Mingyu stared at the beautiful creature in front of him. He was curious of so many things. The rounded apples of your cheeks and the soft curve of your nose. The shoulders more narrow than his. The hands that made him wonder whether his big ones would be able to completely cover them. Everything about you was so captivatingly curious.

He kept studying your features, completely at loss of the time he might be spending. He found it charming how your eyebrows were pushed together and how your nose was slightly scrunched, eyes as piercing as the knife that had given his cheek a wound just a moment ago. He hadn’t seen anything like you in years.

”Are you okay?” he put his gun on his back and stretched out his arm towards you. ”Why are you he-WOAH!” he yanked his arm against his chest and almost tripped over his feet while backing away.

You had tried to slice his arm with the knife still in your hand, taking him by surprise. Mingyu saw things about you he didn’t take notice in before. Your chest rose in an unstable rhythm and you let out shaky breaths. Your right ankle was twisted to an unnatural direction and it looked swollen-up. You were holding a hand against your stomach where he had kicked you earlier. You were hurt. Mingyu placed his flashlight down, facing the roof, so that it would softly light the whole room.

”Why did you attack me?” he furrowed his brows. ”I’m trying to help you.”

”I attacked you?” you sneered, tightening your fingers around the knife. ”You just tried to shoot me!”

”Well, you see, I thought you were a–” you got up before he could finish his sentence and surged at him.

Upon taking the second running step with your right leg, an electric feeling of pain struck your ankle and spread its way up your leg. Involuntarily you let out a whine and dropped down, abandoning your knife as your hands were preoccupied in giving your leg a comforting squeeze to soothe out the throbbing feeling of pain. Lucky for you, Mingyu caught your upper body before you could hit your head on the ground.

”You must be seriously hurt,” he commented above you.

You shot your head up to glare at his serious face. He leaned back away from your own, eyes widening ever so slightly. He was faced with the same vexed expression but it was different seeing it up this close. It didn’t feel threatening even though it was clearly meant to, based on the slight growl coming from your throat. Mingyu almost found it a little… funny.

So he started laughing.

”Are you serious? How dare you laugh at me in this situation!” you roared in fury. If your eyes were piercing before, now they were set up in flames.

He pressed his lips tight together and looked down. As he slowly raised his gaze to you again, a smile crept on his lips. And he couldn’t help but release a muffled snicker.

You bared your teeth, preparing to smack him all over the ears. ”You little piece of–!”

”Do you need help?”

You stared at him in disbelief for a few seconds. ”What?”

”You can’t walk, can you?” he pointed at your swollen ankle, ”I’ll help you to our hideout to treat that injury.”

”Our hideout?”

”Would I have survived this long on my own? Do I look that strong?”

You scoffed and shoved his arms away from you. ”I’m not accepting any help from you, you filthy jerk.”

”Ouch.”

”Are you seriously considering that I’ll trust you? You were trying to shoot me!”

”I couldn’t see in the dark!” he protested, raising his voice to get the point through. ”I thought you were a zombie.”

You stayed quiet, letting the words sink in. Truthfully, you had thought he was a zombie, too. Until you found out he had a gun. But you had thought he’d kill you since you already attacked him so you had tried your best to get the gun from him. The stinging in your stomach reminded you that besides that, this man had hurt you pretty bad.

”I don’t care. I can take care of myself,” you looked away.

Mingyu raised an eyebrow, ”How will you manage when you can’t even walk?”

”Yes I can.”

The man his lips and got up. ”Alright then. As you wish,” he smirked and grabbed his flashlight, slowly walking towards the door of the room.

You tried to get up on your own but the pain hit your ankle even worse than before, burning on your skin and chewing your bone. You started rethinking the choice you just made. Mingyu disappeared behind the corner and you could hear steps moving further away. Different opinions were fighting inside your mind. The people who you had met before had pretended to be nice before stabbing you in the back. This man even attacked you. You attacked him first, though. Maybe he really had good intentions. But there’s no way anyone would offer their precious first-aid equipment for free. At least no one had before. As the throbbing pain in your leg invaded the train of your thoughts, you figured you’d just have to pay for whatever the price was. You didn’t exactly want to die in this abandoned hotel.

