The ceremony was a very intimate one. It was just Joseph, a new priest- who I have yet to properly get to know- Stephanie, and myself. The atmosphere was sombre, and to my surprise, there was hardly any trace of tears on anyone’s grim faces.

The master had not gotten back from wherever it was he went off to, so I had to take over. And I put my all into it.

I couldn’t shake off the negative feelings that clouded my mind as I watched over the procession. It was such a small party for someone so full of positivity and warmth and... and.. Why hadn’t the rest of the town’s folk come to say their parting words? Was it asking too much to put things on hold for once, just this once, to see the departed off? The trek wasn’t even that hard! Why couldn’t they be decent people and show a little bit of respect for this wonderful couple that had supplied them with their staple food for every single day of their lives with warm hearts and lovely words? Even just for a few moments.

“Taeyeon..” Stephanie’s hand curls around my shaking fist, moving closer beside me to hide our hands as she intertwines our fingers. I inhale shakily, pressing my lips tighter into a frown and forcing back the tears welling up at the side of my eyes. Ignoring the way my throat was constricting tightly and focused instead on the pressure of my nails digging into the soft flesh of my free palms.

At the corner of my vision I see movement and a figure I know all too well by now. I look to his direction, take in the sober face of Jiyong as he does the sign of the cross from afar. When he looks up and sees me, he nods his head once and turns to return to his patrol duty.

I swallow dryly, the bubbling anger slightly more manageable, sighing audibly through my mouth as Stephanie and I step up to do our work. I try to catch Joseph’s eyes, but it seems like my prediction came true. He jerked his head away, head down and eyes set onto the ground, refusing to meet anyone’s eyes, even the priest that was currently trying to speak to him. I won’t lie and say it didn’t hurt even a bit. It did. A lot. It felt as if I’ve been slapped at the face and punched in the gut. Being called death behind my back by strangers doesn’t hurt as much as someone I’ve called a friend refusing to look at me. Everyone else’s opinion didn’t matter to me. But to the few I did trust…

But right now, it wasn’t about me or Joseph or anyone else. Stephanie and I put in a lot of care as we went about our business, grunting silently to ourselves until the last orange rays of the sun hid behind the mountains and the large hole in the ground filled with the holes engraved in our hearts.

I get down on my knees, setting the book down while pretending to fix the bouquet of flowers we arranged for her, and quickly covering it up as soon as the bluish light faded up into the darkening sky.

At least I know she’s granted eternal rest.

“Rest in peace, Margaret.” I pat the freshly disturbed soil. It’s a childish thought, but it gives me a sense of closeness and familiarity. The dirt clings to my clammy palm. I don’t care much to brush it off.

As I make my way back to the direction of home I try my luck at catching Joseph’s eyes. I catch the back of his hunched figure instead.

.. I don’t remember nights to be this cold.

When we get back into the bunker there were no more tears shed. I don’t remember climbing onto the bed or even changing my clothes as I stared off into the darkness. I had just felt numb, tired and detached. I do know that sometime in the night Stephanie joined me on the bed, clutching at each other for comfort, for reassurance, for the sake of having someone to hold close and keep warm. I don’t cry, too exhausted to even do so. My eyelids feel heavy and my chest aches with that squeezing that makes one breathless, something that had been recently turning into a familiar feeling to me.

The next thing I know, it’s the dawn of the next day and I don’t want to get up. My body’s stiff in the usual way it is after a long day of work, but I don’t seem to have regained the energy from the dreamless sleep. My face was another thing. The best way I could describe it was that it felt the same as the time my face was acquainted with a shovel my first day of apprenticeship.

I groan as I untangle myself from the vice-like grip around me, careful not to wake up the sleeping beauty. Walking straight was a challenge with the pounding in between my ears but the dry tickling at the back of my throat was just a tad bit more uncomfortable and I shuffle to the kitchen to grab a cool glass of water.

The moment the liquid touched my tongue I wished I had a knife to cut it out with. The unusual taste has me spitting the water out and dry heaving over an empty bucket as my empty stomach tries to eject what little I had left over the day before. I dump the rest of the water into it.

The dry heaves remind me of the poor state of our food stock. Yesterday’s event perfectly derailed the purpose of our visit to town and it just completely slipped my mind after. The pain in my stomach kind of feels a little less troublesome though, I don’t even think I have the appetite to eat regardless of what my stomach seems to tell me.

But still, I don’t think I can push back the food run any further than today. As much as I’d rather go back to bed and sleep the day away I needed to do what must be done. The Master had not gotten back yesterday, but when he does I’m positive an empty food stock is what he’d want to return to.

I change into different clothes. I had half a mind to burn the ones I was wearing, just to forget about yesterday, but I don’t have the luxury to buy a replacement. We were already short on clothes as we are now and food took priority over everything else.

The garden we had cultivated had wilted with the fast approach of winter. Having little knowhow to the craft there was nothing else we can do but pull out the dead sprouts and use a few for kindling.

I pull the collar around me a little to loosen it. It’s getting a little too warm for comfort. A brush behind my neck comes away wet with perspiration. I look to the low fire struggling to keep alight, debating with myself whether to snuff it out or not.

