Nothing can break a person like exhaustion can.

After three weeks of getting up at 6:30, standing for an hour in the public square, working at the factory 10 hours and handling the physical labor of toilet duty for another 2 hours, Taehyung was so beyond tired that a weird switch had clicked inside his mind and now he was randomly laughing like a madman or singing Tra-la-la to himself.

When his spoon fell back in his bowl as he was eating because his hand was shaking too much to hold it properly, he started laughing uncontrollably. When Namjoon said “Hang in there” to him, he laughed to the point of tears. Namjoon was so worried that he took a risk and asked Leader Oh to take Taehyung off toilet duty, but the response he got was:

O: “You say he’s tired enough to collapse any second, but he hasn’t messed up any of his duties and, in fact, he’s doing exceptionally well at the factory, so why fix a machine that ain’t broken? Just because he finds falling spoons funny? Let him enjoy it. If he starts messing up at the factory, I’ll re-evaluate him and reconsider taking him off toilet duty.”

Namjoon couldn’t say anything else. If Leader Oh evaluated Taehyung while he was in this state, who knows what Taehyung might end up saying or doing and it would lead him to an even worse situation.

Even Jungkook became worried so, one morning, he tried timing his departure from building R to walk beside Taehyung towards the public square.

J: “Hey. I noticed how tired you’ve been looking. It might not help much, but maybe you can…” Jungkook started, but noticed he was being completely ignored, so he grabbed Taehyung’s shoulder and called out his name in a voice that was a bit louder than the one he had used previously.

As a result, Taehyung jumped a bit, looked confused around himself and at Jungkook and asked:

T: “What?”

J: “Were you… sleepwalking?”

T: “Yes. I’m trying to be efficient and half-sleep whenever I can half-sleep. You just interrupted my half-sleep, so thanks.” Taehyung said pissed and hurried towards the public square leaving Jungkook confused and gawking at the fact that Taehyung could half-sleep while looking like he was fully awake.

Saying “Amen”, making the cross sign, giving the leader the necessary reactions along with the rest of the crowd during his morning speech, such things had become automatic for Taehyung so he could perform them while half-sleeping. The riskiest times where during the sermon, because the priest never said anything with informational value, he didn’t need the crowd reacting till the end and everything he said sounded monotonous to Taehyung. So, as he was half-sleeping while seemingly looking at the priest, Taehyung sometimes felt his eyes closing and his head dropping and he had to put in effort to not completely fall on the ground and fall asleep.

However, on one such morning, Taehyung’s eyes were playing tricks on him because of the tiredness. He thought he saw a shadow growing between the people in front of him and slowly coming towards him.

Suddenly, he knew what it was – the devil.

Taehyung didn’t believe in any being without a physical form, but maybe the devil could exist as a manifestation of all the evil inside people. Now he was convinced the devil was real and was coming towards him. He started breathing shallower and feeling fear when, abruptly, the shadow disappeared from in front of him and appeared behind him, whispering in his ear: Taehyung.

Taehyung jumped and looked around with a shaky gaze and a shaking body. It took him a full minute to comprehend that he had dozed off while standing and had a very realistic dream. He tried to not let it affect him throughout the day but, while he was dumping the load of the wheelbarrow as the woods were getting swallowed up by darkness, he kept hearing the whispering voice from his dream calling out to him.

A few days later, during the sermon, he saw the shadow again and it filled him with fear. This time, the shadow did not go behind him. It came up close and stared into Taehyung’s eyes and talked to him in a voice that sounded less and less like a whisper:

So… is this what you came here for? To struggle and rot away? Is this all it takes to finish you? Look around. Everybody’s weak, everybody’s selfish, everybody and everything can be used. Leading a somewhat decent life has dulled your blade. Thinking about the outcome makes you hesitant, caring makes you afraid, not being a bad guy makes you equal to nothing. You’re nothing but another ant that’s easy to step on. Are you an ant? Or are you trouble?

When he opened his eyes and looked through the backs of the people standing and listening to the sermon, Taehyung felt calmer than he had ever been since coming to the commune. He now knew it had not been just a dream and it had not been the devil. It was the evil inside him that had spoken to him, making him wake up from the trance-like state he had fallen into.

Taehyung looked around at the elements he was dealing with. Throughout the past two weeks, he might not have had the energy to think of anything more than what was really necessary, but he still picked up on several bits of information of all kinds.

Of course, the easiest way to escape with Namjoon would be to highjack one of the recruiters’ cars and drive down the same road they came here on till they would reach a city and a police station. But that road was heavily guarded, especially when there were cars parked there. If all the guards were dead or at least held up somewhere else, other people would be made to stand guard. Those people would not have batons like the guards, but they could use shovels and forks as weapons. Also, there were hunters who, from what Taehyung gathered, used bows and arrows. They could shoot an arrow through the windshield or just at the tires. That road was technically the easiest way out and, therefore, it would be the hardest way out.

