They made it to the ground floor in a hurried daze. Yunho caught a glimpse of the courtyard, now full to the brim with soulless. He suspected the shriek had brought them. There was no going back. The group went through the back gate, and locked it. "Leave it on the floor." Yunho pointed to the key.

Changmin obeyed, and dropped it, trailing last.

They avoided the main streets. Since they had no weapons, there was little choice in the matter. They ran when they could, and sneaked when they could. There were little soulless in back allies and side streets to get in their way and slow them down. When one or two did appear, they made makeshift weapons from the items around them. Sometimes a tube, other times a lamp stand.

Jaejoong was somehow able to get JinHee to walk on her own. "When is Junsu coming back?"

Jaejoong looked down at her, and at that moment, JinHee could see not one bit of his usual happy, smiling self. "He's not coming back, JinHee."

JinHee frowned. "Then we need to go get him." She tightened her hold on her father's hand, and dragged him back the way they came.

Yunho stepped in front of her, and leaned down her level. "JinHee," He began, harshness in his words. "When the soulless get someone, they don't come back."

"W-why?" The frightened little girls was already on the verge of crying.

Changmin sighed. She was getting on his last nerve. They shouldn't even be standing here. It's too open. Not to mention the various trash piles one could pop out from. Nobody knew how to answer the child without sugarcoating it. "He's dead! They're all dead."

Just as he suspected, Changmin was given stern looks and angry frowns and pointed glares. He only said it so they could keep walking.

JinHee wiped her oncoming tears and nodded. "Okay." She dropped her hand from Jaejoong, and walked, her head down.

They all stared at her acceptance for a moment before continuing to walk. Jaejoong stood beside her after putting the items he gave her in her bookbag.

Now with JinHee walking, and Yoochun’s limp, their pace slowed to a crawl, frustrating Changmin more.

Yoochun spoke up, although just barely. "All that preparation. Gone. Did anyone even grab the survival book?"

"It was in Junsu's bag."

No one spoke again until they reached the Olympic stadium. Lots of cars. Lots of tents. Lots of Soulless. They scavenged for bits to use, much to Yunho's protest.

"Stop, please, Yunho." Jaejoong looked at him with pleading eyes.

Yunho knew they needed some things. They left many of the items back at the apartment in a rush. Yoochun's medicine. The book. Lots of food was left, still on the counters. Water too. Yunho sighed, and allowed them to gather what they wanted. “Fine, but I don’t want to stay too long. Meet back in 15 minutes.”

What use is idol status anyways? Using his Leader Voice got Junsu killed. Being stupid got Junsu killed. There was no point in keeping up his reputation. No point in trying to stay civilized.

Together, they found four unopened water bottles, one packaged ramen, two crowbars and an axe firefighters use.

Jaejoong gave the bottle he found to Yunho.

Before they left, the stole some unused tents and sleeping bags, and continued to walk east. Soon, LotteWorld was in their view, and JinHee started jumping up and down out of excitement. She pointed to the castle in the distance, squealing little. "Can we go there? Can we? Can we? Can we please?"

"Absolutely not. That place is likely to be infested to the top of the castle with soulless."

So they kept walking.

Olympic park was deserted, with a few exceptions. And at one point, they began following the streets once the building density had lowered significantly. It was sunset by the time they reached the borders of Seoul.

By that time, they were exhausted. The group picked a random house to stay in, seemingly dark and unpopulated. Before they went in, he stopped them. "I grabbed this before we left."

Yoochun handed Changmin the gun. He could feel the looks on everyone’s face. “It was always the guns in the shows. It’s always going to be the guns..”

Changmin took the gun, after Jaejoong and Yunho went in, both their heads low. Yoochun stood with JinHee while the rest cleared the house.

The highways was next to the little shack they picked. The quietness was still unnerving at best, having been used to the sounds of city bustle for years on end.

