It starts with a packed bag. 

Hong Jisoo wonders, briefly, if he packed too little or packed too much. He wonders if he should have packed anything at all. One day, he woke up with a burning desire to just go somewhere. He’s never been the type to leave home for anything, much less for something so unsure, but lately, he’s been feeling lost. There’s no other way to put it—no nice way to put it, really—except for those few choice words. Maybe not completely. Not all of him, anyway. Just a small, missing part.

As if he has something he needs to find. Perhaps he does.

So maybe, it doesn’t start with the packed bag. It starts a few days before his departure.

The city has always been weird, that much was sure. There have always been strange happenings; lights overhead in the sky, distant sounds that aren’t heard by everybody, sightings of people who don’t quite look like the others around the area. For Jisoo, he’s had none of these experiences himself. He’s what was considered Normal. In a city as crazy as the one he lives in, being Normal is just as bad as being weird—if not, worse. 

He’s been Normal for far too long. At 24, almost everybody else he knew had at least one story to tell. Something strange, something amazing, something altogether too unbelievable to comprehend. All the other boys his age already had their something, their tale to tell, their way out of the mundane normalcy of life. Jisoo never wanted anything to do with such experiences. He was perfectly fine with none of these strange occurrences. Keyword being was.

One night, Hansol disappears without a word and nobody bats an eye.

He’s considered lucky. 

Whispers filled the city about how he was one of those chosen to join the others who left before him, yet another addition to the growing list. An adventure, a blessing, a gift from above. Jisoo found it stupid; Hansol was his best friend—still is his best friend, nothing will change that—and even if everybody saw it as a good thing, Jisoo wasn’t going to just accept that he disappeared from their small city despite how nobody else wanted to look for him. Hansol wasn’t the type to run away, either, so it just didn’t make any sense. Nothing ever did make sense.

He had originally just wanted to leave in an attempt to look for Hansol, but soon realized that that wasn’t all. There was a different feeling blooming inside of him, one that made Hansol’s disappearance harder to ignore. The younger boy had been one of the Normal ones as well until all this happened. He had been the closest thing Jisoo had to a brother, to someone just like himself. Hansol had always been a bit out of this world, though. Perhaps Jisoo should have known from the beginning that if aliens were real, they’d definitely go for the younger boy first.

So he’s back to the packed bag, finally deciding that it’s just the right size. 

Jisoo doesn’t know exactly where he wants to go, or where the road will take him, so he hopes a few choice pieces of clothing will be enough. 

Unlike Hansol, Jisoo decides it was best to leave something for his parents to find when they do wake up, like a note with a smiley face on it. He wants to write something else—maybe some words of comfort, or an assurance that he’ll return, but he doesn’t know that. He leaves the note on the fridge door, held up with a tiny guitar magnet. He’s in his car before his parents wake up, just a bit before dawn.

Nobody else in the city is awake at that hour save for the local news station, the only lit building on the street when Jisoo began his drive through the city. Jisoo never reads the newspaper, mainly because the first time he tried to do so, he was met only with mindless scribbles and mismatched words. It made absolutely no sense then and it continued to make no sense each day he picked it up from the front porch to hand to his father, who read it religiously. He decides not to try again that morning as he drives past. 

The rest of the city becomes a blur to him as the sun begins to rise. 

Driving in the city is not exactly relaxing, but that morning Jisoo could definitely argue that it is.  There’s not another car in sight. His windows are rolled down to allow the cool breeze from the outside to seep in, ruffling his dark hair. Jisoo is one of the few city residents with dark, black hair, which always earned him strange looks from other people. Once when he was younger, someone in school with bright purple hair accused him of dyeing his hair black to look cool. He didn’t even know what dyeing one’s hair meant back then.

He drives for what seems like hours within the city, and a quick glance at the clock and the sky confirms this. It’s nearing noon when he stops at a diner for lunch and something to take with him on the road. He knows he’s close to leaving the city boundaries soon, according to the street signs on the road. Exits here and there. Jisoo calculates the drive to the next city, which according to his map, should mean he makes it there in time to look for dinner. 

Jisoo has never heard of what it’s like Outside their city. 

It’s considered somewhat of a taboo subject for the residents to talk about the Outside. It’s not like they were trapped or anything, but everybody just had the notion that you weren’t supposed to leave unless called. That was what happened with Hansol. That was what happened with his grandmother. Just like his best friend, Jisoo’s grandmother had been living in the house right next door, before she was gone. Called, everybody said. Jisoo was too young to understand, then.

The girl working behind the cash register looks at him weirdly when Jisoo orders another meal for take-out. He knows her, he thinks. Someone from school, one of the group of girls with bright pink hair who insists on walking together every single time. Her eyes narrow when Jisoo smiles, and he promptly gives up trying to keep a good facade. He takes the brown bag and leaves with a small word of thanks. She continues to glare. 

Jisoo’s drive continues without incident as he passes the last sign that said he was leaving the city. He turns on the radio as he did so, something to fill in the silence that came with the open roads.

Music always calmed him down. 

It’s probably the only thing in his otherwise crazy world that feels right, feels good, feels normal in a way he relates to. There’s no odd languages or weird noises, just a worldwide feeling of calm or of whatever the lyrics and beats want you to feel. If anything, it’s the only way he feels like he fit in sometimes, even when he doesn’t find himself wanting to.

The radio continues to play soft tunes as he drove on, following the road to wherever it takes him. His planned route includes the next city, but that was hardly his destination. No, Jisoo figures he could drive until he has driven in a circle back to his hometown if that were possible. His only plan is to drive—stop for food and gas, maybe to rest, but that was it. He soon enters into what looked like a highway. 

He’s the only car on the road.

It’s then that the music stops, filling the car with nothing but static. 

Jisoo is tempted to close the radio because of it, but figures it was still the only source of sound he has. Even the car driving across rubble is too silent. He sees shadows in the distance, a good sign that he was still driving towards somewhere, but there are no birds in the sky. No distant chirping. The sun begins to set. He wonders if maybe, this was what Hansol did after all. Sure, he didn’t have a car he could drive, but what if he wasn’t called. What if he just left?

That’s certainly what he feels.

Jisoo just wants to get away. Far far away from the city that regarded him with uncertainty and just a hint of distrust. Far far away from where he could never fit in, no matter how hard he tries. Far far away from a place without his best friend. So he continues to drive, static his only company. 

It’s calming, in a sense. The road looks like it could go on forever with no end in sight. Literally. How long has he been driving? For some reason, his gas level stopped going down about two hours ago; with the tank perpetually half full and the sun nearly setting, he’s still driving. The sun’s been in that position for a while now, too, never really sinking. There’s someone talking to him through the car radio. He’s sure of that, but it’s been too distant, too easy to ignore. Maybe it’s time he pulled over.

He stops the car and takes in the colours of his surroundings. The sky is lit pink and orange thanks to the never-ending setting sun. The trees and mountains in the distance look like they were lined with a vibrant red as if the sun had caused a fire to happen. He no longer questioned what was happening. Maybe he has been secretly hoping for it his entire life; for his something. Surely all this had to be just that, right? From the moment he left the city by himself—his own free will—to the present. 

The black haired boy turns his attention back to his radio. 

Tentatively, he turns the volume up higher.

“Hello?” Jisoo asks, voice surprising even himself as it fills the car. He’s been going so long in silence, so long without using his voice, that for a moment it sounds weird. He tries again when he hears the static crackle a little bit. “Hello? Am I right that I heard someone, or am I going mad from all this driving?”

Another loud crackle, but