The river was not a good option because Namjoon can’t swim. Hiding inside the trunk of a recruitment vehicle when it would head towards the city was risky and hard to pull off for two people at once. It was too unsure what would happen if they faked their own deaths with their bodies still being here.

One other option was the organization itself letting them move around more freely, but Taehyung didn’t see it very likely to be able to achieve that. He wasn’t strong enough to be a guard or a hunter and, to become a recruiter, the leader would either have to select you himself or you might have to show proof of your devotion to the organization. It wasn’t likely for Namjoon either to fit any of these roles and it would look suspicious if he suddenly wanted to make that kinda shift.

T: Well, there’s always the option of burning the whole place to the ground, but I should think a bit more before resorting to that.

By this point, the hierarchy within the organization and a few of the characteristics of each level were pretty clear to Taehyung.

On top there was the leader – Oh Jiho – exceptional at manipulation and managing, no apparent weakness so far. His office is on the second floor of building L. His residence is also probably within that building but no one except the lieutenants knew exactly where.

The 6 lieutenants had almost as much authority as the leader and their orders should be followed without hesitation. They lived in building L and also had offices there in which they performed various tasks. They seem highly loyal to the leader, but there was no other common trait among them. For example, one seemed highly intelligent and calculated while another seemed less educated than Taehyung and very unpredictable. The lieutenants were the hardest to understand entity within that community for Taehyung.

The next level of command consisted of the guards and the hunters. Taehyung didn’t know anything about the hunters other than the weapon they used, but the guards were pretty much basic gorillas. All of them were strong, most of them didn’t seem highly intelligent and most of them had a big ego.

They had very clear orders – monitor the exits and catch anyone trying to break into the community (officially) or escape (unofficially), patrol the community at nights to make sure no one causes any trouble or wanders around, guard building L at all times, retrieve and check surveillance footage when necessary, be on standby if they have no other more specific tasks. There were 24 guards, 12 for the day shift and 12 for the night shift: 4 at the exit with the road, 2 at one end of the commune where the river parted through the mountains, 2 at the other end of the commune where the river parted through the mountains, 2 around or in building L and 2 patrolling the community. All the guards and, supposedly, also all the hunters lived in the G building.

At the next level, that of the recruiters, that status of command weakened considerably, but there was still some authority. There were around 200 recruiters from what Taehyung could tell, including those people who lived and worked permanently outside of the commune, like in unemployment offices, debt consulting firms and so on. Recruiters sometimes had other roles when they were in the commune, some of them worked on all the marketing materials for the outside world, most of them offered guidance for members inside the commune and none of them liked staying too much within the commune. What characterized this level in Taehyung’s opinion included intelligence and knowledge of all sorts, friendly vibe, exceptional acting skills, ability to think and act fast, people skills and physical attractiveness.

What Taehyung found really interesting was that guards cooperated a lot on the surface and secretly competed against each other because they were hoping to eventually get lieutenant status. Meanwhile, recruiters were pretty much split into two groups – one that acted similarly to the guards and one that, on the surface, avoided even speaking to each other or making eye contact unless it was for work or some special circumstances that required them to put on a show, but it felt like there was a hidden complicity among them. This group was very small compared to the other one, it puzzled Taehyung and he would have never become aware of its existence if he had not been placed in the R building and if he had not been in a similar group inside the JDC.

Since this group also included Jungkook, Taehyung theorized that these recruiters had no loyalty within them towards the organization but were constrained by various circumstances to fulfill this role and had no loyalty or trust towards each other either, selfishly pursuing whatever goals they individually had, but helped each other out in minor ways when they were outside the commune as a means of survival.

Taehyung couldn’t make up his mind on whether this sub-group was the best to use or the most dangerous to approach.

On the lowest level were the workers like Taehyung and, only slightly above them, were the managers and the professionals, like Namjoon who was a physician. They mostly lived in buildings M and W and they were the most numerous, but also the lowest on the power ladder.

Taehyung started thinking of what he could do and what he could accomplish but, since he was itching to just cause some trouble, he didn’t really think things through.

For starters, he wanted to set fire to the haystack near the wooden barns where the cows were kept. That would cause a commotion and hopefully get the whole community, including the people in building L, engaged in putting out the fire, so that Taehyung could sneak into building L and check out what was there. The cows would be harmed, he could easily get caught and he had no clear goal for this action, but he just really wanted to do something, no matter how reckless.

So, one morning, while Leader Oh was updating them on how horrible things are going in the outside world, to further cement people’s fear of returning to the outside world, Taehyung decided he would put his plan in action that night. However, something immediately foiled his plan – it started raining.

O: “Go!” the leader gave a simple order and everyone suddenly scattered in all directions, everyone apart from Taehyung and the other relatively new members who had no clue what was going on.

