By 2100, the world has lost 90% of its population. The rest is fighting every day to survive. There’s not enough food, supply or water and there’s nobody to make more. There’s no such thing as money, only brutality and guerrilla wars. Governments and presidents all failed, nobody could control what was happening and this anarchy killed even more people than desperation or starvation. Country borders were ceased, electricity was put out and the world has become a huge Sahara with nowhere to run or hide. People wandered in hordes and lived like wild animals. It was the era of prehistory all over again.

Though, one thing has certainly changed. The Great Nuclear War may have ended after destroying almost everything but it sealed the fate of people. Its presence is still lingering in the air, in the visible destruction and the changes it made. Generations have passed and people seemed to forget about it but then They were born. The mutants with radioactively modified genes. A new race of monsters.

They look like humans since they are born like one but there’s always something off with them: their eyes, they are silverish grey like the moon on those rare nights when the constant layer of heavy smog lets it show. People fear Them and not only because they are different but because they were born wrong: vicious and soulless. Some have claws like hawks, some can run and kill as fast as cheetahs while others are covered in thick fur of wolves. They bear traces of animals that went extinct during the last decades. Most mutants are told to be hideous, since they are errors in nature’s creation but a few is exceptionally beautiful. Like that girl whose skin was covered in peacock-like feathers.

Yeeun still remembers her face, the way she whimpered thanks when as a kid, she gave her some fruits. She was ten years old back then and so awfully naïve! She told her that she was pretty and the mutant girl, not older than sixteen, started crying. Monsters, huh? However, a few days later, a barbaric man from the camp where Yeeun’s family stayed noticed the missing portions of food. That night, there were blood painted turquoise feathers on the gathering site in the middle of the camp and Yeeun cried herself into sleep. She learnt then that befriending with these creatures will only end in blood and tears. Next time she saw a mutant at their fences, she turned her head away.

She is nineteen now, in another camp with his brother – since only the two of them survived from their family - when she meets another gorgeous specimen.

In these cruel times, it’s rare to see new faces. Inside the wire fences there are always the same thirty or so people and only the hunters, like her brother, can go outside. There’s no in or out without the permission of the man in charge. Though, the lord of this camp has a very different mindset about the problem and instead of killing mutants, he very much likes to humiliate them. There was once a girl with snake-scale patterned green skin who was practically a slave kept on chains and he made her water from the dirty floor if she was thirsty. In Yeeun’s eyes he is more of a monster and animal than Them.

“What’s happening?” she asks his brother when the men arrive back from hunting and everybody welcomes them more excited than usual. It always stirs excitement when something new or extra comes in from the outer world. Sometimes it’s a tool from the past, sometimes huge amount of food that lasts for days and sometimes like now, a special prey.

“Skull found his new pet,” Hyunseung says with a bitter grimace on his pale face and his gaze wanders towards the bald man dressed in leather, leading the crowd. People cheer for him as if he returned from a victorious war and he proudly baths in the glory. Yeeun hates him.

“You found one?” she gapes at her sibling both in surprise and fear. It’s been a while since they brought back a mutant and Skull started to lash his anger out on his own people. But now that he has one to punish for everything, he will make it suffer as long as it lives. Poor being.

“Yeah,” Hyunseung sighs looking straight into her eyes. “I have never seen anything like this. It has wings.”

Oh. Yeeun remembers an old story about a boy with wings but being impennate. He wasn’t an evolved specimen and he died when his wings started to grow to full-length because his body wasn’t ready for the progress. She has never heard about anybody who met an actual winged creature before. Maybe there’s a reason to it, maybe these mutants fly away for a safer place, if there was even a safe place these days.

“PEOPLE! Look at the monster we captured. He was wandering nearby stealing and hunting us down,” Skull roars loudly, standing on his made-shift podium pointing at a crouched figure in the circle of camp habitants.

As Yeeun scoots closer, she sees him barefoot with a chain around his ankle, his clothes ragged and his back covered by his own huge, wet, black wings. They are quite ugly, feathers torn and bones broken by the looks of it. She can’t see his face at all, only his back side but even by his posture she can tell that he means no harm. Nobody cares about it though, they still cheer for Skull, praise him for his bravery and kick dirt at the so-called monster.

Yeeun can’t watch it for long, so she turns on her heels and heads back to the kitchen to prepare dinner for the hunters who just got back.

By the time she finishes with her shift, it’s already dark outside. Even hours later she can’t seem to forget the camp’s new inhabitant, that pour soul. Over the past hours she heard people hollering when others dared each other to get close to the winged mutant and poke it, hit it, bully it with any means they could. Humans can be cruel when there are so little opportunities to have fun with loved ones and strangers dying all around them. They often relieve stress on the first thing at hand.

Yeeun has never met a mutant that wanted to hurt her with intent. They may have been angry or confused but usually they are more afraid of humans than the other way around. So what makes it morally right to hurt mutants but not humans? Though, moral has been a luxury these days. A lot of good people died while trying to hold onto the old rules when governments and laws still existed. Yeeun can’t even remember those times, she can only recall the stories his father told her about democracy and technology that brought all this destruction in the end. Isn’t it how it always works? Power can be both a tool of evolution and the reason of the fall of an empire. Because there are only a few things that are capable of moving so many people: fear, money and power. Greedy people fight constantly to have either of the three or even all of them while destroying each other and might as well the world. History may repeat itself but the people, they never learn. They fear the different, their fear becomes hatred and they answer hate with violence.

Yeeun has enough of it. But when will this end? Never, she knows really well. This is the end of human history, they are the last remains of the species that once conquered Earth. Now, they are helpless against the nature and killing each other brings them closer to extinction day by day.

“Don’t dwell on the past. Never. Make the most out of today,” her father always told her whenever she voiced out her thoughts about wanting another life. But aren’t they all like that? Does it really make her greedy? To want to be able to live outside of these fences and feel safe?

It’s a dream, she knows very well, merely a wish made upon an invisible shooting star.

Still, she has the habit of stargazing all night long and admiring the universe in its own beauty with so many hidden secrets written in the sky. She doesn’t care if it’s pointless to wait for constellations to shine after people ed up and created this mess. Since the War, the air couldn’t clear out, the dust, smoke, everything stuck in the stratosphere making it harder to breathe, to see clearly and to tell if it’s night or day. Whether it’s the silverish moon crying for them or the carmine sun bleeding, the clouds darken the air, giving the world a hue of grey, saturating the colours until they aren’t vivid anymore, just dull reminders of how rainbows looked like in the past.

Even under this dim moonlight painting her unhealthily white Yeeun looks so young. Her long, messy black hair is swirling in the air and her dark eyes are filled with melancholy as her gaze sets on the thick layer of clouds above. This barrier between her and infinity. She blinks away her tears and gets up quickly to get some sleep. It’s useless to cry over something that can’t be helped, right?

