The first thing that Seulgi noticed when she had awoken was that it was no longer freezing cold. She had grown accustomed to being in a constant state of shivering. The weather was far from balmy, but the thick jacket she wore was stifling her. It didn’t help that there was someone clinging to her side.

She opened her eyes and found herself face-to-face with an unconscious Jisoo. The younger girl looked as if she was dreaming. Her pupils darted back and forth under her eyelids and was fixed into a quivering pout.

Seulgi sat up, pulling herself out of Jisoo’s hold with some difficulty. The younger girl curled into a ball reflexively.

“Hey, wake up,” Seulgi said, giving the girl a shake. Jisoo’s eyes flew open and she looked like she about to scream, so Seulgi grabbed her by the shoulders and steadied her, “It’s okay, we’re safe, I think.”

“Where are we?”

That was a good question. Looking around, Seulgi could see that they were on a rooftop of some sort. Judging by the number of other rooftops around them, they were probably in a city. Their location wouldn’t have disturbed the monolidded girl nearly as much had there not been a red-orange glow coming from the distance. It wasn’t the sun (There’s no sun anymore, Seulgi reminded herself). The glow was being produced by a large, spherical mountain that dominated the horizon. Rivers of lava poured from several holes in the face of the mountain, spilling onto the land below and disappearing from view into a series of foothills.

“That’s the Living Mountain.” Jisoo said in awe.

Now that Seulgi focused on the massive volcano, she noticed that the holes she had seen before closely resembled a pair of eyes and a scowling mouth. It was an eerie sight, and despite the warm temperature, she found herself holding back chills.

“How did we get here? And where’s everyone else?” Jisoo sounded scared.

“I just woke up here with you. What makes you think I know anymore than you do?”

This managed to elicit a small laugh from Jisoo.

“Well, if they’re anywhere near the same area as us, then they can see that mountain. And given what our objective is, they’re probably gonna head that way. So we should do the same.” Seulgi reasoned, checking her clothing and gear. Her revolver was still holstered onto her belt, but she only had a single ammunition box to accompany it. The leather pants and knit sweater she wore were intact enough that she felt comfortable removing her jacket and slinging it over her shoulder.

Jisoo nodded at the older girl’s suggestion and inspected herself as well. She had no weapons on her, but her attire was nearly the same as Seulgi’s barring the sweater, which was replaced by a plain white T-shirt underneath her jacket.

Seulgi walked over to the rooftop door and unsurprisingly found it locked.

“Check if this building has any fire escapes.” she said, but when she turned to look for Jisoo, the girl was already lowering herself onto a rusty, black-painted ladder. Seulgi was not used to being around someone who was so autonomous. Admittedly, it was a pleasant change.

The ladder was much steadier than Seulgi had expected, and the two girls managed to scale the fire escape relatively quickly. They dropped down onto a street adjacent to the remains of a park. Ancient, decayed cars lined each side of the street, serving as melancholy monuments to a long forgotten world. Jisoo began walking from car to car, peering inside, presumably searching for a weapon of some sort that she could use.

Seulgi was just about to remind the younger girl to remain cautious when a low groan interrupted her thoughts. A previously dormant ghoul was hanging out of one of the car windows, its hand reaching for Jisoo’s face. Seulgi drew her gun.

Jisoo’s reflexes were unnaturally fast. She grabbed the ghoul by its arm and bent it downwards out the window, causing a dry snap as she rendered the monster harmless. She then calmly continued on to the next car.

Seulgi followed without a word, coming to the conclusion that it was probably better to just follow at this point.

After inspecting the fifth car in a row, the younger girl suddenly stood up and clicked her tongue in annoyance, as if she’d just come to a revelation that should have been painfully obvious. She walked around the side of the car, opened the door, and bent over the driver’s seat. She moved to the back and dug through the now open trunk until she found a tire iron, which she flourished as if it were some kind of sacred sword.

“You wouldn’t imagine how strong these things are,” she said, “They’re great for killing ghouls without wasting ammo.”

Then she handed the weapon to Seulgi and moved to the next car to find one of the impromptu weapons for herself.

“I think we should just follow the streets in the direction of the mountain. This place is probably overrun by ghouls, and the faster we get out of here the better. If there are any hordes around, we’ll have to hide inside of a car or something before they spot us.”

