Si Cheng took off his jacket and balled it up as tightly as he could. “Yuta, whatever you do, please stay awake-”

 

“I really don’t want to stay awake and figure out what happens afterwards,” Yuta mumbled, his eyes drooping. “I’d rather sleep.”

 

“Yuta, don’t ing play games with me,” Si Cheng muttered under his breath, pressing it on the wound. No one has dared to take out the spear, in fear that it’ll cause pain, blood loss, and god knows what else, they were in high school, they didn’t know how the human body worked. They didn’t even know about filing taxes. “Please, Yuta, stay awake, please.”

 

A lot of the members of their school were surrounding them. They had been applying pressure against the wound, helped Yuta sit up and lean against the tree, help treat any other injuries he had, but at last, he asked them that, while he was thankful, that their efforts were in vain, and he just wanted some peace for a bit. 

 

“I- I’m trying to, but I don’t know how much longer I can stay awake, Si Cheng,” Yuta said, his voice a bit slurred. He coughed, covering his mouth with his hands, and it was easy to spot the light amount of blood that spatter his hand. “I’m just mad that I didn’t get to die heroically-”

 

At that point, Si Cheng fell on his knees, covering his face as he sobbed, hunching over the ground. “Please stay awake, I’m begging you.”

 

---

 

Taeyong, with his deadly grip on the shovel in his hands, made his way towards the water tower, where the light was coming from. 

 

He could see four aliens at the base of the water tower, milling around. They probably weren’t like the smart alien who had talked to them earlier before Si Cheng decapitated him, so just those normal rabid ones who reacted intensely to noise. 

 

Noise. 

 

Taeyong looked around to make sure no one had followed him, not wanting them to get injured. His eyes widened when he saw Jaehyun run behind him, Doyoung, Johnny and Ten right behind them. “You guys need to go,” he said. “I need to do this alone-”

 

“You are out of your mind if you think I’m going to let you fight them alone after everything we’ve been through today,” Jaehyun whispered to him, grabbing his arm to pull him back. Taeyong was pulling away, resisting, but Jaehyun didn’t budge. 

 

“Let go of me!” Taeyong yelled, finally managing to get out of Jaehyun’s grasp. “I have to do this, Jaehyun! Everything is my fault!”

 

“It is not your fault, no one knew what was going to happen!” Jaehyun yelled back at him. “We don’t need any more deaths, Taeyong!”

 

Taeyong shut his eyes, tears pooling in them. “I know,” he croaked out. “That’s why I need to do it.”

 

He turned around and put two fingers in his mouth, whistling the aliens over, despite Jaehyun yelling at him to stop. “YOU GUYS WANT ME!” He yelled at them, the aliens immediately noticing him. “DON’T HURT THEM!”

 

“Jaehyun, you need to stop him!” Doyoung yelled at him. “He’s going insane!”

 

“Could be the adrenaline,” Johnny muttered, appearing next to Jaehyun, handing him a knife. “Go help him, idiot, he already made his mind.”

 

During the whole commotion, the four aliens started running towards them, emitting a whole range of screeches, and Taeyong raised the shovel up, sprinting headfirst to the group. 

 

The blood from his cut eyebrow was dripping down on his face, some droplets getting into his eye, making his vision a bit blurry, but that didn’t stop him as when the first alien came into contact with him, he swung the shovel onto its head, the alien falling on the ground. 

 

Taeyong tried to decapitate him when another alien came close to him, but before Taeyong could kick him away, he saw Jaehyun appear behind it, slicing the creature’s neck until it fell on the ground, garbling some gibberish. “I said we’re aren’t doing things alone,” Jaehyun said again. 

 

“I can’t have anyone else injured,” Taeyong argued as he finished killing the other alien with the shovel. “And you’re already injured, you should be resting-”

 

“Uh, GUYS?!” They both turned to see Doyoung, who had killed the other two rabid aliens, point behind them. “We got a problem! More are coming!!”

 

“What?!” Jaehyun yelled, looking at where Doyoung was pointing. Sure enough, even though it was more than a hundred yards away and it was dark outside, he could see movement where around ten more aliens were coming. 

 

Taeyong’s eyes widened when he looked back at the base of the water tower. “MARK, HAECHAN, DON’T CLIMB UP THAT THING!”

 

---

 

“I know you went to Harvard and ,” Jihoon said, “but you are quite possibly the most stupid person right now."

