I hated being alone, but I had no one else in that moment.

I admit running away from my community wasn’t the best idea I ever had, and now I was here in the cold, busy lighting up a fire inside an abandoned farmhouse in the middle of nothing. I knew there was a city a few miles away, but it was already starting to get dark and I could barely see it with my binoculars. I had stolen some precooked food and clean water, but I ate and drank as little as I could, as I wasn’t being sure I was going to meet welcoming faces in the next place.

Not too far from me there was an empty, abandoned road. Nature took over it, making it difficult to cross if one ever used a car; obviously nowadays that was a luxury, with little to no oil available. I used railroads and highways as my paths for the next stop. Sometimes I even saw or caught a train and once I even spotted a running car - unluckily for me that time my shouts for help weren’t enough and they didn’t stop. Even the farmhouse I was staying in was in ruins: luckily part of the rooftop was still on, I even found a bed with sheets and a cushion and some old clothes someone forgot there. Clearly it was abandoned not too long ago, maybe because it was too far from other people or maybe because something bad happened and the people living inside had to flee away.

I sat on the bed and sighed heavily. I missed feeling comfortable like that, not that I was going to sleep much anyway. But even more I missed talking to someone. Having a friend. Hugging, touching a human. The ones I left behind weren’t friends, they were my enemies and they didn’t make me feel accepted. They used me for my knowledge in medicine, and guilt me into staying to help people that only hurt me later. I quietly fell on the bed and lazily checked the bandages on my hands, filled with small cuts that I got after digging a deep hole. I ran away from those people because I found my dog dead. I knew it was their fault and the idea of being alone in that place without my only friend was making me die inside.

Running away was the only way out from that place. I wish I did that sooner with my dog, at least he still would be alive. I shivered and covered myself with those dirty sheets, but I knew I couldn't really complain much, after all I was lucky I found shelter and a bed too. I kept my bag close to me, now slightly more filled with those clothes I found. I needed them to survive, because it was Autumn and it was already a bit too cold for my tastes. I asked myself if I it was better to stay in this abandoned farmhouse for a few days, maybe fix it a little bit to start living more comfortably, but the woods not too far from here didn't reassure me much, just like the lack of other people around me. Woods meant animals, which could mean food but also predators. I was alone with a knife and a gun with a couple of shots that surely I couldn't waste on something like a wolf.

More like I was going to use it against humans. I shivered at the thought and stared at the ceiling; killing another person was something I still needed to do, somehow I was lucky enough to have avoided all occasions possible, but I was afraid it was going to happen soon. My escape happened in complete silence. I had my chance to slither away from the bedroom I was sharing with some other guy in the early morning, when there were barely people awake. I had prepared a bag the night before, and my roommate asked me about it. I remember the feeling of being caught, but I slipped an easy lie in my explanation - we often had to go a bit out of town to look for junk or food, and I needed something for my small ambulatory. Maybe my roommate believed me and accepted by answer, but if he didn’t I know he didn’t say a thing and silently wished me good luck. By midday I already couldn’t see the town anymore, having walked for hours in the direction of the next biggest city, the one I wanted to reach soon.

I took out a small tape and I clicked the recording button. “Day 9 since I left town, I found shelter in an abandoned farmhouse. I’m laying in a bed and I found clothes - no food here. I’m about to finish mine, but I should reach what remains of the city by tomorrow late afternoon. Hopefully there will be a welcoming community there that will accept me. I have never lived in a bigger city before. This was Yixing, age 27.” I clicked again the button and with a sigh I put it away. Time to sleep. Too tired to think of anything else, I immediately fell asleep, culled by the weak crackle of the fire.

I woke up with a start. I immediately got up, realizing the sun was already up in the sky and I was still lying in bed; I grabbed all my things and tried to hide my traces, before I ran outside that place and started crossing the empty field. I couldn’t lose much time if I wanted to reach the city and find a better life. I shook my head and told myself not to be overly positive, but the truth was that I was already imagining my new friends, my new room or my new clothes. The warm food or the warm hugs, the small parties we were going to held to celebrate some happy occasion. The music I missed, the dances. The people. I was in desperate need to live with genuinely good people, who were there to help each other and strive in a world that wanted to suffocate us.

It was then that I heard it. A roar.

It wasn’t an animal, thought. It was something I last heard ages ago, when I was younger and things were a bit better than now. It was a car engine.

I frantically looked around, when I finally spotted it: a mini van, going at a moderate pace and directed towards the city I was headed to. I stood frozen for a second, suddenly thrown back in my childhood memories when mom was here and told me we had to sell our car because it was too expensive and we didn’t need that anyway. Half lies I half accepted, and now I found myself in front of something I thought I was never going to see again. “Hey!” I suddenly screamed, as if something inside me had just moved impatiently. “Heeeyyy!” I repeated as loudly as I could, waving my arms around and jumping, then sprinting towards the van; the cold morning air hit me in the face, as I kept trying to caught the van’s attention towards me, as a small light of hope inside my heart started getting brighter and brighter, until it started shining with force when the car actually slowed down and stopped, and I reached it with a silly, happy grin on my face.