The shack itself was one room, with maybe a bathroom in the corner. It looked like it once stored packages. Irrelevant information, since all of the supposed packages were gone. There were some newspapers scattered about, with bits of dirt and footprints. “Clear!” Yunho called out.

Yoochun got up with a wince. His foot still hurt, but he didn’t want the others to know. He was going to head in, but something was off. He turned to JinHee, and spotted her sleeping on the floor. He smiled, and called for Jaejoong.

Jaejoong poked his head out the door, and after a moment, followed Yoochun’s look. As carefully as he could, he picked her up. It was unnecessary, because she slept like a rock. He carried her in, slowly. Changmin was the one who saw, and rolled out a sleeping bag for her.

“It’s going to be freezing tonight. Anybody got anything to start a fire?” Yunho asked as he pat his body.

Yoochun groaned as he leaned to the side, and pulled out a lighter. He leaned to the other side, and pulled out a box of cigarettes. “Anybody want one?” His lit his own, and instinctively handed one to Jaejoong. He along with Yunho took one, though Yunho didn’t light his until he had started the fire. By that time, Jaejoong and Yoochun had managed to limp outside to have a smoke. Yunho slid down on the wall next to Jaejoong.

“Remember back when me and Junsu came back with some bikes? About the group that held us up?” The other two nodded, staring off to some things in the distance. Mostly the trees. Yoochun inhaled long and slow, savoring the bitter taste for a breath before exhaling. “Well, that leader of theirs, was Junsu’s secret girlfriend.”

Jaejoong didn’t bat an eye, but Yunho gasped. “He had a girlfriend?”

Yoochun nodded, a scowl on his face, plain as day. “It’s funny, really. While we were headed back, he told me: ‘As long as I know she’s safe, I don’t care where we go.’ Idiot. ”

“Please don’t speak ill of the dead.” Yunho’s own cigarette was much more interesting to look at than the almost dead trees. Yoochun mumbled an apology.

Jaejoong sniffed, curling himself up. He wanted to hide his tears from his bandmates, even though he knew it was pointless. They comforted him, with Yunho pulling him into a hug and Yoochun holding his cigarette free hand. He held back his sobs, for fear of attracting zombies. The salty tears mixed with snot and stained Yunho’s shirt.

Jaejoong needed to calm himself down. He didn’t want another panic attack. He took a deep breath, his hand subconsciously clenching Yoochun’s tighter.

Inside, Changmin sat by the fire, keeping it fed. There were times when it was just embers, and he had to rush to get the flames going again. For the most part, he was content with his thoughts. Most of them accused JinHee of slowing the group down. Toddlers and little children always do. Their short legs, and boundless energy tend to tire their bodies quickly. What was Jaejoong thinking, bring her along? And the two of them wanted a dog. Stupid.

Jaejoong shivered, causing Yunho to curse and huddle closer. “We should have brought heavier jackets.”

Sometime in the middle of the night after the fire had gone out, JinHee woke up, scared, and managed to wiggle herself into Changmin’s sleeping bag. She gave Jaejoong a panic in the morning, until Changmin spoke up.

Yoochun groaned. His leg felt sore, but mostly better. He hoped it was from the walking they did yesterday. It was their first real day in the new world, and none of them had walked that long before. There was the dance training, but that was bursts of energy, not endurance.

The sun was in the sky by the time Yunho started poking everyone to wake up.

The group was in the middle of eating when they heard shuffling. Groans. Scratches at the door. Yoochun grabbed the neared weapon, which prompted the rest to grab their weapons.

The door knob turned. The hand released it and scratched the door again. It didn’t open. This repeated two more times. The fourth time, it managed to keep the doorknob turned, and open the door. It creaked open, revealing a single soulless.

Changmin sprung into action and whacked the soulless with the crowbar he had. It tumbled to the ground, and latched on to his ankle. Yunho jumped up and chopped off it’s arm. Once he gained composure, Changmin the straight end of the crowbar into it’s head.