 

Jihoon was still, unfortunately, in Soonyoung’s arm, who had hid behind a tree, watching the whole commotion happen. There had been four of the aliens at the base of the water tower, where at the top a light was being emitted, but the next thing you know, the high school students all started yelling at one another and killed them. 

 

While that was going, two other students who must have been hidden (no doubt with a group as big as them, they must have gotten separated at one point) took advantage of the aliens being gone from the base and started climbing up the water tower, though it was proving to be quite difficult. 

 

As much as Soonyoung wanted to go out and help them, he knew he had to stay with Jihoon for his best friend’s sake, as he was injured and couldn’t run away or defend himself.

 

Don’t get him wrong, he knows that Jihoon usually can, but for now, Soonyoung just couldn’t risk it. 

 

“I am not stupid,” Soonyoung said, carefully kneeling on the grass before setting Jihoon down. “And I’m going to make sure we live just to prove you wrong.”

 

“Oh, that sounds lovely,” Jihoon drawled out, rolling his eyes. “Just what I’ve always wanted. Man, I’m so excited to add PTSD to my medical diagnosis after we live.”

 

“You- you know what? I’ll take it!” Soonyoung exclaimed. “When we get rescued, I’ll take you to the therapist’s office if you so truly want it.”

 

“Actually, at this rate, yeah,” Jihoon said. “Jeez, I can’t wait to tell my therapist all this ing bull that happened today. And I also really want to binge watch National Geographic right now.”

 

Soonyoung rubbed his arm, feeling the injury that he had made on himself earlier on accident back when they were still in the school. “Yeah, I can think I… I think I took advantage of everything.”

 

Jihoon raised an eye. “What brought this into the conversation?”

 

“I- nothing, really,” Soonyoung muttered. “Hey, speaking of which, you should go to sleep, I’ll wake you up if we have to run or if help comes.”

 

“Uh… are you sure?” Jihoon asked him. “What’s that warning that they give you in that one game? Was it Minecraft?”

 

Soonyoung frowned. “What warning?”

 

Jihoon shrugged. “There’s like a warning like… you can’t sleep when they’re monsters nearby. I’m pretty sure it applies to this situation as well.”

 

“That’s- that’s just Minecraft, Jihoon, I’m pretty sure you can take a nap now.”

 

“Hmm, you sure?”

 

“Yeah.”

 

“... okay, I’ll take a nap, wake me up when everything’s over. Not when I’m dead, though, cause I’ll be dead.”
 

 

---

 

“I hear screaming,” Jeno said to the group. 

 

Jisung’s eyes widened. “Mark and Haechan died that quickly?”

 

“Oh, Jesus Christ, can you guys stop being so negative for once?” Kun got up from the ground. “Let’s go, that’s probably where the whole group is at-”

 

“-hold on, give me a minute,” Chen Le said in Mandarin, hitting his leg on the ground. “My leg fell asleep.”

 

“I told you not to cross them!” Jisung yelled at him. “Forty years from now when you have bad circulation you’re going to remember my words."

 

“Ah! That’s where you’re wrong, my dear friend,” Chen Le said, lifting up a finger. “That implies that we have to live today.”

 

Kun sighed. “There’s no winning with you guys.”

 

Jeno looked out at the distance, where they could hear more yelling and screaming. “I hope no one gets injured,” he said. 

 

“I doubt it,” Chen Le said, getting ready to lay back down on the concrete when he sat up straight again. “What’s wrong with Xiaojun?”

 

“What do you- what do you mean what’s wrong with-” Kun looked at Xiaojun besides him. He was asleep, curled up on the ground, although Kun could now see the problem. 

 

Underneath his torn shirt, Kun could see how there was blood slowly trailing down his skin, no doubt from either an old injury that bust open or a new one that he had kept secret about.

 

Xiaojun, though asleep, seemed to be struggling to breath, his chest rising up and down heavily. He was also shivering, and it didn’t help that he was barely wearing anything. 

 

“We need to go,”  Kun said, placing his arms around Xiaojun to carry him. “I’m going to pray that some type of police are going to follow the light as well and find us there.”

 

“Tell me again why old people want to ban cell phones?” Jisung said, stranding up as well. “Come on Chen Le, let’s go-”

 

“My legs are still asleep!” Chen Le yelled, hitting his leg on the concrete again. “I’m trying to wake them up!”

 

“Oh, god, why hasn’t 911 come yet??” Jeno said, chewing on this thumbnail. “Wouldn’t they come investigate why there’s no internet??”

 

“You would think in this generation,” Jisung muttered, grabbing Chen Le’s hands and pulling him up. “Bro, I can’t do this all day, my arms are about to fall off.”