The walk to the little tree house she shares with four other girls isn’t long at all, but on nights like this when her heart is heavy, it feels longer, like trying to walk on slippery sand. The sight of the old metal cage in the middle of the road doesn’t help at all either. One thing is certain, it wasn’t there the day before but she doesn’t even have to get closer to know what it is. It’s the prison of the new mutant, being on display like he was some animal in a circus. Yeeun has the sudden urge to skip the shortcut and choose a detour but she’s too curious for her own good. It’s been a while since she has seen a mutant up-close.

“Please… water. Give me some water, please,” the creature begs, mumbling the words when he hears the approaching footsteps. They halt at his hoarse voice… or is it his sight that makes the girl stop? He’s not only locked up in the too small cage but also chained to the bars making sure he can’t escape. He’s lying on the cold, hard ground, his wings tucked beside his body in a weird angle that seems painful and Yeeun in a sharp breathe.

Then she runs.

She runs to the well in the corner of the camp that ensures that they have just enough drinking water. Even though the sea level rose, the salty water can’t suffice the people’s needs. They only use it for hygienic reasons, so water like this is a great treasure but Yeeun doesn’t waste time to fill a big cup with the liquid as clean as it could be. Be kind was another thing her beloved father always told her and she hopes seeing her helping somebody so vulnerable would make him happy.

So Yeeun returns as quickly as she can but mutant’s wings don’t even flutter or flinch when she steps close to the cage. Afraid that she has been too late, she kneels down, tentatively sticking a hand between the bars.

“Hey…”

She touches the feathers so careful as if she was waking up a wild animal. Contrary to what she expected, the wings don’t feel smooth at all. The feathers are sticky and wet leaving dark imprints on her fingertips. She jerks back her hand like she just burnt herself.

“Oh my…” she whispers looking at the redness on her fingers. There’s blood on his wings, so much of it! That’s what makes it so shiny in the moonlight, the open wound he has somewhere under the broken bones.

He’s dying, Yeeun realizes in shock and stands up quickly to run to the lock. While she’s trying to open the door in order to take a closer look on the boy, the earlier, desperate voice speaks up again:

“Don’t come in.”

It’s probably meant to be an order but it comes out a plea and the girl’s fingers freeze on the cold metal. The creature lifts its head, looking straight at her with tired eyes. Eyes so inhumanly silver, it makes her grab on the bars harder.

“Why?” she practically breathes not daring to break the eye contact but the boy doesn’t answer. He just stares at her with all the sadness of the world and then he simply looks away.

Would he hurt her? Or is he rather afraid that she would hurt him? Yeeun isn’t sure if it’s only her or he doesn’t trust humans at all. She can’t wrap her head around what just happened but doesn’t let the unsure voice in her head manipulate her.

She lets go of the bars with a sigh ad sits on the floor, the closest she can to the mutant’s head on the other side of the bars. She picks up the cup of water from where she put down earlier and places it to his mouth.

“Drink it,” she says gently and he doesn’t need to be asked twice. He’s drinking like the starving man he probably is. Gulping down big sips with eyes closed savouring the taste. Halfway through he lifts a hand, grabbing at the cup and Yeeun flinches at the unexpected contract when his surprisingly warm hands cover hers. But she’s not pulling her hand back until the creature lets go with a relieved sigh.

The human girl watches in awe as his dark hair falls onto his sweaty forehead, the locks dampening at the contract, his cutting jawline and the characteristic curve of his neck disappearing under his dirty, loose shirt. This close, she catches a whiff of his heady scent, it smells like dirt and something really unique of his own like pear trees or frosty mornings. He must have come a long way because as far as she sees, there’s only desert and ruins of forgotten and destroyed cities. No evergreen forests and such things.

“Thank you,” he whispers and the words somehow cut into the girl’s heart. She feels the rapid beating of it in when the boy, no older than twenty, looks her in the eye again. His silver pair makes her shiver because they look as if they saw the world’s end and she feels like he could even see her soul through them.

Oh, but he has manners. It’s rare even among humans. Yeeun’s heart goes soft when she takes back the empty cup.

“I can get more,” she offers wanting to help him which is a stupid, so stupid thing to do. What if Skull finds her? He would kick her out… or worse, he would make her join the mutant behind those bars and put her on chains until the day she dies.

But what can she do? She can’t just let him bleed here all by himself!

“No need. You shouldn’t waste more on me. You have already done more than you should have,” the boy mumbles, casting his doe eyes down and invisible cold hands clench around Yeeun’s heart. How can somebody so gorgeous, with soft features and eyes that hold the moon itself, can think so lowly of themselves? Why do people have the right to make them feel so unworthy of acceptance? What the hell is wrong with this society?

“What’s your name?” she asks, her voice barely above a careful whisper but he hears it anyway. His right wings twitches at the question and the sudden movement makes him grimace in pain.

“Why do you care? I’m only a monster,” he mutters bitterly, the agony clear both in his voice and eyes. Those silver orbs that sparkle under the dull moonlight, his long, black eyelashes leaving shadows over his cheeks.

“No, you are not.”

Yeeun’s voice doesn’t even crack when she answers and the confidence in her sweet tone leaves the boy in quiet awe. For a few moments they stare into each other’s eyes expectantly, waiting for the other to look away. They don’t.

Only the loud voices coming not so far away startle them both and the girl stands up abruptly.

“I have to go,” she mumbles apologetically but the mutant doesn’t say anything. He just closes his eyes and puts his head back down like she found him.

While retreating, Yeeun watches him silently for a second too late. Under the dark night that casts lovely shadows over his figure, he seems so vulnerable and beautiful like an exhibit art on display.

That night she dreams of flacking black wings and silver eyes.

is dry as deserts down south when the next day, she hears the others talk about him. It shouldn’t surprise her since the new mutant is hardly treated differently than any of the earlier ones. He’s basically kept as an animal left to bleed onto the dust he lies on. Yeeun knows she isn’t the only one who feels sorry for him but nobody says or does anything,  because nobody dares to speak up against Skull. So she rebels in secret and goes back to the boy every night.

“Does it hurt?” she points at his bent wings next time after he hands the empty cup back to her.

His stomach still rumbles after munching on that piece of bread but he knows he shouldn’t ask for more. She can’t risk stealing more without getting caught anyway and he doesn’t want her pity, that sad look in her eyes when she says I can’t. So he quickly clears his throat and she pretends not to hear the low noises of his complaining body. It still pains her heart to do so.

“Only if I move,” he shrugs with his head hung low. His voice so tired and nonchalant like he doesn’t care at all. Like it doesn’t matter to him if he lives or dies.

“Can I look at it?” Yeeun doesn’t mean to be nosy, she just wants to help because she can’t bear the look and thought of him being here trapped, targeted by the arrows of harmful words and harsh kicking of the brutal inhabitants. She has treated a lot of wounds and eventually she learnt how to do it properly. In this world, she had to do it in order to survive. So she thinks she’s good enough and if she could just make it hurt less then she can’t just sit here with arms crossed.