Jaejoong released his clutches from JinHee, and rushed to pack up camp. “How did it get in here?”

“I don’t know! I didn’t think we needed to lock it!”

“It’s a zombie for crying out loud! How can it open doors?”

JinHee didn’t quite understand the panic that surrounded her. Before she knew it, they left their shelter, and were back on the road, towards the mountains.

Makeshift military checkpoint.

That was the first things the group noticed as they approached the Seoul borders on foot. Jaejoong tensed up, and picked JinHee up, out of caution. The group slowed down to get a better look with drawing attention to themselves. The closer they got, the more they realized the checkpoint was empty, save for one poor soulless in military uniform.

Once they reached him, Changmin rammed his crowbar into the eye socket.

Past that, was where the traffic started. Opened doors, swerved and upturned cars, broken glass, and leaking gasoline. Many of those cars with their doors opened also contained bitten soulless. “Spread out, keep in sight, and stay quiet.” Yunho moved towards the center to lead.

Jaejoong turned to JinHee, and shuffled himself around her so she was in front, with his hands firmly on her shoulders. “Don’t move too close to the others. Go really slow, and don’t make a peep, okay?”

JinHee could tell her father being serious this time. She nodded, and led her father through the cars.

Everyone moved at the pace of a snail as they scanned cars ahead and picked the safest route through. A couple of times Jaejoong and Yunho had drifted towards each other.

The sun was high in the sky by the time the monotonous activity was broken. They approached a camper truck surrounded with soulless trying to break their way in. The truck creaked and swayed, attracting more soulless the longer it went on. The group hid behind some cars to watch.

The window rolled down just enough so the person inside could jam whatever weapon they had into the skulls. The soulless surrounding the camper truck all had all dropped within ten minutes.

“I’d like that one on my team.” The team glanced at Yoochun.

The person inside the camper truck kicked the door open and jumped out and landed on the soulless. She wore a brown leather jacket with straight jeans, and what looked like hiking boots. As they walked closer, they noticed she wore a plain, dull green t-shirt. Her hair was cut short at the nape of the neck.

She noticed them immediately, and reached in her truck, to pull out a compound bow with an arrow. She aimed. When the group was two cars away, she told them to stop.

“Now, now. Is that any way to greet the one and only, united, DBSK?” Yoochun smirked as the woman’s face flashed with recognition. However, it was gone just as quickly as it came.

She aimed her bow at Yoochun. “Doesn’t matter who you are. We’re all trying to not die. Though I’m glad you found each other as soon as the middle man was gone.” She looked among them. “Where’s Junsu?” The silence told her to lower her bow when no one met her eyes. She looked down, noticing a child for the first time. “And the kid?”

“Neighbor.” Jaejoong pulled JinHee closer.

She eyed him and her. When she realized, she kept it to herself. “I’m surprised there are idols still alive.” She mumbled. “Anyways, what do you want?”

“We want to you to join us.” Yoochun was speaking again. “With your truck, of course.”

A lopsided smile played her lips, and she lowered her bow entirely. “And why would I do that? You have a kid with you.”

Yunho crossed his arms. “As long as she’s with Jaejoong, or within his sight, she’s fine.”

“Oh, I’m sure of that. However she’s small. Slow. Loud. Kids don’t tend to listen well. Especially spoiled kids.” She said with a glare at JinHee.

Jaejoong gaped. “She is not spoiled.”

“Right.” She looked over the group. They were all a liability. Idols don’t know the first thing about surviving the night. Neither do kids. One scream from them and it’s goodbye life. The woman locked eyes with Jaejoong. “You cook, right?”

Jaejoong nodded. “Let us in, and I’ll cook whatever you want.”

She held her hand out to Yunho. “One scream from that child, and you’re all gone. No warnings. Deal?”

Yunho looked at Jaejoong. At his approval, he shook hands with the woman.

She smiled. “I’m Yoo Jiyeon.”