 

“We really need to go to a hospital,” Kun said, getting up from the floor with Xiaojun in his arms. “Let’s go and hope the others are there.”

 

---

 

Mark and Donghyuck had been wanting to fight the four aliens as a couple/best friend duo, but before they could so much as make a sound, their classmates had started the screaming and killing without them. 

 

“Ah , now what?” Donghyuck asked Mark, staring at him with wide eyes. “Well, phase 1 is complete, then.”

 

“Not by us, though,” Mark pointed out.

 

Donghyuck looked around them, making sure no more aliens were around them, before he sprinted away from their hiding spot and towards the base of the water tower. “Yeah, yeah, whatever.”

 

“Haechan!” Mark chased after him,  watching him climb onto the ladder. “Hyuck, I’m pretty sure there’s two aliens on top and we don’t have weapons to fight them!”

 

“We can just push them off!” Donghyuck said, climbing upwards on the ladder. “Or something! I have a bad feeling of whatever satellite thing they’re trying to attach to it, you know we have to stop them!”

 

Mark knew that this was dangerous, but the last thing he wanted was for Donghyuck to get hurt fighting them themselves, so he climbed up on the ladder as well, following him. “Do you remember what the Nasa guy said?"

 

“About what?” Donghyuck asked. 

 

At that moment, they heard Taeyong yell at them, telling them not to climb that thing, but Donghyuck ignored him, continuing to go up.

 

The water tower was pretty tall, so it took some time for them to get to the top, neither of them saying a word to each, too terrified to say anything. 

 

They had come up with a plan beforehand, but it was basically “kill them lol”. It shouldn’t be that hard to push an alien over the edge, right? Or just… hit him unconscious with something, Donghyuck supposed. 

 

“If I remember correctly,” Mark continued, “the foreigner said that he predicted they were getting energy from somewhere, which is what I think those two aliens at the top are assembling. Maybe everything will be solved once we destroy it.”

 

Donghyuck nodded. “Yeah, that seems smart,” he said. “We should kill them first and then destroy that thing."

 

They continued going up in silence, taking their time as they were too cold and were practically gritting their teeth every time they had to touch another metal bar of the ladder.

 

“Donghyuck,” Mark said finally, as they were reaching near the top. “Promise me not to risk your life.”

 

“I am not that stupid, Mark Lee,” Donghyuck said, looking down at his best friend. “You need to have more faith in me.”

 

“I- I’m just worried,” Mark said, looking down when he almost lost his footing. He was surprised to see Taeyong climbing up the ladder as well, Jaehyun and Doyoung yelling at him. At least they wouldn’t be fighting alone. “I do have faith in you.”

 

“I know,” Donghyuck said, looking down to see Mark. He gave him a grin. “That’s why you’re my best friend."

 

By then, he had already reached the top, so Donghyuck took off the hinge of the latch that took them to the top part of the water tower, not surprised that there was no lock; the two aliens must have blown it off earlier. 

 

“On the count of three,” Donghyuck whispered. “One-”

 

He opened the latch door slowly, poking his head up to look around at the deck of the water tower, where he could see what the aliens were doing. 

 

What stump him, however, is that…  well, they were talking to each other, for one, which stumped him. All of the aliens that they had seen earlier would just screech and make incoherent sounds. 

 

Haechan got out, kneeling on the deck when he almost slipped, bumping into the part of the railing behind him put in place to prevent workers falling off. Unfortunately, though, he made enough noise to have the two aliens look back at him. 

 

Mark immediately got on the deck as well, putting himself in front of Donghyuck, waiting for the two aliens to go buckwild and start throwing themselves at them, but to his surprise, they just… looked at them. 

 

“Are you guys aliens or human?” Donghyuck asked, “and what the are you doing??”

 

One of the aliens started laughing, his friend laughing too. “Oh, you humans never fail to disappoint me,” he said in a low voice, startling the two best friends. “Your idiocy is truly something to admire.”

 

“, I tell that to myself in the mirror every morning, you’re not special!!” Mark yelled, standing up. “Don’t act like you’re some savior coming into our world and trying to kill us!”

 

The alien who spoke first gave a nod to the other one who hadn’t said anything. “You take care of them, I’ll finish this,” he said, turning his attention back to the weird satellite he had been working on. “I don’t want to hear any monologuing today.”

 

The other alien nodded, and without any other warning, he lunged towards Mark, arms reaching out. 

 

He attempted to grab Mark’s neck, but thankfully Mark was able to bend down in time, so instead of getting his neck snapped, he got thrown against the wall.