“Aren’t you disgusted by me?” the boy looks up at her, at the girl who came from the light, a life so much brighter than his and she’s offering a hand for him to take. His eyes are a universe of questions because he doesn’t understand her actions at all. He has never known selflessness or people who wanted to help him without asking for anything. It seems too good to be true, almost suspicious and he can’t let his guards down. Not yet.

“Not at all,” Yeeun shakes her head and frowns as if he burnt her with a question like that. Her eyes are rivers of fallen leaves and apologies. “I’m sorry they treat you like that.”

She doesn’t need to say who she means by ‘they’. It’s basically everybody: the ones who kick dirt at him, the ones who laugh at him, call him names, mock him and the ones who don’t do anything at all. In a way she’s one of them, too. But it’s not only them in the camp but everybody out of the fences who stigmatize these creatures only because they were born this way.

The boy mumbles something that sounds awfully like ‘he deserves it’ in an almost inaudible voice. He doesn’t speak up, neither to protest nor to agree but Yeeun takes his silence as a yes. She still doesn’t dare to step into the cage as the mutant explicitly told her not to get in the last time. So she positions herself close to the metal and reaches over to the other side slowly lowering her hand onto the black wings. They are not wet anymore, the blood dried under the scorching heat of the Sun during daylight. She carefully the long feathers putting them out of the way so she can see the skin of the mutant’s back. Looking into the holes of his ragged and dirty shirt, she sees more stains of carmine and yellowish bruises.

“Would you… uhm… take off your shirt?” she asks nibbling on her lower lip shyly. It’s not that she hasn’t seen a half- man before. She has seen her brother like that countless times and since the temperature has been fluctuating between extreme cold and extreme heat, the ness of skin isn’t that much of a taboo nowadays like it was back then. Also, humans tend to be proud of their ‘unblemished’ body and they often get suspicious if somebody is ashamed of theirs because they immediately think those have something to hide. Most likely something mutant-relevant.

The boy lifts his shirt without a word and pulls it over his head. He’s hissing as the harsh material scrapes his sensitive skin. Yeeun holds her breath as she watches the revealed yellowish shades of summer on the pale back, her gaze following the lines of scars and sunset red bruises scattered all over.

Both of them is quiet while as gently as she can, the girl sterilizes the wound before it could get seriously infected and the mutant stays silent, he doesn’t even utter a swear even if his muscles tense at the sting. There’s something calming in treating somebody, Yeeun thinks, it shows that the patient is still alive and she can help him. Laboured breathing is still better than nothing. Or maybe not. All these marks of past wars he fought, she can’t help but wonder what else the boy has been through. She’s extra careful not to hurt him more, not to be one on that long list of his torturers.

When his skin is finally treated, her hand slips and her fingers slightly brush along the soft feathers she washed with a bit of water to clean off the dried blood. They are trembling under her caring touch and she shies away immediately. It feels like something intimate to touch.

So she gets ready to leave like she was supposed to do long ago. She wipes her hands in her shabby skirt that covers her legs and the worn-out sandals she has had for years. Beggars can’t be choosers they once said, now nobody can really do that.

She packs up everything and turns around ready to walk away but stops in her tracks when a rusty voice calls after her:

“It’s Jungkook,” the boy says suddenly and it takes Yeeun a moment to realize what he meant by that.

It’s oddly satisfying to hear him telling her his name, so it makes her turn back with a happy little tingling in her stomach. Judged by the supernova sparkling in his eyes, he’s also proud when he says it out loud, tasting the almost foreign syllables on his tongue. Monsters don’t have names after all. But he, he does and he deserves to have one.

“I’m Yeeun,” she smiles at him, bright like the Sun was once and she keeps repeating his name in her mind until she falls asleep with dried blood still on her tingly fingertips.

During the following moonlit night, she brings Jungkook spicy stew with bread, so soft it practically melts in his mouth. He eats like he hasn’t eaten properly in days. She has never seen anybody bringing him food so he probably hasn’t.

Until he’s done, Yeeun just sits there, outside of the cage, her back against the bars, eyes on the starry darkness and the rippling clouds ominously forecasting the coming storm. 
“How… how could they capture you? Can’t you fly?” she finds herself asking, still looking at the empty, birdless sky and the boy behind her visibly stiffens. She looks over her shoulder fearing that he took it in the wrong way, some kind of derogatory sense even if she didn’t mean it like that. She’s just too curious, recklessly so since talking to a real mutant in the flesh is not an everyday thing to do.

“They shot right through my wing,” Jungkook sighs attempting to move his slowly healing wing a little. By the looks of it, it’s still a bit sensitive and he sounds so sadstruck, it makes Yeeun gulp and shallow her tears. “But I couldn’t really fly anyway. My wings can’t take all my weight, they weren’t trained for it. I have been kept lockdown almost all my life and I was just running away from my owne- from them when your group captured me.”

The air is knocked out of Yeeun’s lungs as she registers the words lockdown and the muffled owner. Her heart sinks thinking about him living like this all his life: caged like an animal. But it makes sense now, his resignation and why he let everybody walk over him. The poor creature never knew another life.

“They are not my group,” she spits out bitterly because it just feels wrong to be associated with those bastards. But she lives with them, doesn’t she? She cooks for them, treats their wounds, she eats the food they bring, so what makes it not her group?
“Then why are you here?” Jungkook asks just as curiously but he doesn’t sound like he blames her for any of this. Actually, it’s a good question. Why is she here? The answer is easy.

“My brother,” she replies suddenly feeling guilty suddenly because if her brother had known she’s risking her own life by befriending a mutant, he would be so mad. “He just wants to protect me and he thinks joining the most powerful gang nearby is the solution.”

But at what price?

Neither of them knows the answer.

It takes a few days until Skull makes use of his new ‘pet’ but now he only calls him Songbird. When the tyrant is in the camp, he keeps Jungkook close just to force him to sing whenever he likes. The boy has a pretty, velvety voice and the way he sings old, forgotten folk songs is close to sweet dreams. Sometimes his eyes find Yeeun and looking into those silver seas, her breath hitches. She always looks away quickly but she gets addicted to his voice anyway. The melody is sweeping under her skin, making the blood in her veins dance in anticipation. For what? She doesn’t know but she feels it in her bones nevertheless.

The midnight rendezvous become regular, a secret they foolishly think they can keep. The cold bars are still between them, everlasting like oceans between lands that need the right kind of ship to sail through. The routine is repetitive, always the same: she comes with water and some left-over food, a nice meal she could save from dinner, he eats in silence and she watches the moon. Sometimes she asks a question and he answers. Today is no exception, yet Yeeun feels bashful to ask something like this, shame already bubbling up in .

