"All residents belonging to Class D dwellings please return to your homes immediately. Lockdown commences in 10 minutes."

"All residents belonging to Class D dwellings please return to your homes immediately. Lockdown commences in 10 minutes."

"All-"

A slight-framed woman, roughly in her mid-twenties, stops dead in her tracks in the middle of the rain-soaked sidewalk to take a moment to herself. She looks up at public address system loudspeakers branched out from a towering pole and notes, by the visible vibration throughout their weathered forms, that they were likely never meant to see real use. Shaking her head at the thought of how the situation in the past few days have escalated to utter ing hell for her and other residents of the district, she heaves an overdue sigh. 

Sparing a glance at the temporarily defunct hyper-rail, she drops her head to hum at the sight of too-clean Converses (a gift from Seulgi, her absolute sweetheart of a roommate), which she'd never expected to see the light of day. 

Tiny drops of rain hit the crown of her head, startling her a little, coming as a warning of the terrible storm that's scheduled to hit the area soon. Storm warnings haven't necessarily been a problem she'd have to care about for decades. She squints at the sky, lightly kicks her heel against the concrete and frowns at how much she doesn't miss the elements. And when the littlest of raindrops lands on the tip of her nose, she lets out the most useless of shrieks and quickly scurries down the quiet street. 

"Wendy it's okay it's just the rain, it can't kill you" she assures herself, feeling a little winded even after just a few seconds of sprinting. 

Anyone from another precinct would've found the labyrinth of too-similar apartment complexes too confusing to navigate, but even with walking to get to places being a new adventure for her, Wendy knows to follow a specific branch of the elevated hyper-rail tracks back home. Sections of the lofty grey structures look a tad too well-maintained - no doubt the work of the surge of anti-vandalism bots after yesterday’s lockdown. 

As she pauses in front of the complex's gate, she sighs, displeased at how cardboard box full of instant ramen steadily grows more damp with each passing minute, not helped by a torn corner from when she had to fight for it from other panicked shoppers at her favourite (now-offline) grocery store. For a moment, Wendy freezes and wonders if she should be making better decisions for her diet, but pushes the thought away on realising that maybe satiety triumphs sodium content in this trying time. 

Propping the box against the rusted gate (her left arm had never really fully recovered), she fumbles for the physical keys in her coat pocket. Bringing the outdated object up to eye level, she gives it a flick to examine how the newish thing perfectly reflects what little light is left in the sky. Wendy rubs her thumb over the ridges of the key and loses herself for a moment in the memory of the only other key she’d kept in her life: a worn, golden one entirely unlike the cold sharp brass in her hand now. The key her sister had used back when. 

When the drops drip like pellets striking against her back, Wendy bolts for shelter, leaving the gate unlocked, slightly ajar. Getting from the main tower, through the puzzle piece-like apartment block layout, to her elevator lobby is pure muscle memory to her now. The brown rubber of her sneakers grip the concrete floor tight, but a surprise right in the middle of the complex nearly knocks her off her feet. 

The symmetry of the concrete pillars frames the form of a woman locked in a foetal position on the ground savagely. The sable fur of her overcoat seemingly trembles with her, and the leather suitcases thrown carelessly by her sides can only hint at the troubles afflicting her. With each step Wendy takes closer to the lady on the ground, the painful yet unmistakable sound of air being forced in and out as if she were running a marathon grows louder. 

“Hello?”
 

When silence greets her, Wendy rushes to kneel by the woman’s side, undeterred. “Oh-uh, hello…” she greets the woman, the box of ramen now forgotten like the woman’s luggage as she presses a palm against a pillar for support. “A-are you alright? What happened? Oh..." 

“You..."

The dust-stained cuffs of her poplin blouse which shielded her eyes from Wendy’s concerned look are suddenly retracted to her chest. The hyperventilation stops, as if a glimpse of Wendy alone could’ve set her senses straight. Even with the wispy bangs obscuring full sight of the woman’s pale features, from the way her eyebrows are creased, to the way she squints her eyes, down to the deep frown set in