There was a person in there. She heard them, heard it. 

A cough. 

Sounded from behind the door to a tiny apartment at the back of a pharmacy far enough South of Incheon that Joohyun was certain a couple bandages, wipes, and painkillers (any kind, hell she would’ve even taken paracetamol) would still remain.

As soon as she opened that door, she smelled it. The scent of burnt rice was far too familiar to her, far too noticeable for her attuned senses to look over as some sort of fluke. 

Joohyun raised her shotgun, the feeling of its stock against her chest brought her a sense of near-comfort for a moment as she scanned the perimeter of the bare, broken living room. 

No sign of medical supplies so far, she thought, . 

Her steps toward the master bedroom were quieter than the rustling of her clothes, and she frowned bitterly at the lack of anything, let alone anything useful around the house. She kicked the bedroom door open before pressing her back to the wall adjacent to it. As she did, she heard a yelp. Then a whine. 

A woman. A woman was hiding in there. And she had sounded so scared, so afraid. 

Joohyun quirked her eyebrow as she lowered her gun and parted her lips to let out a huge breath. Still, she held her finger close to its trigger as she entered the room, and bit her lip when she hadn’t seen anyone on first glance. Immediately, she leapt on top the bed (though regretted it slightly as a sharp, stinging pain hit her right calf) and growled as she stomped on the bed-frame with her left foot. 

“Get out from under the bed! Palms up, hands out front where I can see them,” she snarled. 

Another whimper, then “Please,” she heard, in broken Korean, “Please don’t kill me.”  

The girl had scrambled out from under the bed instead of following her instructions, which earned her a snarl and the pointing of Joohyun's gun at her, but something in Joohyun decided that she felt sympathy for her. Maybe it was due to her dishevelled appearance, so clearly confused and disoriented. Maybe it was in the woman’s evident vulnerability, in the smallness of her figure and her sunken cheeks and those terrified eyes. Maybe it was familiarity, in seeing a lone girl (still alive for that matter) around her age in those parts of the country. 

So Joohyun held her gun back by her side and hopped off the bed, but instead of landing on her feet, the pain in her leg gave in and she fell to the floor. “!” she yelled, baring her teeth and held her calf close to her, letting off little groans as she felt skin split. 

First she heard the girl say something in English, then felt