– 300 days ago

“Hyungs, I found you!” a high-pitched voice squeaked.

Mingyu rolled his eyes in annoyance and hear Wonwoo scoff beside him. They turned around to see the mess they had created.

In front of them stood a short boy with messy, greasy black hair. It surely hadn’t been groomed for days. The boy was wearing a rag that had probably once been a white t-shirt and long brownish pants that had different-sized holes in them. Some of them had been patched, others showed bruised skin. The kid’s hands were covered in dirt and his smile revealed his yellow teeth.

“Samuel, you have to stop following us already,” Mingyu pronounced clearly with a loud voice. “Go home to your mom. I bet she’s worried.”

The boy looked at the two tall males before him. He knew they had a different ranking. They were wearing clean shirts and neat pants which had holes for a trendy reason. The men even wore shoes - unlike Samuel who was standing on the street barefoot. And on top of that, they didn’t look dirty at all, even if their knuckles had a few scratches on them.

“I know I shouldn’t be here,” Samuel looked at the ground, his arms folded behind his back. “But this is important.” He bit his lip and kicked a pebble on the ground, “You saved mom from the bad man yesterday.”

Mingyu sighed quietly and crossed his arms.

“But the man has been seeing mom many times. I try to help her but the man always hits me and tells me to shut up,” the boy’s voice quieted down. “And then he hits mom.”

Yellow streetlights that desperately tried to illuminate the empty midnight street shed shadows on Samuel’s face, making it hard to see his expression.

After a long silence he lifted his head and smiled brightly at the two men. “But you helped her. You told the bad man to go away.”

Wonwoo’s face was unmoving but his warm eyes exposed the compassion he had for the child. “Samuel, why is it that you’re following us?”

“I want to learn how to fight,” he declared with a stable little voice, straightening his posture. “Teach me how to be strong, hyungs.”

Mingyu held in a chuckle but couldn’t hide the smile forming on his lips. The kid tries so hard to look tough but it was only adorable coming from such a skinny, tiny body.

The tall man walked to Samuel and kneeled to look in his small, hope-filled eyes. “Look, kid, you’re too young to fight.”

“No I’m not!”

“And you’re not even brave enough yet,” Wonwoo added, moving closer to the other two.

Samuel slightly tilted his head and blinked a couple of times. First he turned his eyes to Wonwoo, then Mingyu.

“Then… how do I become brave?”

Wonwoo let out a huff in the attempt of hiding a chuckle. “You gotta grow up first, kid. You’ll become brave later,” he ruffled the child’s already messy hair.

The younger glared at Wonwoo. He shoved the man’s hand away, crossed his arms and frowned.

“But I want to be brave right now!”

Wonwoo and Mingyu shared a pondering look. Mingyu slightly raised his eyebrows and the other nodded at him lightly.

“There might be something you can do,” Mingyu started slowly, getting up from the ground.

Samuel’s face brightened in a matter of seconds. He grabbed the hem of Mingyu’s shirt and tugged on it, begging for him to reveal what he meant. He was stomping the ground with his tiny feet.

Wonwoo threw the boy a playful smirk and crouched down a bit, “Do you know the Alley of Haunted Souls?”

Samuel’s eyes grew wide as his mouth automatically let out a loud, overdramatic gasp. The Alley of Haunted Souls was a creepy place in town. Or at least it was a creepy place to kids. They told each others ghost stories about how people have died in there. In reality, it was just an abandoned street with no electricity, so it was basically as dark as it can get. There was no real danger there. Of course, Samuel didn’t know that.

“If you get to the end of it and come back, I say you’re brave enough to learn some fighting.”

“I-I… b-but I could d-die!” the child struggled with forming words.

Mingyu smiled at the boy and poked his forehead, “Ah, luckily you can always pick the safe way and wait for you to grow up.”

Samuel went quiet as he tried to decide what he would do. Should he go through the street and face whatever danger might be there? Or should he just go back home and worry about not being able to protect his mom if the bad man comes back?

The boy swallowed a dry lump in his throat. “…I’ll do it,” he answered quietly.

Mingyu’s mouth opened slightly. He stared at Samuel’s determined face. He hadn’t thought the boy would do it.

The three of them walked through their quiet town. Samuel had been very talkative when he was following the men earlier, but even he didn’t let out a word during the walk. His palms were slightly sweaty and he kept glancing around every corner. As they arrived near the said alley, they stopped under a bright streetlamp right before the start of it.

“At it, kid,” Wonwoo firmly patted Samuel’s shoulder, making the boy flinch.

The child stayed unmoving for what seemed like forever. Mingyu lifted his hands to his sides.

