The burning sensation of your own searing flesh reaches into your subconscious before anything else, dragging you violently out of your peaceful slumber and back into reality. A scream escapes your throat before you’ve even had time to open your eyes, and for a moment you fear that you had fallen asleep too close to the campfire. When your eyelids do jolt open, however, you see that the campfire has been reduced to a mere heap of smouldering coals. The fire is elsewhere. It is beneath your clothes, beneath your skin, like a blowtorch being held to each and every nerve ending, cauterizing them to the brink of numbness but leaving them just intact enough to register the pain of it all.

    Yongguk jolts up as well with an equally rude awakening, and as you both try to get a grip of the situation, you see them. Ants, swarming the bowl of berries as well as both of your sleeping bodies - red, angry, fire ants, and you become terrifyingly aware of them crawling all over you. You immediately leap to your feet and desperately try to shake them off, but the agonizing pain continues.

    “The river!” Yongguk shouts, and he drags you with him to the water’s edge.

    A moment later, you are both completely submerged beneath its current, and although the cold water brings welcome relief to your burning skin, the ants continue to sting. Breaking the surface, you see Yongguk wrestling his shirt off of his body, which his tosses back onto shore. When he turns to you to do the same, you feel stupid at your own hesitation.

    “What are you doing?!” you reflexively stop his hand as it grasps the hem of your shirt, even though you fully understand exactly what he’s doing.

    “The ants are in your clothes, you have to take them off!”

    He frantically resumes removing his own articles of clothing, and you stand there feeling helplessly torn.

    If you want to treat survival as a game, you might not be playing for very long, you recall him saying.

    Your resolve strengthens and you yank off your clothes as quickly as you can, sighing in relief as the cold water washes away the venom of the fire ants. You and Yongguk both manage to catch your breath and you desperately avoid making eye contact with him, taking care to keep your body beneath the water as you stand together in the river. You hate feeling so vulnerable.

    You notice Yongguk move to rinse out his clothing closer to the riverbank, only the top half of his body exposed from the water, and when he catches your eye he passes you your clothing to do the same. You fumble with them for a moment, certain that he noticed you looking at his toned body even though you honestly hadn’t meant to, but if he did he makes no comment about it.

    “Thanks,” you mumble, getting to work on scrubbing out your clothes, making sure not a single ant - dead or alive - is left within them.

    You hear Yongguk climb out of the river, followed by the buckling of his belt. When you turn to face him he is already walking away, giving you privacy to get dressed. You exhale shakily, still shivering in the cold water.

    Wishing you had taken off your shoes like Yongguk had, you  resort to leaving them in the sun to dry after getting back into your wet clothes. They cling to your every curve, and the damp material doesn’t help your body temperature. When you return to the willow tree, you are thankful to find that Yongguk has gotten the fire going again. All signs of the ants are gone, as if they had never been there at all.

    “Well that was annoying,” Yongguk exclaims as he tends to the growing flames, “Interrupted a good nap, that did.”

    “Yeah,” you reply awkwardly, holding your hands closer to the warmth as you try to dry off. Again, you find yourself grateful for the unspoken agreement to not press conversation about issues that wouldn’t be welcome discussion.

    An uncomfortable throbbing still persists beneath your skin, and you’re starting to notice the small welts from each sting. There are too many for you to count, and you decide you don’t really want to know the number anyways.

    The weight of Yongguk’s jacket suddenly presses down on your shoulders. He hadn’t been wearing it, so it’s still dry and warm.

    “You’re shaking,” he makes a simple observation, and you thank him with a smile.

    You stay put for a while to dry your clothes, but you eventually find yourself walking barefoot through the meadow, unable to bear the awkward atmosphere back at camp. The grass is cool and soft beneath the soles of your feet, and with the warm sunlight at your back you feel at peace again. You stop by the pathway to the raspberry field, and decide to visit it once more.

    You’re not the only one who had this thought, you find. When he sees you this time, the pale boy doesn’t look quite as shocked as he did the first time. He takes a step away, however, and you hold up your hand.

    “Wait, please don’t run away!” you plead, “I’m not going to hurt you, I promise.”

    He hesitates for a moment. “Are you sure?” he asks, and even his voice sounds boyish. “Because most things out here do.”

    You frown at his cryptic comment and shake off the strange feeling it gives you. You notice he is standing next to the one plant bearing cherry tomatoes.

    “Is this your plant?” you ask, wondering why else only one plant would be different in the whole field.

