Seulgi takes a look at the black watch on her wrist. The time its 2:50

She doesn't know what day is it. She just knows her clock and time stopped there. The front crystal is broken and scratched, the small numbers stained with blood, the leather straps covered with pieces of flesh that have forever been stuck to it. Seulgi just tries to remember when was the last time her watch worked, there's no batteries for it in this modern world and looking for them might mean death

Five years. It's been five long years since she lost track of time forever

The sun is so bright today, it must be close to 35 degrees and it burns on her skin, making it boil under the plaid, black and red shirt she chose for today. Her hair falls down to her shoulders and sticks to her neck with sweat, her ripped jeans feel tight with the heat and her combat boots are heavy with dust, mud, and grass.

But there's something that feels heavier than her boots

The Winchester bolt-action rifle in her hand

Seulgi's hand circles around the thin wrist of this teenager that thought it would be okay to trespass that small haven of hers, this small portion of life that she built along others for years. Years after the world ended, years after there was no trace of human life as they knew it, when everyone went crazy and the remaining humans where left with two options: die or survive

"I caught you, you rat. You thought you were smart, huh?"

This boy must be at least 16 years old, maybe even younger. His hair is dirty and stuck to his forehead, his clothes ripped apart, with bare feet and a nauseating smell coming from his body. Seulgi is sure he hasn't had a bath in months and even when she's used to rather strong smells this really makes her stomach churn. She bumps the back of the rifle on his back, making him whimper

“Where is your camp?”

“I got no camp, I'm a drifter”

“Yeah, sure. Like I haven't heard that story a million times before”

They're standing in the middle of an open field, a wasteland with a few remaining plants and trees here and there. The trees still keep their leaves and the plants seem to grow slowly over time, Seulgi saw a wolf lurking around the camp this morning but it must be safe. Their camp isn't far away from here and it's quite shielded from all the dangers of this new world of them where even breathing seems to be dangerous from time to time

“Seulgi!” she hears a voice in the distance, coming from the direction she just ran and probably running behind her since she left the camp chasing the boy “Seulgi! Are you okay?”

"Yeah…this guy though?" She let out a dry chuckle “He's good as dead. Get on your knees, idiot”

Seulgi takes a quick look at the woman that just screamed her name and she sees her eyes filling with horror, with fear, like she can't believe what she's hearing even though she probably saw it a million times before. The world ended and with it, all traces of kindness and regards for human life dissapeared

“No, Seul-”

Seulgi hates when she uses that nickname, it's like her watch stopped at 2:50 yet again. Like five years ago as she watches the world crumble down before her eyes and panic rise in every single street. Mothers running with their children, cars crashing into one another, riots, bullets, screams, buildings crumbling to the ground just like her life...

She hates that time stopped moving since so long ago

“Get on your knees!” Seulgi screams, losing her temper

The boy seems reluctant and he drops slowly to his knees, a sob comes out of his mouth as he looks at the woman in front of Seulgi with pleading eyes that seem teary

“I just wanted some food, I got none since yesterday-”

“Seulgi, stop”

Wendy, the woman in front of her, has always been a soft person. Not used to violence, not used to the world around her. She still believes in the good of people, in that cruel fairytale of kindness and good sides of everybody. She thinks the world still has some people with good morals and values just waiting for the right time to use them

But Seulgi doesn't

She pulls the handle of her rifle, it bolts out an empty bullet shell. Seulgi points the rifle at the boy head

“Seulgi, don't do this, you heard him. We got plenty of food back home and we can give him some-”

“Did he asked for it nicely? He shot Yeri in the leg, ran to the warehouse, took most of our ammo and food and flew away from there...you want me to give him something when he's probably lying?”

Wendy takes a deep breath. The boy whimpers and sobs again

“Please, Seulgi” Wendy, who is holding a crossbow that she made just a week ago out of wood and ropes, walks slowly towards them with her hand reached towards her “Stop it, you're not like this”

But when Wendy is close enough to Seulgi, the boy quickly jumps to his feet and takes Wendy crossbow from her hands, his eyes totally filled with determination make him look a lot stronger than he really is. He points the crossbow at them and pulls the rope that works as a trigger. However, there's one small thing that he couldn't see and that was the fact that the crossbow isn't loaded, Wendy has the homemade arrows in a small bag strapped to her back