“I know, Jisoo,” Seulgi said shortly, “I’ve dealt with these things plenty of times.”.

“I always forget that, sorry. Lisa, Rosie, and Jennie are the only ones I’m used to being able to trust to watch my back.”

“It’s fine. Let’s get moving.”

The two girls made their way through the streets as silently as possible, keeping a constant watch for any signs of undead creatures. The older girl noticed that Jisoo seemed to be more restless than usual, looking around in a rather lost manner, her normally calm eyes filled with a sort of aimless anxiety. Seulgi shrugged it off as a product of the unfamiliar environment.

They spotted the odd ghoul within some of the parked vehicles located on or to the side of the roads, but the trapped monsters were easy to ignore. The city itself was likely very beautiful during its glory days; there were remnants of intricate designs painted on the buildings, and the architecture was smooth and minimalistic. Seulgi found herself wondering what the lives of the people in this city had been like before everything had descended into darkness. Such thoughts never failed to sadden her, especially at times like this.

After what felt like miles of travel, the older girl could feel hunger pains beginning to gnaw at her. Jisoo showed no signs of letting up, but Seulgi knew better than to allow her pride to cloud her judgement.

“Hey, Jisoo?” she said in the most confident manner possible, “Can we start looking for some food and a place to rest? I’m starting to get hungry.”

Jisoo turned to her and gave her an almost pitying look that made Seulgi’s temper flare.

“Yeah, sure. There’s bound to be a grocery store around here… remember, canned food only.”

Despite her young age, Jisoo was adept at making Seulgi feel inferior. The older girl wondered if Jisoo was doing it on purpose, or if it was simply in her nature.

“Obviously, Jisoo.”

The younger girl allowed Seulgi to catch up with her before continuing to walk.

“I really don’t mean to sound patronizing, Seulgi. I’m used to being the oldest one in the group, and needing to watch after everyone. Even the girls get mad when I do it now, because it’s all stuff they already know.”

“Just try to keep in mind that I’ve managed to survive solo for two years, okay?”

“I’ll try.” Jisoo said, her voice taking on a teasing tone. Seulgi found it oddly impossible to remain annoyed at the impish girl for very long. She smiled and they continued on.

It didn’t take long for the girls to find a grocery store. Although the shop had clearly been raided (the windows were shattered and the door was hanging off its hinges) they decided to check within anyway. At this point, Seulgi was ravenous.

Jisoo stepped inside first. Although the glow of the Living Mountain afforded the city a good deal more light than other places in the dark world, the inside of the store was mostly unilluminated. She moved forward cautiously, holding her tire iron at the ready, prepared to strike at anything that approached her.

She averted her gaze from her surroundings for a moment to scan the aisle to the left of her. As was per usual in these types of situations, the three ghouls that were previously milling about in the darkness to the right of her decided to use that same moment to strike. The fastest one managed to place its hand on her arm for less than a second before its skull was deeply dented by the smack of Jisoo’s tire iron. The two others fell to the ground with wide holes in their heads, their deaths punctuated by twin blasts of thunder that messily tore through the silence.

To Seulgi’s surprise, when Jisoo turned to look at her, her expression was livid.

“Why didn’t you use the tire iron?”

“Whoa,” Seulgi said, taking a step back from the fuming girl, “I just saved your life. A simple thank you would have sufficed.”

“Thank you? You just wasted two bullets, alerted every ghoul in a fifty mile radius of our presence, and probably burst my eardrums!”

“Listen, it was just my first reaction. You need to calm down. Most of the ghouls nearby are trapped in cars, and you and I both know that they can’t really hear that well anyway. Why are you acting like this?”

Jisoo paused and Seulgi watched as the younger girl’s anger melted into a mix of regret and sorrow.

“I’m worried for my family.” she said, “I’ve never been separated from all of them for any extended period of time. And you know how my Dad is, he’s old. He can’t move on his own. I just have a terrible feeling that we’re never going to find them.”

Looking at the broken girl, Seulgi was reminded that in the end, Jisoo was a teenager. Regardless of how well she could handle things, she was still eighteen-years old. And in those eighteen years, the only constant in her life had been her family and her home. To have those two things wrenched from her simultaneously must have been causing her unimaginable turmoil.