    He nods, holding out a tomato as he himself eats one. You accept it with a kind smile.

    “How did you get here?” you ask.

    “I live here,” he replies, “The name’s Zelo.”

    You vividly remember Yongguk bursting through your door and asking how you got there, only to answer him with the obvious fact that you lived there. Surely this boy doesn’t live in a field, though. Just as you had stepped out into the grassy valley that should have been the corridor outside of your apartment, you wonder with a touch of pity what rude awakening this boy will walk into if he hasn’t already discovered that he is not in fact at home at all.

    “It’s nice to meet you, Zelo, but are you sure you really live here?” you ask him carefully.

    You’re not sure how to break it to him easily. Maybe it’ll be best if he thinks he’s dreaming; that was the only reason why you followed Yongguk, after all. But the corridor of your apartment had turned into a valley, so naturally that was the only assumption you could make at the time. You don’t have anything so shocking to convince him of your cause, however, and unless his tomato plant spontaneously turns into a giant beanstalk and Jack himself comes scrambling down it with a golden harp in hand, you know it will be tough to get through to Zelo.

    “Well, not here, of course,” he smiles at you as if you’ve just said the silliest thing, and you dread the words you know he is about to say about having a house nearby, probably a small ranch by the river further downstream as would be suitable for the setting, with this berry patch being only a small section of the acres of farmland probably surrounding it. You’ll have to tell him that his house will not be there if he tries to return. You’ll have to convince him that his family is gone and that if he wants to survive he should put the entirety of his trust in a complete stranger. He’ll think you’re as crazy as you thought Yongguk was.

    But his smile disappears, and his words that follow aren’t what you’re expecting at all. “There is no here,” he says.

    Your jaw drops. He already knows. “How did you-“

    You hear Yongguk call out your name in the distance, and Zelo glances over the tops of the tall bushes surrounding you.

    “I’ve got to get going,” he says absentmindedly, slipping some of the little tomatoes into a small pocket on the side of his satchel. Before you have the thought to bring him back with you to prove his existence to Yongguk, he is gone.

    Yongguk finds you soon after, still standing uncertainly amidst the raspberries. “The river has changed, and the rest of this place is sure to follow. We need to get moving,” he announces, holding out your still damp shoes.

    “Is there no more flowing water there anymore?” you ask in surprise, still not used to the dynamic setting of your environment. You slip the shoes on, though the waterlogged soles are uncomfortable.

    “Not exactly,” Yongguk says as he shakes his head, “It’s flowing blood.”

    Your eyes widen, but you don’t even have the thought to question if he’s being serious before the plants around you suddenly begin to wilt. You watch in incredulity as they wither away and die, and when you glance down at the tomato in your palm, it too has shrivelled to a small, brown lump.

    “I knew an omen like that must be bad,” Yongguk glances around, “We really do need to get out of here.”

    A rustling sound nearby catches your attention, and although your first thought is of Zelo, Yongguk grabs you and drags you straight into the denser area of bushes before you know what’s happening. Crouched down as low to the ground as possible, you peer back through the leaves and branches towards the clearing where you had just been standing, watching for any signs of movement. Yongguk hovers over you slightly with a finger placed to his lips. You wait, listening intently, your heart pumping adrenaline swiftly through your body.

    Not one figure but two emerge onto the path, neither bearing any resemblance to Zelo. In fact, the two men bear more of a resemblance to each other, and you suspect they may be brothers. You take in each of their appearances carefully. The first is tall and slender, with a deviant glint in his eyes which peer through the holes of a black mask. The second man is much larger and much less graceful on his feet, with a wide neck and thighs the size of tree trunks. His skin looks sickly green and the gaping wounds on his exposed limbs look terribly infected. They pass calmly, at their own measured pace, and trample through some low lying plants as they continue on their way.

    “Famine and Disease,” Yongguk whispers, “One a cunning thief, the other a rotting brute.” He glances down at you, and you decide that there’s no way he can’t hear your pulse with how loudly your heart is thudding beneath your chest. “I’m sorry if I startled you,” he says, “But it’s best we not cross paths with them.”

    You nod in acknowledgement and gather your wits as you both stand up again. You need no more persuasion to follow Yongguk, suddenly wanting to put as much distance between you and that horror show of a meadow as possible.

____
>entomophobia [ˌentəmōˈfōbēə] the fear of insects/small crawling creatures
>gymnophobia [ˌjimnōˈfōbēə] the fear of
>hemophobia [ˌhēmōˈfōbēə] the fear of blood