the zombies still there, he wouldn’t be able to tell himself that it had all been a nightmare he was having, just some crazy dream. But now that Bom was awake, he felt this pressing need to protect her, and he couldn’t do that if he was trying to pretend that the danger did not exist. And so as he grabbed the chair for Bom now, he looked out that window, but he didn’t look long. The sight was too much for him and he slowly backed away. Compared to the number of zombies he had seen from that same window yesterday, there were now at least two times as many. He felt a great sense of panic then and wanted to wake the others immediately. They had to leave, he thought. If they stayed, there would be even more zombies out there the next day, and even more the day after that. If they had any chance to escape, now was the time.

Seeing the worried expression on T.O.P.’s face, Bom dropped her bag and walked over to him. “What’s wrong?” she asked.

“Nothing,” he said. He looked around at everyone sleeping on the floor. “Should we wake them?”

But before Bom could answer, a loud thud was suddenly heard from the floor above them, jolting everyone from their sleep. They all sat up now, wide awake and scared.

“What was that?” Gary asked. He looked at Jae Suk and Kwang Soo on either side of him, but their mouths just hung open as they glanced blankly around the room.

CL, Dara, and Minzy stood up then. As did Jong Kook and Ji Hyo. And then G-Dragon and Daesung. They all wandered to the middle of the room near T.O.P. and Bom and stared up at the ceiling, trying to listen for any other noise.

“I can’t take this,” Dara said. “This is just…” She rubbed the sleep from her eyes and walked over to G-Dragon, who embraced her.

Bom started crying and T.O.P. gently squeezed her hand, never more certain that they needed to get out of the building. He looked over at Jong Kook. “Hyung, we need to talk about leaving.”

“Leaving?” Jong Kook asked. “And go where?”

The others stared at T.O.P. now, waiting for him to respond. He looked around at their faces, trying to get a sense of what they were thinking, but the only emotion visible on their faces was fear. He breathed in deeply, not wanting to add to their fear but knowing that he had to tell them what he saw. “There are more of them out there now,” he said. “And there’ll probably be even more tomorrow.” He looked back at Jong Kook now. “This… this might be our only chance to leave before this building is completely surrounded.”

Everyone tried to shake the sleep from their heads and think about what T.O.P. had just said. Most of them didn’t think that they stood a chance out there, not out in the open like that. But the building didn’t seem much safer.

“Okay, okay,” Jae Suk said. “We need to think this through. If we stay here–”

“We have to stay here,” Jong Kook said. “Look what happened yesterday.”

“But we need to have this conversation,” Jae Suk said. “We need to know that we’ve weighed every option.” He looked around at the others and when he saw that he had their attention, he quickly smoothed out his bed hair and straightened his glasses. Feeling more alert now, he continued his thought. “If we stay here, we have to secure this building. I don’t know what that was upstairs just now, but it didn’t sound good. And I told you what I saw downstairs in the lobby. Plus, those front doors are propped open, giving those… things… complete access inside.” He looked over at Jong Kook. “I know yesterday… didn’t go as planned, but that doesn’t mean we can’t try again.”

Jong Kook stared blankly at the floor, trying to think.

“We have to get down to that cafeteria,” Kwang Soo said. He had been quiet up until now, trying to hear what everyone had to say. But the more everyone talked, the more he realized that if they could secure a food source, they could have a chance in that building. “We can’t survive on deer bellybutton,” he said. Looking at Bom now, he added, “No offense.”

Bom shrugged and held T.O.P.’s hand tighter, still scared of the noise they’d heard upstairs. She hadn’t been able to concentrate on anything else since.

“That cafeteria is probably overrun with zombies by now,” Gary said.

“But if we want to stay here, we’ll need to clear every floor,” Jae Suk said. “And we need that cafeteria.”

Jong Kook knew that Jae Suk was right. But just as he was beginning to accept the idea of venturing out on a mission again, Jae Suk veered the conversation elsewhere.

“You seem to think leaving is a better idea,” Jae Suk said to T.O.P. “Where would we go?”

“I don’t know,” T.O.P. said, his deep voice so low that the others could barely hear. But then he cleared his throat and said, “We need to get out of Seoul. Away from… people.”

Jae Suk shook his head solemnly. “My family’s out there,” he said, his voice cracking. “I can’t leave the city without them.”

Daesung quietly spoke up. “We don’t know what’s happening out there. Maybe it’s not as bad as everyone thinks.”

“I’m thinking about my family, too,” Jong Kook quietly said. “My mom…”

Ji Hyo sighed and reached for his hand.

“But we couldn’t even clear the fourth floor without… without losing someone,” Jong Kook said, still full of doubts about his leadership. “I think we can be more prepared next time,” he said. “We might be able to claim this building. But beyond that, out there on the street, I don’t think so.”

“Maybe we’ll be rescued,” CL said. “No one’s even talking about that. I mean, we’re going to get rescued eventually, right?”

Everyone stared at CL for a moment and then looked down at the floor, not knowing what to say.

And then they heard another noise. But it wasn’t coming from upstairs. Instead, it sounded like it was coming from the stairwell.

Jong Kook held his finger to his lips and then pointed to the two stockpiles of weapons on either side of the room. Everyone nodded, some with tears in their eyes as they ran to grab a weapon. With barbells and microphone stands and knives in their hands, they tiptoed slowly toward the office door and then out into the hallway, all staring ahead at the barricaded stairwell from which they’d heard the noise.

And then there was a quick crash as the stairwell door was pushed against the barricade. The desks held the door closed, but the crash startled everyone and they all backed up now, their eyes wide as they stared down the hall.

And then there was another crash. And another.

They could see the stairwell door slamming against the desks, pushing the barricade apart a bit more each time. Everyone in the group looked at each other, some holding their hands over their mouths to hide their fright, others trying to clench their teeth and grip their weapons tighter in an attempt to be brave. But no one was prepared for what they then saw.

With one last push from that stairwell door, the barricade completely broke apart, the desks flying out in all directions. And two figures then emerged, one wearing a shiny black helmet and holding up a riot shield, and the other wearing a white rubber gas mask and holding what appeared to be a katana.  

No one thought this strange at first. Everyone was too happy, thinking that they were saved. But when that initial shock wore off and G-Dragon got a better look at the masks and shields, he felt a sudden flash of déjà vu. “Fantastic Baby?” he mumbled.

T.O.P. and Daesung now looked at G-Dragon, their eyes wide as they realized, too, that these were costumes from their music video.

The one holding the katana pulled off his white rubber gas mask. It was Mr. YG himself, Hyun Suk.

“Yang Goonie?” G-Dragon asked.

“Yah! Since when do you call me Yang Goonie?” Hyun Suk replied.

G-Dragon, too stunned to respond, then looked at the shielded figure next to Hyun Suk, who had just flipped up the visor on his helmet, revealing himself to be Big Bang’s maknae, Seungri.

“Seungri-yah?” G-Dragon, T.O.P., and Daesung ran down the hall, nearly colliding with their boss and maknae as they excitedly ran up to hug them both. The rest of the group followed, unable to believe their eyes.