I probably also started crying while running, because the young man inside, sitting next to the driver, rolled down the window and chuckled at me, staring at me with a confused face. From inside the van, a soft rhythmic music was playing in the background, and I had to stop myself from jumping around in glee - it was something I missed greatly, feeling that excited for something that seemed so unimportant.

“Hey, what’s going on?” The man smiled pointing at me. I looked at myself and he wasn’t wrong - I hadn’t been shaving and I didn’t have time to clean myself much during my journey, I was pretty much a mess, while the guy’s face was clean and smooth, his eyes twinkling with energy and he looked like food wasn’t missing from his house. I probably lost weight too, with all that walking and the food I barely ate. He didn’t wait for an answer that he pointed at the passenger seats with a grin. “Hop on, you’re coming with us. Unless you wanted to do something else?” He laughed.

“Are you joking?” I answered back, holding his hand as a thank you gesture and immediately getting inside the car. The van was a bit messy, clearly old and with some parts from other cars, but it worked and I sighed as I felt comfortable in my seat. The van had this distinct smell of old engine that I didn’t mind, and for a second it was like I was back home. My old habits made me reach immediately for the seatbelt, and I left out a breathy laugh, barely believing that it was happening to me.

“I’m Baekhyun, the one driving is Sehun. That guy who’s pretending to sleep, we call him Kris! He told us we were going to meet you here.”

I immediately stopped smiling and turned around, my heart stopping for a second and my hands, suddenly clampy, tightened around the backpack. Sitting next to me, a tall, lanky man, who had his elbow resting on the open window. He was turned towards it, his eyes closed, unbothered by what was happening next to him. When I entered the van I didn’t pay attention to him at all, but now I was afraid he was going to be bad news for me. Hearing what Baekhyun said, he snapped his eyes open and calmly stated “I was feeling the wind.” The other two answered with a snort and a laugh, as if that weird reply wasn’t uncommon in their conversations, and Sehun restarted the car. I was frozen in my seat, not sure if I should have tried to run away instead of sitting there.

“Don’t worry, he’s like that. He tries to act cool but that doesn’t end well!” Baekhyun turned around and jokingly winked at Kris, who stared emotionless at him. Suddenly, the idea of taking out the gun in my backpack wasn’t that bad; I didn’t realize that I could have been much more unfortunate with this meeting than what I thought it was. What if they were going to eat me alive? After all even in my community I heard of episodes of cannibalism. Also what the hell with that Kris guy? He knew where I was hiding? Did he follow me and those people were going to take me back where I was from?

“Don’t mind them.” Sehun’s deep voice reassured me. “Baek is stupid.” That earnt a loud whack on his head. “Kris is just special. Usually he helps us find food and warn us about bad or good stuff. He’s a miracle for us.” He vaguely explained. That didn’t calm me down at all.

I took another glance at Kris, who was now sitting properly and was timidly looking at me. He looked like a normal person to me. Now that he was turned a bit more towards me I took my time to inspect his face, in search of something that could tell me anything about him. But I was out of luck, he seemed a standard human, maybe a bit more good-looking than average. His dark eyes where looking at me with an unnamed emotion behind them, and I wasn’t sure what he could have wanted from me.

“Name?” He asked me quietly. I startled, not expecting such simple question. He knew where I was but not my name?

“Uh… I’m, I’m Yixing.” I mumbled, quickly drying the tears left on my cheeks. I felt even more of a mess than before.

“Oh, you’re Chinese?” Sehun asked me, distracting me from my thoughts. “I have a Chinese friend in our community. He’ll be happy to speak his mother tongue again.” I smiled softly, I felt the same. Whenever I recorded myself I talked in Chinese, I did the same with many people - mostly very old men and women - back in my old community, too. I still was tense in my seat, but the way Sehun was talking slightly reassured me, along with the low roar of the engine and the music playing. I recognized some of the tracks, and that filled me with melancholy memories, but once again I tried to stop me from trusting them too much. I decided that throwing myself out of the car wasn’t a great idea, nor was trying a surprise attack, but to be fair I wasn’t feeling exactly ready to try kill seemingly innocent people, steal a car and start a new life, so I decided to least make myself a bit comfortable and accept the fact that if they actually were bad people, I wasn’t going to escape alive.

