The light of a new dawn begins to break over the horizon, awakening what’s left of civilization to the pastel pinks and baby blues of a new day and eating away the darkness of night.

Hongbin is always up at first light, and today, sitting on the steps of the front porch crumbling away beneath him. He’s leaned back against the wooden rail that hadn’t yet rotted off, legs stretched out across the step, toes curling in his shoes as he fights back a yawn. Eyes glazed over with exhaustion, remnants of sleep, and the smallest flicker of hope at the light of dawn, he stares out into the forest surrounding the one room abandoned cabin. Winter is fast approaching and he shivers with the chill of the wind, but he doesn’t make to move from his spot.

Taekwoon never awakens quite as quickly, but today he does. Today he wakes up in the darkness of the cabin, the smell of damp, rotting wood in his nose and the taste of dirt in his mouth. She shivers beneath the threadbare covers that had been left in the cabin; their fire had burned out sometime in the night. A wet nose presses into his belly where his shirt had ridden up, followed by a whine, and he can only open his eyes to squint enough at the St. Bernard that had bothered to tag along with them some time ago. He lazily picks up one hand and scratches between the dog’s ears, letting his eyes flutter shut as the dog presses up against him and warms him.

He hears Hongbin sigh, head knocking back against the railing and causing it to crack away from the foundation of the house. It feels like a while since Taekwoon had seen Hongbin even remotely at peace. Through all that they’ve been through, in even just the last week, Hongbin hadn’t had a moment’s rest. After being separated from their friends, they’d gotten lost in the woods and had run into a zombie nest. Their ammo had been eaten up, their food supply depleted, and their strength and will worn down to the bone until they’d managed to find this place tucked away so deep in the woods. They’d been so on edge since they’d gotten separated, and finding sanctuary in the midst of hell was a saving grace.

Temporary as it may be.

The dog whines up at him, nosing into his neck and at the exposed scar running from the start of his left collarbone all the way to the edge of his shoulder. Taekwoon smiles, gives the dog a final pat, before he carefully rolls out of the warmth of the blankets. He grabs Hongbin’s oversized sweater and throws it over his own head, fitting but just barely. He notices the hole in the sleeves, the loose thread where Hongbin must’ve been nervously tugging at the fraying wrists. The sweater is scratchy, but it promises to keep him warm enough as he sits out on the porch steps, one atop Hongbin, leaning against the opposite railing so that their legs splay in front of them side by side.

The dog follows too, sitting obediently at Taekwoon’s knees, knowing not to try and leap down the stairs to Hongbin’s side. It stares out into dawn, almost with the same sleepy gaze as Hongbin.

It remains quiet for a moment, nothing but the sound of a small nest of birds chirping somewhere in the distance. The wind makes the leaves rustle, makes them swirl up from the ground and dance along currents. But as the light of dawn brightens up the forest around them, lights their way out, Taekwoon finds himself staring at Hongbin. In the silence, if he just closes his eyes, he can almost pretend that they’re back in Seoul, back in their cheap rooftop apartment, legs dangling off the edge as they watch the sunrise together.

The wind blows through the trees, hollow and empty. There’s not a sound in the forest, not even the crunch of leaves from the forest animals walking over them. There’s no chirp of birds or of cicadas, no howling of animals or of whispers of words. The silence makes the world feel dead around them, dead in the awakening of dawn.

“Do you think we’ll ever see them again?” Hongbin asks, voice hardly louder than a whisper. He in a deep breath, hands knotted over his stomach as he stares up listlessly at the rotting frame of the house. Taekwoon’s eyes flutter open, sitting up to stare more intently at Hongbin.

The question unsaid, hanging silent in the air, feels like the blade of a guillotine brushing against the hairs on the back of his neck. Do you think we’ll make it long enough to see them again?

Taekwoon sighs mutely, chest tightening as Hongbin meets his gaze. He misses the fire in Hongbin’s eyes, the light and never ending passion. The strength and will that seemed to be burning like a constant fire in his chest, never burning out no matter who tried to stamp it out. Those days were long gone, but Taekwoon took any fire left as his own hope that they’d survive this.

“We will,” he says, lying through his teeth, but he has to. He doesn’t know if they’ll make it through this- if anyone will, really. The last report they’d ever heard on the radio had totalled the body count of 3.5 billion people, just under half the population of earth either wiped out with the enterobacteriaceae epidemic by mutating into a flesh eating, brainless, toxic zombie or by being shot through the head for being bitten. That had been a few months ago, but who knows what the total is up to now. The radios just produce static now- if they haven’t already been salvaged for batteries.