Taehyung at least knew he couldn’t just stand there gawking, so he ran after some people and shouted:

T: “What’s happening?”

W: “We need to cover things that shouldn’t get wet.” another worker shouted the answer to him while running. “And the river gets murky when it rains, so we need to secure water for drinking, cooking and washing for a few days.”

Now Taehyung understood what was going on, but he still had no clue what he should be doing, so he just stopped and looked around. People brought out buckets and barrows to fill them with rain water and then they transported that water to the cooking house. Other people were bringing out sheets of nylon to cover the haystacks and other things that shouldn’t get wet. Even kids were running around and being useful.

One boy tripped on the sheet of nylon he was running with and fell with his face on the ground. A few men ran past him, but Jungkook stopped to help him get back on his feet.

M: “Come on, Jungkook!” one of the men that ran ahead yelled and made Jungkook turn his head in that direction, but he still stayed where he was, gathered a bit of water from the rain in his hand, ran it over the boy’s closed eyes and wiped his face a bit with his sleeve.

J: “Did mud get into your eyes?” Jungkook asked the boy who then shook his head from side to side. “Be careful, okay?”

Jungkook then ran off and Taehyung, who had seen the whole thing, was frozen in place and gawking even more than before.

               T: This guy… is such a distraction!

After Taehyung ordered himself not to dwell on anything, he ran towards the river where he had seen some people struggle to put a sheet of nylon over some vegetables. As he held one corner of the sheet to keep the wind from blowing it in all directions, he noticed that the river had already started getting murky and the water increased in size and speed. Then it hit him –

T: This would be the easiest escape method ever. If only Namjoon could swim… Then maybe Jungkook… Wait. Why the hell am I thinking of escape methods for that guy?! He regularly goes to cities and is left to work alone for a while, he could easily escape if the wanted to… So that means… he doesn’t want to? Why?

Then it hit Taehyung like lighting hit the ground somewhere beyond the mountain.

T: Holy ! I completely forgot about Seokjin… Where is he? I haven’t heard anyone called by that name or the nickname Jin since coming here. Is he held hostage somewhere so Jungkook would work as a recruiter for the cult and Joon as a doctor? But that doesn’t make sense. Neither Jungkook nor Joon are valuable enough to the leader to justify that kinda effort. Unless…

Taehyung then shook his head because he really shouldn’t be thinking of things like that when a frightened cow was running aimlessly around and heading in his direction.

The rain and everything it involved messed up nearly everyone’s schedule, so they ate only one meal at noon inside the cooking house and they did it in turns, some working while others were eating, then vice-versa. Taehyung was lucky enough to be in the same turn as Namjoon, so he squeezed himself between Namjoon and another person sitting close to him so they could eat together.

N: “How are you?” Namjoon asked as he always did when they ate together.

T: “Drenched from head to toe.” Taehyung said smiling and Namjoon noticed that Taehyung’s eyes were more focused that they had been in the last few weeks. “I’m okay. I’ve adapted.”

N: “I’m glad.” Namjoon said smiling before putting his hand over his mouth and coughed.

T: “Are you sick?”

N: “Ah, I caught a patient’s cold while I took care of her. Her parents had to work, so she was left in my care and since I was constantly around someone while they were still in the infectious stage, I ended up catching the cold. But it’s fine. She recovered fast and I’ll also do the same. Treating colds has become one of my specialties since coming here.”

T: “Eat more.” Taehyung said as he moved half of the food in his bowl to Namjoon’s bowl.

Namjoon was touched by that gesture and let out a flustered laugh that made Taehyung feel really good. Then, Namjoon said:

N: “When enough time passes, I’ll try asking Leader Oh if you could work as my assistant. You’re skilled with your hands and you learn fast, so I’m sure you’ll handle it fine. Plus it would be less tiring for you.”

T: “I’d jump at the chance of spending more time with you, but otherwise I’m fine where I am. Don’t worry.” Taehyung said, then looked to Namjoon so he would understand that the next part was just for the ears of those around them: “We should all work hard at the things we can do best to contribute the most to the community.”

Namjoon just smiled without joy and nodded. Taehyung wanted to ask him through their secret method if Seokjin was here or if he knew where Seokjin was, but he reconsidered because it might turn into a lengthy discussion, especially trough their method of communication, and they were supposed to leave the cooking house soon and go back to work. As he worked inside the factory, Taehyung felt like he was slightly shivering and thought:

T: Even though I now have an extra set of clothes and this set is drenched along with the rest of me, I can’t go change to not waste the time in which I should be working… Great! Awesome conditions! I hope I won’t catch a cold. Or… Wait. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad to catch a cold.