Seulgi is quick to point her rifle again, right at the head of the young man just like she learned, and this time she pulls the trigger only one time. Bullets are precious after all

The boy goes crashing down into the ground with blood oozing out of the back of his head, the crossbow long forgotten in the dirt. Seulgi takes a step towards him and grabs the crossbow throwing it at Wendy who catches it easily

“See? I know what I saw back then! This guy was some sort of scout or something. If he was a drifter...where is his backpack? He was lying all this time”

Seulgi kicks the dead body of the young man with a strong blow and she whispers something under her breath that Wendy can't hear. The silence is loud, so loud that it seems to be annoying, the wind is hot and dry and it caresses their faces as they slowly go back to the camp and the soil turns red with the blood of one of the many victims of this new world

Wendy loves the silence, she rather read a thousand books than go outside and join along the noisy conversation of the other members of the camp but this kind of silence is painful and uncomfortable, this isn't how she wants things to be. Specially with the one she loves the most

“Seulgi” she says softly

“Mhm?” Seulgi keeps walking forward, crunching the dead leaves under her combat boots and keeping the rifle in her hand like its glued to the skin

“I'm sorry”

It's an apology that's worth nothing but Wendy still tries, this new world is all about trying, hoping and maybe a little luck here and there. She believes in fate and she knows they met for a reason, her and Seulgi, they must've met for a reason...maybe the time is wrong and the place isn't what she always wished for but this is what she needs now. This is her new life and she won't change it

Seulgi stops suddenly and takes a deep breath before turning around so she can take a look at Wendy. The older girl takes a few steps forward and tucks a strand of messy hair behind Wendy's ear

“I'm not willing to lose you or anybody in the camp just to help some stranger and you know that, Wendy”

Wendy feels relieved when she hears Seulgi's words and she hugs her tight, as tight as she can with only one free hand. Seulgi kisses the top of her head before grabbing her free hand and walking again through the wasteland, their camp can be seen in the distance

As Wendy takes a look at Seulgi side profile, she wonders what she's been through before meeting her...how can she kill so easily?

Seulgi opens the big, rusty and heavy door of their camp. A white sign written in black marker welcomes her and Wendy like it always does

“Welcome to Seoul” it says

Seoul is the name of their camp. A smart move made by Sooyoung (who also wrote the sign) when they started to settle in this great piece of land that seemed to be untouched by man and the disaster. The name it's a defense, a method to drive away unwelcomed visitors and lure in smart survivors. The rumor is big, Seulgi heard it before as she raided the nearby cities: a camp with electricity, water, food and totally safe from danger. A camp in Seoul...people just don't know that Seoul is the place

The only place Seulgi can call home

After the rusty door, there's a road made out of stone and grass that helps to make way between a total of four buildings and a warehouse at the end of the road. One of the buildings is a destroyed apartment complex with some fixings here and there, mainly in the windows and doors. Two more buildings are concrete houses in perfect condition and the last building is a wood cabin with no windows. The warehouse is made out of brick with big chunks of metal working as a roof and an equally rusty door in its entrance

Besides the home with no windows is a small garden and some growing crops along a water well made for water with a steel bucket tied to the top by a hard rope

Everything here, with the exception of the apartment complex and the two concrete houses, was made by the members of the camp. All of this is theirs, this is their new life in a new world

“Where is Yeri?” asks Seulgi as she sees the camp totally deserted, like no one lives there. After all it's such an enormous place for only five people. They could easily house at least sixteen people but survivors don't really come to this place the wolves and other beasts end up hunting them or they die to the remnants of the black

Seulgi shudders as she remembers that name

“She's probably and the infirmary with Sooyoung. Joohyun went away earlier, remember? She must be hunting” Wendy answers and she drops the crossbow along the arrows to the ground so she could easily hug her beloved as much as she wants

“Hunting” Seulgi scoffs as she wraps her arms around Wendy slim body one more time, the heat doesn't bother them and she could care less about all the sweating they're doing right now. With so little time, the best they can do is love each other as much as they want “She's a psycho dressed as a girl, I swear”

Wendy laughs and places a soft kiss to Seulgi's cheek before walking away from the hug towards the water well

"I'll cook some soup for Yeri, okay? You go check on her”

Seulgi nods and then walks towards one of the concrete houses, the one that was painted green with purple details because the girls living in it could care less about the trips they needed to do just to get that paint. As Seulgi steps on the front yard, she can hear laughter from behind the door and she sighs with relief. That means Yeri is doing good even after the shoot she took

She knocks on the front door a few times, there's some shuffling behind it and it finally opens. Sooyoung looks at her nervously and finally relaxes before wrapping her arms around her neck and hugging her tight

"Oh god, unnie...I seriously thought something happened to you. Where's that boy?"