You cupped your hands around your mouth, inhaled and shouted, ”Wait!”

For a moment, it was dead quiet. You feared he had already gone too far and left you there. You could only sit in silence and wait, groaning at the thought of possibly having to spend a night there with zombies in the building. Regret was taking over you. You shouldn’t have gone there to find stuff to loot. You shouldn’t have attacked the tall man. You shouldn’t have rejected his offer for help.

The regret was replaced by hope as you heard footsteps nearing. They stopped right outside the room as the door slowly opened and let light into the room. A familiar head peeked through the door hole.

”You called?” he smirked at you.

You bit your tongue to stop yourself from barking out a harsh comment. ”I’ll accept it,” you muttered quietly.

”What’s that?” he raised a hand to his ear and flashed his teeth.

You mentally grumbled at the giant tease. ”I said I’ll accept the help.”

”I didn’t quite hear you,” he dared to mock. ”Did you say that you can’t walk on your own and that you need this extremely handsome young man to aid you?”

”No,” you answered in the blink of an eye.

”No? Alright then, have a nice life!” he turned around.

”Yes I need your stupid help you idiot because I can’t freaking walk and my stomach hurts and I don’t even have food left and I ran out of ammo and there are zombies everywhere and your stupid decided to appear so yes,” you inhaled after bursting the words out, ”I do need you to help me.”

Mingyu broke into a smile. ”You could’ve just said so.”

You scoffed at him. He was rubbing you in all the wrong places. You didn’t know if you could handle being around him until you got away from here.

”How far is your hideout?” you questioned.

”On the other side of the bridge and a ten-minute run from there,” he replied and helped you stand. ”Put your right hand up.”

You eyed him suspiciously. ”Why?”

”So I can lift you up, of course.”

”Oh hell no,” you refused the offer. ”You’re not carrying me.”

”Then what am I supposed to do? Have you lean your weight on me?”

”That’s exactly what.”

”We’re gonna be slower than a turtle,” he groaned.

You ignored his complaint and put your arm over his shoulder. ”We better get going then.”

He s his arm around your waist and tried to put the least weight on your right leg as possible. You two began to walk out the door and through the corridors. -Walking proved to be quite difficult with his shoulders being way higher than what was comfortable for your arm.

You heard the tall man mumble something next to you. You could barely make out the words ’right’ and ’I hope’ but the rest was too inaudible for you to understand. You could see the staircase at the end of the corridor.

”What took you so long?” a man appeared from behind the corner.

He had hair darker than the room you had been in and his eyes were sharper than the knife you had held. His face was stoic, showing no signs of expressions like he didn’t react to anything. He was wearing a sleeveless turtleneck that was at least as black as his hair, not to mention the extra-baggy trousers he had on. His combat boots looked like they added up to his height, making him seem more threatening. To creep you out even more, he had a huge crossbow in his arms.

You didn’t like this eerie guy one bit.

He raised a slender finger and pointed at you, looking at the man beside you. ”Who the hell is that?”

The giant straightened up and, in the process, made you do the same. ”She is hurt. We’re going to help her.”

”She? It’s a she?” the disturbingly deep-voiced man questioned. You glared at him.

”Of course she is,” the tall one scoffed. ”And she’s not an object. Her name is…uh…,” he turned his head to look at you. ”What’s your name?”

You frowned and took a deep breath before reflecting the stoic man’s expressionless face. ”I’m Y/N. Nice to meet you,” you stated with no sincerity.

“Huh,” he didn’t even nod, ”Mingyu, you do understand that our food stock will be instantly gone if you get us more mouths to feed, right?”

Mingyu’s shoulders tensed under your arm. ”Dude, she can’t even walk! We have to help her.”

”She looks like she’ll cut your throat open any minute now.”

You scowled, ”It’s you I’m glaring at.”

”Oh, wonderful,” he let out a half-hearted laugh. ”I don’t fancy you either.”

You tried to lunge forward but Mingyu’s arm on your waist held you back.

”Please hyung, just for a couple of days,” he pleaded. ”I promise I’ll do everything! I’ll bring her food and bandages and I’ll keep her somewhere where you don’t have to see her, okay?”