“Taeyeon?” Stephanie calls. She had already sat up on the bed, cutely rubbing the sleep out of her eyes. “Is it morning?”

I glance up to the darkness leading up to the entryway. “It should be soon.” I rasp out, wincing as the action of speaking rubbed my throat wrong. I attempt to clear out the invisible lump and loosen the muscles, but all that did for me was throw me into a fit of coughing.

I could’ve been the pain around my midsection or the constant rubbing of my throat but I was doubled over, dry heaving over the coughing. Copious amounts of saliva dripping out of my open mouth and pooling onto the ground in dark splotches as I pathetically tried to regain my composure.

I don’t even register Stephanie’s frantic hand on my back, not until a few moments later, with my face pressing onto her shoulder- spit, snot and tears wetting her top. Heaving hard breaths, I reach for the damp spot of her top, trying in vain to wipe it off.

She catches my wrist, murmurs something I couldn’t decipher over my ragged breathing and pounding pulse. Her cool hand presses against the side of my face, then to the top of my head. She pushes me back, far enough for me to see the deep concern on her face, and maybe even shock. When I brush past her my knees suddenly buckle, vision turning completely black and I lose all strength to keep myself upright.

It only takes maybe a couple of seconds at most before I come back to myself.

There’s a new pain on my head, concentrated on a spot on my upper left forehead. I’m on the floor and there are arms around my shoulder trying to pull me back up.

“Taeyeon, get up. Please.” The sobs in my ear get me back into gear. Fumbling to get myself around I wrap my arms around Stephanie’s back, and she helps me get back up. There’s still a light buzz in my mind, but I don’t think I’ll be passing out. There’s a new sharp pain on my forehead though.

“Asshh..” I hiss upon giving the painful spot a tentative prod. In the soft orange light, I can see spots of red that shouldn’t have been there.

“I thought you fainted again.” She sighs out. I pat her back with my free hand, still staring tentatively at the other.

“I… think I nearly did.” It wasn’t like there was any point in lying. I press my hand up the wound on my forehead, hoping it wasn’t as bad as I think it is. Stephanie pulls back, pushing me back until the back of my legs hit the chair. Her eyes scan the rest of my face, stopping and raising her brows at my hand hiding my wound. I pull up an uneasy smile, hope she’d leave it be. I can live with the pain if I concentrate on something else I could ignore it, and I didn’t need her fussing over something trivial.

“I’m taking you to the doctor’s.” Her tone sounded final, she wasn’t in the mood for me to talk my way out of it. Was a doctor really necessary, with everything that’s been happening? I’m pretty sure it was just the hunger, which reminds me of my painfully empty stomach and our lack of food.

“We should do our food run today.”

“Doctor.” She rounds on me so fast I nearly jumped out of the chair in surprise. Her brows were knitted down the middle, eyes burning holes into my skull as her jaws clenched so tightly her temples slightly quivered. “I am taking you to the Doctors.. Whether you like it or not.” Her lips trembled at the end, and that is all it took to shut down any other protest from my mouth.

By the time we emerge from the bunk the sun had already raised from the East.

I was wrong in my assumption that I would be fine. My throat felt all scratched up and irritated, and my body drained of energy that I needed Stephanie to support me. Every move seems to make the lightness in my head feel just a tad bit more bothersome and the pressure of the clean cloth against my wound was eating up a lot of energy from my arm.

I felt sorry for Stephanie as she struggles to keep me upright while guiding us through the path to town. I can hear her grunting ever so often, feel the heat from her body from all the exertion, and see the thin sheen of sweat forming along her face, making the thin, baby hairs stick to her forehead. From time to time we would stop so she could take a breather. I would send her a weak smile, squeeze her hand clasped around mine as both a silent apology and a form of encouragement. She’d squeeze back and her weary expression would shift right back to the determination she had when she pulled me out of the bunk.

What felt like hours but couldn’t have been more than one we finally arrive at the outskirts of town. It still looked peaceful in the early hours of the morning, but the raucous laughter that just seems so familiarly provoking had me cursing and gritting my teeth.

“Look who we have here. If it isn’t pretty woman and company.” And I was just thinking we were doing so well for such a ty start.

I look up from underneath my hair, wanting to growl at them to go away but the dryness in my throat and my rapidly deteriorating energy was preventing me from doing anything other than lean more into Stephanie’s side. That trip to the doctor doesn’t sound so bad anymore.

“Good morning, gentlemen.” Stephanie greets politely, delivered curtly with an undertone of impatience. I feel her arm constrict around my waist to help hike me further up before the heaviness of my top had me falling over. All I can do was concentrate on focusing my vision on something and hold the sudden onset of nausea.

“Please step aside.” Stephanie says. Her voice was starting to sound muffled.

I think I might have muttered a curse, I’m not actually sure, but what I was sure of was that I was rapidly losing all control of my bodily functions.

I try to blink away the darkness creeping around my consciousness, a futile attempt to postpone the inevitable. Then I feel my knees giving away and the world around me surrendering to the darkness as everything shuts down.

A/N: This is a lot shorter than I intended.