“All Aboard!” The conductor yelled in an old fashioned manner, waving all last passengers onto the train.

Hana huddled into a corner seat, having sneaked her way into the train as everybody else was packing and checking their things. She crossed her fingers as the conductor walked up and down the train, hoping that he would never realize that she had no ticket.

Luckily, he seemed preoccupied with a woman wearing a skirt so high; Hana wondered what its function would be, as it certainly didn’t cover her underwear… or anything else.

She relaxed as the train started to pull away from the station, realizing they wouldn’t check again until the next stop, and that was at least a 10 hour ride.

She didn’t need to go too far, just far enough for them to become confused as to where she was. Come to think of it, maybe it would be better to stay close. After all, the most dangerous place is the safest place to hide.

“Tea?” A perky voice asked, smiling at Hana.

Pulling her hood further over her head, Hana muttered a polite no, while, of course, rubbing her hungry stomach. It had been the night before that she had last eaten, and after a full day of running and sneaking about, she couldn’t wait for some solid food to enter her system, even if it was the crap that her school cafeteria served.

“Excuse me; when will dinner be served?” Another passenger asked politely, taking the cup of tea from the waitress.

Hana’s ears perked up at the mention of a meal.

“In another 45 minutes, sir.” The waitress responded, moving on to the next passenger.

Hana’s stomach growled at the thought of food, and she all but hoped that she wasn’t drooling, with all the watering going in .

It wasn’t going to be a relaxing ride, for sure though, as Hana silently panicked in her seat. Hopefully, they wouldn’t be smart enough to guess exactly where she would land. Well, considering that Hana herself didn’t exactly know where she was going, the chances of them finding her would be slim.

Well, that was the plan.

That was the plan until a pretty girl with long hair sat in front of Hana, attempting at conversation.

Hana didn’t particularly like people, and nor did she want to talk to anybody at this point, but the girl was so…so persistent. She continued to smile and wave at Hana, asking her irrelevant questions like her favourite colour and band. Hana didn’t know what to answer with, as she had neither.

Even as she shook her head silently though, the girl only smiled cheerfully before tucking long blond strands behind her ear and attempting to ask yet another question.

So Hana gave in. She looked at the girl from head to toe; from the girl’s shoulder length, honey coloured hair, to the girl’s weathered black sneakers. Everything about the girl seemed effortlessly beautiful, and Hana snickered at the thought of the girl she saw earlier with a ‘barely-underwear-length’ skirt.

Hana always had a habit of ignoring little details, but this girl’s beauty was pretty much screaming for her to notice, and she couldn’t help but stare.

Just a little, actually.

“So, where are you from?” The girl asked, inching closer and shoving her pack of jellybeans in Hana’s face.

“Home.” Hana answered roughly, brushing off the icky feeling of someone’s breath on her neck. But then she saw it.

Right beneath the girl’s earlobe, carved onto milky white skin, was a mark. It wasn’t a special mark, and normally, one would think of it as a birthmark, but Hana knew she had seen it before. The black, tattoo like mark was about the size of a pea, and consisted of a tiny black crow. On the beak of the crow, a tiny hint of red reminded Hana of the blood shed on the dreadful day her parents died.

This girl before her was not a friend.

Hana tried to brush away this paranoid thought but ended up scaring herself instead. How had they found her so easily?

“Are you feeling okay? Are you scared?” The girl asked, grabbing Hana’s shoulders a little too violently.

“Umm…Washroom!” Hana muttered quickly, pushing the girl away so that she could stand up. The train rocked unsteadily from beneath her and she dizzily ran to the washroom, clutching at the passing seats to keep her balance.

By the time she reached the washroom, her breathing was ragged, more out of fear than exhaustion. She remembered that mark clearly now, and in her mind’s eye, behind the beaded tears rolling down her cheeks, she remembered the sharp features of the creature that had tried to kill her years ago.

She remembered the eyes.

She remembered the breath.

She remembered the emotionless grin.

Mostly, she remembered the mark. This same mark graced the creature’s neck, a much larger size than what she saw beneath the girl’s ear, but she knew the two tattoos were identical.

“I…I have to leave.” Hana muttered, roughly swiping at the tears running down her tears… It was much too soon for all this to end. She had wanted to escape this life, but never had she wanted it to end.

She thought about death at times, but she has worked so hard to run away before. She flat-out refused to give up now. Hana didn’t know what she was fighting for, but she sure knew there was no way to turn back now.

Finally, she calmed down enough to glance around at the small compartment. Parts of the washroom seemed uncharacteristically dirty, unlike the clean exterior of the train, and she wondered how many of the yellow stains were from people missing toilet.

Hana hated it when she got carried away.

This certainly was not the right time for her to get distracted, so she walked around the small room, knowing that she didn’t have much time before the girl would realize that Hana had found out about her true identity.

It took her exactly two minutes to break open the hatch that locked the small window closed, and she knew that she had less than another minute to jump out, as she heard the faint cries of the girl from the other side of the door.

“Are you okay?”