"He's dead, I had to kill him. He was a scout or something like that"

Sooyoung never judges even when her morals and values strongly oppose to the stuff Seulgi does. She never wants to kill, she never wants to raid, she never wants to shoot a gun but she has no other choice sometimes and maybe that's why it's so easy for her to adapt to this place. The younger girl steps aside and lets Seulgi enter the house, they only walk a few meters before reaching Yeri's bed who is flipping through the pages of some old fashion magazine. As soon as she sees Seulgi, her whole face lits up with a smile and she waves her hand like an excited five-year old

"Unnie! You're okay! I was getting tired of Sooyoung's bickering...she went on a rant about how you weren't coming back"

Seulgi laughs and sits besides Yeri, ruffling her hair with one hand while the other leans her rifle against the wall

"Oh come on, you seriously think I would die? Pff if I can handle you two then I can handle everything"

Yeri laughed out loud, a legendary "witch cackle" just like Joohyun named it since some time ago. Sooyoung can only shake her head as she cuddles on the other side of Yeri. The girl looks so happy even when she's hurt. Seulgi tilts her head towards the bandaged leg

"So...how's your leg? Who took care of it?"

"Joohyun-unnie, of course" Sooyoung replies before Yeri can even open "Who's better than her at that?"

“You only say that because you're like...super whipped for her” Yeri rolls her eyes and holds her arm after Sooyoung punches it hard. Seulgi smiles fondly at both and keeps quiet “Don't go doing that face, Soo! You know it's true”

A knock on the door brings them down from their fight and Wendy slowly walks inside with a steaming bowl full of soup.

“Yeri-ah, I brought you some soup so you could feel better. The painkiller that Joohyun-unnie gave you is really strong so here, eat something”

As Wendy got closer to Yeri, Sooyoung grabbed the bowl and almost pushed a full spoon towards Yeri's mouth. The youngest of them all only laughed and ate, she loved being spoiled by everyone and maybe her injured leg wasn't as bad as she thought at first

“Yah!” someone screamed from the outside “Help me out here!”

Seulgi grabbed her rifle and quickly walked outside while the three other girls remained inside the house. On the outside, right after the big rusty door, Joohyun was pulling a cart with the carcass of a wolf on top of it. Seulgi opened her eyes wide and strapped her rifle to her back before running at the older woman and helping her pull the caart

“Wow, unnie! Did you really hunt this?!”

Joohyun looked confident and smug as she shrugged, she carried her shotgun on her back

“Well…you seemed worried about the wolf that was lurking around this morning”

Seulgi gave Joohyun a quick hug and keep pulling the carcass towards the warehouse.

“We got enough meat for a whole week! Just wait until the maknaes hear of this, they're gonna ask for meat at all times every day”

Joohyun giggled and shook her head. As they slowly reached the warehouse, the older woman felt her chest tight at the sight of Seulgi being so happy with so little…life has really become like this lately with the small things being the only good things left behind. Joohyun remembers the world before the black, is just a distant memory now but it's still bittersweet: birthday parties, soccer matches, dinner with family or friends, a wedding, the birth of your first child…all of those were wonderful experiences that people loved to share with others

Everything's been reduced to ashes and the real happy moments are fewer: a day with clean water, no wolves or lynx hunting around, a day with no bandits, enough food to eat for tomorrow…its so different now

But Seulgi seems to ignore all of that just for them

And Joohyun is grateful for that

“Seulgi-yah”

Seulgi turned her head and stopped opening the door to the warehouse

“What is it, unnie?”

“Thank you”

“For what?”

“Just thank you”

---

"Seulgi, here...remember those days were we went hunting? You know how to shoot, right?"