But he steels his voice because he has to, because if he doesn’t, both of them will lose hope. “We will find them. Hakyeon said they’d wait for us on the shores of the Eastern Sea if we ever got separated along the way.”

We’ll make it alive out of this too.

A promise whispered as the world continues to awaken. Hongbin huffs, eyes wet as he shifts to lay his head on Taekwoon’s lap- careful not to put pressure on his knees. Taekwoon begins to card through his hair, shifting so that the weight on his legs is lessened somehow. His left leg is still pretty bruised up, safe from infection, but disgustingly splotched with yellow, green, and purple from their encounter with the zombie nest. Their dog had saved them from that too, just as it had first saved Taekwoon from having his kneecap shattered to pieces six months ago as the beam from a crumbling house had come crashing down on his leg. They hadn’t planned on keeping the dog, but the dog never stopped following them and Taekwoon just couldn’t give it up. They had never bothered to name him either, somehow it seemed inappropriate to give it a new name even though his last owners had surely passed.

The dog whines under it breath, snapping Taekwoon out of his reverie and he obliges to the dog and pets it again.

The warmth of the sun begins to sink into their aching bones as it begins to fully rise above the horizon and paint the forest in the orange of autumn. Vaguely, Taekwoon wonders about leaving this place- this sanctuary in the middle of the world’s end. Like an oasis in the desert, it would disappear as soon as they turn their eyes away from it. Maybe they wouldn’t have another roof over their heads for a while, even if this one did leak. They wouldn’t have a mirror for a while, and Taekwoon had forgotten about how thin and worn out he looked, swallowed up in his own clothes. They couldn’t pretend for a little longer that it was an actual house that would keep them warm and safe from the chill of dawn with a stove that didn’t work and a fireplace that had long since crumbled.

They couldn’t pretend like this was their life before the outbreak.

Hongbin shifts in his lap, turning his head back to look up at him intently. His eyes are dark, heavy with his gaze. He doesn’t have to try hard to guess what Taekwoon is thinking, but he doesn’t comment at all. He sits up silently, hand searching for Taekwoon’s, and he leans up to kiss him. Emotions welling up in them, crashing in torrential waves against the shore, Taekwoon gasps and feels like his blood pounding in his ears is deafening in the silence of the forest. His heart is hammering in his chest as Hongbin kisses him, bites down on his lips, runs his tongue against the roof of his mouth, tightens his grip on his hand as if he’d float away if he let go. Neither of them can breathe but  it feels so good just to let go of their worries, lose control for just one moment and not feel threatened by anything.

It felt like awakening to a new dawn. It felt liberating, like the chains that had been dragging them along the forest floor hand been traded for wings that carried them above the clouds and bathed them in the glow of the sun.

For a moment, the sound of their breaths, chests heaving, filled up the void of silence. The flicker of a smile caught on the corner of Hongbin’s lips, and Taekwoon himself couldn’t help but feel the barest flicker of a flame alight in his heart.

Hongbin carefully pulls him to his feet without a word, hand still intertwined with his as they head back into the house and pack up what little belongings they have. They have to keep moving on, keep walking beneath the sunlight- the zombies are less likely to get them that way. They have to keep their promise with Hakyeon, Jaehwan, Wonshik, and Sanghyuk. They have to keep going, even when the light in their eyes goes out and the darkness has taken them in.

Hongbin tugs the straps of his backpack over his shoulders, hand outstretched and waiting. Taekwoon hikes his backpack up his shoulders, being careful that the strap doesn’t aggravate the scar on his shoulder, before taking Hongbin’s hand and walking out into the early morning sunlight. Their dog on their heels, they take those first few steps out of the house and stare up at the forest looming above them.

Taekwoon squeezes their intertwined hands as a silent sign of comfort. They’ve grown used to not talking in case they happen upon a zombie nest, but Hongbin nods his head in thanks. He leans up to peck his lips, lingering in the centimeters between their lips, eyes locking. The glint in his eyes burns. He wants to make it out of this forest. He wants to see their friends again and he wants to keep on living with Taekwoon by his side.

They exhale simultaneously, letting the light of morning wash over them for just a moment, before they head off silently into the forest.

They have to keep living to awaken to the dawn of the next day.