Hell not.Hana rolled her eyes sarcastically.

“Are you still there?”

I’m not answering. What do you think? One more second; all it would take was another second for Hana to successfully climb through the window. Hana lifted her head to look out the window, and the wind caught her hair, whipping her long strands against her own face.

The thought of jumping out that window made Hana nervous… It looked far more dangerous than the window she had jumped out of that morning. Besides, the train was going at an impossibly fast pace, and she could only make out faint blurs of the passing scenery as the train zoomed on and on.

“Look. I don’t want to barge in!” The voice begged, and Hana could almost imagine the girl’s large eyes watering in annoyance.

No, this is not some girl. This is a monster.

“It…it wouldn’t be appropriate! At least tell me if you’re okay!”

Appropriate? Are you talking to me about MANNERS now? What… did you expect to bow and say ‘welcome?’

“Please!!! At least pull up your pants. I’m going to break in now.”

Do it, . Hana swore in her mind before taking one last calming breath and hurtling herself through the window. As she felt her body get into the wind and being carelessly plastered to the side of the train, she realized that the wind was blowing the wrong.

How ing stupid can I be?

The blood-curdling scream accompanied by the banging of the bathroom door seemed very distant now, and finally, she felt the wind take her away from the side of the train. She thought she heard a faint scream of ‘hyung,’ but she must’ve been imagining things at that point.

The last thing she saw was the girl prepare to jump out after her, but before the girl could do anything, the train had rushed past, leaving Hana broken, bloody and barely conscious on the ground.

How the hell did she survive that?

Hana didn’t know, but she figured she wouldn’t stick around to find out. Picking up her body from the ground, she let out a scream of pain and frustration.

Why her?

~

When she first got into the subway station, she didn’t know where she was. All the name plaques were unknown to her, and the routes seemed extremely foreign. Good.

Now nobody would know where she was, not even herself.

But she heard the soft steps of someone behind her, and she turned around just in time to see a tall boy hurtle against her side, successfully knocking the wind out of her.

“You. ing. Make. Us. Crazy.”

Hana thought about letting out the loudest scream she could muster, just so she could catch the attention of everybody around her, but when she opened , she found it being covered by a pair of extremely soft hands.

Who knew monsters could have such soft hands? Once again, the faint black tattoo on the wrist of this boy caught her attention, and she struggled in his grasp.

Then the girl from before stepped out from behind an escalator, and her wide eyes were even wider with concern.

Concern.Hana snickered at the thought, but it only came out as a hiccup when she realized the boy’s hand was still over .

Hana didn’t give it another thought this time. She lifted her leg and brought it straight into… the boy’s… groin.

The boy hissed in pain, and fell to the ground. Hana smirked once again, and enjoyed her freedom for a split second before running in the direction of the next exit.

Except another boy came running from that exit.

.

And another boy came from the next exit. How many people did they station here?

Having no choice, Hana suddenly heard the sound of the coming subway. Rash, and completely out of her mind, Hana could only think of one thing.

She would die than have them catch her. And if they decided to follow her, they shall just kill themselves too.

Leaving no time for hesitation, Hana jumped onto the tunnel that the Subways were arriving on. A flash of light notified her of the fact that the subway was indeed rushing straight for her, head on.

She heard a series of screams, high pitched and awfully annoying, just before she felt a pair of hands push her onto the pavement. Her neck snapped back, and she felt someone hovering over her, but she out before the bright glare of the subway lights adjusted so that she could see the person’s face.

“She is the most stubborn person I’ve ever met.” A voice broke out from the dark, and the dust cleared so that the boy was clearly seen by his friend, who was still on top of the poor girl.

“Jonghyun. It’s ironic hearing how bull-headed other people are from the bull-head himself.”

Jonghyun, looking highly offended, huffed as he pulled a shy boy from behind him to the other exits, where two other boys stood, looking somewhat a cross between amused and annoyed.

“Key. Minho.” Jonghyun greeted, nodding his head so that the two smiled back. A cute looking boy peered at the other two from behind Jonghyun’s shoulder, though he was clearly taller that the latter.

“Baby,” I thought I told you we’d handle it after she jumped out of the train.” A single dimple appeared on a blond haired boy’s face as he walked over to hug the cowering boy.

“I didn’t want to listen. She saved my life before, Key.”

“Honorifics, Taemin.” A tall, dark haired boy said sternly from beside Jonghyun.

“I know.” Key sighed, ruffling Taemin’s hair. “But she could save so many more.” 

~

Gosh, it took me so long to write :P I was insanely busy, and really, very lazy hahah :P Besides, the whole asianfanfics-breaking down thing kinda made me want to wait even longer :P But I finally introduced SHINee, which means I can get to the real plot now :P I'll hopefully be updating soon, because I really don't want to focus on calculus instead :P 

- ICEDCOFFEE

P.S. Too late at night for me to realize typos and grammatical errors, so I'll edit when I wake up a bit :P 

BTW... should I rate this? I mean... there's an awful lot of swearing going on now.... hehehe