The annoying man stayed quiet for a while, staring straight at Mingyu.

”Fine,” he eventually admitted. ”But only until her leg gets better.”

”I wouldn’t stay for longer even if you begged me to,” you spat at him.

He started laughing mockingly, like you were a child throwing a tantrum. ”You need a miracle to make Jihoon accept her.”

”Thank you so much, hyung!” Mingyu beamed and held you tighter as you started limping towards the staircase.

When you had reached the second floor after what felt like a million painstakingly slow steps, you jumped after hearing a loud gunshot, ringing in your ears a while after. And then another. And another.

They were followed by a man’s voice-cracking scream, ”You deserve to die, you bastards!”

Mingyu and the creepy guy looked at each other with wide eyes. Mingyu raised his eyebrows as the other shook his head. Mingyu opposed him by nodding his head furiously.

A wide-shouldered man came through the second floor’s opening, dragging a brunette with him. The dragged one tried to fight against the other, kicking his legs and spitting curses out of his mouth.

”Told you so,” you could hear Mingyu’s melodic mock above you.

”Zombies,” the strong man dragging another huffed, ”Lots of ’em. Run.”

You silently cursed under your breath. You couldn’t exactly sprint in your state and your gun didn’t even have ammo.

”Sorry,” Mingyu managed to exclaim before ducking down and lifting you over his shoulder.

He began rushing down the stairs, skipping several steps with one hop. You shouted for him to let you down but you eventually gave up when you realized it was no use. Now the sounds of four running men and one of them still raging about not getting to finish what he started were the only noise echoing up the staircase’s high walls.

Until it started.

Following the loud boom of possibly doors, bloodcurdling screeching made its way to your poor ears. The high-pitched shrieks that reminded you of hundreds of dying animals, suffering from immense pain. They hurt your ears and trembled through your body. It felt like you were going to be ripped apart by sound only. The body under you had gone still, not moving an inch. You had shut your eyes tight to focus on hanging in there, to not let your ears explode from the horrible ringing.

You felt your head being pressed against something that was shaking. A warm presence covered your left ear completely, leaving only your right ear exposed to the ground-shaking cries of zombies. Something cold covered your mouth and you realized it also muffled you. You had been screaming.

You slowly opened your eyes and saw the walls around you descending. Or were you rising up? Your sense of balance had gone completely upside down. The screeching in your ears had turned into an irritatingly loud, constant beep and the head-aching throbbing of your head. You were aware that instead of hanging over a shoulder, you were pressed against someone’s body. For a moment, it felt like you were in a dream. A very painful dream. A nightmare. The air surrounding you was dark and cold.

Light. Light made its way to your eyes.

It pierced your pupils and blinded you. You couldn’t see, you couldn’t hear, you didn’t know where you were. You were just completely, utterly lost. The only thing your conscious could hold onto was the faint outline of a moving blob that you could barely see through the light in front of you.

After following the moving thing for a comforting while, you could see it wasn’t a single blob. It had five things coming from it. It was a hand. A hand was being waved in front of you.

You blinked your eyes and tried to focus on the hand better. You started being aware of the fact that you could hear muffled sounds. It was like every noise you heard was coming from another room or as if you were holding your hands on your ears. There was loud arguing that tried to make it’s way through the barrier and to your bear ears.

Something else was closer. A soothing, quiet and continuous hush slowly lulled the pain away. You hadn’t known you, yourself had been letting out whimpers and wheezes but it was clear to you know. Your sight was clearing and you were able to follow the hand in front of you, seeing it connect to tensed shoulders that lead to a concerned but mysteriously annoying face.

”Easy, easy. He knows what he did was wrong,” a voice assured. You didn’t recognize the source of it but hearing it felt good. It felt cozy.

”Does he?!” Ouch. That voice was the exact opposite of cozy.

Unfortunately, it continued. ”We took you among us many months ago and you’ve done nothing but disobeyed my orders,” it kept going like it had no off option.

You scrunched your eyebrows and used some effort to turn your neck to another side. The furious midget you saw raging at some other man started adding strong curse words among his enraged shouting.

”And I dare you to do that one more–,” he stopped mid-sentence as he locked eyes with you. His face distorted more every passing second.

“What is that?”