“We’ll find them, Jisoo,” Seulgi said, placing a hand on the younger girl’s shoulder, “Whatever happened to transport us here had to have affected them too.”

Jisoo placed her hand over Seulgi’s and clasped it. They smiled at each other before resuming their search for sustenance.

To neither girls’ astonishment, the grocery store was mostly picked clean of any canned goods, aside from a few tins of wet cat food. Seulgi snatched them up and offered one to Jisoo, who gave her a disgusted look.

“Cat food? Can people eat that?”

“Of course,” Seulgi said, “Can’t really eat them all the time, but you have no idea how many times these things have saved me while I was starving. Do you want tuna pate or chicken in crab sauce?”

When the younger girl offered no response, Seulgi popped open the tuna pate can and nudged Jisoo on the arm with it.

“Give me the chicken one.” Jisoo finally said, looking defeated.

Seulgi found them a few plastic spoons and two unopened bottles of flat, expired soda. They sat up against the back wall of the store and began to eat. Seulgi ate with much more fervor, easily inhaling two cans of food before shoving the remaining three into her pocket. Jisoo, on the other hand, ate slowly. She held her nose before placing the spoon into and took long drinks of the tasteless carbonated beverage after each bite. Seulgi watched in amusement, attempting to hold back a fit of giggles with little success.

“Don’t make fun of me! This stuff is gross!” Jisoo said indignantly.

“I can’t help it. It’s just funny to me that you’ve been eating scorpion every day for most of your life but you can’t stomach a little bit of cat food.”

“Scorpion is at least tasty! This stuff tastes like salty garbage.”

“Well, you’ve got to finish it, or I will. We can’t let it go to waste.” Seulgi gave mock stern look to Jisoo. The younger girl snorted in response, almost spitting out her mouthful of soda.

“Whatever you say, Seul-oppa.”

Seulgi punched Jisoo on the arm and they shared a laugh.

Jisoo was just finishing up her meal when Seulgi noticed that the ground was beginning to tremble. It was subtle at first, nothing more than a few of the shelves in the store vibrating. She stood up just as it began to increase in intensity, quickly becoming a full blown earthquake. Both girls stumbled haphazardly towards the door, avoiding the falling items and debris. As they emerged into the street outside, they noticed that the mountain in the distance had intensified its glow to an almost blinding level. The air had become noticeably hotter, much hotter than Seulgi was used to.

There was a sharp crack that rang out through the entire city, along with a spike in the strength of the earthquake, knocking Seulgi over into Jisoo. On the scale of the mountain itself, the eruption was small; a brief spurt of lava escaped from the structure’s left “eye”, bathing some of the foothills before it.

As Seulgi was regaining her senses, she could hear a screeching metallic noise as a nearby streetlamp began to collapse. She felt Jisoo grab her by the collar and drag her across the pavement, narrowly pulling the girl away from the falling pole. Seulgi felt her heart beating madly in her chest and stared at the fallen pole in disbelief. She clung to Jisoo long after the tremor was over.

“Hey,” Jisoo said gently, “It’s over.”

“Oh,” Seulgi said, releasing her hold, “Sorry.”

“It’s cool. I don’t believe that you were scared anyway. I think you just wanted an excuse to touch my s.”

“Shut up,” Seulgi said, standing, “We’ve got some serious to deal with.”

“My s are pretty serious…”

Seulgi ignored this and assessed the carnage around them.

The eruption had wrecked most of the surrounding area. Many of the already decaying buildings were now caved in on themselves. The street itself was covered in a web of cracks and dents. Several more of the streetlamps had fallen, destroying anything they landed on.

“I have a feeling that when that thing actually erupts, that’ll be the end.” Jisoo said, looking up at the Living Mountain with a mixture of horror and reverence.

“Well, let’s hope that wherever Irene is, she’s ready to use that crystal.”

Jisoo agreed and the pair took off once again, this time walking shoulder to shoulder and moving considerably faster. Their travels were frequently interrupted by the occasional aftershock, and while the quakes were decreasing in strength, Seulgi couldn’t help but feel a sense of impending doom accompanying each one. These were the death throes of a dying planet.