“Can you… sing something for me? You don’t have to if you don’t want to. It’s just that… I really like your voice,” she explains quickly, gaze fixated on the ground nowhere near the boy who is now eyeing her carefully.

His voice chords are stained from the amount of singing Skull makes him do, always telling him to sing that verse again and again, to do better but he just wants to break him, to take away the last thing from him that he has. The songs he learned from a mother he doesn’t even remember and his love for music that became the only cure for his aching heart over the years. It’s his coping mechanism, something he has kept for himself because nobody has ever told him they love his voice… or anything about him, for the record. So those simple words leave him stunned, staring at the girl in awe.

But Yeeun gets scared because of his silence thinking he grew to hate her now for this imprudent demand and she’s ready to apologise. However, when she turns towards him, something flickers in his moonlike eyes and that something takes her breath away.
And then he sings, voice gentle and quiet like a soft breeze on an especially hot day. He sings a lovesick song about mutant-human lovers, an old melody she has only heard whispered in the shadows among other forbidden things. He sings about a love that the world cannot comprehend while looking straight into her eyes. As the confessions of the lyrics fall off his lips, Yeeun doesn’t tear her gaze away, she can’t. She’s mesmerized by the myriad of emotions she sees in his eyes and the voice of angels that touches her heart in a way nothing did before. It makes her want to bath in this warm yet sad feeling, it makes her want to be bold, to open the cage’s lock , to hug him close and let her tears heal his wounds. She wants to touch him so achingly bad but she doesn’t dare to move, even to bat an eye in fears of him disappearing into the night.

That night she can’t sleep. Lying awake, making an ode to the moon, the song still rings in her ears and she daydreams about hands that caress her heart.

It was bound to happen. Skull likes to play with his pets just like wild animals used to play with their food. It’s a disgusting habit of his but what do people expect from a real monster?

“I won’t sing that,” Jungkook says in a low voice, almost inaudible. Yet, the firmness of his tone and the protest itself makes everybody halt in their tracks.

They are at the common gathering site, Skull sitting on his makeshift throne made of blood and hard work of other people, hands tugging at the chains of the mutant harshly.

“I won’t sing that,” the boy repeats with no fear in his voice, his angry silver eyes locking with those crazy blacks and Yeeun has never seen anybody saying no to Skull like that.

The man wanted to test him, to humiliate him because he knew if he had only an ounce of pride he wouldn’t do that. He would never sing a marching song about hunting down the monsters of the night, his kind.

The whole camp holds its breath now, watching in fearful silence as the boy on leash, beaten and skinny looks up at a man almost twice his size like he could kill him.

“Oh, have you always been this bold, Songbird? You will do it or I will cut your tongue out and make you watch as I eat it,” Skull snarls leaning closer to the mutant’s face then with a brutal shove, he pushes him to the ground. “Sing or else…”

Yeeun’s heart is a beating drum in her ears, her tears threatening to fall and when Jungkook’s eyes meet hers from the distance, she starts crying mutely for real. He watches her with sorrow evident in his kind features and then opens his mouth to sing.

There’s not much fitness in the song, the tempo is awkward but Skull is grinning satisfied like a dictator after demolishing an irritating enemy completely. However, his content look falters when Jungkook gets to the second verse that first mentions Them.

“Hey-ho, get your gear boy. Tonight we go hunting. Take the blood of the wrong. The kind without silver eyes. Hey-ho, get the glory boy. Hurt them as much as you are hurting. These humans, kill them all. Show them: they deserve to die.”

You in a sharp breath taken aback. Just like everybody around you in the crowd.

Jungkook just replaced the mutant parts of the song with human characteristics, he has rewritten the lyrics as he sang clearly, showing disrespect cockily. Such a severe one, it makes Skull jump up from his seat and grab him by the collars only to push him down to the ground once more.

“You disgusting worm. How dare you?” he roars like a madman towering over the boy’s helplessly laying figure. “I will teach you not to mess with humans like me!”

His angry shout is followed by an awful cry of pain as Skull steps on Jungkook’s not yet healed wings with his boots just to break the bones once more and trample on the feathers.

Yeeun shuts her eyes because she just can’t watch as the mutant’s wings fidget desperately trying to escape or the way the boy’s body is trembling with silent sobs. She doesn’t think, she’s led by her instincts as she breaks out of the crowd and she’s also surprised at her own actions when she shoves the older man away from the boy as strongly as she can.

“Stop it… please,” she begs and Skulls looks at her bewildered while the other camp inhabitants are just shocked by her boldness. A few of them starts to whisper behind their backs but the rest is rendered speechless. Who does she think she is and why does she protect a monster?

“Don’t tell me what to do, you traitor ,” the camp’s leader is seemingly pissed off as he pushes her out of the way so he can bend down and pluck a long black feather off Jungkook’s wings. The boy can only endure with angry eyes and face strained with tears as he glances towards Yeeun. She’s in the dirt not so far away but she cannot move, immobilized by fear and she can’t do anything to stop this madness. Skull just grins with the feather in one hand and a lighter in the other.

“Look at this, you helpless animal. All your kind will burn like this leaving nothing but ashes behind like you never really existed,” he’s spitting hateful words proudly as he sets the feather on fire mocking the mutant. Jungkook shouldn’t feel it but he winces anyway while he watches the feather slowly disappear into thin air among the flames. His watery eyes look like moons would if they bled tears. “One for each time you disobey or misbehave, what do you say?”

It’s a rhetorical question though and the boy tears his gaze away. He doesn’t bother to answer or to even look at the man, he just stares at Yeeun, seeking comfort. Maybe that reminds Skull of the girl and what she did because soon, he crouches down, grabs her hair and yanking it, he forces her to lift her chin up and look into his eyes.

“The same goes for you. If you mess up something, he will pay the price,” he spits saliva to the floor in disgust and then orders his men to put both the girl and the mutant back into their rightful place.

The cage is a barrier from the outside but not just a barrier, it’s the whole ing ocean. There were here and there and the point that bounds it together, the point that was the bridge between the two of them for days, weeks, a life - who knows? - but now there is no here and there anymore, there’s only ‘us’ and them and the ocean-like barrier in-between.

Jungkook is nestled into one corner, eyes closed and he hasn’t said a word since they were left alone. He’s probably mourning his right wing that lies still gracelessly by his side like deadweight. And for Yeeun, she doesn’t know what to say. Sorry? It sounds so stupid. So she seals too and just sobs in the other side of their prison with her shoulders shaking.

How ironic that when the night comes and people who ridiculed them with their pointed fingers went to sleep, a shadow approaches them.

“Hyun!” The girl cries out upon seeing his brother, who runs to the bars and reaches over to pull her into an awkward hug.

“Yeeun, you are so so stupid!” he sighs exasperatedly, her hair gently while swear words spill from his mouth halfway between desperation and anger. “How could you? Why…? What am I supposed to do now? Skull won’t let you out. He says he needs time to decide what to do with a 'wench’ like you. Why did you risk everything for something like him?”

