Haneul and Chanyeol didn’t know how they had managed that but they were able to survive for another year.

A day after their encounter with that group, they met nice people. But after their bad experience they obviously were very mistrusting, even almost scared. The group of nice people tried to make them believe that they wouldn’t hurt them. They were surprised to see that these two had nothing with them at all. After hearing how that had happened, they were amazed at how they were able to make it out alive. Chanyeol and Haneul weren’t so happy about hearing that. They wished everyone would’ve made it out alive. Everyone. From the very beginning. The people gave them some supplies and weapons – heaven bless them – before letting the two go on. They had insisted that the two would join them but they didn’t want to. They wanted to be left alone. So they traveled. Alone. Just the two of them. For a whole year. During that year, they always met new people, parting ways with them after a while or them dying – like everyone did. By that time, they weren’t surprised or shocked anymore. They didn’t bother to bond with any new people. It was just the two of them they needed. No one else.

They didn’t want to let anyone new in.

They didn’t want to lose any more people important to them.

So they just joined a group temporarily and then went on with their lives.

They were happy together.

Just the two of them.

But when they scouted out another building to stay in for the night, they both should’ve known better. Even on the outside, you could see that that was a building you shouldn’t set foot in. But they were desperate. It was already late. It was dark. It was dangerous. And it would soon begin to rain, so they couldn’t trust their sense of hearing anymore. They needed shelter. Desperately. So they took the choice they were given. They scouted the building. Unfortunately, the building being old and looking like it could fall apart any minute, it didn’t just look the part. It did. Once they had been done with scouting the building, Haneul sat down, leaning herself against a beam, smiling at Chanyeol one second, looking like someone pulled the life out of her the next.

A part of the ceiling came crashing down, crushing her lower body, also making her constantly lose blood. Chanyeol’s eyes widened. “Oh my god, Haneul!” he came rushing to her side. An ironic laugh escaped Haneul before she coughed out some blood. “Ironic, isn’t it?” “Don’t say something like that!” Chanyeol screamed at her, completely terrified. What he had always feared was happening now – Haneul dying. “Chanyeol,” Haneul coughed out some more blood. Chanyeol grabbed his hair, not knowing what he should do. Well, there was nothing he could do. It was not like he could reverse time and make it not happen or lift up the ceiling and somehow magically heal her. There was nothing left to do – they both knew. Tears welled up in his eyes.

“Shoot me.”

Completely shell-shocked, Chanyeol only stared at her. “No!” he screamed out right away, sounding somewhat offended. “How could I do that?” Haneul slightly smiled at him. “Like the way Jongin and I had been able to.” Chanyeol only stared at Haneul before shaking his head. “No. No. I’m not going to do that – I’m not able to.” Haneul gestured with her hand for him to come closer. He listened, letting her caress his cheek. “You are,” she whispered. “I  now understand why Jongin asked me to do it.” Chanyeol blinked. “Can you imagine this terrible knowledge that once you stop breathing you will be one… of them? I will turn into one of these things and I will try to eat you, Chanyeol. And I don’t want to do that. I really don’t want to.” Tears welled up in Haneul’s eyes, too. “I don’t want to turn into one of these things and hurt someone else. Please, Chanyeol, try to understand that.”

Chanyeol closed his eyes for a moment, taking in a deep breath.

“But…” his voice cracked. “I cannot do that, Haneul.” A tear rolled down his cheek. Haneul wiped it away with her thumb. “I can’t… I can’t… I can’t kill you, Haneul. You are my everything.” His eyes pleaded her not to demand such a thing from him. He understood why she wanted that, but he couldn’t get his heart to grant her wish. Meanwhile, the sky got darker. It would soon start to rain. Haneul slightly smiled. “You’re not killing me, darling,” she softly kept caressing his cheeks. Chanyeol put his hand over hers. “You’re freeing me from this world.” He looked down, biting down hard on his lip. He looked up again after a few seconds. Haneul had just lovingly smiled at him during that time.

“Just pull the trigger, darling.”

And so it starts with the first chapter again!

I hope you guys enjoyed reading this. It's not really detailed and not really well-written, since I'm not used to writing such short stories, but oh well, I hope you guys still liked it :3

I've actually had a lot of fun with this challenge. It was just quite hard to manage to make the deadline (with college and work and everything). I started putting this together on November 20th. I think I wrote the first part of the ending aka the first chapter then. Then I wasn't able to write a single word for days. And suddenly I had like three days left to finish this. And I only managed two chapters yesterday. I'm actually surprised I made the deadline XD I really didn't think that I would be able to write the last three chapters today while I actually also have to do my school work on the side meanwhile ;-;

It's 7:55pm on November 30th, 2016 as I'm writing this. Four more hours left until the deadline. Feels really weird that I made it. I know I've already said it but I just can't believe this XD

Thanks for everyone who took their time to read this! It feels weird to mark a story as complete. It's like I'm leaving a small part of me with this story.. Well, not completely as I will edit a few parts here and there over the time. But it also feels good to put this case to the archives. Mission success!

Have a great day, evening or night everybody, wherever you guys live!

xo Tatari