Eventually, the streets began to thicken with stagnant traffic as they transitioned from residential property to a four-lane highway. Ghoul encounters became more frequent, and although neither girl had any problem fighting off the slow-moving corpses, it was still a concerning trend. They lost sight of the Living Mountain for a while, though its glow was still ever-present, providing some type of guidance even in its absence. Upon cresting a hill that was almost entirely blocked by three overturned tractor-trailers, the mountain came back into view, much closer than it had been at the start of their journey. Seulgi took this moment to climb onto the top of one of the trucks to get a better view of the road ahead.

Beyond where she stood, the traffic reached its most dense. Cars were all but piled onto each other. There was a row of toll booths on each side of the highway, and beyond that was a large bridge. Like many of the artifacts in this city, it likely would have been quite grand in its time. However, it had not aged well. It was only partially intact, with entire sections having collapsed into the ocean below it. Even the intact sections looked unreliable, as most of the support cables were either snapped or on the verge of snapping. It wasn’t a path that Seulgi would have suggested they take normally; but the fact of the matter was that there seemed to be no alternative route to continuing in this direction. And they didn’t have time to backtrack.

“Hey,” Jisoo said, climbing up after Seulgi, “Let’s stop here and rest a bit before we keep going. We can eat too.”

“Sure,” Seulgi replied, handing Jisoo one of the tins, “So I think our best course of action is to take that bridge up there. It seems to lead right to the mountain.”

Jisoo followed Seulgi’s pointing finger and immediately froze. Her eyes widened and she shook her head in a frantic, child-like manner.

“Can’t we find another way around?” she asked, her eyes desperately scanning for an alternative route.

“It’s a river, Jisoo. The best we can hope for is another bridge, and I’m sure it’ll be in the same condition as this one.” Seulgi turned her attention away from her food and looked at Jisoo. There was an almost imperceptible sheen of sweat on her forehead and her movements were not unlike a trapped animal’s.

“But… it looks dangerous.”

“Are you afraid of heights?” Seulgi asked, trying to be as tender as possible. These kinds of situations weren’t exactly her forte.

Jisoo bit her lip and gave a meek nod to the older girl.

“How? We woke up on a rooftop and you climbed down a fire escape. That doesn’t make any sense.”

Jisoo laughed and relaxed a bit.

“That was different though. That roof was stable, and that fire escape was entirely whole. We also weren’t really that high up. On a bridge over water, it’s so much worse. One strong breeze, one false step, one faulty wire... “ Jisoo shuddered and left her sentence unfinished.

“I understand that. But everything in this world is like that. Hell, everything in the old world I used to live in is like that. There’s always a chance that something can go wrong. The best you can do is take all the preventative measures… and even then it’s never a sure thing.”

“I know you’re right. I’m being irrational. That direction is our best hope of finding everyone, right?”

“It is.”

“But what if I freeze up? What if I can’t physically bring myself to go on?” Panic was beginning to rise in Jisoo’s voice.

“I won’t let that happen. I’ll carry you across if I have to.” Seulgi said, placing her hand over Jisoo’s. Jisoo looked down at their clasped hands and sighed.

“I’ll go then. But only if you hold my hand the whole way.”

Seulgi blinked and unconsciously released Jisoo’s hand. The younger girl looked hurt for a moment but recovered quickly.

“I was just kidding. You don’t have to…”

“No, I will. You just caught me off guard is all.” Seulgi said, feeling her face warm.

In truth, the older girl was thinking of how Yerim would react to Jisoo and Seulgi holding hands. It was an odd, random thought that seemed so trivial. Yet it still nagged at her incessantly. The thought began to run wild in her head, leading to her remembering the hickeys she had seen on the redhead’s neck and how she had never really gotten to the bottom of that mystery. Why was she so angry about that all of a sudden?

“You okay?” Jisoo asked, waving a hand in front of Seulgi’s face and breaking her out of her trance.

“Uh, yeah I’m fine. I think I’ve just been sitting for too long. We should get going.”

***

Seulgi and Jisoo arrived at the bridge with little resistance. The close proximity of the cars leading up to that point made it nearly impossible for any of the ghouls to escape their metal prisons, and the ones that were out in the open were generally easy to take care of. As they drew closer to the archway marking the end of the highway and the beginning of the bridge, Jisoo wrapped her hand around Seulgi’s and drew close to the older girl.

“It’s okay,” Seulgi whispered as she guided them over the smashed concrete, avoiding drawing too close to any holes in the road, “I’m right here, just breathe deeply and keep on looking ahead.”