Even the warmth of the protective, brotherly hug dissolves in the cold night at his ignorant words and Yeeun pulls back uneasily. She won’t take back anything, if she will be punished, let her be punished for her real opinion and not just for some lie.

“He’s not something, he’s somebody and he doesn’t deserve any of this,” she says gritting her teeth and feels sorry for her brother who has to see her like this. He did everything to protect her and where did it take them? Her recklessness still became her doom.

Hyunseung tells her all about his plan, how he will get some drinks with Skull and his men tomorrow, so he can steal the keys and set them free from all these chains and locks. He tells her to get ready and wait for him.

“We will get the hell out of here,” he promises with one last kiss on her forehead like he always did when they were younger. Yeeun is clutching onto the bottle of water he brought for her as she watches him go with a slightly lighter heart.

Only when he’s out of sight, does she crawl close to the mutant boy.

“Jungkook? Here. Have some water,” she holds the bottle out to him but he just grunts and knock it out of her hands with a jerky movement. He doesn’t even look as the wasted water is spreading on the ground, colouring the sand darker. That’s all it takes for Yeeun to snap and let out the frustration that kept bottling up in her all day.

“Have you gone crazy? Do you want to die?” she accuses the boy half-shouting without bars between them but farther than ever. Maybe it’s the anger in her tone but it finally makes Jungkook look at her, silver eyes shining with something inexpressible, a bit mad, a bit hopeless.

“Maybe I do! What’s it to you?” he shouts back in a low voice and dumbstruck, Yeeun realizes that he’s mad at her.  “You shouldn’t have come and try to save me! Your brother is right, you are stupid!”

His jaw is sniff, his eyes are dying stars and for the first time in a long while, Yeeun feels like dying too. She angrily blinks away the tears that prick her eyes and goes back to the other end of the cage. They don’t talk at all until later next day.

Who would have thought that the cage will save them in the end? That those metal bars won’t be their prisoners but their saviours?

It’s chaos.

People shouting, screaming, dying all over. The fences are not enough anymore. The walls fall down, the resistance crumbles, everybody is running, trying to escape but dying all the same. A bunch of men in red bandanas with guns come and fire, they shoot every moving target without questions asked. Blood flowers bloom on the ground across the whole camps, bodies lying around dead or dying, prayers falling from their lips but there is no god that listens.

Soon the screaming and shouting ends, and there’s an eerie silence without the sound of clash of arms. Only the death rattle of dying ones can be heard and Yeeun thinks she can’t take it. She feels like vomiting as she sits in the middle of the cage, as far from the bars as she can, palms on her ears, tears streaming down on her dirty face with eyes shut.

“Hey, there’s two more here,” a deep voice hollers, close to her, too close but she’s too afraid to open her eyes.

But then suddenly there’s a shadow in front of her and a back pressed close to her pulled up legs, soft wings brushing over her face and covering her from sight… Jungkook’s protecting her with his own body, wings stretched out full-lenght. “One of them is a mutant for sure, the other… I’m not sure.”

Yeeun peeks out between her lashes, hands lowering and fingers unconsciously hooking into the cloth on Jungkook’s lower back, keeping him close. She can hear more footsteps coming and she feels the boy next to her tensing at the men’s growing number.

“Let’s leave them here, they suffer anyway,” a new voice says with a humourless laugh, throwing something their way and then they leave. Just like that. Quickly as they came, they just go taking everything they can, leaving only destruction and bloodshed behind.

The silence is defeating. Killer. Yeeun can only hear her own ragged breath and then, when she looks up to meet Jungkook’s sad eyes over his shoulders, she knows what he thinks: humans, they are the real monsters and she can’t find it in her to protest.

“Are… are you okay?” he asks softly, a hand touching her face so carefully as if she might break. Yeeun can only sob and nod, because physically yes, she is harmless but otherwise, it’s all a mess. Jungkook seems to understand it because he nods back and then moves away, picking up that thing they were thrown at: a familiar key ring with red drops over the metal that they don’t talk about.

It takes a few attempts but they succeed in unloosing the chain on the mutant’s leg and open the door of their prison. Once they are outside, Yeeun doesn’t waste any moment to go and look for her brother.

“Hyun!” she goes around shouting his name, overstepping every corpse, searching and hoping. She doesn’t give up even when she sees Jungkook standing in front of a man’s body, eyes so mournful as he looks at her.

“No. No, no, no. That can’t be! Hyun!” she’s crying again and she hates it but doesn’t care, not now when she’s kneeling down next to her brother and rocking her last family member’s bloody, lifeless body in her arms.

It may be minutes or hours but when darker clouds come, a gentle hand touches her shoulder, pulling her away from Hyunseung.

“Listen, try to breathe. That’s it, look at me. We have to go,” Jungkook says, voice stern, eyes apologizing.
“I… I can’t let…” Yeeun isn’t weeping anymore but she can’t catch her breath properly. How could she? She just lost everything.

“We have no choice, they might change their mind and come back to kill us, come on. Yeeun, please…”

Maybe it’s the way he says her name so broken yet so desperate, maybe it’s the pleading look in his galaxy eyes but it makes her move, to detach herself from the lifeless body and start thinking rationally. Keep it together, that’s what he would want, too, she reminds herself as she follows Jungkook out of the dead camp.

With the little they could take, Hyunseung’s necklace around his beloved sister’s neck and a stolen backpack filled with food and water over Jungkook’s shoulder, the two of them start their journey following the stars and the mutant’s bird instincts in the plain wildness. After the War and the drastic climate change the greenery got scarce, most of the cities became one with the ground or stayed empty like ghost towns they pass by from time to time.

“I know of a group in the North that doesn’t exactly hate your kind. If I tell them that you saved me they might take us both in,” Yeeun told him, hoping they don’t have to separate. If Jungkook asked, she would lie it’s because they have more chance to survive together. But hell knows why the boy agrees right away, without questions asked. It’s almost like it’s evident for him to accompany her to the camp even if there’s still a high chance the humans there won’t welcome him with open arms.

Most of the time, they walk in silence, both of them lost in their thoughts. It’s not uncomfortable, they feel closer in a way that doesn’t need words. A part of them has always understood each other, the longing for a better life, even if it’s for all the different reasons.

“Do you have a family?” she asks one day, the scar on her heart still fresh but at least, she doesn’t feel like breaking down crying every single time she thinks about her family.
“No, not anymore. Used to have a brother though, I wanted to be like him,” Jungkook admits, eyes still soft but voice rough from speaking so little in the past few days.

They have been on the road without cease, only stopping to hunt for food, making a fire and rest for a while. Nights and days don’t matter anymore if they awake from nightmares too soon and it’s better to be on the move than to wait for sweeter dreams anyway.