“Are you chickening out? You don’t have to do this if you don’t want to,” he assured.

Samuel knit his brows together and ogled at the darkness. “You’re just a bunch of meanies!”

“The faster you go the faster you can come back.”

“I’m going, I’m going!”

It became dead silent as Samuel took his first steps into the darkness. At least the light from the moon helped him a little. He walked very slowly for a couple of meters, but then started sprinting for his life. The boy ran faster than ever, having been filled with adrenaline. Finally he arrived to the other side of the short alleyway, slamming his hand against the wall of a building.

The young kid turned around. He saw Wonwoo and Mingyu waving at him under the street lamp in the distance. The small boy had made it all the way here and he had seen nothing scary. The child’s lips curled into a mile as he came to a realization. There were no ghosts here. It was just an alley with no lights, no big deal.

“I did it! Look at me hyungs, I’m brave!” he yelled and began skipping towards the light.

The two men clapped. They were actually proud for the boy overcoming his fear.

“When he gets back, we could show him an easy move,” Mingyu suggested to Wonwoo.

But that’s just not how things go, is it?

There was a large, dark figure following the young boy. Mingyu’s eyes shot open and he opened his mouth to warn the kid, but Wonwoo got to it first.

“Run!” his deep, piercing voice echoed in the air.

Samuel just chortled out loud, not making his light steps any faster, “I’m not so stupid that I’ll fall for your pranks! I’m gonna show you I’m super brave!”

Mingyu had already began to spurt towards the boy. The closer he got, the better he could see. The figure got closer and closer to Samuel, and the giant rushed faster.

He was too late.

The figure clutched onto Samuel and let out the most horrifying sound Mingyu had ever heard. When it made to his ears, the man’s legs gave away, making him drop to the ground. He held his ears with both hands to somehow ease the pain that the terrifying noise caused. What hurt him more was the pain-filled shriek Samuel made right after the previous cry. Mingyu snapped his head up to see what was happening, but what he saw was something he couldn’t explain. A horrifying creature that somewhat resembled a human was chewing down on Samuel’s shoulder. Its skin was completely missing in some places and a part of its head was not there, revealing its brain.

Mingyu smashed a hand over his mouth and gagged. His stomach was burning, yet he felt cold. The thumping in his head made it harder and harder to keep his eyes open. An obnoxious taste made its way to his mouth, making him want to throw up. The black-haired man was quivering uncontrollably. He didn’t have a clue what the ugly creature was but he knew that he was witnessing something straight out of a horror film.

The boy’s blood was forming a thick pool on the ground. Mingyu could smell the repulsive odor of it. Samuel made no noise. His eyes were open wide, like they could pop out of their sockets anytime, and his mouth was streched open in a scream that wasn’t there. One glance at his face and Mingyu could tell he was in the utmost worst pain a human being can ever be. The sudden limpness of the child’s body stated something Mingyu didn’t want to believe.

The creature let the poor corpse drop to the ground, towering over it. The giant didn’t have the strength to tear his eyes away, even when it brutally ripped a piece of flesh off the little boy’s arm and began to feast on it.

Mingyu was about to pass out. He found it hard to breathe and he had to focus on taking air in and letting it out. He was too focused on that to realize he was letting out whimpers and wheezes of terror.

What is happening? What am I seeing? Is that lump covered in blood really Samuel? The energetic little boy whose mother I helped earlier?

Mingyu didn’t know. He just didn’t know. He couldn’t even think straight. He let out a horrified scream that expressed all of the fear and disbelief he was feeling.

The creature must have not liked the scream. It stopped munching on the boy and turned its head towards the helpless, freaked out giant instead.

Mingyu couldn’t move. There was no way. He felt tight pressure around his wrist as he got pulled up on his trembling feet. He was met with a pair of eyes. Wonwoo’s eyes.

Wonwoo. Wonwoo’s here.

He was moving his mouth and staring straight at Mingyu. The tall one’s eyes were blank as he couldn’t comprehend what was happening. He tried to make sense of what Wonwoo was saying but all he heard was his own insanely loud and painful heartbeat. He slowly realized he was being shook. After continuous blinking and time that felt like forever, Mingyu found himself recognizing words being shouted at him.

“Wake up bro!” Wonwoo yelled, voice cracking in fear. “We have to go, now!”

The taller one didn’t even get time to nod before he got yanked away from the creature. The horrified men ran for their lives, pulling each other up when they tripped on their feet. They didn’t look back. They didn’t know where they were heading. As long as it was far away from the horror they had just witnessed.

This was the beginning of a cruel fat