By the next morning, Taehyung was glad to find out that he didn’t catch a cold. However, he made himself cough a lot and acted like he was dazed and weak. Eventually, his manager at the factory told him to go see the doctor. If he hadn’t, Taehyung had planned on asking him to let him go.

Namjoon’s office was at the ground floor in the L building. The guards asked him why he was there and Taehyung pretended to cough his lungs out as he answered. He then knocked at the office’s door, just in case there might be another patient inside, but he was told to come in, so he went inside. Namjoon’s eyes went wide when he saw Taehyung, then he rushed towards him to tap the message Microphone on Taehyung’s shoulder as he spoke in a natural way:

N: “Taehyung! What brings you here? Is something wrong?”

Taehyung understood that what went on inside this room was being recorded, so he faked coughing a lot as he answered:

T: “I got a cold.”

N: “Ah, after getting drenched yesterday by the rain? What other symptoms do you have besides coughing?” Namjoon asked while looking at Taehyung with suspicion but checking his temperature just in case.

T: “I’m shivering and I feel really weak.” Taehyung said smirking towards Namjoon.

N: “I see.” Namjoon said, unable to not also smile. “Well, you don’t have a fever at least. Take off your shirt. I’m gonna use the stethoscope to check if everything sounds okay with your lungs.”

They went through the standard consultation to not arouse suspicion and also because it didn’t hurt to give Taehyung a physical checkup. When he didn’t have to breathe in any certain way, Taehyung asked:

T: “How’s your cold?”

N: “It’s passing.”

T: “Are you taking meds?”

N: “There are no meds here.”

               T: Wait, what?

N: “The community needs to be self-sufficient. That means not relying on pharmaceutical companies for survival, because we all know they’re pretty evil. So, in case of illnesses or injuries, we have to just power through or make do with what we can produce ourselves. Thanks to lieutenant Yang and Jungkook’s lobbying and to Leader Oh’s generosity, I now have many books I can study medicinal plants from and we now have a few small fields dedicated to growing some of the most necessary such plants. I don’t want to let those efforts go to waste and I don’t want to not be able to help the people who come to me for help so, when I’m not taking care of patients, I’m basically here studying all the time.”

Taehyung had a sickening feeling, so he attempted to test his theory.

T: “How did the community get by before you came here?”

N: “I’m not sure but, as you can imagine, winter was the hardest time of the year. When I came here in January, there were many people who were sick and I didn’t know what to do without the… knowledge I lacked then.” Namjoon said, managing to avoid saying “meds, tools and equipment a regular medical facility has.” because that would be like implying that the community is doing something wrong. “Luckily, I managed to save most of them and it didn’t turn out to be as harsh of a winter as in previous years.”

T: Meaning the death count wasn’t as high as when the leader couldn’t be bothered to invest in medication…

T: “You’re a real help to the community, huh?”

N: “I try to be. What kind of doctor would I be if I could just let suffering people suffer without doing whatever I can about it… By next winter, I’ll be ready to keep the suffering to a minimum.”

And there it was. The theory that gave Taehyung a sickening feeling was true – Namjoon wasn’t planning on leaving. If he left, hundreds of people would be left with no fighting chance against illnesses and injuries and once Namjoon became aware of that, he also became unable to abandon them. Because this had always been the kind of person he was.

N: “Alright. It seems like it’s a light cold, so I’ll tell the cooking house to make some hot ginger tea with honey for you at dinner time. Drink that and you should be fine by to…morrow… What’s wrong?”

Taehyung couldn’t help his face from contorting and his eyes from starting to spill tears. Even after knowing Namjoon for so many years, he still sometimes got mind-blown by the fact that someone like Namjoon existed. Namjoon would always put others above himself and always spread good, even within an epicenter of evil.

T: “It’s just… You’ve always been… and always will be… my hero.”

That really impacted Namjoon and he struggled to not get emotional.

N: “Thank you… But, you know, knowing you for so many years has taught me that people are strong enough to survive anything. And that really kept me going in dark times, so… I could say the same thing back to you. You’re my hero too.”

After that, Taehyung really cried.

Once Taehyung left the office, Namjoon let himself spill a few tears and thought that, if he had a friend like that, he had done well in his life so far. He wiped away the tears, smiled, breathed in and got back to work, feeling like he had more strength to continue finding something that would boost immunity.

However, Taehyung didn’t leave the office with such pure sentiments. In fact, when Taehyung walked out of the building just as Jungkook was approaching it, the latter instinctively moved out of Taehyung’s path because the gaze Taehyung had felt intimidating. Jungkook wondered what happened, but it wasn’t like he had any way of finding out.

T: Figuring out how to get Joon out of here was hard enough, but it’s practically impossible now that I know that Joon doesn’t even want to leave. So there’s only one solution – destroying the cult from within. Joon won’t want to stay if he has nothing here to protect.

So Taehyung took several risks and set a plan in motion the following night.