“So I understand. Really. I know you are still in a shock but you can cry if you want, you can scream, we can do literally everything,” the mutant offers kindly and stares into the vast void around them. He knows how it feels like, to lose everybody around you, the last one you clung onto for hope.

They end up shouting to the sky, cursing it for all the misfortune brought to this Earth. It feels so good, to let it all out. And looking at the boy with eyes silver as gemstones, Yeeun almost tells him that despite everything she’s glad that he’s here with her. But when he looks at her, she quickly turns her gaze away.

Isn’t it selfish to love in times like this?

Yet, it’s that night when for the first time since she’s having these awful, dreadful nightmares about losing everything and everybody, she’s finally not alone watched by the moonlight. This is the first time when Jungkook doesn’t sleep with his back to her pretending not to hear her sobs. This is the first time when the boy scoots closer when she startles out of her sleep. This time he drapes an arm over her body, trembling like a feather in the windy air and he whispers soothing words into the skin of her neck. At first, Yeeun freezes and doesn’t know what to do, how to act, but soon it occurs to her that probably the boy doesn’t know either. Still, his comfort feels so good as the temperature of his body warms up her chilly one in the desperately clingy backhug.

“Jungkook…” she croaks out his name like a prayer and the stars upon them will maybe grant her a wish.

“Hm?” the boy hums, his exhaled breath kissing her ear as he ducks his head more into her long, tousled hair. She can feel the hum resonating through his body and her shivers can’t be blamed on the bad dream anymore.

“Do you think there is still a place where people are happy? Where your kind and my kind can live together in peace?” she dares to ask, hoping that somewhere out there, there’s a god, a loving and forgiving one who listens and can make it all right.

“I dream of that place every time I close my eyes,” Jungkook admits, words honest and sharp like broken glass piercing through her heart. In his arms listening to the lullaby he sings, Yeeun sleep better than in a long while.

It would have happened at some point anyway, you can’t cross the desert without running into other wanderers. Unlucky they are, of course it’s a stray mutant who attacks without questioning first. If it wasn’t for Jungkook’s quick reflexes and warning, the creature would have gotten Yeeun pretty bad since he has grown claws of an eagle, long and curved, sharp enough to kill.

Jungkook looks used to attacks and such things while Yeeun has lived most of her life inside of the safety of different camps’ high and wired fences. Sure, her father and brother taught her how to protect herself but she never really got to test the theory. So when Jungkook shouts at her to watch out, her first reaction is to curl herself into a ball. However, she doesn’t do that but steps sideways and turns around to see their attacker. The guy is barefoot and half of his face is burnt as if somebody tried to carve out his yellow eye with fire. Yeeun can’t help but feel sorry for him. But when the mutant tries to slit a piece of her face, she changes her mind.

Hitting the clawed hands away from her, Jungkook comes to her rescue but their assaulter jumps straight onto his chest with his full weight, hooking his talons into his skin, making him grimace in pain. They roll around in the dirty sand, Jungkook kicking and hitting while the other creature keeps hissing at him, clinging onto him harder. Jungkook turns them over once again and punches the guy in the face until his knuckles taste blood but the wicked mutant doesn’t give up or lets him go. With an animalistic roar he knees into Jungkook’s stomach and using the latter’s lack of attention caused by pain to his advantage he pushes him back down so he can curl his fingers around the boy’s throat, choking him.

Yeeun’s only luck is that the creature seems to forget about her and is oblivious of her presence. So hearing Jungkook’s helpless rattling, she acts quickly. Picking up a rock or something that looks like a forgotten piece of an old building’s ruin, she hurries towards them. Based on its weight and harsh surface, it’s probably made of metal and granite, the only reason why it didn’t crumble to ashes throughout the decades and with enough force it can easily bring death upon anyone. She knows it all in the back of her mind, but when she swoops down with it, smashing the rock to the lunatic guy’s head, she doesn’t think. Only when she sees the violent redness of blood on the grey substance, the reality settles in her as well as the consequences of her actions.

“Oh god… I- Is he dead? I didn’t mean to…” she mutters mostly to herself, standing there on wobbly knees and drops the rock like it burnt her.

Meanwhile Jungkook scrambles to his feet, coughing a bit and takes her by the hand. He’s holding her no matter how hard she shivers.

“Let’s go,” he says gently and they run as far away as possible.

It’s later that night when they arrive close to the shore, close enough for the salty water to slip into the cracks of dry land and the moon to be mirrored in the waves. For some reason the sky seems clearer here, with the silver reflection in the sea that reminds Yeeun of the boy next to her.

“I wanted to thank you. That you saved my life back there,” he mutters. His voice is strained with genuine gratitude while he’s digging his bare feet into the wet sand and bashfully looks up at the universe above them.

“You saved mine, too. If I had been alone, I would be dead by now. I didn’t even notice him coming,” the girl says while the memories keep replaying in front of her eyes. It all happened so fast like an awful bad dream.

Killing, sure it doesn’t make her feel good, not at all. She didn’t want him dead, it was never her intention, but accidents happen. Yet, she didn’t regret it if it meant that Jungkook gets to be alive. The boy whom she escaped the camp with and put all her trust into.

She looks over him: his crouched figure, midnight black hair falling into his breathtaking eyes, torn shirt coloured by his own blood… The sight makes Yeeun’s stomach clench and something angry stings her eyes.

“Does it hurt a lot?” she asks pointing at the dark holes in the clothing caused by the sharp claws. Jungkook quickly tries to cover himself up like he could get rid of the blood so easily.

“It’s nothing,” he shakes his head but she’s far from stupid, she can tell from his stiff posture and the way he avoids eye contact that he’s lying.

“I saw that he got you. Let me help,” she attempts to lift his shirt up to have a proper look on the fresh wounds.

She doesn’t think much of it since she has already seen him half- that time when she sterilized the scabs on his back. What’s different this time, she wonders, that Jungkook is so reluctant about letting her undress him?

“I’m… not… I-” he tries to protest but the words fail him and Yeeun is more stubborn than he is so in the end, it’s him who gives up and doesn’t resists when he feels the shirt rolling up to reveal his chest.

The consequences of malnutrition are evident: he’s too skinny for a grown-up man and his rib bones stick out at some places. He wears a terrifying amount of scars on his front, even more than on his back but apart from the two new ones, all the others seem old, mostly healed. He bears multiple stitches, angry purple bruises and where bloodshots bloom dried blood stains his untouched skin.

Yeeun stares probably too long, lost in the constellations of ancient wars and the heat of her gaze makes Jungkook hyper-aware of his ugliness. Ashamed he brings his wings forward to cover as much skin as he can while he sheepishly keeps his head down, biting on his lower lip.

“Don’t!” Don’t hide from me, Yeeun wants to say to stop him from closing himself in, pushing her away but the words stuck in , suffocating her. She’s searching for the boy’s eyes, their dust of the Silver River while putting a palm gently over his rigid wings. “You are beautiful.”