It's a weird dream, it's been a while since she dreamed with that and it makes her nauseous. Seulgi gulps and trashes around on her bed. She hates this kind of nights. The weather is too hot, they can't leave the windows open and there's not enough electricity to make the electric fan work. It's an awful mix between the nightmare and the scorching heat of her bedsheets

"Oppa...those are people"

Wendy isn't there for her now, it's her turn on the surveillance post along with Sooyoung. Yeri can't move much with her injured leg and Joohyun deserves some good rest after battling with a wolf most of her day. Besides, Seulgi needs to deal with these demons by herself, even when she isn't the leader in Seoul she can't show much weakness. She has to prove herself to Joohyun, to Wendy, to Sooyoung and Yeri. She has to be strong enough to protect them from the outside world and all its dangers

"Seul, listen to me. People have gone crazy suddenly and we can't trust them...the army is about to close every road out there, they're planning to quarantine us from the rest of the country and we need to move! Mom and dad are waiting for us on Busan"

A deep breath. Seulgi feels the hot air burning her lungs, long drops of sweat fall down her forehead and roll slowly towards . She can taste them on her lips, opens on a silent scream

"We need to save bullets so you can aim for their head, the chest is good too"

Seulgi runs in her dream, she chases her brother outside of their home and they jump the backyard fence between their house and their neighbor's. Seulgi remembers a family of three live just behind them but their truck is nowhere to be seen, the windows are broken and there's two thieves inside looking for something inside the kitchen drawers. The girl grips the Winchester tight when she catches a glimpse of the inside of the house

The father is dead, a shot on the head and blood pooling around his head

"Stop right there!" the bandits shout. Garam lifts his handgun and shoots

Her brother has always been a great shot and the bullet, unsurprisingly, hits right in the middle of one of the thieves forehead. The other one is about to shoot his own gun but Seulgi is quick to load the rifle and aim right at his heart, just like she did with the deers back at their camping house when they visited it during the winter. The man falls down to the floor, dead

Seulgi is shaking, not only in her dream

"Let's go, let's go" Garam grabs her by the wrist and practically drags her across the street. His small KIA coupe is waiting for them. Seulgi always loved to drive around with her brother, they love to sing along to cheesy love songs, laugh out loud at bad jokes and push each other just for the fun of it.

"What is going on, oppa?" Seulgi softly says, her hands have stopped moving up and down and she hugs the rifle like a teddy bear. "Did you see that back there? Mister Han was dead...those guys shot him"

"You've seen the news right?" Her brother is brave, that's the first thing Seulgi can say about him, he just killed a man but he doesn't seem to care about it one bit. It's like he shot a deer. When her sister nods, Garam continues "Hospitals ran out of medicine this morning and they can't treat this new virus...people just die after a week and they can't contain it. When they announced that, everyone went crazy and this mess started. There's people breaking on houses, killing others...it's a whole madness and the number of dead people is going up so fast"

Seulgi looks out the window of the moving car, some businesses are burning in flames, crashing cars, people running left and right, gunshots that come out of nowhere and bullets that zoom past them. A helicopter flies in the sky and its so loud that Seulgi has to cover her ears at the horrible sound, it almost makes her go deaf

"Look out!" Seulgi screams just before a car crashes them from the front. Garam's KIA spins around and around until it stops meters away from hitting the wall. Her brother hits the steering wheel and Seulgi goes against the car right door...they both groan. Seulgi feels blood slowly seeping out from her eyebrow, her brother is bleeding through the nose when he lifts his head and kicks the drivers door so they can go out

"You two, drop your weapons!" a foreign voice orders as soon as they're out of the car. Seulgi blinks one time and then squints her eyes. The man in front of them is a soldier, his uniform is visible even from a long distance. His hair is all over the place, his face covered in dirt and blood. It's like he's been through an accident just like them. Garam lifts his hands in the air but Seulgi still grips the rifle with both hands

The Seulgi from the present time wakes up and gasps, she sits on her bed and takes a deep breath. Sweat is now running down her back and soaking her shirt like she's been hosed

"Please...help us" Garam says softly "We aren't infected or anything...we want to go to Busan, our parents are there"

The soldier aims his assault rifle at both of them

"I said drop your weapons!"

Seulgi cries, the tears mix with her sweat. Both sting in her eyes

"Seul, please. Do as he says" Her brother whispers but Seulgi has a feeling in her bones. The same one Garam talked about when they were hunting: he could hear a deer meters away from them, he could tell when it was the right time to hunt or when a storm was near. He always said it was something he could feel in his bones. The girl shakes her head from side to side

"No"

"Drop them! Now!"

"Seulgi, come on"

"No!"

