Three weeks after the end of World War VII

I, Byun Baekhyun, did not cry. I did not cry when my parents and brother died in a car crash. I didn’t cry when there were glass shards stuck in my back. I didn’t cry when the cry when the card door ripped my back open. I never cried, not once in my life. People used to call me a psychopath, a sociopath, freak, and the likes. Emphasize on the used to. They’re all dead now. Karma’s a isn’t it?

I was surprised to say the least when salty water leaked out of my eyes. At first, I was confused, and then worried, was the radiation taking its toll? This had never happened before. But I soon came to realize that they were tears, actual, real tears.

I, Byun Baekhyun, was crying.

That wasn’t possible. But neither was the war. It should be impossible for the world to end, for humanity to be destroyed in a month. A freaking month. But it happened. So, maybe crying wasn’t as impossible as it used to be.

The tears that hadn’t spilled all those years ago tumbled from my eyes. I cried for my dead parents, for my dead hyung, for my dead friends, for my dead girlfriend, Taeyeon. I was closer to Taeyeon than I was to my parents. They were hardly around when I was young. My hyung, Baekbeom, always took care of me. I was closer to him than anyone else. I had only trusted two people my entire life, my hyung and Taeyeon. Taeyeon was kind and tried her best to understand me and when she couldn’t, she told me. She didn’t fake understanding like so many other people. Taeyeon, Taeyeon knew that I wasn’t as stone cold as people thought.

Yes, I did feel. Then why hadn’t I cried at my family’s funeral? Why didn’t I show all the pain, sorrow, and melancholy? Because hyung wouldn’t have, he didn’t cry, he was strong. Crying and dwelling on the past wishing it would change was illogical. Sitting around and moping around all day and pitying oneself was stupid. And, Byun Baekbeom, my hyung, was anything but  illogical and stupid.

And I wanted to be just like hyung.

Seoul was big. Maybe that was why I couldn’t find anyone but I doubt it. What did I expect to stroll into Seoul and find hundreds of people milling around? I didn’t. Instead I played the most intense scavenger hunt ever. It was the life and death version. The things you had to find were humans that were alive. The obstacles, those mutated creatures that came in the night, starvation, dehydration, and the half mutants: the things you could tell were once human before the radiation made the crazy. The list goes on, each day a new obstacle is added.

“What’s today’s obstacle, Mr. Byun?” I asked, impersonating the new anchors.

“Why today’s obstacle, Mr. Baekhyun, is not going insane with a slight chance of death by crazy mutants, tomorrow’s obstacle remains unclear but it is highly probable that a chance of death um lets see, oh all day what a surprise.”

“Mr. Byun can you tell us how exactly ones abstains from insanity?”

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