She’s genuine, she would never lie about something like this but Jungkook can’t shallow his bitter words anymore. “Humans say I’m hideous.”

“No. You are just like us… just a bit more and they are envious,” she whispers softly, reaching forward to cup his jaw, to comfort him.

There’s beauty in flaws, in deformity. He may not be beautiful by human standards but he’s just as beautiful as full moons, myths kept in secret and angels from dreams. When he finally looks up coyly, his eyes are burning stars and Yeeun’s breath hitches. Then he’s kissing her, his calloused fingers cupping her face and pulling her closer by the waist so desperately. His wings fall around them, hugging her frame like he never wants to let her go out of his sight.

Now, it’s Yeeun who is trembling but not from the cold, oh no, not at all. Her hands slide down on the boy’s chest careful not to hurt but pressing enough to feel his heartbeat. She soothes a palm over his back, up to where his wing bones grew out of his back and when she’s the feathers, they flutter under her touch and a whimper falls from Jungkook’s mouth. Yeeun shallows it gladly and welcomes the more fervent kisses that the boy is so eager to give.

They’re both unfamiliar with this heat, the intimate closeness and the need their veins but they’re equally enthralled and Yeeun wonders if this is what love feels like.

However, heavens like this are not meant to last and just like that everything falls apart. Because where there are lies, the truth will always be revealed one way or another. Probably sooner than later.

It’s coincidence, how it happens.

They have been walking alongside the shore for days now, getting short on food and water every day. Once Jungkook managed to catch fish for them and when it rained they could fill up their bottles. Sure, because of the pollution it wasn’t the safest thing to do but it was still better than the salty water of the ocean.

They haven’t met anybody during these days even though sometimes Yeeun swore they were being followed. But Jungkook told her not to worry about it and when he interlaced their fingers, tugging at her hand, all her concerns disappeared.

So when he’s away for a bit to search for anything useful in the abandoned building close by while Yeeun is trying to make use of the cans of beans and dried meat they brought from the camp, she doesn’t suspect anything. Not even when she sees the small journal that Jungkook seems to keep with himself religiously now lying on the ground next to his forgotten water bottle. She doesn’t think much of it and turns back to the cooking pot and boiling meal over the little fire they finally made after struggling so much because of the wind. She only cares about the journal when the flames flicker dangerously close to putting out and that she simply just can’t let happen. A bit of paper would solve the problem, she thinks and opens the journal in one swift motion. She’s preparing to apologize later for using it but there are already shreddy pages sticking out of its spine so it wouldn’t hurt to tear one more out, right? But as she does just that, a folded piece of paper falls out of the book and Yeeun saves it just in time before it’s consumed by the tiny flames. She has never thought how much the scribbled words will change everything when she unintentionally catches sight of the dark ink on the yellowed paper.

we go north to a camp she knows. stay low. i think she saw you yesterday

No. That can’t be true, right?

There must be a logical explanation of Jungkook leaving notes like this behind. For somebody he clearly knows. For somebody he’s willing to tell their plan and whom he wants to keep as a secret before her. But for why? What does he want? She can’t find an answer, nothing that can satisfy her curiosity and she’s getting angrier each passing second. At who, herself or him, she doesn’t know. So she waits until he arrives back with empty hands to throw the crumpled paper into his face.

“What is it, Jungkook?” she almost sounds hysterical and she hates it. She almost hates it as much as the fact that she can’t trust the boy who stole her first kiss - though she gave it willingly.

“Yeeun… I- I can explain,” the mutant stutters and reaches out for her but Yeeun backs away from his touch. She doesn’t need those magic hands on her now, she doesn’t want to feel safe in his arms and lie to herself that it would be alright. She had enough of being patient. 
“Then do it already!” she snaps and Jungkook gulps nervously. A glance at the paper is enough for him to know that he got caught and he doesn’t try to act like it means nothing. It is something, something so important it could ruin everything they have once it’s found out. But he can’t prolong it longer, he owes Yeeun an explanation after everything they had been through together.

“Remember when I told you about my… owners?” he starts off slowly waiting until the girl nods shortly, confirming his guess as she thinks back to his muffled answer back then and the pain doubles in her chest. “I- well, they are humans. They live a nomadic life wandering around like parasites. I’m the bait. I let myself get taken to get into camps and provide them information so they can break in without trouble and steal the supplies.”

His resignedness in the beginning. His calmness during the raid. The key thrown at his legs and why he accompanied her. It all makes sense now, fits a bit too perfectly to be a non-believer and Yeeun feels like a child. Too naive, too trusting and too blind when it comes to Jungkook. They warned her, didn’t they? These mutants are soulless, too selfish to care about humans’ feelings.

“Then what am I? A charity case?” she snorts but only to hide her true feelings, the betrayal she feels and her shaking hands looking for some weapon with quick glances. Weapon for what? Defence or attack?

“You are the error in the plan. We should have never talked. They didn’t want to worry about future complications about anyone knowing me. That’s why they killed everybody so heartlessly in the camp and they wanted to kill you too when we started to get close but I reasoned they need you alive to lead us to another camp,” he explains, true to the truth. She wasn’t part of the original equation since nobody expected anybody to befriend the caged mutant. It has never happened before and they had to improvise at the sudden turn of events.

“But I told you we should have arrived there by now if that place existed,” she yells at him with all her frustration because  in all truth these last days she started to lose faith that the camp she heard others whisper ingabout even exists. “Why didn’t you just let them kill me?”

For heaven’s sake, nobody would miss her since she doesn’t have anybody anymore. After his betrayal at least, because yes she deluded herself that he had him for a short while.

“Because you have to kill me or it never stops. I owe them with my life,” Jungkook explains, trying to get her to understand the debt he’s yet to pay off but it doesn’t make any sense. She shakes her head reluctantly but he keeps talking nonsense.  “Tell them you killed me, take my feathers as proof and any camp will take you in. We both know no place would take both of us.”

“Do you hear yourself? I won’t kill you,” she says absolutely horrified because there’s no way she would do something like that. Not even if he asks that. No matter how reckless it is she still wants to trust him. And she doesn’t want to be alone. “I have nobody but you! I can’t lose you, too.”

Jungkook’s unique eyes are shining with unshed tears, lips pressed in a firm line borderline stunned and angry. He grabs her by the shoulders shaking her to knock some sense into her and aims his words as sharp arrows ready to hurt.

“You are so stupid. I just told you I lied to you and they will probably order me to kill you if you are no longer useful. I am the Trojan horse. You trust me and I destroy everything, I will break your walls and crash your insides. Why can’t you…?”

“Because I love you!” she interrupts his desperate monologue with a hysterical cry and it finally seems enough to silence him. She hasn’t even comprehended it before she says it out loud. Why is this happening? Why can’t they go back to warm hugs and hands around hers instead of shouting about who has to kill who? “Why don’t we run away? Just the two of us?”