"Drop them!"

"Dude, stop it. We just want your help!"

And then the soldier shot

Garam went flying to the ground, his hands tight against his chest. Blood quickly stained his plaid, black and red shirt

"YOU BASTARD!"

A used bullet bolts out of the rifle empty chamber, Seulgi aims quickly and this time she hits the soldier right in the head. There's no one around them and the lonely shot echoes through the streets like the roaring engine of the helicopter that keeps flying around them.

Seulgi quickly runs to her brother side and presses both hands against the bullet wound. Her hands turn red in a matter of seconds and Garam spits blood out of his mouth. There's tears running down her face, they mix with the sweat and the dirt and the guilt even after five long, hellish years

"Oppa, hold on! I know this hurts but please, please! Hold on!"

Garam looks straight into her eyes. Seulgi shakes her head and silently prays for an answer. He whimpers and trembles as more blood comes out

"Please, please, please!"

And then he falls silent

Forever silent

"Oppa? Hey...Garam? Garam! Oh no, please...please, please! Don't do this to me!"

Seulgi holds tight to her brother's body. Tight to the pillow between her arms, pretending is her brother. Her best friend, the one who loved to ride bikes along her, the one who saved her as 'idiot' on his phone contacts, the one she looked up to all of her life

She takes a look at her brother's watch. It's broken now, the straps covered in blood and flesh

It reads 2:50pm

And time stops for Seulgi

---

"I'm gonna sit on the dock of the bay and watch the tide roll away..."

The radio softly plays in the background. They had some spare batteries on the warehouse and Seulgi thought it was nice to use them on her radio. The only thing she has left that reminds her of her old home and how much she loved it. There's obviously no new music but she has an old tape lying around her belongings, must've belonged to her brother since she never really liked rock

"I'm gonna sit on the dock of the bay and waste my time, time, time"

Seulgi sighs and keeps looking to the sunset. She's at the surveillance post early this time, as a mere habit, she looks at her watch

"Seulgi?"

Wendy's voice pulls her back to reality and she looks down. Her girlfriend waves at her and tells her to go down

"I can't! What about the post?"

"Just leave that for a minute I promise you'll be fine!"

Seulgi goes down the wood ladder that connects the post to the ground and finally faces Wendy with a small smile. She didn't got much sleep last night, she's tired as hell...but Wendy always cheers her up no matter what time of the day it is

Wendy wraps her arms around her and kisses her cheek

"What was that for, huh?"

"So I guess I can't show a little love to my girlfriend, huh?"

Seulgi chuckles and wraps her own arms around Wendy.

"Of course you can, sorry about that"

"Unnie! Joohyun-unnie says you should stop each other faces and come eat dinner with us!"

Sooyoung screams at the top of her lungs, poking her head out of the kitchen window. Yeri laughs out loud in the background and Seulgi can only sigh. Wendy kisses her cheek one more time

"Let's go, I'm sure you're hungry...there's no real danger lately so maybe you can rest a bit? I know you didn't sleep much yesterday"

Seulgi wants to ask her girlfriend how she knows about her nightmare, about how much she hurts. She never really talked about her brother or anyone in her family before. She wants to believe that her parents are fine, living safely in Busan, being happy with their new lives. Making the trip to Busan is the most dangerous thing she can do and besides...is pointless. What will she say when she comes back? How can she explain to her parents that her brother is no longer here?

Maybe a white lie is worth a thousand truths

"You know how much I love you, right Seul?"

Wendy seems to be the light in her darkness

"UNNIE!" Sooyoung screams again "I swear I love you but if you don't come here right now I'll kick your !"

Both woman laugh and Seulgi makes sure to grab Wendy's hand tight, tighter than the rifle, tighter than her watch

"Love you too, Wen"

Time flows for Seulgi

---

A/N: Has any of you guys played The Last of Us? Personally I think is a great, great game even when the ending isn't my favorite among zombie/infected games. I love the characters and the plot and I was doing a re-run on the game today (because I'm super excited for Part 2) and this came quickly to my mind hehehe so I guess the setting for this story is the same one as in The Last Of Us or some parallel universe to that

I wrote this in like two hours so it's rushed af but I hope you still like it! Thank you so much for supporting this collection of stories, I'm kinda emotional because my baby is now really popular hehehe thank you so, so much again! You guys are the greatest ever!