The bridge was several miles long, and Jisoo’s insistence on moving as slowly as possible made the distance feel even longer. Seulgi was impatient to get to her friends (assuming they were even anywhere near the mountain), and had to constantly remind herself that it would be of no help to try and rush the skittish girl beside her. At certain points, the wind would pick up and Jisoo would cling even harder to her companion, whimpering as she braced herself against the strong gusts.

Halfway across the bridge they stopped to rest. They had saved a single cat food tin between the two of them, but Jisoo wasn’t comfortable with sitting down to eat, and instead remained standing with her arms wrapped around a nearby support beam. As she took the younger girl’s arm to indicate that they were about to get moving again, Seulgi noticed that the glow of the mountain was beginning to increase. The source of the glow was coming from the “mouth” of the mountain this time.

“Jisoo,” Seulgi said, trying to maintain a steady tone, “Stay right there and brace against the side. Be ready to run if the bridge starts coming apart.”

Jisoo froze and began to hyperventilate, her eyes no longer focused on Seulgi but becoming glazed and distant. The ground began to rumble and the Living Mountain was visibly trembling. Seulgi grabbed onto the support beam, pulling Jisoo’s hands with her and forcing the younger girl between her and the thick metal cylinder. Jisoo started to cry openly as the quake intensified. Seulgi could feel the bridge shifting beneath them, and the cracking noise as pieces of cement began crumbling off. As the earthquake reached its peak, the mountain dribbled a fountain of lava forward, spilling down its “chin”. This eruption was thankfully much less powerful than the previous one, and the quake was over shortly.

“It’s over,” Seulgi whispered over Jisoo’s shoulder, “You’re okay now. Everything’s okay.”

Seulgi carefully detached from the pole and from Jisoo, keeping a hand on the younger girl’s arm just in case she was still unsteady.

The damage to the bridge was less than the older girl had expected. Some concrete from the edges of the bridge had flaked off, and a few of the cars had shifted positions slightly, but everything seemed as structurally sound as it had been before.

Seulgi was about to look back to see if Jisoo was alright when two hands suddenly darted out and wrapped around her waist, pulling her in. Her hand shifted to the holster on her hip, but her attacker was simply too fast. She tried to resist until she felt the crash of two desperate lips against hers. Jisoo kissed her in full, prying open the older girl’s lips and ing her tongue forward. Seulgi responded by grabbing the back of the younger girl’s head and attacking the invading tongue with her own, creating a frantic dance of passion between them.

To Seulgi’s surprise, Jisoo pulled away first.

“Your mouth tastes like cat food.” Jisoo said, wrinkling her nose.

“So does yours.” the monolidded girl replied, and they kissed again.

Jisoo’s hands moved down from Seulgi’s hips to settle on the firm curve of her behind. The older girl pulled away when she felt one of those eager hands beginning to squeeze her.

“Too rough?” Jisoo asked playfully.

“No, it’s just that we’re still on this bridge. We need to go.” Seulgi released herself from Jisoo’s grasp and wiped her now wet mouth with the back of her hand. She didn’t mention the guilt that was growing uneasily in her stomach.

Fear sprang back into Jisoo’s eyes and she grabbed Seulgi’s hand again as they began walking.

“So where did that come from?” Seulgi asked after awhile.

“I don’t know,” Jisoo said, “I guess it was to thank you for saving me.”

“Saving?” Seulgi scoffed, “All I did was press you against a pole and hump you. I practically molested you.”

“I don’t think it counts as molesting if I liked it.”

Seulgi grinned and the two continued on their way.

If Yerim could hook up with Lisa, then Seulgi could hook up with Jisoo. It was only fair.

----------------------------------------------------

Well there's Chapter 8. Lmk how you feel about the SeulgixJisoo ship lol. I originally had a scene between them in here but it didn't make sense to have them going at it on an unstable bridge, especially when Jisoo is supposed to be terrified to be there. Don't be disheartened though, I'm sure I'll slide in an actual decent, comfortable scene somewhere before the end of this. Lmk which characters you'd wanna see in that (; I know the title isn't really related too heavily to the actual events in the chapter, but it kind of is what with them traveling through an empty city and whatnot.

​​​​Btw remember that Seulgi genuinely believes that Lisa and Yeri hooked up and has no idea about her and Irene.