“There’s no place we could run,” he sighs, giving up and burying his face into his hands. When he looks at Yeeun, his face softens and his pleas break her heart a little. “You made me hate myself less. I can’t just watch you die because of me. Please…”

Selfish! How can he ask this from her? But before she could tell him how unfair he is, a low chuckle cuts her off from behind.

“Oh that sounds so romantic… Sorry did we interrupt something?” Yeeun turns around to see bunch of people arriving led by the man with the sickeningly fake honeyed voice. He doesn’t wait for an answer but turns immediately to Jungkook eyeing him from head to toe with a dangerous glint in his eyes. “I told you: the moment she finds out, it’s game over.”

He sounds too nice for somebody wears machetes and guns like accessories but soon enough, he drops the act and signals to his men. “Get them both!”

So that’s how the two of them, the human girl and the mutant boy end up with ropes tightly around their wrists, tied to the ancient heater of the rundown building nearby. Yeeun can hear only murmurs of the group’s quiet discussion in the room next door while she’s kept in a once closet-like place with Jungkook.

“Yeeun…”

His voice sounds so small but she doesn’t want to hear it. Not when his previous words still echo in her ears. To kill him? Has he gone crazy?

“I don’t want to talk with you right now,” she mutters looking straight ahead and the chubby guy from the doorway, who keeps on eye on them, snickers.

“Oh trouble in paradise already?”

Neither of them answers, nor say anything else up until much later. Yeeun turns her back to him, pressed close to the cold wall waiting, wishing to be swallowed by the ground and there’s something scratching the back of when she hears Jungkook picking at his feathers. It’s a nervous habit of his similar to biting one’s nails, still she hisses when he’s especially rough with himself. The floor is a grave of handful of torn feathers by the time the group’s leader steps into the room, grinning.

“Okay we decided what to do with you,” he claps his hands, pleased and excited. “We obviously don’t need you two to gang up on us. The mutant’s acting has worked so far but a girl, think about it! A helpless girl begging to join a camp. Nobody would suspect anything.”

Yeeun feels nauseous, used. Is this how Jungkook always has to feel? Helpless like a plaything of humans, a ragdoll ready to be thrown out any moment? Because it’s awful, a life worse than death itself.

And yet, the crazy bastard continues with fingers his beard and pouting a bit thoughtfully:

“So here’s the deal, lovebirds, one of you has to kill the other. You know, just to make it excited. If you don’t, you both die. We don’t really care,” he shrugs and just to make a show out of it, two of his men step forward, untying their handcuffs and placing one single gun between them.

Jungkook stares at his own hands a moment too long and then at the girl who stares at the pistol like it was a venomous serpent. He just needs to know one thing for sure.

“She can walk away unharmed if she kills me, right?” he turns to the spokesman exposing his wide back to the girl willingly and recklessly. She could pick up the gun any minute and shoot him, right through the heart, a betrayal equal to his but he trusts her… No, actually, he knows her well enough. She would never stab anyone in the back, she wouldn’t have the heart to do so. Because she’s the girl who gave him water when he asked, the one who stole food for him and risked her own safety to save his worthless life.

The leader grimaces, nose scrunching in the same way when he eats or drinks something too sour for his taste. “Sure, if you wanna play the martyr.”

Just a comforting lie, nothing more but Jungkook wanted to hear it anyway, to give a chance for Yeeun, to give her back something of what he got from her. So after a glance or so, he takes the gun in his hands, its curve already imprinted in his palm, carrying an uncomfortable heaviness and he closes the gap between him and his undoing, the merciful angel of his salvation.

“Come on, take the gun,” the mutant prompts her but she doesn’t move an inch. She just closes her eyes waiting for a bang to seal her fate. It doesn’t come.

Instead there’s something cold in her hands and when she opens her eyes she sees Jungkook pushing that damn pistol into her hands.

“What are you doing?” she gasps terrified even though she already suspects the answer. It doesn’t make it right though, so she fights against the guy to get rid of the dreaded weapon but Jungkook’s grip is too strong and she’s shivering even with the boy’s warm palms wrapped around her hands.

“Famous last words?” the bearded man mocks them while everybody’ watching the scene unfold quite amused, holding their breaths. Lovers’ quarrel is a rare thing to occur nowadays.

She barely hears him though, because all she can see, hear and feel is Jungkook. The way he looks into her eyes, deeply like he wants to carve his existence into her heart and she feels dizzy by the intensity. The blood is rushing in her veins and she swears her skin burns where the boy touches her. His big hands enveloping hers like a blanket on cold nights and her lost little heart needs just that now, a bit of comfort.

“Even if you don’t believe me, I love you, too,” Jungkook whispers so quietly nobody else can hear it, just her and her trembling heart. The sloppy kiss to her forehead, gentle lips brushing against her temple feels awfully lot like a goodbye and she can’t help but tear up.
“Do it!” he pleads, firmly but she just cannot grant him his wish. Her grip on the weapon only gets tighter, trying to stop him from using it and she can’t look away from his ocean deep crystal eyes. Her tears are streaming down and she doesn’t even notice while Jungkook, being stronger than her, easily guides the barrel where he wants it to be and with one last apologetic, cracked smile, he pulls the trigger.

The bang resonates through her whole body and the warm blood is dripping all over her hand faster than the pain itself.

The ache of heartbreak.

“No,” she cries out flinging herself onto his chest as his legs give up under him. There he lies with blood bubbling up from his mouth, ragged shirt suddenly carmine red and his torn wings outstretched. His eyes are still open staring into the void but Yeeun could exactly pinpoint the moment when his gentle soul left his body. The moment when she was left alone for real yet she hoped he found the place he dreamt of.

The gun is still in her hands, shaking and she can feel the curious and disdainful eyes on her. The leader promised she could walk away but she knows it better, she knows his kind. He would never let anything free that he once got his dirty hands on. The only reason why things could get so out of hand is because of the entertainment and because he had a plan B.

However, Yeeun isn’t willing to go along with his plans. She can’t live how they want her to be but Jungkook died to save her so she can’t die either. It would mean his death as well as her brother’s and parents’ deaths were for nothing.

So she takes the chance, no matter how slim it is. She can’t give up without trying. The gun is still heavy in her hands but this time, she lifts it up easily, pointing at the men staring at her and she almost laughs when they hurry to fish out their weapons.

“I hope you all rot in Hell,” she grits out between her teeth, tears still raining down but determination clear in their eyes.

“Aren’t we already there?” somebody chuckles dismissively and Yeeun shoots him first but not the last. It’s only the beginning…

And that’s how the legend is born about a girl who loved a mutant so much she made the moon cry.

If you have made it here, thank you so so so much! This story hurt but I wanted to write it so bad. I'm sorry about the open ending but I would like to give you a chance to interpret it in your own way. Tell me what would you think happened. Any feedback is appreciated. ♥