During the journey Baekhyun sang loudly, and at some point I felt enough at ease to do the same, as much as I wanted to avoid showing I was trusting them already. Well, maybe I could trust Sehun, but definitely not Kris, who now kept sitting unnaturally straight and was staring ahead of him, looking incredibly calm and relaxed despite his tense back, and occasionally turning his head to look at me. I also stole a glance from time to time, but to be fair the more I looked at Kris and the more I convinced myself that yes, he looked like any other more-than-average good looking individual, but also incredibly out of place, much like seeing a shirt in a cupboard. He oddly stood out, but there wasn’t any physical feature that looked strange; of course the fact Sehun defined him as a ‘miracle’ and that they said he knew where I was, was ringing a few alarm bells in my head.

We soon started seeing the city from afar, and the abandoned buildings next to the road grew in number; soon empty fields were filled with large constructions that once were malls, shops or factories, and I noticed the first few groups of people, who waved happily at our van. Someone shouted a welcoming greeting, and Baekhyun loudly answered with a victorious screech, as if he was coming back from something exceptional. I didn’t understand why they did that, but I guessed that for having a van they couldn’t be exactly nobodies in their community. As we kept going and the number of buildings grew more and more, I started feeling anxious, now unable to imagine what was going to happen next, yet I found myself leaning towards the window to look at the various shops, stands, the lights and listen to the sounds I missed while staying in my previous community. There were more people, more life, more colours.

“Bread.” Kris whispered right next to my ear. I jumped, not expecting him to come so close to me and my face, but quickly realized what he meant, as he pointed at a shop in particular. “Meat.” He said pointing to another, clearly some kind of butcher shop. “Knick knacks.” This one was a colourful place with all the kind of things placed in the shop window. I felt a bit more at ease realizing that he was no better than a curious yet helpful kid, and even his vocabulary seemed oddly short but easy to understand. Who was he exactly? Maybe a man that unfortunately went through too much; yet that didn't explain what worried me the most, how did he know he was going to meet me?

“What about that one?” I asked quietly, pointing at another window on the first floor of a building. It took my attention because it was completely black but had a bright neon next to it with the writing people in a bright pink. He scrunched up his nose, not too happy to tell me “Not a nice place”. I hummed with wide eyes and leaned back on my seat, hoping that the neon was about more for a brothel than for a human trafficking meet-up place.

I noticed we started going towards a more open area of the city, where there were less tall buildings and more trees and nature. “I thought you wanted to reach the city?” I wondered out loud.

“We did.” Sehun quickly replied. “But our community stays in a more open area were we see our farms. Unless you want us to drop you here?” He smiled cheekly. I silently shook my head, surprised to hear such thing existed in that place.

“The city centre must have been nice once.” Baekhyun lamented. “But it's far too dangerous now. There are skyscrapers no one can tend anymore, they could fall any time now because nature suddenly overtook ‘em.” He huffed. “We visit that place only if we think we can return safely.”

That was a perfect reason to stay away from such place, and I mentally told myself to avoid the city centre. I guessed it was home for gangs and most likely not very nice people who wanted to stay away from the main communities. I noticed we passed a sign that announced in big letters welcome to Sector 11E, and the whole environment changed immediately. The buildings opened up to let myself see fields without end, and this time the small streets were bustling with life more than ever; this part of the city wasn’t as dark and gloomy as the one I first saw, and not even close to the place I was staying at before. Instead it was filled with natural light, and a more lively atmosphere in general: I didn’t see people in misery, but kids playing around and having fun, colours decorating the houses and not a hint of fear or misery in the eyes I met during the journey. We finally stopped and Sehun parked, I quickly jumped out and ran in the streets filled with faces of people I still had to meet. I took my time to accept what was in front of me, what looked like a rural town when behind it dangerously stood skyscrapers and who knows what else. “You’ll get used to it.” Baekhyun laughed, as he stretched out. “It gets boring after a while.”

Sehun rolled his eyes. “No, it doesn’t. There’s work to do all the time, you’re just lazy.” The three strangers who saved me from a long, exhausting walk and probably a few meeting with the wrong crowd walked ahead of me, not a hint of doubt that I wasn’t going to stab their backs. They trusted me just like that, just like I desperately had ran to them and grasped on the only chance I had to change my life for good. I watched as Kris lingered a little, his hands behind his back like a child, and I took the opportunity to find out what was going on with him.

“Kris, wait. I need to know something.” He turned around as I called him softly, while the others chatted away in their own world. Kris stared at me expectantly, waiting for me to continue. “How did you know where I was when we met?” I whispered, hoping that the others couldn’t hear me and think I was plotting something against them. Kris smiled, showing me his guns.

“Oh, I just knew.” I crossed my arms and started nervously tapping my foot on the ground; how was that an exhaustive answer to my doubts?!

“And you didn’t know my name?” I pointed out, not accepting a blatant lie. He shook his head and smiled in a tender and polite way, yet I noticed him tensing.

“I knew.” He admitted immediately, but not looking a bit guilty about it. If only, his smile got cheekier, almost glad I questioned him about it. “But I know it’s better to ask.” He turned around and left me alone and speechless. It looked like I had some secrets to unfold, now.