 

“MARK!” Donghyuck yelled, looking around to see a metal pole laying on the ground. He grabbed it and hit the alien, who was now crushing Mark with his body weight. “LET GO OF HIM YOU ING PIECE OF !”

 

The alien let go of Mark and made his way towards Haechan, grabbing the pole out of his grasp and throwing it over the ledge, no doubt the pole falling on the ground below. Donghyuck could only hope his friends weren’t getting hit.

 

The one who had been working on his contraption a device in his hand. “Aha!” he exclaimed. “In just a few minutes, we should repopulate on the Earth in the sprouting device underground-”

 

The fighting alien stepped closer to Donghyuck, backing him up against the ledge, giving him an evil grin. “I don’t know why you’ll worry, they’ll be no more humanity left to remember-”

 

“GET THE AWAY FROM MY BOYFRIEND!” Mark, who had been struggling to catch his breath just moments earlier, got up from the ground once he saw the alien directing his attention to Donghyuck, and before the alien could react, Mark jumped on him from behind, wrapping his arms around it hoping to make it stop breathing. 

 

He caused the alien to lose its balance, the two tumbling on the floor where they started to wrestle it each, Mark having the advantage.

 

Donghyuck looked at the alien busy on the satellite, and without thinking, sprinted towards him, trying to grab the small device in his hands.

 

“What the- LET GO OF IT, YOU CHILD!” the alien yelled at him, watching Donghyuck throw it against the ledge, instantly smashing it. “YOU PATHETIC HUMAN BEING-”

 

He ran towards Donghyuck who started prying the satellite out of whatever it was connected to, throwing Donghyuck on the ground. 

 

“HYUCK!” Mark yelled, finally snapping the neck of the alien he had been fighting with, killing it. “LET GO OF HIM!”

 

The alien jumped onto Donghyuck, who managed to push him away slightly, rolling away before the alien could hit him. 

 

During the whole commotion, Taeyong had finally managed to make it to the top, pushing the latch open only to see what was going on. “Oh no,” he muttered to himself, scrambling to get on the deck and help them out. 

 

Donghyuck got up from where he rolled away and tried to dismantle the satellite again, but just when he tried to push it off, he felt something jolt through his body. 

 

He looked down to see a knife protruding right near his heart.

 

“You humans are worth nothing,” the alien whispered, taking the knife out as quickly as he put it in. 

 

Donghyuck collapsed on the floor, pressing his hand on his chest, his trembling hand now covering in blood. 

 

“DONGHYUK!” Mark yelled, tears falling down his eyes as he sprinted towards the alien. “YOU’RE GOING TO PAY, YOU ING -”

 

Taeyong also ran beside Mark, with Taeyong kicking the knife away from the alien while Mark threw himself on top of him, trying to snap its neck as well. 

 

By then, Jaehyun had also managed to climb up, looking around to see Taeyong and Mark fighting with the alien. “, are you guys okay??”

 

“Jaehyun, please destroy that thing!” Taeyong yelled, wrapping his arm around its neck to help snap it, successfully killing it. 

 

Mark jumped off of it and crawled on the floor next to Donghyuck, who was shivering, clutching his bloody chest. “Haechan, Haechan, I’m sorry, I’m sorry-”

 

Donghyuck coughed, spewing out tiny droplets of blood. “I’m fine,” he croaked out, tears rolling down his face. “I’m fine-”

 

Mark took off his shirt, not caring about his bare torso in the cold weather as he balled it, helping Donghyuck sit up against him as he pressed it on the latter’s chest. “It needs to stop, , Donghyuck, I’ sorry Donghyuck-”

 

“Mark,” Donghyuck said, grinning. “I love you. I love you Mark.”
 

***

 

As soon as Jaehyun destroyed the satellite, all the aliens dropped dead everywhere, not just those in South Korea but the ones in the United States as well.

 

No more aliens tried to hurt the people on this planet.

 

***

 

21 students from NCT were all around that water tower, along with two Korean NASA scientists who had come to this country for research, when they all saw yet another bright light, this time coming from above. 

 

“THIS IS THE POLICE,” they said in a loudspeaker. “STAY WHERE YOU ARE.”

 

And in no time, police, the FBI, CIA, and ambulances came to help the boys.

 

-------------------------------

AN// um ~slight~ SPOILER no one dies if it brings you guys any comfort lol. I always put my happy ending tags for a reason!

two more chapters to go! I hope you guys enjoyed this story, i really liked writing it. :D